assured his colleagues and associates that this might be done without any violation of the law. On the other hand, the government determined to prevent the proposed meeting from being held. A notice forbidding it was issued, signed by Sir Richard Mayne, the head of the London police. Mr. Walpole, an excellent, accomplished, amiable man, but somewhat deficient in the firmness required in the holder of the office he filled, especially at a crisis like the present, thought, and his colleagues thought with him, that the purposed demonstration was likely to disturb the public peace, and lead to riot and disorder. However, Mr. Beales and his associates conceiving that they had a legal right to hold their meeting in the Park, determined to disregard the notice of the chief commissioner and the prohibition of the government. Accordingly, on the 23d of July numerous processions with bands of music converged on the Marble Arch. The gates had been closed at five o'clock. A large body of police guarded the Park, and an immense crowd of spectators assembled about the arch to see what would occur. The appearance of the first detachment of the procession was welcomed with loud cheers, showing that the crowd sympathised with the reformers, and a line was at once opened through it, by which Mr. Beales, Colonel Dickson, and other members of the council of the league advanced towards the gate and made a formal demand for admission, which was refused. Mr. Beales then asked by whose orders he was excluded? and he was informed that it was by the authority of Sir Richard Mayne. Seeing that farther remonstrance would be useless, he turned away, and led the procession towards Trafalgarsquare, where a meeting was duly held, and resolutions in favour of reform, and votes of thanks to Messrs. Gladstone and Bright for their fidelity to a cause which others had basely deserted, were carried unanimously. The meeting then dispersed, and those who composed it quietly retired. Nothing could be more orderly and praiseworthy than their conduct. They had asserted what they had been advised to be a legal right, and they had adopted what they conceived to be the best and most practical mode of exposing the falsity of the statement which had been made over and over again, that the working classes were indifferent to the franchise. They hoped and believed that their example 1867.] THE REFORM BILL OF 1867. 313 hold suffrage, specious as it was, would really have enfranchised a smaller number of borough voters than the bill of 1866. Mr. Disraeli's exposition of the ministerial measure was followed by a discussion in which many of its features were strongly assailed by speakers on both sides of the house, and especially that part of it which conferred the dual vote, which was almost universally condemned, and to which Mr. Gladstone in particular proclaimed implacable hostility. In the interval between the first and second reading a deputation representing the Reform League waited on Mr. Disraeli and supported the views embodied in the resolutions we have already cited. If this interview did not bring about an agreement of opinion, it at least promoted a kindlier feeling. Mr. Disraeli dealt very frankly with his visitors. He told them that they were men of 'extreme views;' and the observation was received with a good-humoured laugh. He reminded them that there were others who also entertained extreme opinions of an opposite kind, and that as the framer of the reform bill he was bound to consider both extremes. Some members of the deputation rather warmly dissented from this statement, and were called to order by their more reasonable companions, who felt that Mr. Disraeli ought to be listened to with the same patience and courtesy that he had displayed in hearing the opinions of members of the deputation who had uttered sentiments from which he doubtless differed very strongly. Standing almost alone among a crowd of opponents, he discussed the question with spirit and frankness, and sent them away in good temper, and with a promise that their statements should receive the best attention of the government. When the question of the second reading was brought forward, Mr. Gladstone, who had conferred with a meeting of his parliamentary followers at his own house, consented, against his own opinion, but in deference to the views and wishes of a large portion of them, and to avoid disunion in the liberal camp, to allow that stage of the bill to pass without a division. But he expressed the strongest objections to it, and enumerated the following features in it which he regarded as highly objectionable: 1. Omission of the lodger franchise. they were right in determining to make this tardy concession. These large gatherings and the conduct they displayed were ascribed by the opponents of reform to the influence of a little knot of agitators, and they argued that the persons who were guilty of the conduct we have related had thereby shown their sovereign unfitness for the franchise. But wise and thoughtful men saw that these gatherings and disturbances were the expression of a strong feeling that could not safely be despised. They knew that neither Mr. Beales nor any of his associates could stir these multitudes as they had done, unless there were real and deeply-felt grievances at the bottom of the demand for reform made in this violent and unpleasant manner, and they also knew that if any class was suffering from the action of real wrongs, the only way to get them redressed was to allow the voice of that class to be heard in parliament by granting the franchise to a large portion at least of the persons composing it. The result showed that this might be done without danger to the state, and that a House of Commons elected to a great extent by persons belonging to the class represented by the members of the reform league and the Hyde-park rioters might be composed of men of very moderate opinions and strong anti-revolutionary feelings. The reform question at this moment occupied so prominent and important a position in the eyes of the nation and of the legislature, that it has been necessary that we should follow out its history, which in fact forms the political and parliamentary history of the year, to its conclusion. We must now revert to one necessary portion of the parliamentary work of this as of every other year, the financial statement of the chancellor of the exchequer, to which now, as on former occasions, the genius of Mr. Gladstone gave an interest which none before or after him had been able to impart to it. This statement, like most of those which had recently preceded it, was of a highly satisfactory character. The estimated revenue was 67,575,000l.; the estimated expenditure 66,225,000l.; leaving a surplus of 1,350,000l. The chancellor of the exchequer proposed to repeal the duties on timber and pepper; to put the wine duties on a fairer footing, by making them to depend on the percentage of alcohol they contained; to lower the duty on stage-coaches and post-horses from a penny to a 1867.] THE TEA-ROOM PARTY. 315 derstood to be decided that the motion shoald be brought forward on the 8th of April, the day on which the house was to go into committee on the bill. However, on that very evening a meeting, consisting of between forty and fifty members of the liberal party, was held in the tearoom of the House of Commons. At this meeting it was agreed that the persons composing it should unite for the purpose of limiting the instructions to be proposed by Mr. Coleridge to the first clause of his resolution, which applied to the law of rating. They then appointed a deputation to Mr. Gladstone to convey to him the feeling of the meeting, and to assure him that the members composing it would continue to give him a loyal support in committee. Mr. Gladstone, finding that by the defection of so many of his supporters he was almost certain to incur a defeat, yielded to their demands, and the resolution was altered accordingly. Mr. Disraeli accepted the altered resolution, and the house then went into committee on the bill. Thereupon Mr. Gladstone gave notice of several important amendments, which Mr. Disraeli declared to be the relinquished instructions in another form, and distinctly announced that if they should be carried, the government would not proceed with the bill. As most of the members who composed the meeting at the tea-room still held together, forming a party known as the tea-room party, government triumphed by a majority of twenty-one in the division on the first of Mr. Gladstone's resolutions. After this he could not hope to carry his remaining resolutions; he therefore announced his intentions in a letter to Mr. Crawford, one of the members for the City, who had asked him whether he intended to persevere in moving the amendments of which he had given notice. In reply to this question Mr. Gladstone wrote: The country can hardly now fail to be aware that those gentlemen of the liberal party whose convictions allow them to act unitedly on the question are not a majority, but a minority, in the existing House of Commons; and they have not the power they were supposed to possess of limiting or directing the action of the administration, or shaping the provisions of the reform bill. Still, having regard to the support which my proposal with respect to personal rating secured from so large a number of liberal members, I am not less willing The decision of the government had the effect of allaying the panic; and though many serious failures followed, public confidence was gradually restored, and the crisis terminated. No event that happened in the course of this year excited more attention or evoked stronger feelings than the conduct of Governor Eyre in 1865, which was discussed with very great earnestness in parliament, in the press, and by the English people generally during this year. In suppressing an insurrection in Jamaica, he had sanctioned the trial of several of those who were alleged to have taken part in the insurrection by young and inexperienced officers, whose sentence of death had been followed by the immediate execution of the condemned persons. But the case which excited the greatest amount of attention, and brought on Governor Eyre the most severe condemnation in this country, was that of George William Gordon, a man of colour, occupying a respectable position and a member of the House of Assembly, a fact which certainly entitled him to some consideration. We give the circumstances which attended this man's execution, and the reasons which, in his opinion, justified it, in the words of the governor himself: 'I find everywhere,' he wrote, 'the most unmistakable evidence that George William Gordon, a coloured member of the House of Assembly, had not only been mixed up in the matter, but was himself, through his own misrepresentations and seditious language addressed to the ignorant black people, the chief cause and origin of the whole rebellion. Mr. Gordon was now in Kingston; and it became necessary to decide what action should be taken with regard to him. Having obtained a deposition on oath that certain seditious printed notices had been sent through the post-office, directed in his handwriting, to the parties who had been leaders in the rebellion, I at once called upon the custos to issue a warrant and capture him. For some little time he managed to evade the capture; but finding that sooner or later it was inevitable, he proceeded to the house of General O'Connor and there gave himself up. I at once had him placed on board the Wolverine for safe custody, and conveyed to Morant Bay.' There the unfortunate man was tried by court-martial, |