CHAPTER XIX Autumn Session, 1884-Depression in Trade-Trip to Rome-Banquet to Lord Rosebery I HAVE already referred to the violent agitation against the Peers for their defeat of the Franchise Bill. Mr. Gladstone in the autumn made a triumphal progress through Scotland and addressed two huge meetings in the Edinburgh Corn Market. I was present at one of these meetings. The old man eloquent (who had been staying at Dalmeny) came in with Lady Rosebery on his arm, while Lord Rosebery brought in Mrs. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone rivetted the vast audience for two hours. His sonorous voice penetrated every corner of the great building. At that time Scotland was at the feet of Mr. Gladstone. The Tory Party was almost extinguished. Wherever he went he was acclaimed with tumult of applause. Crowds beset the railway stations as he passed, and almost blocked the traffic. He bore upon his wrinkled face the deep lines of toil and anxiety. Yet he had a lion-like expression which bespoke invincible courage. Everything seemed to portend a constitutional crisis when Parliament reassembled at the end of October. Seldom have I seen so dramatic a denouement. We met towards the end of October and the stormy ocean soon sunk into a calm. Sic ait; et dicto citius tumida aequora placat, Mr. Gladstone and the party leaders on both sides agreed to a conference in order to see whether a fair scheme of Redistribution could be arranged, and it was found that no insuperable difficulty existed. The lines of the Redistribution Bill for next Session were agreed upon. The Franchise Bill was again passed and sent up to the Lords, and it went through its last stage actually without a word of debate! Parliament rose on December 6, and an im mense sense of relief was felt at the end of a crisis which threatened the peace of the country. All through this period there was excessive commercial depression. Liverpool was full of unemployed and famishing workpeople; so were all the great commercial and manufacturing centres. The feature that impressed every one was the extraordinary decline in prices. I have already stated that the average fall from the high-water mark of 1873 to 1885-86 was about forty per cent. The effect of this was to make commercial transactions excessively unprofitable. Fluctuations in prices have always occurred and will always occur, and do no harm within moderate compass; but these great tidal changes upset all ordinary calculations. They work against the industrial capitalist who invests his money in plant which employs labour, and work in favour of the moneylender "who toils not, neither does he spin." Throughout Lancashire a great portion of the industrial employers were on the verge of bankruptcy and, as I have already explained, the agricultural interest was just as depressed. This ruinous state of things caused a vigorous examination of our monetary system. The view which we had advocated in the Liverpool Chamber several years before spread over the country. It came to be perceived that it was not as much a case of over-supply and cheapening of production which caused the fall as an appreciation of the gold standard by which prices were measured. Merchants could not help seeing that India and other silver-using countries had escaped this great fall. They also observed that just as silver fell, so prices in gold-using countries fell; in fact, that the real phenomenon was a rise in gold as measured either by silver or commodities in general. This view spread over America as strongly as here and led to a powerful movement to remonetize silver. Congress was obliged to respond to it by legislating for the coinage of a certain proportion of silver monthly. As this was done without any reference to other nations it did little to remedy the international difficulty, but only embarrassed the finances of America. It was clearly seen by all intelligent bimetallists that nothing short of international action on a large scale could extricate the nations from this monetary entanglement. The nations of Europe would at one time have followed the lead of Great Britain if she had agreed to enter into a bimetallic union, but, as I have already explained, the intense prejudice in favour of the gold standard, the enormous influence of the banking interest in London, and the ingrained conservatism of the English character shipwrecked all schemes of international bimetallism. Nevertheless, a great agitation sprang up, of which Manchester was the centre. The bulk of the community there adopted the bimetallic principle. I was often invited to go about the country and address meetings of business men. One of the most interesting we had in 1885 was with the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, where Stephen Williamson, Sir George Campbell and I spoke in favour of international bimetallism. At a later period I also addressed Oxford University and had a large audience under the hospitable patronage of Sir William Anson, Warden of All Souls. The causes of depression were being constantly discussed in Parliament, and we had a great Commission appointed to examine into the causes, followed some time after by the gold and silver commission of Lord Herschell, of which more anon. For the sake of clearness and continuity I have anticipated a little the course of events. At the beginning of 1885 I made my first visit to Rome, accompanied by my wife and son and an old friend. The first visit to the Eternal City is an event in one's life, and subsequent visits have only confirmed the belief that no city in the world compares with the mother city of Europe in abiding interest. The explorations were then in full force which have laid bare almost every spot known in early Roman history. It is not too much to say that the thousand years of Pagan Rome can now be photographed as accurately as the thousand years of Papal Rome. Where in the world is such a sketch of history laid bare as, I may say, to the naked eye? When we remember that most of what we are in Europe by language, literature, law and religion hails from Rome, what wonder that the ties which bind us to the seven-hilled city are sacred? The first view of the Colosseum by moonlight to lovers of history is an event of one's life. The arena, where thousands of martyrs heard the cry The Christians to the lions," can never be forgotten. The spots where Caesar fell, where Cicero spoke, where St. Paul died, thrill the mind of every student. I know not which is the more interesting the Rome of the Caesars or the Rome of the Papacy. Each represented a world empire. Who can doubt that the primacy of the Caesars suggested to the ambition of Hildebrand and his successors priestly supremacy still more vast and wonderful? Our reforming ancestors doubted not that Papal Rome 1 Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand) said at his Roman Synod of 1080: "We was the "Great Babylon" that reigned over the kings of the earth. Whether that be so or not there is no doubt that for the space of nearly 2,000 years world-wide dominion centred in that wonderful city. To my thinking no edifice is so imposing as St. Peter's. The Gothic cathedrals of Cologne, of Milan, Strasburg and York are, perhaps, finer architecturally, but for massive grandeur and richness of decoration St. Peter's comes first, though for the exquisite colouring of the marbles St. Paul's without the walls is unrivalled. But the wealth of history in Rome is endless. The Church of St. John Lateran and the Villa Borghese almost rival St. Peter's for richness of decoration. It is not difficult to see how the pride of ecclesiasticism centres in Rome. Never has the aesthetic taste been so gratified as here. The finest in art, in music, in architecture is impressed into the service of the proud priesthood who claim to be the delegates of God on earth. Who can wonder that numbers of tourists from Protestant lands are hypnotized by the magic of the rich ceremonial that passes before their eyes? Yet the fact remains that the people of Rome and the people of Italy are not with the Church. The Quirinal and the Vatican are in deadly antagonism. All that is strong and healthy in modern life goes with the Quirinal and resents the claim of the Pope to temporal power. There is no Catholic country where the Church has so little hold upon the people as in the land which "the Forged Decretals" handed over to Pope Sylvester. In no country is there more complete religious liberty or greater contempt for the anathemas launched against modern progress. It may be truly said that educated Italy has revolted from Rome, but, unhappily, too often to the deadly realm of unbelief. There is a kind of enchantment in the Italian sky. No land touches so many chords of the human heart. Whether for beauty of scene, charm of clime, or wealth of art, or historic fame, no country equals it. No doubt, in antiquity, Egypt far surpasses it. Even in grandeur the temple of Karnak eclipses the Colosseum. desire to show the world that we can give or take away at our will kingdoms, duchies, earldoms-in a word, the possessions of all men for we can bind and loose" (Mansi, xx. 536). Pope Innocent III. taught: "That the Papal power is to the imperial and royal as the sun to the moon, which last has only a borrowed light, or the soul to the body, which exists not for itself, but only to be the slave of the soul, and that the two swords are a symbol of the ecclesiastical and secular power, both of which belong to the Pope, but he wields one himself and intrusts the other to princes to use at his behest and for the service of the Church" (De majorit et obid D. Ch. 6, 1, 33). I have seen nothing that compares with the remains of ancient Thebes in the sense of vastness and hoary antiquity. But it lacks the charm of association. The age of Rameses II. is as far off from us as the time of the mammoth and the mastodon. The ideas of the Egypt of the Exodus have faded into space and seem like those of another planet. You grasp them as vainly as Aeneas did the shades beyond the Styx. You cannot fill up in flesh and blood the faint outlines of these shadowy dynasties of Pharaohs, whose mummies still look at you from the museum at Ghizeh ; but the Scipios and Caesars of Rome are household words. The portraits of Plutarch, both Greek and Roman, are as real as Carlyle's Cromwell or Frederic the Great. Thrasymene and Cannae are as real to us as Waterloo or Sedan. That classic ground has been trodden by sages and heroes innumerable. I am of those who hail with joy the resurrection of modern Italy. I have rejoiced at its emancipation by Garibaldi and Cavour, and by its patriotic king, Victor Emmanuel I. I have mourned over its trials and difficulties these last few years, and rejoice that now it is surmounting them and drawing into closer friendship with France, its sister Latin nation, from which it should never have been alienated. This interjection may be pardoned to one who has often felt as Hannibal did: When life in his bounding heart beat high As he looked on the plains of Italy. On our way home through London we saw the wrecks caused by the dynamite explosions at Westminster. The end of the House of Commons was blown out, and the roof and painted window of Westminster Hall were greatly damaged. Public indignation was at boiling heat. These dynamite outrages, planned by Irish Americans, were occurring all over the country. For one or two Sessions Parliament met under constant dread of explosions. We never knew when a bomb might be thrown upon the floor of the House from the strangers' gallery. It is known that one of these fiends was once in the gallery with a dynamite bomb. I had great difficulty as a member about giving cards for the admission of strangers. We were requested to admit only those we knew personally. It was impossible for me, with 70,000 electors, to know a tenth part of the applicants that came to me in the lobby, and yet one dared not offend constituents by hinting a suspicion of their intentions. I found the situation very difficult. Every |