I should add that during this Session an important commission was appointed, with Lord Herschell as chairman, entitled "The Gold and Silver Commission," to investigate the extraordinary change that had taken place in the relative value of the two metals, and its disturbing effect on trade. I was twice examined before it, and, after sitting a long time and taking much evidence, it practically divided into two equal sections, of which one might be designated monometallist and the other bimetallist. The longcontinued commercial distress and the vigorous propaganda of the Bimetallic League were making a great impression on public opinion. Had it not been so long delayed it is possible that England might have headed a confederacy of Europe and America to restore the old bimetallic system; but what was possible in 1877-78 had become impossible ten years later, and as we shall see further on, the only result, and that a very important one, was the practical adoption of the bimetallic system in India. I delivered about this time the address at the Manchester Athenaeum, reproduced in the Appendix (III.), which I reckon is the most succinct statement of the cause that I have made. I spent the Whitsuntide recess in Wales, where a strong agitation against payment of tithes was in progress. I was then confronted with a class of questions that were new to me, and it took some years of education before I got the proper focus for Welsh politics. At that time the payment of tithes was placed direct on the farmers, of whom the great majority were Nonconformists, and they felt it a great grievance that they should maintain a Church they did not belong to. It was a time of intense agricultural depression. Many of them were extremely impoverished. They paid quite too high rents, without the power of getting legal abatements, as was now the case in Ireland. They indeed resembled in many respects the Irish peasantry without their safeguards. The great majority were tenants at will, having no legal right to their own improvements. They were Liberals and Dissenters, while their landlords were Tories and Churchmen. They were under a veiled pressure -at least on some estates-to forsake their religion and political connexions so as to get better terms. In refusing to pay tithe they took the line of least resistance. Their landlords sharply evicted if rent was not paid, but it was difficult for the parson to distrain in parishes where nine-tenths of the population were outside his fold. Of course it is true that the tenants took their farms subject to the obligation to pay tithe as well as rent, and S.S. 16 both were legal obligations. I found it impossible to justify non-payment of tithe, yet I felt much sympathy at bottom with the hard condition of the Welsh peasantry-bled almost to death by the impossible demands upon them, and struggling to support their own chapels whilst forced to contribute to what they looked upon as an alien and anti-national Church. I used my influence against all violence, but heartily acquiesced in the justice of the demand for Disestablishment and Disendowment, and the application of the tithes to national purposes as soon as the life interests of existing holders were provided for. This agitation went on for years, and was met by an Act which put the obligation to pay tithes on the landlords, and allowed them to add it to their rent. This expedient practically put an end to the strike against tithes ; but the deep feeling of injustice remains and will continue so long as the Church of a minority, and that the wealthiest portion of the community, claims for itself all the national endowments. I witnessed a most interesting function at this time in Swansea. Sir Hussey Vivian (afterwards created Lord Swansea) entertained Mr. Gladstone at his beautiful residence, Singleton Abbey, close to Swansea, and most of the Welsh members were present. I stayed with old Mr. Dillwyn, one of the sturdiest Radicals in Parliament, and we witnessed a huge procession of Welsh miners and tinplate workers pass the Abbey in front of Mr. Gladstone, singing Welsh hymns and national melodies. They walked eight abreast, and took four hours to pass the venerable statesman. It was computed that 35,000 men walked in procession, and Mr. Gladstone addressed them in the open air for fifty minutes, with clear resonant voice. A great banquet was given in the evening, at which twenty Welsh members were present. Most of them are now dead, including the venerable Henry Richard, the father of the Welsh party. There Mr. Gladstone delivered another of his rousing speeches. The whole affair might be called a rehearsal of the still greater commemoration of our beloved Sovereign's Jubilee, which took place the following month. Wales paid its tribute to the greatest Englishman of the century, and the British Empire to its greatest Sovereign. CHAPTER XXVI The Jubilee of 1887-Evening Continuation SchoolsTour in Germany-The German System of Education THE first of the Jubilee meetings was held at St. Margaret's Church on Sunday, May 22, when the thanksgiving sermon was preached by Bishop Boyd Carpenter to 400 or 500 members, who marched arm-in-arm from the House of Commons, headed by Speaker Peel, followed by W. H. Smith and Mr. Gladstone. The sermon contained eloquent passages, but lacked, as I thought, the element of earnest pleading for a higher and purer national life. I felt all through the Jubilee celebrations that there was too much of national pride and self-laudation: too much of the spirit of Nebuchadnezzar when he said: "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" We all know the reply of the "Heavenly Majesty": "There fell a voice from heaven saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; Thy kingdom is departed from thee" (Daniel iv. 30, 31). Far be it from me to imply that our gracious Sovereign had even a particle of that vaunting spirit. No one ever set a finer example of humble duty based upon reverence for the Most High. But it is beyond doubt that the two Jubilees of 1887 and 1897 flaunted the greatness of the British Empire in the eyes of the world, and did not a little to stir up that foreign envy and jealousy which flamed to such a height in the South African War. It also produced a burst of national pride which in all ages has usually been the precursor of humbling reverses. I believe in the inexorable character of the moral law, and one of its basal principles is that pride goeth before a fall." But, apart from this, nothing could be more successful than the celebrations in June, and especially the wonderful gathering of 10,000 of the most eminent citizens of the Empire in Westminster Abbey on June 21. There our beloved Queen, surrounded by forty of her descendants and relatives, paid her homage to the King of kings. Sovereigns and princes from all parts of the world assembled to do her honour. Among them was that most noble of Royal personages, as Mr. Gladstone described him, the Crown Prince of Germany, afterwards the Emperor Frederick, the husband of our Princess Royal, who seemed, to my eye, the finestlooking man in that princely pageant, yet doomed to an early death from an incurable disease. Nec puer Iliaca quisquam de gente Latinos In tantum spe tollet avos, nec Romula quondam Heu pietas, heu prisca fides invictaque bello I have often thought that great national rejoicings are times of peril. They too easily glide into occasions of boasting and revelry, and sometimes of lamentable catastrophes, as happened at the coronation of the Czar at Moscow, when some thousands of spectators were trampled to death. London was filled with prodigious crowds; the streets were lined with scaffolding; the illuminations at night were wonderful. The streets were almost impassable from immense crowds, yet all went off well. No accident occurred to mar the festivities. The weather was splendid, only too hot, and the great company dispersed like the crowds that came to the dedication of Solomon's temple: "Joyful and glad of heart for all the good things that the Lord had done to [Victoria] his servant, and to his people." I visited the great Naval Review at Spithead the following month, when we passed between two lines of battleships four miles long-greatly surpassed by the next one, held ten years after. One of the most interesting functions was a garden party to the Indian Princes, given at Coombe Warren, where I met my Hindoo friend, Baij Nath, of Agra, then Chief Justice of Indore, a man of beautiful spirit and probity of character. The Irish Land Bill passed this Session, which reopened rents fixed by the Land Commission, on the ground of the great fall of prices, and did something to relieve the strain of agrarian distress in Ireland. A Tech nical Education Bill was introduced in the autumn, and I urged that it should be supplemented by a system of evening continuation schools, and that means should be taken to get the mass of the children into these schools for at least two years after leaving the day school. I wrote a long letter to the Times, which was published as a pamphlet. I began to work at this time with Mr. George Howell, M.P., to rouse the Trade Unions to the great dangers of our position. They had hitherto stood in the way of technical education, fearing it would interfere with their monopoly of skilled trades. Governments were afraid to take a strong line in face of their opposition. Mr. Howell was one of the ablest and most honest working-class representatives in Parliament. He thoroughly understood Trades Unionism, and had the confidence of its leaders. He distributed for me an immense amount of literature among the élite of the working classes, pointing out how far we were behind Germany and Switzerland, and how certainly England's industrial condition would decline unless we gave technical education far more widely to all classes. The effect in course of time was very marked. The resolutions passed at their annual congresses became more and more favourable to evening schools on technical lines. We got the support of large bodies of artisans for my Continuation School Bill, which I introduced annually for ten or fifteen years, but I never got a good place in the ballot. Its provisions were, however, adopted piecemeal to a considerable extent. The whole style of the evening school was changed. From being a place of pedantic drudgery it became bright and interesting, with practical science, drawing, manual training, rural economy, gymnastics and music. The result was, as I have already stated, that the attendance rose from 30,000 to 500,000 and I hope it will ultimately reach a million. I should add that no one did more to popularize the system than Dr. Paton, of Nottingham, from whom I derived much of my inspiration, and who drafted with me the Continuation Schools Bill. I attended a great meeting at Nottingham that winter, where many eminent men took part. Though anticipating a little, I may say that I devoted that autumn and winter largely to educational questions, including a trip to Germany, and a series of visits to the day and evening schools of Liverpool on our return home. I left London at the end of August for a Continental tour with my wife and son, and enjoyed a few weeks in Switzerland, and then carried out a tour through Germany to examine its system of edu |