The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 20, 1901, Page 14

14 FRAN CISCO CALL DAY, JANUARY 20, 1901 MASTERLY REVIEW English Jc:urnalist’s Study of Victorian Period. - D NE of the most graphic re-| views of the principal inci- dents in the reign of Queen Victoria appeared in the March (1897) number of the Review of Reviews. It was by W T tead, ¥ Englieh - jou troduction a | After na proceeded as »w and when and where it was that I| eived any definite idea of the uslly ex- llows » not remember e first ted picture ‘of atten- ture est of must itisa t only me- ws time parents | r who ight which o arper whos: = mas - ought not ¥ = all that 1 plainly per- w »ected then, the Queen: wh fully develaped ticy with Queen;. as rep- | of t whole nation, gan - but pride er, indeed, & fee of humiliatio e had let that fellow kiss Queen of England! mean war came o ¥ of er, and A child of hears seven s of these far But t to de- conjures ations of her Majesty bidding a on rmed general, and hav- something to say to Lord Colin Camp- . who, why I don't remember, was 1ch the most popular hero in our nurs- ery. A Russian battery was built at Jar- row shipyard too late to take part in the otherwise my personal associa- wi the Crimean war i of the slightest. The Indian mutiny is not link- ed with the Queen in my memory. however, omitted mentioning able link in the chain that almost brought the republican family on Tyneside into touch with the royal family at Windsor. The first great in- ternational exhibition of 1851 was an event e full significance of which is to this y but imperfectly appreclated. The exhibition was the Prince Consort’s It was his idea, and its success no small measure the result of -his ng ¢, his sagacious prescience ena his capacity to oversee and overrule. Prince Albert could never have achieved this great result had he not been Prince Consort. It was from the steps of the throne he was able to inaugurate and to direct an enterprise which to the imagin- mtion of our fathers seemed to promise memory rewe have no sensibly enes * | work teel- | but | the dawn of millennial peace. The dream passed. But the memory of the vision and | its artificer remained. In the record f the re-establishment of the prestige of | the constitutional monarchy in this coun- try the exhibition of 1851 will occupy a more prominent position than any that has yet been accorded to it. It may not have impressed the statesman and the diplomat. But to the silent million which HOUSE . ISLE OF \WwIGHT. saw and marveied and rejoiced it was a | portent indeed A Royal Wedding. t day in my calenddr was the in the royal family. I was v of ten or eleven. We kept up f make-belie that we di not t such triv ities, but as a mat- ter of fact we carefully cherished a col- | ored print of the Princess Roval, and d ourselves up into quite a state of sver her future. We did not ok of the Prince of Prussia excitement ared in the prints. He did not good enough for her. And my who was ever much exercised im heart about German neology, ad gravely over the marriage. Mother did not like it either, and I think | we should have all been devoutly glad if it | had been broken off. But it came to pas it is a curious instance of the hold | the family had established even in that | republican household that T remember the of the roval marriage far more to- than even any of the ncidents of the Indian mutiny begun to take a personal dly family. It was our family s though we were, we were and as long “as the monarchy | were the salves with | which we plastered our consclences. But | looking back upon it now, after the lapse | of thirty years, T can better appreciate the inestimable political and imperfal advan- | tage of having at the foretop of the state not a politiclan, but a family, every de © episode he life of whose mem- bers wea w thread of living inter- est hatwee head of the state and the | humblest of the ¢ Nor was it only in pleasurable incidents that the family justified its position. The | bond “was drawn still more closely by | death than by wedlock. Of this I ean nce. When a from home for life a hoarding few months 1 upper one night toll, and the to mouth that 1 exper as sent ter. d_from mouth Albert was dead. He had never 1 much more than a name to me, but the sudden quickening sense in sympathy “ with those who were mourning their dead revealed the existence of a new | Queen and plebeian, we stood equal bler of How that bell tolled, led, tolled night. each slow and the ‘aching of the overeign and sub Ject in the communion of a common grief. | Less than two vears passed and joy had | succeeded mourning and the bridal blos. | som £hone brightly instead of the widow's | weeds. What a sudden thrill of delight | | there ran through the school when it was announced that the marriage of the | | Prince of Wales to the Princess Alexan- dra was to be kept as a public holiday, in which the school was to share. ink that stroke f ing the m ; h A whole hollday at Silcoates in mid-term was | rare, almost unprecedented event, a boon from the gods not to be credited easily or spoken of lightly. Not only were there to | be no lessons all day, not even prepar: tion at night, but the boys were to go to town to see the procession, to admire the decorations, and possibly—although this was hardly to be hoped for—to see the il- luminatfons. I think we made more fuss in anticipation over the Prince's wedding than ten years after I made about my own. The Bea King’s daughter from over the sea was the universal heroine. Her beauty, her simplicity, her goodness ail helped to idealize her to an extent some- | what overshadowing the bridegroont | When the eventful day came and the joy bells pealed from the steeple the streets were filled with eager multitudes, of whom there was no one more eager and keen than 1. It was the first great pop- ular function at which I had ever taken part even as a spectator. It was all so wonderfully novel, so strange, so thrilling. Not even the marvelous spectacle of the abbey on jubilee day, when the Queen and 2ll her children kneit in thanksgiving before Almighty God In the presence of all the notables of the empire, affected me =0 much as the humble attempt at decoration and the simple procession through the streets of Wakefield twenty- une years before. It was a somewhat | Master Weaver. % dreary day foot when the mind of youth is on high amid the stars musing on thrones where princes sit and palaces where beauteous princesses await their lords? It was a intense delight, delight which cul- day of when the volunteers fired a feu a it was but { puttering and ir- lar Nolley of ik ridge, but did the 1 hing muzzles of powder arouse in the They were but boylsh mind! volunteers firing a feu de joie, but they represented the whole British army to me, and in the rolling volley I heard echoes of Hougomont, and saw again the fire- fringed line before which Napoleon's cuir- assiers recoiled smitten and broken into irremediable ruin. Then.at nighi the il- luminations were to me marvelous exceed- ingly. with the blazing gas jets festooned into Prince of Wales' feathers or running iike a fringe of lambent light to the very summit of the lofty spire. Even fter the lapse of thirty-three years n feel my pulse beat faster at the mem- ory of that great day, with its bonfires and its bands, its banners and the roar of saluting cannon. It was a.roval day in- deed, worthy to be ever remembered for holiday and festive sport, still gleaming bright across the vears with a radlance that nothing can extinguish. Thus the work went on—grief and joy, death and love, weaving together ever closer ana closer the nation and the family at iis head. Funeral ‘cars and wedding coaches were alike but shuttles in the hands of the Whether the thread was white or black, the work of the loom went on. Queen in Mourning. Then for a period the crown of Englana went into eclipse. The retirement of the Queen from the ceremonial of the court and from all but the indispensable duties of her position led after a few years had | passed to the circylation of malicious ru- mors not to be repeated here. The nation, escaping from the spell of Lord Palmer- ston’s long ascendency, began to bestir itself. When the disfranchised million clamored for their admission within the pale of the constitution there was scant leisure for noting the grace or the'gilding of the royal coat of arms that towered aloft. The Queen by necessity of her position took no public part for or against reform. When Hyde Park railings went down there were many who regarded their fall as a portent foreshadowing the speedy overthrow of much more anclent insti- tutions. When Disraeli, placed in power by the party opposed to a‘moderate re- form, dished the Whigs by carrying household suffrage there were few who But what matters mud under | Wakefield | THE NEVwW S oF THE KINGS DEATH CONVEYED TO H.M. THE QUEEN AT KENSINGTO ] s OF THE LONGEST REIGN IN AL L HISTORY Events in the Royal Family who was ghen a rising Radical politician for the purpose of forcing home to the | sober sense of the nation the lesson of re- cent events. It was my fortune to be present at the lecture room, Newcastle- on-Tyne, when Sir Charles Dilke, Bart., M. P., launched his famous diatribe against the cost of the crown. The meet- ing was crowded and enthusiastic. The lecture room audiences, in those days 4 did not feel that we were within a meas- urable distance of an orderly but rapid revolution. The recently published letters of Archbishop Magee have reminded us of the lugubrious forebodings with which the illed the heart of many an acute observer, | The enfranchisement of the workina classes was jollowed by the return of Mr Gladstone to power with a majority or | more than a hundred. The Conservatives beheld with pious horror the ax of the | reformer laid at the root of the Trish church, the Irish land system, university tests and purchase in the army. National education was taken in hand; the House of Peers was openly threatened. The old monarchy itself seemed likely in no short time v be the object of attack. During the sixties I passed through my I attained my majority a few days the declaration of war against Prus: which revolutionized the map of BEurope, destroyed the French empire and cstablished the third republic. So far as 1 may be regarded as a sample unit of the millions of undistinguished subjects of her Majesty, the crown had distinctly lost ground since the Prince's marriage. The death of the Prince Consort, the retreat of the Queen, the reports widely current as to the self-Indulgent habits of the Prince of Wales, had effaced much of tho good impression that had been produced between 1850 and 1861. - People said frankly that the monarchy was safe enough as long as the Queen lived, but that *“‘as for that young man, England would never tolerate another Charles II or Prince Re- gent.” The Prince was believed to ad- mire the fast life that was the rule at Paris in the closing days of the third em- pire. Tomahawk published a cartoon rep- resenting the Prince as Hamlet, exclaim- ing to the ghest of George IV, “Nay, I'll {follow thee.” The popularity of the Princess of Wales tended to swell the re- action against her hushand. And all the while the Queen mocdily meditated in her Highland retreat over her irreparable loss. The rehabilitation of monarchy in Brit- ain, which has been one of the most re- markable features of the last quarter of a century, is due to a variety of causes, most of which are obvious enough. First and foremost. there was the superb exam- ple furnished by the German armies ot the efficiency and economy of a system in 1ta essence monarehical. English svmpathy was unmistakably with the Germans against the French, and although certain weaklings changed sides after Sedan, the nation as a whole was profoundly im- pressed by the magnificent spectacle of German loyalty and German discipline, as contrasted with the Immeasurable cor- teens. | ‘! before | sudden triumph of the radical reformers | o — ruption, treachery and inefficiency of the French, who, although under the empire, were essentlally democratic. For a little while it was possible that the French re- public might, by raising again the old flag of the revolution, evoke the potent passions which in 1848 shook Europe to its center. The expectation was disappointed. | Garibaldi took the field as an ally of the republié, but his countrymen occupied Rome in virtual alliance with Germany and that was all. All hope from that quar- ter was dashed to the ground by the mad outbreak of the Commune. Parls after 1871 was no longer the storm center of Europe. The republic was only a republic in name. It was controlled by men who detested every idea that had made republicanism the ideal of our youth. The glamour was gone. Judged by the supreme test of wager of battle, the ideas of our modern democrats had been found woefully want- ing. The institution of kingship was vin- dicated in full day not as a belated suv- vival or an antiquarian curiosity but as a supremely capable institution as helpful to the modern man as to his progenitor in the days of Charlemagne. While this great object lesson was burn- Ing itself with cannon flash and bursting shell into the mind of the nation the per- versity of the House of Lords suddenly compelled Mr. Gladstone to resort to the roval prerogative for the purpose of abal- ishing purchase in the army. Then it discovered by our democra the first time, that the power of the erown is a great latent force at the command of the peaple. The royal prerogative, and the royal prerogative alone, can cut the gordian knot of the rival authority of Lords and Commons. The scepter of the Soverelgn is by our-censtitution wielded by the elect of the people. Thus at the same time that the Gérmans had demon- strated that kingship was a living reality capable of standing the severest tests, the English suddenly discovered that in their monarchy they had in reserve an invinci- ble reinforcement for the cause of the le. P°Pl® The Dilke Campaign. ‘When the destinies decide to do-a thing thoroughly they neglect no means to se- cure thelr end, taking as much care about the thrums and tatters as about the warp and .woof. Hence it Is necessary in this survey of the pilgrimage of a republican to the monarchy to call attention to an incident which, cempared with the events just described, partakes of the nature of the ludicrous. 1t was just at the very turning point of the crisis—the watershed between the two systems—that the mali- cious fates deemed it fitting to use one familiar with the scathing “Impeachment of the House of Brunswick,” by Mr. Bradlaugh, reveled in the youthful baro- net’s elaborate demonstration that Gold- sticks-in-Waiting were more expensive than fodtmen, and that the trappings of a constitutiongl monarchy cost ever so | many more pence than the somber habili- | ments of the president of a republic. I | remember leaving the meeting with a | sense of bitter humiliation. To this depth of inane trifling then had sunk the repub- lican enthusiasm that had flamed heaven high in 1848! Elaborate arithmetical cal- culations that we might possibly, by dis. | pensing with the monarchy, save our- selves the cost of an extra pot of beer! | Twopence halfpenny per head all round as the inducement to rouse the British nation to an attack upon the monarchy of Alfred, of the Edwards, of Elizabeth and of Victorla—the inducement was too | ridiculous, and even if it had been ade- | quate it would have been unspeakably sordid. The intrinsic absurdities of the Dilke campaign contributed to swell the force | of the opposing current. It became evi- | dent that the events of the previous year had taught their lesson. There was no republican rally in the provinces. The Radicals carped at royal allowances, de- siring, as the Spectator used to say, to keep the throne, but to drape it in eotton velvet; but even this pinch-penny repub- lican propaganda dwindled away and dled. Just about this' time the finishing stroke was given to the last lingering remnant of the old guard of republicans. In the interviews and articles which In thase | days used to appear in the press discuss- | ing the probable date for the overthrow of the monarchy it was openly said that while the Queen lived nothing would be done. *“But mark my words, sir,” the re- publican apostles would declare, “that young man will never ascend the throne, It will never be permitted.” The reports about the Prince were relied upon as the trvmp cards of the party of the revolu. tion. “We will not have this man to reign over us,” was an expression heard in many places usually free from the con- tagion of republican bias. Then it was that the opportune illness of the Prince of Wales gave the final blow to the house of cards which the republi- cans had been so assiduously building. It sounds very brutal to say it, but there were many who, when the diseass first seemed likely to be fatal, were by no means disposed to regret a demise which | would deliver the nation from a ruler whom they belleved unworthy to be the sovereign of a Christian land. 1 well re- member in those days a stalwart Radical coming into the editorial sanctum of the Northern Echo and saying, “What are you going to say in your obituary leader?" I said 1 had not made up my mind. The Princeywas not dead yet. ““Well,” said my visttor, “take my advice and just print a column blank or with asterisks. Then in the center print this, ‘De mortuis nil nisi bonum, " So saying my Radlcal friend went his way. The Prince did not die, but we all wrote obituary notices at great length, and had leading articles in type headed ‘‘Death of the Prince of Wales.” Then night after night we went down and walted till the last bulletin came to hand before writing another leader. And I verily believe that the suspense, prolonged for nearly a whole week, with the intense realizing sense of all that was involved in the struggle for life’ that. went on in the sickbed at Sand- ringham, finally extinguished the last smoldering _embers of republicanism in England. The typhoid fever did more for the monarchy than the monarchy had done for itself, and when the solemn thanksgiving was held in St. Paul's for the Prince's recovery, the nation gave thanks not merely for the Prince restored to health but for the deliverance of the British monarchy from the danger which had apparently menaced its security. It was shortly after the recovery of the Prince of Wales that I first saw the Queen. The moment was one when I was suffering the full force of the cruel disil- lusion that overwhelmed all ardent Radi- cals after the general election of 1874. It is difficult to-day to recall the implicit faith with which, after the establishment of househeld suffrage and the election of the Radical Parliament of 1869, it was-fe- lieved that the nation had entered upon an Breezily Chronicled. era In which such things as Conservative majorities were to be as impossible as t return of the mastodon. In the north England this bellef was a fixed idea. M Gladstone was not advanced enough the dwellers between the Tynme and Tees. He was too tender to the estab- lishment. He was even in things political a Conservative at heart. He was tc much given to compromise. ut le people speak, then we should see al hesitating, half-hearted shilly-shal swept by the board, and the enfrangpi democracy would make short work of . that stood in the way of reform working classes were sound at hea: mere suggestion of a Conservative w ingman was hailed with derisive laug An appeal to the constituencies was ways in our idea. in t! ays to be to the Liberal party vigorating contact between Antaeus and mother earth. Parliame: all ‘When Gladstone Aissolved early months of 1574 W he had taken a she L tory. So far as the nort we were right. We knew o The county of Durham in th Conservati reaction broken phalanx of thirtee bers to the new Pa Disraeli’s Return. Ra But elsewhere! To this ho recall pain the memo overwhelming disappointment turn of Mr. Disraell to power of a Conservative majority everyth e fell blow s as if the underpinning of the wor way, as if the sun hal re s + through the sky. Where s our faith in the people?> What had our fond confidence What could be electorate which had elected su as Disraell to rule o them? sad at heart I was pond tions W lay general saw the Queen I saw her at Windsor and was not impressed {dealizing humor. My shattered, but the ruins r sible the inst: fon of a new vacant shrine. The familia small crowd, the red carpet servants, the little figure ing slowly across the platform to the car riage Into which she disappeared from view—that was all. “So that was Queen!" Like the pussy cat of the nurse rhyme I had been to London and had see the Queen—and thought of But next Sunday at the C Church in Windsor I heard pray for the Queen and 3 fly, not as If they wer but as if they were ilving human ¢ friends and neighbors of us all. I remen ber feeling as if for the first time I rea ized the personality of the Queen as a ! ing woman. Republican enthusiasm was sick death. The Pariftan Commune burned up the faith that might have spired the French repub Across Atlantic the monstrous peculation Tammany obscured the fair ideal of th men of the Mayflower. At I e, wi could be thought of a democracy that made the Barabbas cholce of Disrael But I was very far from caring much for the monarchy, and any nascent sclous faith I might have had in its p sibilities of usefuiness was rudely tried by the policy of Disraell. The alteration of the royal title began it, and the sickening orgle of jingoism ended it. The detest tion which Lord Beaconsfleld inspired in the Gladstonians in those days was ltka nothing else in our time. The early Rad fcals hated Castlereagh as mueh; could not hate him more. To our thinking Disraell had tarnished the crown graced the country, betrayed the cause o humanity in the East, embarked on wan ton wars, and, to crown all, had made very name of imperialism to stink In tha nostrils of all sane and sober Englishme And through that discreditable chaptar British history the Queen was paraded as the special friend of the evil Minister. Win iy I was n Kk—walk- unt H - Whence sprang “Verax” pamphlets and newspaper articles innumerable, to which, mayhap, I in my small way centributed my full share, But the blight passed. Lord Beacons- fleld fell to rise no more, a he evi taint of his administration lingered but for a short space around the thron Within a few months of the formatior the Gladstone administr: ” London, and what followed can be ) in @ few sentences. The nearer I came to the center and heart of the adminis- tration, the more closely T was abl the actual workings of the executiv ernment, the more I learned to appreei the Inestimable advantage of having in t very innermost sanctuary of the e: a human being, head of a family w will not pass with an adverse election, with whom in all the graver affairs state Ministers must take counsel befors they act. 1 realized more clearly than ever befors how the security, the con- tinuity and the prosperity of Britain de- pended much less upon the politictans and much more upon the permanents, the per- manent family above and the permane services below. When I went abroad and especially when I visited the great repub lic of my earller ideals I realized as I had never done before the enormous advantags of having the national unity and o n perial greatness embodied in a Derson who is carefully trained for that position from the cradle, and who In attaining it {s not compelled to make Intense political en mies of one-half of the nation. To h created a center of cquilibrium In midst of all the forces which surge a sway hither and thither in the t and strain of modern life, to have made this central point the source of all h and the symbol of all dominion, and have secured it at once from the of tongues and the comflict of pa without at the same time endangering t liberties of the subject or the supremae of law—this, indeed, I have learned to r gard as one of the most signal achiev ments of our race. Study of the Reign. Nor was that the only change of sentiment, whic merely because of the ur the individual who Is thus narrating his pligrimage from republicanism to mor archy. If I had been any one exceptional either by birth, education or opportunit these confessions would have been le: interesting. It is just because I was an ordinary, average English boy, born in a remote village and reared outside the con- ventional “loyal” pale, that I have deamed it worth while to begin my series of studies of the Queen and the Queen's reign by explaining exactly where I stood and where I stand, in the hope ghat on T was arm ™~ cause for a is important mportance of a frank personal survey of the stepd which led me from one position to the other may help us to understand the great change that has taken place fn the last fifty years in the attitude of the radical masses toward the crown. It may ‘at least be said for monarchy as it has been sald for the stage—it hagy given woman an opportunity and a ca- reer denled her elsewhere. No system of government as yet devised by man, save monarchy alone, could have secured for a woman such an inning as our Queen has had. All existing republican systems have carefully provided against the pos- sibility of any woman ever having ar such chance by denyink to all wonm.