interest of the voters, of political independence, and of public morals. He was now as thoroughly convinced as Mr. Bright himself that the ballot in these countries would be the very keystone of political independence. Recent publications have enabled us to know that on one occasion at least Lord Palmerston did all he could privately to encourage the House of Lords to reject an important measure introduced and passed in the Commons by his own Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone. This fact, which would be incredible if it were not made known upon authority impossible to question, was not likely to furnish an example which Mr. Gladstone would follow. Mr. Gladstone accepted the decision of the Lords as a mere passing delay, and with the beginning of the next Session the ballot came up again. It was presented in the form of a bill to amend the laws relating to procedure at parliamentary and municipal elections, and it included, of course, the introduction of the system of secret voting. The bill passed quickly through the House of Commons. Those who most disliked it began now to see that they must make up their minds to meet their fate. When the bill went up to the Lords an amendment was introduced into it with the view of making the ballot optional. This preposterous alteration was of course objected to by the Commons, and finally the House of Lords gave it up. There would obviously be no protection whatever for the class of voters whom it was necessary to protect if the ballot were made simply optional. The tenant who exercised his option of voting secretly against his landlord might just as well have voted openly. The landlord would not be slow to assume that the secrecy was adopted for the purpose of giving a vote against him. At the instance of the House of Lords, however, the ballot was introduced as an experiment, and the Act was passed to continue in force for eight years; that is, until the end of 1880. We may anticipate matters a little by saying that no measure of reform introduced through all that season of splendid reforming energy has given more universal satisfaction or worked with happier effect than the ballot. There is, indeed, much still to be done to purify the electoral system. The ballot has not extinguished corruption in small boroughs. It is still perfectly possible to carry on the most demoralizing system of

bribery there. The plan of what we may call payment by results still flourishes in many a small constituency. It is quietly given out that if a certain candidate be elected there will be money flowing through the borough after the election; and every voter who is open to corruption goes to the polling-place determined to vote for this candidate, because he knows that his vote adds to the chances of the borough's coming in for the refreshing golden shower. Probably nothing could put a stop to the corruption in very small boroughs but their utter disfranchisement, or some system which would group several of them into one constituency. But in all other objects sought by the Ballot Act it has been successful. It has put an end to an enormous amount of corruption, and it may be said to have almost altogether extinguished the illegitimate influence of the landlord, the employer, and the patron. During a debate on woman's suffrage in 1871, Mr. Gladstone stated that if the ballot were once introduced there would be no harm done by allowing women to vote. Nearly ten years have passed since that remarkable declaration, and the proposal to extend the franchise to female householders does not seem to have made much practical progress. But it must be admitted that the adoption of the ballot makes a great difference in the conditions of the controversy. It was one thing to ask that women should have imposed on them the duty of going up to the open poll and recording their votes in public, and quite another thing to ask that they should be allowed to enter a quiet compartment of the polling-place and record an independent vote under the saving shelter of the ballot.

The University Tests Bill was one of the great measures carried successfully into legislation during this season of unparalleled activity. The effect of this Bill was to admit all lay students, of whatever faith, to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge on equal terms. This settled practically a controversy, and removed a grievance which had been attracting keen public interest for at least five-andthirty years. Gradually the restrictions which Oxford and Cambridge drew around their systems of education had been relaxed. Dissenters had been admitted first to the advantages of education within the sphere of the Universities, and next to the honors which success in the Univer

sity course was fitted to command. Twice over within a very few years had a measure for the purpose been carried through the Commons only to be rejected by the Lords. In this busy year of 1871, the Liberal Government introduced the Bill again, and this time, after some remonstrances and futile struggle, the Conservative majority in the House of Lords allowed their prejudices to succumb, and affirmed the principle of religious equality in the distribution of the honors which the two universities have to award to those who win success as students within the sphere of their teaching. The Government also passed a Trades-union Bill, moderating, as has already been shown, the legislation which bore harshly on the workmen. They established by Act of Parliament the Local Government Board, a new department of the administration intrusted with the care of the public health, the control of the Poor Law system, and all regulations applying to the business of districts throughout the country. The Government repealed the ridiculous and almost forgotten Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.

The popularity of Mr. Gladstone's Government was all the time somewhat impaired by the line of action, and even perhaps by the personal deportment, of some of its members. Mr. Lowe's budgets were not popular; and Mr. Lowe had a taste for sarcasm which it was pleasant, no doubt, to indulge in at the expense of heavy men, but which was, like other pleasant things, a little dangerous when enjoyed too freely. One of Mr. Lowe's budgets contained a proposition to make up for deficiency of income by a tax on matches. It seems not unlikely that the whole proposition first arose in Mr. Lowe's mind in connection with a pretty play upon words which he offered as its motto. "Ex luce lucellum," he suggested, should be a device imprinted on every taxed match-box. The joke had to be explained: its humor wholly vanishes when it is put into English-"a little profit out of light;" not much drollery in that, surely. The country laughed at the joke, and not with it. The match-trade rose up in arms against the proposal. It was shown that that trade was really a very large one, employing vast numbers of poor people, both in the manufacture and the sale, especially in the east end of London; and it was proved that the imposition recommended by Mr. Lowe would put out the

light most effectually. All the little boys and girls of the metropolis whose poor bread, whose miserable lucellum depended on the trade, arose in infantile insurrection against Mr. Lowe. There were vast processions of match-makers and match-sellers to Palace Yard to protest against the tax. The contest was pitiful, painful, ludicrous; no Ministry could endure it long. Mr. Lowe, who had not the slightest idea when he proposed his tax of being regarded as a worse than Lucifer by the vendors of lucifer-matches, was only too glad to withdraw from his unenviable position. It was not pleasant to be regarded as a sort of ogre by thousands of poor little ragged boys and girls. Mr. Lowe had ventured on the proposal chiefly because of the example of the United States, where the whole system and social conditions are so different from ours as to afford no guarantee whatever that a tax which is found endurable by the one community is likely to be found endurable by the other. He withdrew his unlucky proposal along with his ill-omened joke, and set himself to work to repair by other ways and means the ravages which warlike times had made in his financial system. No particular harm was done to anybody but the Government. They were made to seem ridiculous. The miserable matchtax was just the sort of thing to impress the popular mind as something niggling, paltry, and pitiful. Mr. Lowe did not hear the end of it for a long time. The attempt, and not the deed, confounded him. Another member of the administration, Mr. Ayrton, a man of much ability but still more self-confidence, was constantly bringing himself and his Government into quarrels. He was blessed with a gift of offence. If a thing could be done either civilly or rudely, Mr. Ayrton was pretty sure to do it rudely. He was impatient with dull people, and did not always remember that those unhappy persons not only have their feelings, but sometimes have their votes. He quarrelled with officials; he quarrelled with the newspapers; he seemed to think a civil tongue gave evidence of a feeble intellect. He pushed his way along, trampling on people's prejudices with about as much consideration as a steam-roller shows for the gravel it crushes. Even when Mr. Ayrton was in the right, he had a wrong way of showing it.

CHAPTER LX.

THE BLACK SEA CLAUSE: THE "ALABAMA" ARBITRATION.

MEANWHILE the portentous changes which were taking place on the Continent of Europe had, as was natural, their effect on England and the English Government. The Emperor Napoleon having taken to himself a Liberal Minister, M. Emile Ollivier, one of the famous Five who for years had represented Opposition in the French Legislative Chamber, had sought to get a renewed charter for himself and his dynasty by means of a plebiscite. Representing the question at issue as one of revolution or social order, the Emperor obtained a very large majority of Ayes in favor of his policy and his house, seven and a quarter million Ayes against one and a half million Noes. But the minority was considerable, and one peculiarity made it specially ominous. There were more than 52,000 “Noes " among the votes of the army and navy. The Mexican expedition and its ghastly failure had much injured the prestige of the Emperor with the two services. The truth could not be concealed that he had been peremptorily ordered out of Mexico by the United States Government, and that he had obeyed the command, leaving Maximilian to his fate. Louis Napoleon saw that he must do something to recover his military popularity. The overthrow of Austria by Prussia had roused a strong feeling of jealousy in France. M. Thiers in particular had endeavored to keep up an angry mood against the Imperial Government. He constantly reproached the Emperor for not interposing in some way to protect Austria and restrict the ambition of Prussia. Louis Napoleon, therefore, found himself driven to try the gamester's last and desperate throw. He seized the first excuse for forcing a war on Prussia.

It is probable that war would have come in any case. M. Prevost-Paradol had compared France and Prussia to two express trains started from opposite points along the same line of rails. The collision must come; it was merely