Hugh Chisholm

“ In 1884 a new Reform Bill was introduced, extending household suffrage to the counties; this was met in the Lords by a resolution, moved by Cairns, that the peers could not pass it unaccompanied by a Redistribution Bill. The Government, therefore, withdrew their measure. In the summer and autumn there was a good deal of agitation; but in November a redistribution scheme was settled between the leaders of both parties, and the Bill passed. When, in the summer of 1885, Gladstone resigned, it became necessary for the country to know whether Salisbury or Northcote was the real Conservative leader ”

“ The new clause was accordingly rejected, and the Commons eventually accepted the situation; but Disraeli, banteringly criticizing Salisbury’s use of the word “bluster,” alluded to him as “a man who does not measure his phrases. He is one who is a great master of gibes and flouts and jeers.”
From the middle of 1876 the Government was occupied with foreign affairs. ”

“ In countries where politics are conducted on any other than the give-and-take principles in vogue in England, such a breach as In the House of Lords.that which occurred in 1867 between Lord Cranborne and his former colleagues, especially Disraeli, would have been beyond repair. But Cranborne, though an aristocrat both by birth and by conviction, was not impracticable; moreover, Disraeli, who had himself risen to eminence through invective, admired rather than resented that gift in others; and their common opposition to Gladstone was certain to reunite the two colleagues. ”

“ Among his most important strokes of diplomacy was the Anglo-German agreement of 1890, delimiting the British and German spheres of influence in Africa. The South African question from 1896 onwards was a matter for the Colonial Office, and Salisbury left it in Mr Chamberlain’s hands.
A peer premier must inevitably leave many of the real problems of democratic government to his colleagues in the House of Commons. In the Upper House Lord Salisbury was paramount. ”

“ At Oxford he was an active member of the Union Debating Society. The first few years after leaving the university were spent by Lord Robert Cecil (as he then was) in travel, as far afield as New Zealand; but in 1853 he was returned unopposed to the House of Commons as Conservative member for Stamford, being elected in the same year a fellow of All Souls. He made his maiden speech in Parliament on the 7th of April 1854, in opposition to Lord John Russell’s Oxford University Bill. ”

“ He had lived to become, as was indeed generally recognized, the most experienced working diplomatist in Europe. His position in this respect was shown in nothing better than in his superiority to criticism. ”

“ In this Lord Salisbury was declaring war against what seemed to be the danger should Mr Chamberlain’s “unauthorized programme” succeed; while the comparative slightness of his references to Ireland showed that he had no more suspicion than anybody else of the event which was about to change the whole face of British politics, to break up the Liberal party and to change the most formidable of the advanced Radicals into an ally and a colleague. The general election took place, and there were returned to parliament 335 Liberals, 249 Conservatives and 86 Home Rulers ”

“ It is not necessary to dwell at any length upon the part taken by Lord Salisbury between 1869 and 1873 in respect of the other great political measures of Gladstone’s Government—the Disraeli Cabinet of 1874.Irish Land Act, the Act Abolishing Purchase in the Army, Forster’s Education Act, &c. Nor does his attitude towards the Franco-German War of 1870–71 call for any remark; a British leader of Opposition is bound, even more than a minister, to preserve a discreet silence on such occasions. ”

“ But early in 1874 came the dissolution, suddenly announced in Gladstone’s famous Greenwich letter, with the promise of the abolition of the income-tax. For the first time since 1841 the Conservatives found themselves in office with a large majority in the House of Commons. In Disraeli’s new Cabinet in 1874 Salisbury accepted his old position at the India Office. ”

“ But with the advance of Russia through Bulgaria and across the Balkans, British anxiety grew. In mid-December explanations were asked from the Russian Government as to their intentions with regard to Constantinople. On the 23rd of January the Cabinet ordered the fleet to sail to the Dardanelles. Lord Carnarvon resigned, and Lord Derby handed in his resignation, but withdrew it. ”