Mr. Gladstone's golden-wedding day in July furnished the theme for friendly and affectionate congratulations to a couple who stood for "Darby and Joan" in excelsis. Mr. Gladstone's domestic happiness was unclouded, but he was subjected to a painful ordeal in 1890 by the disclosures of the Parnell-O'Shea divorce case and the split in the Irish Party which followed. Punch supported Gladstone in his breach with the Irish leader. He is shown in one cartoon refusing to give his hand to Parnell: —

The hand of Douglas is his own
And never shall in friendly grasp
The hand of such as Marmion clasp.

Gladstone is acquitted of "mere Pharisaic scorn." But an element bordering on the ridiculous enters into the succeeding cartoon of Gladstone and Morley as the Babes in the Wood, while Parnell and Healy as the wicked uncles are seen fighting in the background. The further developments of the struggle are shown in an adaptation of Meissonier's famous "La Rixe," in which Parnell is held back by Dillon and O'Brien from Healy, who is restrained by Justin McCarthy. Parnell's sun was setting in gloom and storm, but a greater than Parnell was passing from the stage of high politics in 1890. For this was the year of the dismissal of Bismarck by the Kaiser, commemorated in the issue of March 29 by Tenniel's famous "Dropping the Pilot" cartoon. Punch saw no good in the change; he indulges in ominous speculations. Was Bismarck animated by faith or fear of the future in quitting his post? Would the new Pilot strike on sunken shoals or "wish on the wild main, the old Pilot back again"? The Kaiser's gifts are seen to be no solace for the wound of dismissal. As a matter of fact, Bismarck never used the ducal title of Lauenburg conferred on him. In little more than a month the Kaiser is shown as the Enfant Terrible of Europe, "rocking the boat," while France, Italy, Austria and Spain all appeal to him to be more careful and not tempt fate. The Kaiser's dabbling in industrial problems, in the hope of propping his rule by concessions to Socialism, meets with no sympathy. But a more serious ground for discontent arose over the cession of Heligoland. Punch waxes indignantly sarcastic over Lord Salisbury's deal in East Africa by which Germany gained Heligoland as a bonus. It was "given away with a pound of tea"; Salisbury's weakness was worse than Gladstone's scuttle and surrender, and Punch ruefully recalls the verses he printed nineteen years earlier: —

TIME THE AVENGER!

On June 24, 1871, Mr. Punch sang, à propos of the Germans desiring to purchase Heligoland:

Though to rule the waves, we may believe they aspire,
If their Navy grows great, we must let it;
But if one British island they think to acquire,
Bless their hearts, don't they wish they may get it?

And they have got it!

The Surrender of Helgoland

But the fashionable world went on its way unheeding. Du Maurier satirized this indifference in a picture in which one lady asks another: "Where is this Heligoland they're all talking so much about?" and her friend replies, "Oh, I don't know, dear. It's one of the places lately discovered by Mr. Stanley."

Russia, it may be added, also incurred Punch's censure in 1890, the legalized persecution of Jews forming the theme of a prophetic cartoon in August, in which the shade of Pharaoh warns the Tsar, as he stands with a drawn sword and his foot on a prostrate Hebrew: "Forbear! That weapon always wounds the hand that wields it."

In 1891 the new "orientations" of the European Powers attract a good deal of notice. The Franco-Russian entente is symbolized by the Bear making France dance to the tune of the Russian loan. Punch's distrust of Russia – semi-Asiatic and half-Tartar – dated from the 'forties. The tightening of the Franco-Russian Entente in 1891 gave him no pleasure. He quotes with manifest approval the comment of a daily paper on the infatuation of France: —

The success of a Russian Loan is not dearly purchased by a little effusion, which, after all, commits Russia to nothing. French sentiment is always worth cultivating in that way, because unlike the British variety, it has a distinct influence upon investments.

The cartoon of President Carnot embracing, and being hugged by, the Bear was founded on an episode at Aix-les-Bains where he kissed a little girl in Russian dress who gave him a bouquet, saying: "J'embrasse la Russie." Punch's verses represent Carnot as fully conscious of his blague, yet with an uneasy consciousness that the Bear is going to squeeze him. Russia's religious intolerance again comes in for strong condemnation. The Tsar is shown wielding the knout on an aged Jew while the Emperor of China greets a Christian priest. This contrast was based on the issue of a decree in which the Chinese Government condemned anti-Christian excesses. In another cartoon the Tsar bids his minions remove another aged Jew on the familiar ground that Jews were always to the fore in Nihilist plots. The European Powers, it should be added, were not satisfied by China's official tolerance. The treatment of foreigners had provoked a collective protest, from which Russia abstained. So when John Bull, as a sailor, asks Russia to take a hand in controlling the Chinese Dragon, Russia replies: "Well, I don't know – you see, he's a sort of relation of mine!"

The admiration which Punch had so often if reluctantly expressed for Bismarck in office yielded to something like disgust at his undignified bitterness in retirement, above all at his use of the "reptile press" as a means of attacking the Imperial policy and Caprivi, his successor as Chancellor. This feeling animates the "Coriolanus" cartoon in February, where Bismarck is shown with the Hamburger Nachrichten in his hand. The death of Moltke a couple of months later is duly recorded in a versified tribute making all the usual points – on his taciturnity, composure, foresight and strategy. With his death Bismarck became the lonely survivor of "the Titanic three, Who led the Eagles on to Victory." Moltke died full of years and honours. It was otherwise with Parnell who at forty-five fell,

not as leaders love to fall,
In battle's forefront, loved and mourned by all;
But fiercely fighting, as for his own hand,
With the scant remnant of a broken band;
His chieftainship, well-earned in many a fray,
Rent from him – by himself!
None did betray
This sinister strong fighter to his foes;
He fell by his own action, as he rose.
He had fought all – himself he could not fight,
Nor rise to the clear air of patient right.

The Passing of Parnell

Punch notes his coldness, his impassive persistence as an agitator, but says nothing of the ill-concealed contempt he showed for his followers, and the entire lack of geniality, bonhomie, and humour, which partly explained the mercilessness with which he was pursued once his power was shaken. As he had never won or tried to win their affection, he could not expect to find magnanimity in mean souls.

The wheels of the Parliamentary chariot drove heavily over the Land Purchase Bill. Punch showed Mr. Balfour leading the poor tired little Bill through a maze of amendments. A propos of its complicated nature and endless, obscure sub-sections, which aroused much hostile criticism in The Times, Mr. Balfour is made to say: —

The Times, too, may gird, and declare 'tis absurd not to know one's own Labyrinth better;

The Times is my friend, but a trifle too fond of the goad and the scourge and the fetter.

This, of course, was in the days when The Times was ultra-Unionist. However, the Bill finally passed through its various stages, and Mr. W. H. Smith exhibits it with the fruits of the Session in June, 1891, as a gigantic strawberry. The choice of this particular fruit as a symbol was dictated by the fact that both he and Lord Salisbury had exhibited strawberries at the Horticultural Show.

The relations of Canada with England and the United States provoked much discussion in 1891. Punch expressed confidence in Canada's loyalty, and simultaneously published a burlesque "Canadian Calendar (to be hoped not prophetic)," foretelling complete absorption in the United States. It begins with Reciprocity with the U.S.A., and goes on with the dying out of trade with and emigration from the old country, the increase of improvident Irish, the request of Canada to be annexed to America, and finally her decline into a tenth-rate Yankee state. On the death of the Canadian premier, Sir John Macdonald, "old To-morrow" as he was nicknamed from his habit of procrastination, Punch overlooked the thrasonical magniloquence criticized in an earlier poem, and only dwelt on his long services to the Dominion.

Earlier in the year Punch had typified the Federation of the Australian Colonies in a boating cartoon, the British Lion from the bank applauding a racing eight, manned by cubs and coxed by a kangaroo, and bidding them swing together.

On the death of the old Duke of Devonshire at the close of 1891, and the accession of Lord Hartington to the title, Mr. Chamberlain became leader of the Liberal-Unionists in the Commons. Mr. Chamberlain, in spite of the rapprochement already noted, was still looked upon in some quarters as a somewhat dangerous Radical, and in January, 1892, Punch represented the clock-faced Times lecturing him on his responsibilities. Mr. Balfour succeeded Mr. W. H. Smith on the death of that unselfish, honest and capable statesman, as Leader of the House of Commons. The shades of Dizzy and Pam are friendly in the cartoon which records the promotion; slightly anxious on the score of Mr. Balfour's youth – he was then forty-four – but on the whole inclined to think that he will do. Parliament was dissolved in June, the Liberals were returned at the Elections, and the new House met on the now ominous date of August 4.

NATIONAL DEFENCE

"Scuttle" and "Grab"

In the 'seventies Punch, as we have seen, was decidedly non-interventionist. By the middle 'eighties he found it harder to preserve a middle course between the extremes of Jingoism and Pacificism, though he bestows impartial ridicule on both "Scuttle and Grab" in his burlesque forecast of the alternate foreign policies of the ultra-Imperialists and the ultra-Radicals. This was published early in 1885, when the Liberals were in power, and though deliberately fantastical and even farcical, shows how the wildest anticipations are sometimes verified by fact. Four periods are chosen. In 1890 the Grab Party inaugurate a forward policy all round by spending fifty millions upon the Army and Fleet, and are turned out by John Bull when it is found that their schemes involve: —

The seizure of sixteen islands, conquest of five native races, absorption of fifty thousand square miles of – useless – new territory, seven small wars, two large ones, four massacres, and an Income-tax of five shillings in the pound.

The Scuttle Party is installed in power in 1895 with a big majority and bigger promises: —

Finishes off all wars by caving in all round, retiring everywhere and relinquishing everything. Cuts down Army, and resolves to sell half the Ironclad Fleet as old metal. Power which buys it immediately utilizes it against us. Another Fleet has to be ordered at once at fancy prices in response to Press clamour. Scuttle Party, in cleft stick, halts between two opinions; in pursuit of peace is found fighting all over the world, and after frantic efforts at economy, runs up Income-tax to six shillings in the pound. John Bull turns out Scuttle Party.

Then we jump to A.D. 2000, but even then the wildest stretch of Punch's imagination does not exceed the establishment of conscription and the raising of the Army to a million men. Finally in his last forecast Punch is reduced to solving the problem by an insurrection under a popular soap-boiler, the seizure of the leaders of the two parties, and the banishing of both "Scuttle" and "Grab" from the political dictionary.

With the return of the Conservatives to power, we find that Punch, so far from rebuking the Government for their expenditure on bloated armaments, develops into something like an alarmist on the subject of national preparedness and the folly of "cheap defences." The inefficiency of the Army and Navy is a constant theme from 1887 onwards. The bursting of big naval guns, the badness of munitions and designs for battleships are dealt with in bitter satirical verses: while the damaging report of the Parliamentary Committee on Army equipment and stores prompts a series of advertisements of the "Benevolent Bayonet," the "Blazing Breech-loader," the "Comic Cartridge," and so on. Dishonest contractors and incompetent officials are attacked as "the Vultures of Trade" and "the Vermin of Office and Mart." The persistent discouragement of volunteers by the military authorities was an old grievance of Punch's, and it crops up in this year in connexion with the removal of the camp from Wimbledon by order of "George Ranger." Indeed, the bitterness of Punch's attack on the Duke of Cambridge revives the memories of the 'forties, when a duke, royal or otherwise, was his favourite cockshy: —

Snubbing the Volunteers

Some prate of patriotism, and some of cheap defence,
But to the high official mind that's all absurd pretence;
For of all the joys of snubbing, there's none to it so dear,
As to snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!

A patriotic Laureate may bid the Rifles form,
And Citizens may look to them for safety in War's storm;
But Secretaries, Dooks, and such at this delight to jeer,
And to snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!

A semi-swell he may be, but he may be a mere clerk,
And he's an interloper, and to snub him is a lark.
Sometimes he licks the Regulars, and so our duty's clear,
'Tis to snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!

He hankers for an increase in his Capitation Grant,
It's like his precious impudence, and have the lift he shan't.
What, make it easier for him to run us close? No fear!
We'll snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!

He has a fad for Wimbledon, but that is just a whim,
And as eviction's all the go, we'll try it upon him.
He's not an Irish tenant, so no one will interfere,
When once more we snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!

His targets and his tents and things are nuisances all round,
As Jerry-Builders, Dooks, and other Toffs have lately found,
Compared with bricks and mortar and big landlords he's small beer,
So we'll snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!

The Common's vastly handy, there's no doubt, to chaps in town,
And crowds of Cockneys to the butts can quickly hurry down;
But what are all Town's Cockneys to one solitary Peer?
No; let us snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!

Your Citizen who wants to play at soldiers need not look
To have his little way as though he were a Royal Dook;
With building-leases – sacred things! – he must not interfere,
So let us snub, snub, snub, snub, snub the British Volunteer!

If he must shoot his annual shoot somewhere, why, let him go
To Pirbright or to Salisbury Plain, or e'en to Jericho.
But out from his loved Wimbledon he'll surely have to clear,
A final snub, snub, snub, snub, snub to the British Volunteer!

Punch was not generous or just in representing the Duke of Cambridge as a mere obstructive; and the sequel has not verified his forecast. Wimbledon Common remains a great playground of the people, and the annual meetings of the National Rifle Association, held at Wimbledon from 1860 to 1888, have not suffered in prestige or value since the move to Bisley in 1890.

References to the inadequate state of the national defences reach their highest frequency in 1888. We have the duel between Lord Randolph Churchill preaching retrenchment and Lord Charles Beresford advocating expenditure on an increased Navy. This is followed up by Punch's "Alarmist Alphabet" dedicated to our naval and military experts, to whose warnings our rulers attach no particular importance: —

A's the Alarm that the Country's defenceless.
B's the Belief such assertions are senseless.
C's the Commission that sits with regard to them;
D's our Defences – the one topic barred to them!
E's the Expense – it's supposed we shall grudge it!
F is the Fear of increasing the Budget.
G stands for Guns, which we thought we had got.
H is the Howl when we hear we have not.
I's the Inquiry, abuses to right meant;
J is the Judgment (a crushing indictment!);
K is the Knot of red tape someone ties on it;
L's Limbo – where no one will ever set eyes on it!
M is the Murmur, too quickly forgotten.
N is our Navy, which some say is rotten.
O's the Official who bungles with bonhomie.
P's Party-Government – all for Economy.
Q is the Question engrossing our Statesmen.
R is Retrenchment, which so fascinates men.
S stands for Services, starved (out of Policy).
T is the Time when – too late! – we our folly see.
U is the Uproar of Struggle Titanic;
V is the Vote we shall pass in a panic.
W's War – with the Capture of London.
X our Xplosions of fury, when undone.
Y is the Yoke we shall have to get used to.
Z is the Zero our Empire's reduced to!

The Race of Armaments

Simultaneously Britannia figures in a cartoon as the "Unprotected Female" surrounded by a litter of burst guns, broken contracts, broken blades, unfinished ships, etc. Then we find Punch suddenly appearing at Downing Street at "the first meeting of the Inner Cabinet," and shattering the complacent satisfaction of the Premier and the War Secretary by a peremptory and menacing demand for speeding-up in the supply of rifles and more energetic recruiting. In July, under the heading of "Punch's Parallels," the tercentenary of the Armada is celebrated in a satiric perversion of the famous game of bowls into "a nice little game of Ducks and Drakes – with the public money," in which Lord George Hamilton, the First Lord of the Admiralty, is attacked as a lethargic aristocrat. Another cartoon shows Moltke rebuking the Duke of Cambridge for persistently discouraging the volunteer movement; while the enforced expense of life in the regular army is condemned in "The Pleasant Way of Glory." Commenting on the swamping of the subaltern's pay by compulsory but unnecessary outlay, Punch remarks that "the life of the British officer, as thus revealed, seems to resolve itself into a prolonged struggle to keep up a false position on insufficient means"; and he regrets that Lord Wolseley seemed to acquiesce in the evil instead of encouraging British officers to be more frugal. Such criticisms are not unfamiliar even to-day, for the old traditions die hard. On the general question of national and especially naval defence, Punch was not by any means a voice crying in the wilderness. Public opinion had been worked up by other powerful advocates, amongst whom Punch rightly mentions Mr. W. T. Stead. The debate on the Address in the session of 1889 was prolonged and acrimonious. Early in March, however, Lord George Hamilton moved a resolution, on which the Naval Defence Bill was founded, authorizing an expenditure of £21,500,000 on the Navy. The measure, of course, met with some opposition from various quarters, but public opinion was manifestly in its favour, and it received the Royal Assent before the end of May.

Throughout this campaign it is interesting to note how the personality of the German Emperor obtrudes itself as a disquieting factor in the international race in armaments. At the close of 1891 a lady with alleged abnormal "magnetic" power was giving performances at the Alhambra, and Punch adapts the incident in a cartoon suggested by the Kaiser's dictum– inscribed in the Visitors' Book of the City Council at Munich —Suprema Lex Regis Voluntas. The accompanying verses on "The Little Germania Magnate" are derisive, not to say abusive, with their references to "Behemoth Billy," "Panjandrum-plus-Cæsar," "Thraso" and "Vulcan-Apollo." Punch was evidently inclined to regard the German Emperor as one of those "impossible people" who, as The Times had suggested in a happy phrase, ought to "retire into fiction." Unfortunately he remained a fact, and was not to be killed by Punch's mouth.