M^r. PUNCH'S HISTORY
OF MODERN ENGLAND

AFTER TEN YEARS
Reproduced from the original cartoon.

M^r.Punch's History
of Modern England

By
CHARLES L. GRAVES

In Four Volumes

VOL. IV.—1892-1914

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1922

Published by arrangement with the Proprietors of "Punch"

CONTENTS

PART I

THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER

PART II

SOCIAL LIFE IN TRANSITION

PART I

THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER

M^r. PUNCH'S
History of Modern England

HIGH POLITICS

Transition and growth, change and decay and reconstruction marked the half-century covered in the previous three volumes. In the twenty-two years that divide the return of the Liberals in 1892 from the "Grand Smash" (as Mr. Page has called it) of 1914, these features are intensified to an extent that renders the task of attempting even a superficial survey perilous and intractable to one who is neither a philosopher nor a trained historian. The wisest and sanest of those who have lived through these wonderful times are too near their heights and depths to view them in true perspective. Whatever merit attaches to this chronicle is due to its reliance on contemporary opinion as expressed in the pages of an organ of independent middle-class views. It is within these limits a history of Victorians and post-Victorians written by themselves.

"Full closes," unfashionable in modern music, are generally artificial in histories. But the period on which we now enter did more than merely coincide with the end of one century and the beginning of another. It marked the passing of the Old Order, the passing of the Victorian age: of the Queen, who, alike in her virtues and limitations, in the strength and narrowness of her personality, epitomized most of its qualities; and of the type of Elder Statesmen, of whom, with the sole exception of Mr. Balfour, none remains at the moment as an active force in the political arena. Of the Ministry of 1892-5 the only survivor who mixes in practical politics is Mr. Asquith, but his record as a legislator hardly entitles him to the name of an Elder Statesman in the Victorian sense. Sir George Trevelyan, Lord Morley, Lord Eversley and Lord Rosebery have all retired into seclusion. So, too, with the Unionist Ministers who held office from 1895 to 1905. Veterans such as Lord Chaplin, Lord George Hamilton and Lord Lansdowne enjoy respect, but they do not sway public opinion, and are debarred by age from active leadership and office. Lord Midleton stood aside to make way for younger men when the Coalition Government was formed, and Lord Selborne is perhaps the only Conservative statesman who held office before 1906 who has any chance of sitting in a future Cabinet.

It was not only an age of endings; it was also an age of beginnings, fresh and sometimes false starts, both as regards men and measures. It witnessed the coming of the Death Duties in 1894, when Sir William Harcourt's "Radical Budget," by equalizing the charges on real and personal property, paved the