CHAPTER XI - 1876-1878

Summary

As the session of 1876 moved to a close, affairs began to wear an unprosperous aspect for the Administration. The Porte had been in difficulties with its subjects in Servia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria, and in the repression of insurrection in the last named country Turkish officials had shown a ferocity which quickly awakened sympathy in this country for the sufferers. Party politicians are ever on the outlook for any occurrence, however remote, which may be turned to the disadvantage of their opponents, and in the Bulgarian atrocities Liberals were not slow to discern their opportunity. Conservative policy had ever favoured the strengthening of Turkey as a bulwark against the southward advance of Russia, therefore the Conservative Government must be called to account for the proceedings in Bulgaria. Mr Evelyn Ashley took the opportunity afforded, according to immemorial usage, by the Third Reading of the Appropriation Bill— always the closing act of the session—to call attention to this matter, and it was in reply to him that Mr Disraeli made his last speech in the House of Commons. Next morning it was announced that he had been summoned to the House of Lords with the title of Earl of Beaconsfield. 1 It had been known that his health had been severely strained by the more arduous conditions under which the House of Commons had begun to conduct its proceedings, and no one was surprised that he had decided to bring to a close his service of forty – three years as a member of that House. His place as leader of the House of Commons was taken by Sir Stafford Northcote.