caused a sudden demand for gold; the value of gold must have risen. Supposing gold had thus doubled in value, then the prices of commodities would have been halved, that is to say, one hundred oxen would have sold only for as many sovereigns as fifty sold for before the value of gold was thus increased. Everybody who had to make a fixed money payment, such as rent or interest, would have had their payment doubled, for they would have had to produce twice as much to meet their obligations as originally sufficed for that purpose. The burden of the National Debt, for example, would have been doubled, for, to pay every pound's worth of interest to the fundholder, the public would have had to realise what represented two pounds' worth of wealth when the interest was first fixed. In fact, the only people who would have gained, would have been the few who had to receive fixed payments, at the expense of the many who had to make them. The discovery of gold at a time when a liberated and expanding trade was causing an increased demand for the metal was thus a providential coincidence. By preventing the demand from outrunning the supply, it prevented a sudden increase in the value of the metal, which must have reduced prices and upset all the monetary arrangements of the country.

What was the effect of the discovery of gold on the Australian Colonies? Very much the same as the discovery of rich deposits of any other saleable ore, excepting in this respect, that gold is the one metal that commands an immediate sale, at a high and very slightly varying price. Land, Labour, and Capital are the three great requisites of production. Of these Australia, prior to 1853, had only the first in abundance. The gold mines attracted a rush of emigrants to Australia. But gold mining is a lottery in which the prizes fall to the few. The average earnings of the digger were soon found to be lower than the wages paid in other employments. Hence crowds of men who had been attracted to the mines soon left them, and were ready to follow other pursuits, so that the gold rush gave Australia the second element in production--labour. But the gold which was won, and the demands of the mining population, soon stimulated industry and increased wealth in the Colonies-in other words, the gold rush brought to Australia the third requisite of production-capital.

The Australian gold discoveries, therefore, transformed an insignificant penal settlement into a rich and queenly Commonwealth, and saved England from the gold famine, with its disastrous fall in prices, which a sudden expansion of trade must inevitably have produced after Protective duties were abolished. There were, however, two shadows on the picture. The gold rush to Australia depleted the labour market at home. The demands of the Australian Colonies for British goods, after gold had been discovered, were enormous. A sudden diminution in the supply of labour, combined with a corresponding increase in the demand for the goods which Labour produces, naturally led to a demand in England for increased wages. Strikes broke

1853.]

AFTER THE GOLD RUSH.

539

out all over the country. Labour was scarce and business brisk, and though the conflict was, except in rare cases, unaccompanied by violence, it may be said that generally speaking victory lay rather with the workers than with their masters. Wages were forced up, which was perhaps fortunate, because, as the year wore on, it soon became apparent that a bad harvest in England, France, and Germany would seriously increase the price of food. The enormous impetus given to industry, and the rise in wages which followed, enabled skilled labour to bear this increase in the price of bread. The unskilled labourers, however, who from lack of organisation cannot "strike" with much effect, suffered acutely, especially towards the end of the year. But by that time a calamity was within measurable distance, which diverted the minds of the English people from dear bread and bad harvests. That calamity was the Crimean war, which rendered 1853 the last year of "The Great Peace " which followed the battle of Waterloo.

Wheat which in June, 1853, stood at 45s. a quarter, on the 25th of November went up to 72s. 9d. The 4-lb. loaf rose from 10 d. to 1s. Annual Register, Vol. XCV., p. 165.

VR 1840

STUDY OF A CHILD.

(After an Etching by the Queen.

Origin of the Crimean War-Russia and "the Sick Man"-Coercing Turkey-The Dispute about the Holy Places A Monkish Quarrel-Contradictory Concessions-The Czar and the Tory Ministry of 1844 The Secret Compact with Peel, Wellington, and Aberdeen-Nesselrode's Secret Memorandum-The Czar and Sir Hamilton Seymour-Lord John Russell's Admissions-The Czar's Bewilderment--Lord Stratford de Redcliffe-The Marplot at Constantinople-A Hectoring Russian Envoy-The Allied Fleets at Besika Bay-The Conference of Vienna-The Vienna Note-The Turkish Modifications-The Case for EnglandThe British Fleet in the Euxine - A Caustic Letter of the Queen to Lord Aberdeen-Prince Albert's Warnings The Massacre of Sinope-Internal Feuds in the Cabinet-Lord John Russell's Intrigues-Palmerston's Resignation and Return-The Fire at Windsor-Birth of Prince Leopold-The Camp at Chobham-The Czar's Daughters-Naval Review at Spithead-Royal Visit to Ireland.

WHEN Parliament was prorogued on the 20th of August, 1853, the following passage was inserted in the Queen's Speech. "It is with deep interest and concern that her Majesty has viewed the serious misunderstanding which has recently risen between Russia and the Ottoman Porte. The Emperor of the French has united with her Majesty in earnest endeavours to reconcile differences, the continuance of which might involve Europe in war." The war to which these differences led has ever been regarded by the Queen as the one heart-breaking calamity of her reign-a calamity hardly equalled by the great Mutiny, which, though it nearly wrecked her Eastern Empire, ended in establishing her authority more firmly than ever in her Asiatic dominions. No such tangible result as that followed, however, from the war into which the country was now being rapidly hurried. The results of this war-the battles, the siege operations, "the moving accidents by flood and field "-are all well known; but its causes are to this day very imperfectly understood by Englishmen. The folly and weakness of the Aberdeen Ministry, the influence of Prince Albert, the aggressive designs of Russia, the obstinacy and brutality of the Turks, the determination of Napoleon III. to foment a disturbance from which he might emerge with the status of a Ruler who had linked the throne of a parvenu in an alliance with an ancient

1853.]

RUSSIA AND CONSTANTINOPLE.

541

monarchy, the factious desire of the Tory Opposition to entangle the Coalition Ministry in Foreign troubles-to all these causes have different writers traced the Crimean war. Let us, then, examine carefully, and closely, the development of the dispute that broke the peace of Europe in connection with the attitude to it-sometimes, it must be frankly said, a wrong attitudewhich the Queen and the Court of St. James's held.

The geographical conditions of Russia, and the political state of Turkey, favoured the outbreak of war between these States. Russia has no outlet to

the sea except through the Baltic in the north, which is frozen in winter, and through the Bosphorus in the south, which is open all the year, but which is dominated by the Sultan so long as Constantinople is the capital of Turkey. Russia has, therefore, an obvious interest either in making Turkey her vassal, or in expelling the Turks from Europe, and establishing a Power at Constantinople in servitude to the Czar. It is almost a heresy to say that Russia has not aimed at seizing Constantinople herself. Yet if we are to base our judgment on authentic historical documents, and not on the heated imaginings of excited Russophobists, it is necessary to say this. The Emperor Nicholas was the most aggressive of modern Czars, and there is no reason to doubt the cynical candour with which he expressed his views on this subject to Sir George Hamilton Seymour, in his conversations with him early in the year.*

"You know," said the Emperor on the 14th of January, to Sir Hamilton Seymour, "the dreams and plans in which the Empress Catherine was in the habit of indulging; these were handed down to our time;

Yet it is certain that his ideas as to the reconstitution of European Turkey in the event of the Turkish Empire breaking up, took the form of organising a series of autonomous States, which, like the Danubian Principalities in 1853, should be under his protection, though, perhaps, under the nominal suzerainty of the Turks-by that time banished to Asia Minor-" bag and baggage.” These ideas may have been right or wrong. It is, however, just to say that they were the ideas of the Czar, and that they do not correspond with the scheme for making Constantinople the capital of Russia, which most popular English writers accuse him of cherishing.* The interest of Russia being thus revealed, let us see where her opportunity lay. It lay in the fact that the Ottomans, though they had enough bodily strength to conquer, had never enough brain-power to govern a European Empire. In this respect they differed signally from the equally savage hordes of Manchu Tartars, who overran China, and who, instead of destroying, adapted themselves to the civilisation with which they came in contact. The Christian provinces of Turkey, and the Greek Christians, under the rule of the Sultan were misgoverned, plundered, and at times tortured by the myrmidons of a barbarous and feeble autocracy. The Russian Czar, as head of a nation fanatically devoted to the Greek cult, could always find in this misgovernment and oppression apt opportunity for interfering between the Sultan and his Greek subjects. Moreover, in every act of interference the Czar of Muscovy knows that he will be supported to the death by the fervid fanaticism of the Russian people.

But the example of other Powers was not wanting in 1853 to emphasise the promptings of interest and opportunity. In 1852 the Turks determined to strike a blow at Montenegro, with which they had for centuries waged chronic warfare. The Sublime Porte sent Omar Pasha to occupy the Principality of the Black Mountain. Austria, alarmed at the prospect, despatched Count Leiningen to Constantinople, and instructed him to press for the recall of Omar. The Porte yielded to this demand, and recalled him.†

Nor was Austria the only Power that was demonstrating the ease with which Turkey might be coerced. France had a dispute pending with Turkey, as to the privileges of the Roman Catholic monks in Jerusalem-a dispute into which the French Emperor, when Prince-President in 1850, had entered with vigour, for the purpose of conciliating the French clergy. Mr. Kinglake insinuates that Napoleon III. manufactured this quarrel in order to force on

but, while I inherited immense territorial possessions, I did not inherit those visions-those intentions if you like to call them so." And again on the 22nd of February, "I will not tolerate the permanent -occupation of Constantinople by the Russians; having said this, I will say that it never shall be held by the English, or French, or any other great nation." Secret Correspondence between Sir G. H. Seymour, British Chargé d'Affaires at St. Petersburg, and Her Majesty's Government. Eastern Papers, Part V. * Secret Correspondence, Eastern Papers, Part V., p. 204.

+ Diplomatic Study of the Crimean War, from Russian Official Sources, Vol. I., p. 115.