Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/344

 supporter of Lord Palmerston. In January 1858 his cousin, the sixth duke of Devonshire, died. Cavendish's father, the earl of Burlington, succeeded to the dukedom and estates, and he himself became marquis of Hartington, under which name he made his political position. In June 1859, after a general election, Lord Palmerston, having effected a reconciliation of the sections whose divergence had led to his fall from office in 1858, was prepared to displace Lord Derby's government, and to resume power. He commissioned Lord Hartington to move a motion of want of confidence intended to effect this object. The speech (7 June) was very successful, the motion was carried on 10 June by 323 to 310, and the resignation of the Derby government followed. The speaker, [q. v.], wrote to the duke of Devonshire that his son possessed 'a power of speaking rarely shown by persons who have had so little practice.' In 1862, when his father was installed as chancellor of Cambridge University, he was created hon. LL.D.

In August 1862 Lord Hartington made a holiday tour through the United States of America, where the civil war was now at its height. He visited the headquarters of both the northern and southern armies, and had an interview both with Abraham Lincoln and with Jefferson Davis. Lincoln was struck by his visitor, and predicted to Sir John Rose, of Canada, that Lord Hartington would have a distinguished political career in his own country. Hartington's sympathies were, on the whole, at this time on the side of the south.

On his return to England in February 1863 Hartington was appointed by Lord Palmerston under-secretary at the war office, and in that capacity had much to do with promoting the organisation of the new volunteer force. In February 1866, in succession to Sir (afterwards first Viscount Halifax) [q. v.], he became secretary of state for war during the few months of Lord Russell's government, thus entering the cabinet in his thirty-fourth year. After the fall of Lord Russell's government in June, Hartington visited Germany, saw the entry into Berlin of the victorious Prussian army after the seven weeks' war, talked to Bismarck, and inspected the recent battlefield of Sadowa. In April 1868 he supported in the House of Commons Gladstone's resolutions in favour of the disestablishment of the Irish church. This policy was unpopular in the county divisions of Lancashire, and Hartington, like Gladstone himself, lost his seat there at the general election of December. Three months later, however, he obtained a new seat from the Radnor Boroughs, in Wales. Gladstone, on forming his administration, offered Lord Hartington the post of lord-lieutenant of Ireland. This he declined, but accepted the office of postmaster-general, with a seat in the cabinet. His chief work in this office was the nationalisation of the telegraphs. He also had charge of the measure which established voting by ballot. This bill was first introduced in 1870, but was not passed into law until 1872.

At the end of 1870 Lord Hartington, much against his will, became chief secretary for Ireland. One of his first duties in this capacity was to pass through the House of Commons a special 'coercion bill,' on the principle of suspension of habeas corpus, for the county of Westmeath and some adjoining districts, which were disturbed by a powerful 'Ribbon Society.' Hartington was not in sympathy with Gladstone's scheme of 1873 for settling the Irish University question, which, as he foresaw, would satisfy no party, and he felt no surprise when it was defeated in the House of Commons on 11 March. His own wish was to carry through the nationalisation of the Irish railways, a measure which 'he believed ' would do more good to Ireland than anything else,' but this desire was thwarted by the prime minister's want either of time or of inclination.

Soon after the defeat of the liberal party at the elections of 1874 and the accession of Disraeli to power, Gladstone at the beginning of 1875 formally announced his intention to resign the leadership, and at a party meeting held under John Bright's presidency at the Reform Club, London, on 3 Feb., Hartington reluctantly agreed, at the request of the party, to fill the vacant place. In 1876 Disraeli began to develop his forward imperial policy by the purchase of the Suez Canal shares, and the bestowal on the Queen of the title of Empress of India. Hartington approved, on the whole, of the first of these steps, and felt no great objection to the second, and his speeches on these occasions were confined within the limits of moderate criticism. During the following two years the great subject of party controversy was that of the attitude of England to the Turkish question, and the Russo-Turkish war. Hartington, while he maintained that the British government might have prevented the war and secured a pacific reform in the administration of the Turkish