Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/595

 between Gladstone and Lord Salisbury, the leader of the opposition. But the friendly suggestion was not seriously entertained. The prince shared the queen's habitual anxiety concerning warfare between lords and commons, but his proffered intervention probably reflected nothing beyond a wish to figure in political affairs.

Friendliness with members of the liberal government did not always imply acquiescence in their policy. Of the liberal government's attitude to many of the problems which South Africa and Egypt presented, the prince openly disapproved, frank in private expression of dissatisfaction alike with the recall from the Cape in 1880 of Sir Bartle Frere, his companion in India, and with the treaty of peace made with the Boers after the defeat of Majuba in 1881. He was president of the committee for erecting a statue of Frere on his death, and unveiled it on the Thames Embankment on 5 June 1888, when he called Frere 'a highly esteemed and dear friend of myself.' Next year (1 Aug. 1889), when he presided at the Guildhall over a memorable meeting to celebrate the jubilee of the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, he paid in a stirring speech a further tribute to the services of his friend Sir Bartle Frere. Of the pusillanimity which seemed to him to characterise the liberal party's treatment of the Soudan in 1884 he spoke with impatience, and he earnestly deplored the sacrifice of General Gordon. When Lord Salisbury moved a vote of censure on the government for their vacillating policy he was in his place in the House of Lords on 25 Feb. 1885. He was present at the memorial service in St. Paul's Cathedral on the day of mourning for Gordon's death (13 March 1885). He actively interested himself in the movement for commemorating Gordon's heroism. He attended the first meeting for the purpose at the Mansion House on 30 May 1885, and moved the first resolution. He summoned another meeting at Marlborough House on 12 Jan. 1886, when the scheme of the Gordon boys' memorial home (now at Chobham) was inaugurated. On 19 May 1890 he unveiled Gordon's statue at Chatham.

On 8 Feb. 1884 the government decided to appoint a commission on the housing of the working classes. The prince's friend Dilke, now president of the local government board, was made chairman, and the prince expressed a desire to serve. Gladstone at once acceded to his request. The matter was referred to the queen, who raised no objection (13 Feb.). The subject interested him deeply. As duke of Cornwall he was owner of many small houses in south London, and as the leases fell in he was proposing to retain the buildings in his own hands, with a view to converting them into better habitations. The change in tenure improved the profits of the estate as well as the character of the dwellings. On 22 Feb. 1884 Lord Salisbury moved an address to the crown for the appointment of the commission. The prince supported the motion, making on the occasion his first and only speech as a peer in the House of Lords. 'I take the keenest and liveliest interest in this great question,' he said. He was flattered at having been appointed a member of the commission. He had greatly improved the dwellings on his Sandringham estate; he had 'visited a few days ago two of the poorest courts in the district of St. Pancras and Holborn, and had found the conditions perfectly disgraceful.' He hoped measures of a drastic kind would follow the inquiry.

The commissioners formed an interesting but hardly homogeneous assembly. Cardinal Manning had accepted a seat, and difficulties arose as to his precedence. The prince's opinion was invited. He thought that Manning, being a cardinal, ranked as a foreign prince next to himself. Among the other members of the commission, the marquis of Salisbury held highest rank. The queen with certain qualifications took the prince's view, which was finally adopted, but not without some heart-burnings. The commissioners included, too, Henry Broadhurst, a labour member of parliament, and Mr. Joseph Arch, a leader of agricultural labourers. The prince attended the meetings with regularity, and abridged his holiday at Royat in May 1884 in order to be present at one of the early sittings. On 16 Nov. he entertained many of the members at Sandringham. With all his colleagues he established very cordial relations. With Mr. Arch, who lived in Warwickshire, at Barford cottage, he was especially friendly, and the liking for him never waned. When Mr. Arch sat in the House of Commons (1885-6, 1892-1900) for the division of North West Norfolk in which Sandringham stands, the prince greeted him as his own representative and visited him at his home in the summer of 1898.