Page:The Siege of London - Posteritas - 1885.djvu/25



HEN the new Government came into power, with Sir Stafford Northcote as Prime Minister, they found that they had to take up a tangle of ravelled skeins which their predecessors had dropped, and which were calculated to try and test the most able and astute of Governments. England's relations with some of the foreign powers were much strained, especially so with France and Germany. India was in a state of unrest; Egypt was in chaos; and affairs in South Africa had reached such a pitch, that immediate action was necessary, since English interests in, if not the actual possession of, the Cape of Good Hope were seriously imperilled.

At home there was no brighter outlook. Trade was everywhere languishing. In many parts of the country the most frightful distress prevailed. In the great shipping centres ships were rotting for the want of freight, and the shipbuilding yards on the Thames, the Clyde, and the Mersey were empty. Seldom, in fact, had a Government come into office with such a legion of troubles staring it in the face.

Not the least of the many grave questions that were well calculated to cause uneasiness was that of Ireland. Both parties saw with alarm that the new Reform Bill had given Ireland a dangerous power; for Mr. Parnell, the Irish agitator,—the "Uncrowned King," as he was ironically called,—had returned to St. Stephen's with a following of Home Rulers seventy strong. With such a voting force, it