A.D. 1884.]

INTEREST IN NAVAL AFFAIRS.

235

his colleagues; but when Parliament assembled on October 24, a modus vivendi had been arrived at. The Franchise Bill was introduced in the same form in which it left the House of Commons in summer, and a Redistribution Bill, based on a compromise arrived at between the Government and Opposition, and elaborated by consultations of the Cabinet at which Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote attended, was read a second time in the House of Commons. The Franchise Bill then passed through both Houses, and the discussion of the Redistribution Bill having been postponed till the following year, the House adjourned on December 5.

During these years of opposition, although Smith was no longer directly responsible for any part of the military or naval defences of the country, he was incessantly in communication, not only with officials in charge of our coast defences and naval arsenals, but with our admirals in foreign waters and with generals commanding British forces in Egypt. He took as much pains to ascertain the condition of our fortifications and the progress of work in the dockyards as if he had been an intelligence officer examining the armaments of an enemy. The correspondence on these subjects is exceedingly voluminous, and bearing as it does upon a state of things which alters every year, would not bear quotation now, except to show the extraordinary exertions which Smith, even while his party were in Opposition, made to assure himself that the public money was being profitably laid out. In acting thus, an ex-Minister might be suspected of a desire to obtain such information as might sustain an indictment of his adversary's administration; but no trace of such a motive can be found in Smith's speeches during the debates on naval affairs from 1880 to 1885. His criticism was firm and sometimes severe, but he always showed

an anxiety to assist rather than to thwart the Admiralty of the day.

Sometimes the information supplied on the same subject from different sources was a little perplexing. Two letters written by separate officials at Portsmouth on March 11, 1885, were hard to reconcile with each other :

DEAR MR SMITH,-Colossus is practically complete; the only work remaining to be done are the overhead runners for working the magazines. . It will only take us three or four weeks to fit them after delivery.

DEAR MR SMITH,-The answers to all your questions, I regret to say, are most unsatisfactory. Colossus is not ready for the pendant. Her loading gear is

not finished. I don't think it is taken in hand yet by Elswick. If all the mechanism for the four guns was actually in the yard, it would take at least two months to get them fitted on board ready for sea, and that with much pressure. Her magazines and shellrooms are not complete.

It was by this means that, while free from the cares of office, Smith kept himself in touch with the details of administration, and made himself ready to resume, should the occasion arise, the charge of one of the great departments of State.

Incessant work was, however, beginning to tell upon

him. He gave himself no rest, and although not yet threescore, an age at which, in some men, the physical powers give little warning of diminution, Smith's letters contain frequent reference to his failing strength. In reply to a letter from his sister, Miss Augusta Smith, on his birthday, he wrote:

June 24, 1884.

It is very pleasant to know that I have the warm affection and that I am in the minds of my sisters. But I am getting older, and I am also getting tired; but I have wonderful health considering the small amount of sleep I get. I am at work, with very little rest, all day, and my day begins at 9 or 10, and goes on until past 2 or 3 in the morning.

A.D. 1880.]

PURCHASE OF THE PANDORA.

Again on December 24, to the same :—

237

I wish to send you one word of Christmas greeting. As I get older, and I am sensible I am getting older, it is useful to take account of time, and compare season with season and year with year. I remember when we were children together, and how we talked in your bedroom over our projects and wishes. It seems a short time ago, but there have been great changes since then, and my children are now doing what we did together.

CHAPTER XVI.

1880-1885.

When Smith, having been re-elected in three successive Parliaments for Westminster, had been for twelve years its representative, and during six out of the twelve had been called on to discharge the functions of two laborious offices in addition to the ordinary work of a member, he found that each year had added to the weight of the task, and each year leisure to spend with his family had become less and less. He had, on going to the Treasury in 1874, resigned his seat on the London School Board, and on entering the Cabinet in 1877, he had retired from active partnership in the firm of W. H. Smith & Son, though still, and down to the close of his life, continuing to take a warm interest in all that concerned its welfare.

When in 1880 he found himself relieved alike from the strain of office and from constant attention to business, he turned for recreation to that pursuit in which so many men of English race find their delight-one, too, which his administration of naval affairs had made specially attractive to him. He bought the steam yacht Pandora, 500 tons, from Mr Penn, who had fitted her with powerful engines,

made under his own superintendence, and for four successive years she was commissioned for extended summer cruises.1 Those who were privileged to take part in these excursions invariably speak of them as delightful memories: some say that none saw Mr Smith at his best except when—procul negotiis he got beyond reach of mails, telegrams, and newspapers for days together.

In 1880 the cruise was in the Mediterranean. The Pandora was sent to Venice, where, on September 10, Mr Smith and his party joined her.

After visiting the ports of the Adriatic, hospitably entreated by officers of Austrian and Italian war-ships, and spending some time among the Ionian Islands, they arrived at the Piræus on October 13. Leaving on 18th, they steamed up the Saronic Gulf, spent a day at Corinth, after which they left for Nauplia. On 20th the yacht was headed north, and leaving Marathon on the left, passed up the enchanting channel between Euboea and the mainland, through the straits of Chalcis, and dropped her anchor off Salonica on 23d. Arriving on the 27th at Chanak, in the Dardanelles, the authorities, misled by the white ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron, took the Pandora for a man-ofwar, an impression which was confirmed when they found out that the owner was no less a personage than the late First Lord of the Admiralty. Everything, however, having been explained, the yacht steamed up to Constantinople, where she lay till November 9.

The following extracts are from a memorandum which was kept by Smith of his interviews with the Sultan :—

16th November 1880.-We dined with the Sultan last evening, in compliance with an invitation which his Majesty gave to Mr Goschen and to myself personally at the interview which he gave us on Monday the 7th, when he inquired particularly how many we were in family,

1 The Pandora had, previously to this, been well known as the Thistle, belonging to the Duke of Hamilton.

A.D. 1880.]

INTERVIEW WITH THE SULTAN.

239

and insisted on my wife and Emily and Helen coming with me to the dinner. Our dinner yesterday almost took the character of a State banquet. An A.D. C. came on board in the afternoon, begging me to come in uniform if I had brought one with me, but if not, in civil dress. The Ambassador, Mr Goschen, his private Secretary, and Mr Jervoise, the Secretary, were in uniform. Said, the Prime Minister, and the Foreign Minister, Musurus, and a number of other officials, were present. The Sultan was in uniform, as also were the two little Princes, and the party altogether must have numbered at least 30.

The Goschens, my wife and I, were received by the Sultan before dinner. The others assembled in a room, and went direct to their places at table, standing up to face the Sultan, when he walked in with Mrs Goschen on his arm. The Sultan's son and cousin came on board next day, and we showed them the ship. An hour later I went up to the Kiosk, and was at once shown in. Munier Bey was waiting to receive me, and he began the conversation by saying that his Majesty wished to confer a decoration upon me as a mark of his favour and an expression of the pleasure our visit had given him. I told him that I should be glad if his Majesty would allow me to decline the honour, as although was very sensible indeed of the kind and gracious feeling which suggested the proposal, his Majesty would see that it would be misunderstood in England, and that it would embarrass us in speaking as plainly as I should wish on my return of Turkish affairs. I added that I should be grateful to his Majesty if he would give me his photograph and his autograph, and that I desired nothing more.

Munier then began to speak of politics, and I said that my friends with whom I acted, and the Conservative party, were most desirous that Turkey should be maintained as a strong and well-governed country, and that public opinion in England would certainly come round to the side of Turkey if she carried out the engagements into which she had entered. . . . The Sultan received me standing and shook hands, and motioned me to seat before him on the other side of a table, Munier sitting next to me. The conversation began by inquiries on his part after my wife and my daughters and the usual compliments. The Sultan then said it gave him great pleasure to receive me, not only on my own account, but also because I was a member of a Government and of a party which had always been the friends of Turkey. He had seen with great regret that the language and the policy of Mr Gladstone had made public opinion in England turn against, Turkey, and he hoped that Mr Gladstone was now losing his influence in England, and that my friends would soon be in power again, for the good of England and of Turkey too. I said that the Tory party desired, as an article of their faith, the maintenance of the ancient Empires of Europe, and they wished to see Turkey prosperous, well-governed, and at peace. I said in England great importance was attached to the performance of the obligations of the treaties by which Turkey was bound, and if those treaties were carried out, public opinion in England would come round in favour of Turkey, and it would not be possible for Mr Gladstone to resist it. I said it was possible there had been some change in our favour lately, but the