---
title: 'The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen''s Review Presentation Cartoon'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/
description: A colour lithograph shows an auctioneer labelled 'Gladstone & Co., Auctioneers' knocking down 'India' to a fur-coated Russian bidder while posters offer…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891.jpg)

# The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon

A colour lithograph shows an auctioneer labelled 'Gladstone & Co., Auctioneers' knocking down 'India' to a fur-coated Russian bidder while posters offer Gibraltar, Canada and Egypt 'for sale'. The imagined loss of the empire is the fear appeal, and the blame is placed wholly on one named political camp, the Radical programme, for a sale that has not happened.

- **Date:** October 31, 1891
- **Period:** [Pre-1914](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=pre-1914)
- **Made by:** St Stephen's Review (London satirical weekly); artist Tom Merry
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [United Kingdom](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-kingdom)
- **Medium:** [Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=cartoon)
- **Issuer type:** [Media](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=media)
- **Regime:** [Salisbury Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=salisbury-government)
- **Leader:** [Robert Gascoyne Cecil](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=robert-gascoyne-cecil)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Persuade or win support](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=persuade-support)
- **Themes:** [Empire and colonialism](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=empire-colonialism), [Elections and party politics](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=elections-party-politics)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wellcome Collection (via Wikimedia Commons)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_autioneer_selling_India_to_other_nations_Wellcome_V0050352.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (1891 lithograph); Wellcome Collection scan offered under CC BY 4.0 Tom Merry, St Stephen's Review, 31 October 1891; Wellcome Collection V0050352 (CC BY 4.0)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
St. Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon, October 31st, 1891.

[posters, upper left]
FOR SALE
GIBRALTAR
THE
FINEST
FORTRESS
IN THE
WORLD

FOR SALE
CANADA
COST
MILLIONS
ANY SACRIFICE [partly legible]

FOR SALE
EGYPT
MAGNIFIC[partly legible]
PROP[partly legible]

[document held by the auctioneer's clerk] INDIA

[placard on the desk]
TO BE SOLD
WITHOUT RESERVE
AT AN
ENORMOUS SACRIFICE
INDIA
SUITABLE FOR
A RUSSIAN
EMPEROR
IMMEDIATE POSSESSION
GLADSTONE & Co.
AUCTIONEERS.

[caption]
THE RADICAL PROGRAMME,
No. 4. DISMEMBERMENT OF THE EMPIRE.

[artist's signature, lower left] [illegible]
[printer's imprint, lower right, very small] [illegible]
```

Signature and imprint are too small to read. The Canada and Egypt posters are partly obscured by the figures in front of them; only the legible words are given. Commons identifies the artist as Tom Merry; that name is not read here from the signature.

[← 豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) [The Great Battle of Ansong Ford: The Valor of Captain Matsuzaki →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ansong-ford-toshikata-1894/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)
- [時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)
- ["Negro Rule" vampire cartoon with sworn affidavit](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/negro-rule-vampire-1900/) (Jul 4, 1900 · Accusation in a mirror, Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Racist "Negro Rule" caricature.