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
- Made by
- St Stephen's Review (London satirical weekly); artist Tom Merry
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- Salisbury Government
- Leader
- Robert Gascoyne Cecil
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Empire and colonialism, Elections and party politics
- Techniques
- Fear appealScapegoating
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wellcome Collection (via Wikimedia Commons), 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
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.
