ENTERS THE CABINET
We come now to another memorable period in the life of William E.
Gladstone. This period, beginning with 1840, has been styled "a
memorable decade" in the history of Parliament. His marriage and the
publication of his first book were great events in his eventful life,
but the young and brilliant statesman was soon to enter the British
Cabinet. He was before long to demonstrate that he not only possessed
the arts of the fluent and vigorous Parliamentary debater, but the more
solid qualities pertaining to the practical statesman and financier. In
following his course we will be led to observe the early stages of his
changing opinions on great questions of State, and to trace the causes
which led to his present advanced views as well as to his exalted
position. The estimation in which he was then held may be indicated by
the following, from one of his contemporaries, Sir Stafford Northcote,
afterwards Lord Iddesleigh, and who subsequently succeeded him as
leader of the House of Commons: "There is but one statesman of the
present day in whom I feel entire confidence, and with whom I cordially
agree, and that statesman is Mr. Gladstone. I look upon him as the
representative of the party, scarcely developed as yet, though secretly
forming and strengthening, which will stand by all that is dear and
sacred in my estimation, in the struggle which I believe will come ere
_very_ long between good and evil, order and disorder, the Church and
the world, and I see a very small band collecting round him, and ready
to fight manfully under his leading."
In 1840 Mr. Gladstone crossed swords with the distinguished historian
and Parliamentary debater, Lord Macaulay, in debate in the House of
Commons on the relations of England with China. The speech of Mr.
Gladstone was remarkable for its eloquent expression of anxiety that the
arms of England should never be employed in unrighteous enterprises. Sir
James Graham moved a vote of censure of the ministry for "want of
foresight and precaution," and "especially their neglect to furnish the
superintendent at Canton with powers and instructions calculated to
provide against the growing evils connected with the contraband traffic
in opium, and adapted to the novel and difficult situation in which the
superintendent was placed." Mr. Gladstone, on the 8th of April, spoke
strongly in favor of the motion, and said if it failed to involve the
ministry in condemnation they would still be called upon to show cause
for their intention of making war upon China. Answering the speech of
Lord Macaulay of the previous evening, Mr. Gladstone said: "The right
honorable gentleman opposite spoke last night in eloquent terms of the
British flag waving in glory at Canton, and of the animating effects
produced on the minds of our sailors by the knowledge that in no country
under heaven was it permitted to be insulted. But how comes it to pass
that the sight of that flag always raises the spirit of Englishmen? It
is because it has always been associated with the cause of justice, with
opposition to oppression, with respect to national rights, with
honorable commercial enterprises; but now, under the auspices of the
noble lord, that flag is hoisted to protect an infamous contraband
traffic, and if it were never to be hoisted except as it is now hoisted
on the coast of China, we should recoil from its sight with horror, and
should never again feel our hearts thrill, as they now thrill with
emotion, when it floats proudly and magnificently on the breeze." The
ministry escaped censure when the vote was taken by a bare majority.
In the summer of 1840 Mr. Gladstone, accompanied by Lord Lyttleton, went
to Eton to examine candidates of the Newcastle Scholarship, founded by
his political friend, the Duke of Newcastle. Mr. Gladstone had the
pleasure in this examination of awarding the Newcastle medal to Henry
Fitzmaurice Hallam, the youngest brother of his own beloved friend and
son of the historian Hallam. One of the scholars he examined writes: "I
have a vivid and delightful impression of Mr. Gladstone sitting in what
was then called the library, on an _estrade_ on which the head master
habitually sate, above which was placed, about 1840, the bust of the
Duke of Newcastle and the names of the Newcastle scholars.... When he
gave me a Virgil and asked me to translate Georg. ii, 475, _seq_., I was
pleasantly surprised by the beautiful eye turning on me with the
question, 'What is the meaning of _sacra fero_?' and his look of
approval when I said, 'Carry the sacred vessels in the procession.'"
"I wish you to understand that Mr. Gladstone appeared not to me only,
but to others, as a gentleman wholly unlike other examiners or school
people. It was not as _a politician_ that we admired him, but as a
refined Churchman, deep also in political philosophy (so we conjectured
from his quoting Burke on the Continual State retaining its identity
though made up of passing individuals), deep also in lofty poetry, as we
guessed from his giving us, as a theme for original Latin verse, 'the
poet's eye in a fine frenzy,' etc. When he spoke to us in 'Pop' as an
honorary member, we were charmed and affected emotionally: his voice was
low and sweet, his manner was that of an elder cousin: he seemed to
treat us with unaffected respect; and to be treated with respect by a
man is the greatest delight for a boy. It was the golden time of
'retrograding transcendentalism,' as the hard-heads called the
Anglo-Catholic symphony. He seemed to me then an apostle of unworldly
ardor, bridling his life."
The Whig administration, which for some time had been growing very
unpopular, was defeated and went out of power in 1841. From the very
beginning of the session their overthrow was imminent. Among the causes
which rendered the ministry obnoxious to the country, and led to their
downfall, may be named the disappointment of both their dissenting
English supporters and Irish allies; their financial policy had proved a
complete failure and dissatisfied the nation; and the deficit in the
revenue this year amounted to no less a sum than two millions and a half
pounds. Every effort to remedy the financial difficulties offered by the
ministry to the House was rejected, Hence it was felt on all sides that
the government of the country must be committed to stronger hands.
Accordingly, in May, Sir Robert Peel proposed a resolution in the House
of Commons to the effect that the ministry did not possess sufficiently
the confidence of the House to carry through measures deemed essential
for the public welfare; and that their continuance in office was, under
the circumstances, at variance with the Constitution, For five days this
resolution was discussed, but Mr. Gladstone took no part in the debate.
The motion of Sir Robert Peel passed by a majority vote of one, and on
the 7th of June Lord John Russell announced that the ministry would at
once dissolve Parliament and appeal to the country. Parliament was
prorogued by the Queen in person June 22d, and the country was soon in
the turmoil of a general election. By the end of July it was found that
the ministry had been defeated and with greater loss than the Tories
even had expected. The Tories had a great majority of the new members
returned. The Liberal seats gained by the Tories were seventy-eight,
while the Tory seats gained by Liberals were only thirty-eight, thus
making a Tory majority of eighty. Mr. Gladstone was again elected at
Newark, and was at the head of the poll; with Lord John Manners,
afterwards Duke of Rutland, as his colleague.
The new Parliament met in August, and the ministers were defeated, in
both Houses, on the Address and resigned. Sir Robert Peel was called
upon by the Queen to form a new ministry, and Mr. Gladstone was
included by his leader in the administration. In appearing on the
hustings at Newark Mr. Gladstone said that there were two points upon
which the British farmer might rely--the first being that adequate
protection would be given him, and, second, that protection would be
given him through the means of the sliding scale. The duties were to be
reduced and the system improved, but the principle was to be maintained.
"There was no English statesman who could foresee at this period the
results of that extraordinary agitation which, in the course of the next
five years, was destined to secure the abrogation of the Corn Laws."
There is a tradition that, having already conceived a lively interest in
the ecclesiastical and agrarian problems of Ireland, Mr. Gladstone had
set his affections on the Chief Secretaryship. But Sir Robert Peel, a
consummate judge of administrative capacity, had discerned his young
friend's financial aptitude, and the member for Newark became
vice-president of the Board of Trade and master of the Mint.
Although in the midst of engrossing cares of office as vice-president of
the Board of Trade, yet Mr. Gladstone found time to renew his old
interest in ecclesiastical concerns. In the fall of 1841 an English
Episcopal Bishopric was established at Jerusalem, Mr. Gladstone dined
with Baron Bunsen on the birthday of the King of Prussia, when, as
reported by Lord Shaftesbury, he "stripped himself of a part of his
Puseyite garments, spoke like a pious man, rejoiced in the bishopric of
Jerusalem, and proposed the health of Alexander, the new Bishop of that
see. This is delightful, for he is a good man, a clever man and an
industrious man." And Baron Bunsen, speaking of the same occasion, said,
"Never was heard a more exquisite speech, It flowed like a gentle,
translucent stream. We drove back to town in the clearest starlight;
Gladstone continuing with unabated animation to pour forth his
harmonious thoughts in melodious tone." And Mr. Gladstone himself writes
later; "Amidst public business, quite sufficient for a man of my
compass, I have, during the whole of the week, perforce, been carrying
on with the Bishop of London and with Bunsen a correspondence on, and
inquisition into, the Jerusalem design, until I almost reel and stagger
under it."
And still later he writes: "I am ready individually to brave
misconstruction for the sake of union with any Christian men, provided
the terms of the union be not contrary to sound principle; and perhaps
in this respect might go further, at least in one of the possible
directions, than you. But to declare the living constitution of a
Christian Church to be of secondary moment is of course in my view
equivalent to a denial of a portion of the faith--and I think you will
say it is a construction which can not fairly be put upon the design,
as far as it exists in fixed rules and articles. It is one thing to
attribute this in the way of unfavorable surmise, or as an apprehension
of ultimate developments--it is another to publish it to the world as a
character ostentatiously assumed."
We have evidence also that at this time he was not permitted to forget
that he was an author, for he thus writes, April 6, 1842, to his
publisher: "Amidst the pressure of more urgent affairs, I have held no
consultation with you regarding my books and the sale or no sale of
them. As to the third edition of the 'State in its Relations,' I should
think that the remaining copies had better be got rid of in whatever
summary or ignominious mode you may deem best. They must be dead beyond
recall. As to the others, I do not know whether the season of the year
has at all revived the demand; and would suggest to you whether it would
be well to advertise them a little. I do not think they find their way
much into the second-hand shops. With regard to the fourth edition, I do
not know whether it would be well to procure any review or notice of it,
and I am not a fair judge of its merits, even in comparison with the
original form of the work; but my idea is that it is less defective,
both in the theoretical and in the historical development, and ought to
be worth the notice of those who deemed the earlier editions worth
their notice and purchase; that it would really put a reader in
possession of the view it was intended to convey, which I fear is more
than can with any truth be said of its predecessors. I am not, however,
in any state of anxiety or impatience; and I am chiefly moved to refer
these suggestions to your judgment from perceiving that the fourth
edition is as yet far from having cleared itself."
It was from this time that a marked change was observable in the
subjects of Mr. Gladstone's Parliamentary addresses. "Instead of
speaking on the corporate conscience of the State and the endowments of
the Church, the importance of Christian education and the theological
unfitness of the Jews to sit in Parliament, he was solving business-like
problems about foreign tariffs and the exportation of machinery; waxing
eloquent over the regulation of railways and a graduated tax on corn;
subtle on the momentary merits of half-farthings and great in the
mysterious lore of quassia and cocculus indicus."
In the short session of Parliament, in 1841, that which followed the
accession of Sir Robert Peel to the office of Prime Minister, he was
questioned by his opponents as to his future policy. The Premier
declined to state the nature of the measures he intended to present, or
which he contemplated making, in the intervening months of the recess
of Parliament so near at hand. He wanted time for the arrangement of his
plans and the construction of his political programme. An effort was
made to embarrass the administration by refusing to vote the necessary
supplies, until inquiry should be made into the existing distress, but
it was defeated. Three weeks later Parliament was dissolved by Royal
commission. In the following sitting of Parliament several measures of
high practical character were presented.
Sir Robert Peel acceded to office in very critical times. The condition
of the country was truly lamentable. Distress and discontent were
widespread and the difficulties of the government were greatly enhanced
by popular tumults. The Free Trade agitation was already making great
headway in the land, and when the Premier brought forward his new
sliding scale of duties in the House of Commons it was denounced by Mr.
Cobden as an insult to a suffering people. The Premier said that he
considered the present not an unfavorable time for discussing the corn
laws; that there was no great stock on hand of foreign growth to alarm
the farmers; that the recess had been marked by universal calm; that
there was no popular violence to interrupt legislation; and that there
was a disposition to view any proposal for the adjustment of the
question with calmness and moderation.
The Premier's view of the situation did not seem to be wholly in accord
with the well-known facts, for the Queen even, on her appearance at the
London theatres, had been hooted, and the Prime Minister himself was
burnt in effigy during a riot at Northampton; great excitement prevailed
throughout the country, and Lord John Russell moved as an amendment
"That this House, considering the evils which have been caused by the
present corn laws and especially by the fluctuation of the graduated or
sliding scale, is not prepared to adopt the measure of her Majesty's
government, which is founded on the same principles and is likely to be
attended by similar results."
It was incumbent upon Mr. Gladstone to lead the opposition to this
motion. He showed that the proposed plan was not founded on the same
principle of the existing one, except that both involved a sliding
scale; that the present distress was caused by fluctuation of the
seasons and not by the laws; that high prices of food were chargeable to
successive failures of the crops; that these unavoidable fluctuations
were not aggravated by the corn laws; that Sir Robert Peel's plan of
working was far superior to that of Lord John Russell; that the drains
upon the currency, caused by bad harvests, were not to be prevented by a
fixed duty; that a uniform protection could not be given to corn, as to
other articles, because at high prices of corn no duty could be
maintained, and that, therefore, at low prices, it was but just to give
a duty which would be an effectual protection. The debate which followed
was characterized by vigorous speeches from Mr. Roebuck and Lord
Palmerston. Lord John Russell's amendment was lost by a large majority.
A motion presented by Mr. Villiers, the Free Trade advocate, for the
immediate repeal of the corn laws was also lost by a majority of over
three hundred.
On the 11th of March Sir Robert Peel introduced his budget. The budget
for 1842 was produced under depressing circumstances. There was a
deficit of £2,750,000, or about $15,000,000, and taxation upon articles
of consumption had been pushed to its utmost limit. Peel was a great
financier, but the fiscal difficulties by which he was now surrounded
were enough to appall the most ingenious of financial ministers.
Mr. Gladstone rendered the Premier invaluable service in the preparation
both of his budget and of his tariff scheme. The merit of the budget was
its taxation of wealth and the relief of the manufacturing industry. The
second branch of the financial plan, the revised tariff--a customs
duties scheme--was very important, and it was understood to be mainly
the work of Mr. Gladstone. Out of nearly 1200 duty-paying articles, a
total abolition, or a considerable reduction, was made in no fewer than
750. This was certainly a great step towards the freedom of
manufacturers, Sir Robert Peel's boast that he had endeavored to relieve
manufacturing industries was more than justified by this great and
comprehensive measure. The very best means for relieving the
manufacturing industries had been devised.
But while this great relief to industry was welcomed the Opposition did
not relax their efforts for the abolition of the corn laws, which were
continued into the session of 1843. Sir Robert Peel acknowledged, amidst
loud cheers from the Opposition, that all were agreed in the general
rule that we should purchase in the cheapest market and sell in the
dearest; but he added, "If I propose a greater change in the corn laws
than that which I submit to the consideration of the House I should only
aggravate the distress of the country, and only increase the alarm which
prevails among important interests." Mr. Hume hailed with joy the
appearance of the Premier and his colleagues as converts to the
principles of Free Trade; Mr. Gladstone replied, that, whoever were the
authors of the principles on which the government measures rested, he
must protest against the statement that the ministry came forward as
converts to principles which they had formerly opposed.
During the progress of the debate of 1842, on the revised Tariff Bill,
Mr. Gladstone's labors were very great. He was called upon to explain or
defend the details of the scheme, and had something to say about every
article of consumption included in, or excluded from, the list. He spoke
one hundred and twenty-nine times, chiefly on themes connected with the
new fiscal legislature. He demonstrated his capacity for grasping all
the most complicated details of finance, and also the power of
comprehending the scope and necessities of the commercial interests of
the country. No measure with which his name has since been connected has
done him more credit. He spoke incessantly, and amazed the House by his
mastery of details, his intimate acquaintance with the commercial needs
of the country, and his inexhaustible power of exposition. On March 14th
Greville wrote, "Gladstone has already displayed a capacity which makes
his admission into the Cabinet indispensable." A commercial minister had
appeared on the scene, and the shade of Hoskisson had revived.
Though engrossed in schemes of practical legislation, and in all the
excitements and interests of office, he could, as he has ever done
during his long career, turn aside for the discourse on social and
educational questions with much earnestness and eloquence, as if they,
and only they, possessed his mind. In January, 1843, he spoke at the
opening of the Collegiate Institute of Liverpool, and delivered a
powerful plea for the better education of the middle classes, which was
one of the most forcible speeches he ever delivered. He said:
"We believe that if you could erect a system which should present to
mankind all branches of knowledge save the one that is essential, you
would only be building up a Tower of Babel, which, when you had
completed it, would be the more signal in its fall, and which would bury
those who had raised it in its ruins. We believe that if you can take a
human being in his youth, and if you can make him an accomplished man in
natural philosophy, in mathematics, or in the knowledge necessary for
the profession of a merchant, a lawyer, or a physician; that if in any
or all of these endowments you could form his mind--yes, if you could
endow him with the science and power of a Newton, and so send him
forth--and if you had concealed from him, or, rather, had not given him
a knowledge and love of the Christian faith--he would go forth into the
world, able indeed with reference to those purposes of science,
successful with the accumulation of wealth for the multiplication of
more, but 'poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked' with reference to
everything that constitutes the true and sovereign purposes of our
existence--nay, worse, worse--with respect to the sovereign purpose--
than if he had still remained in the ignorance which we all commiserate,
and which it is the object of this institution to assist in removing."
It was admitted on all hands that great fiscal reforms had been
conceived and executed; and speaking of the session of 1842, a writer,
not favorable to the Tories, wrote: "The nation saw and felt that its
business was understood and accomplished, and the House of Commons was
no longer like a sleeper under a nightmare. The long session was a busy
one. The Queen wore a cheerful air when she thanked Parliament for their
effectual labors. The Opposition was such as could no longer impede the
operations of the next session. The condition of the country was fearful
enough, but something was done for its future improvement, and the way
was now shown to be open for further beneficent legislation."
The corn law reformers renewed their efforts, led by Lord Howick, as
soon as the parliamentary session of 1843 opened. An inquiry by the
whole House was demanded into the causes of the long continued
manufacturing depression referred to in the Queen's speech. Mr.
Gladstone replied that while the Opposition proposed to repeal the corn
laws, they offered no measure of relief in their place. The corn laws
were at the root of the distress in the country, but the difficulty was
to unite the ranks of the Opposition in opinion as to what ought to
follow the repeal of the corn laws. The question between the government
and the Opposition was not really so great as the latter wished to make
out. It was simply as to the amount of relaxation the country could bear
in the duties. It was the intention of the First Lord of the Treasury to
attain his object "by increasing the employment of the people, by
cheapening the prices of the articles of consumption, as also the
articles of industry, by encouraging the means of exchange with foreign
nations, and thereby encouraging in return an extension of the export
trade; but besides all this, if he understood the measure of the
government last year, it was proposed that the relaxation should be
practically so limited as to cause no violent shock to existing
interests, such as would have the tendency of displacing that labor
which should be employed, and which, if displaced, would be unable to
find another field." The measure of the previous year had nothing but a
beneficial effect, but the repeal of the corn laws would displace a vast
mass of labor. Lord Howick's motion was defeated and so were others
offered by Mr. Villiers and Lord John Russell, by diminishing
majorities, and Mr. Gladstone protested against the constant renewal of
uneasiness in the country by successive motions of this kind in
Parliament.
The year 1843 was one destined to witness a great advance in Mr.
Gladstone's progress towards the front rank among statesmen. June 10th,
Lord Ripon, who was President of the Board of Trade, left this place for
the Board of Control, and Mr. Gladstone was appointed to the position,
and thus became a member of the Cabinet at the age of thirty-three Mr.
Gladstone now became in name what he had been already in fact--the
President of the Board of Trade. He states that "the very first opinion
which he was ever called upon to give in Cabinet" was an opinion in
favor of withdrawing the bill providing education for children in
factories; to which vehement opposition was offered by the Dissenters,
on the ground that it was too favorable to the Established Church. It
seemed that his position was assured and yet in October he wrote to a
friend: "Uneasy, in my opinion, must be the position of every member of
Parliament who thinks independently in these times, or in any that are
likely to succeed them; and in proportion as a man's course of thought
deviates from the ordinary lines his seat must less and less resemble a
bed of roses." Mr. Gladstone possibly felt when he penned these lines
that the time was at hand when his convictions would force him to take a
position that would array against him some of his most ardent friends.
During the session of 1844 Mr. Gladstone addressed the House on a
variety of subjects, including rail ways, the law of partnership, the
agricultural interest, the abolition of the corn laws, the Dissenters'
Chapel Bill and the sugar duties. One very valuable bill he had carried
was a measure for the abolition of restrictions on the exportation of
machinery. Another was the railway bill, to improve the railway system,
by which the Board of Trade had conditional power to purchase railways
which had not adopted a revised scale of tolls. The bill also
compulsorily provided for at least one third-class train per week-day
upon every line of railway, to charge but one penny a mile, regulated
the speed of traveling, compelled such trains to stop at every station,
and arranged for the carrying of children under three years of age for
nothing and those under twelve at reduced fares. This measure, conceived
so distinctly in the interests of the poorer classes, met with
considerable opposition at first from the various railway companies, but
it was ultimately passed into law. These were measures passed in the
spirit of reform, though by a Conservative government.
There was another matter legislated upon which shows how Mr. Gladstone's
mind was undergoing changes in the direction of religious toleration.
Lady Hewley had originally founded and given to Calvinistic Independents
certain charities which had gradually passed to Unitarians, who were
ousted from their benefits. A bill was proposed to vest property left to
Dissenting bodies in the hands of that religions body with whom it had
remained for the preceding twenty years. The measure was passed, but
when it was discussed in the House of Commons Mr. Gladstone said that it
was a bill which it was incumbent upon the House to endorse; that there
was no contrariety between his principles of religious belief and those
on which legislation in this case ought to proceed; that there was a
great question of justice, viz., whether those who were called
Presbyterian Dissenters, and who were a century and a half ago of
Trinitarian opinions, ought not to be protected at the present moment in
possession of the chapels which they held, with the appurtenances of
those chapels? On the question of substantial justice he pronounced the
strongest affirmative opinion. "After this speech there were those who
thought, and expressed their hope and belief in words, that the
'champion of Free Trade' would ere long become the advocate of the most
unrestricted liberty in matters of religion. Their hope, if sanguine as
to its immediate fulfillment, was far from groundless."
However, in December of the same year Mr. Gladstone wrote to his friend
Archdeacon, afterwards Bishop Wilberforce, about the prospects of the
Church of England: "I rejoice to see that your views on the whole are
hopeful. For my part I heartily go along with you. The fabric
consolidates itself more and more, even while the earthquake rocks it;
for, with a thousand drawbacks and deductions, love grows larger, zeal
warmer, truth firmer among us. It makes the mind sad to speculate upon
the question how much better all might have been; but our mourning
should be turned into joy and thankfulness when we think also how much
worse it _was_."
The next event in the life of Mr. Gladstone is marked by a momentous
change in his political position. Scarcely had Parliament met in
January, 1845, when it was announced to the astonishment of everyone
that Mr. Gladstone had resigned his place as President of the Board of
Trade in the Cabinet. He set a good deal of speculation at rest by the
announcement made in his speech on the address of the Queen, that his
resignation was due solely to the government intentions with regard to
Maynooth College. Before, however, he had resigned, Mr. Gladstone had
completed a second and revised tariff, carrying further the principles
of the revision of 1842.
In the session of 1844 Sir Robert Peel, in response to the requests of
Irish members, had promised that the Government would take up the
question of academical education in Ireland, with the view of bringing
it more nearly to the standard of England and Scotland, increasing its
amount and improving its quality. In fulfillment of this pledge the
government, at the beginning of the session of 1845, proposed to
establish non-sectarian colleges in Ireland, and to increase the
appropriation to Maynooth. The College of Maynooth, which was
established for the education of Roman Catholic priests and laymen, had
fallen into poverty and decay. In order to gratify the Irish, the
government offered to increase the grant already made from $45,000 to
$150,000 a year. This appropriation was not to be subject to any annual
vote, and the affairs of the College were to be executed by the Board of
Works. These proposals placed Mr. Gladstone in a position of great
difficulty. He must either support Sir Robert Peel's measure, or retire
from the Cabinet into isolation, if not subject to the imputation of
eccentricity. He took council with his friends, Archdeacon Manning and
Mr. Hope, who advised him to remain, and with Lord Stanley who warned
him that his resignation must be followed by resistance of the proposals
of the government, which would involve him in a storm of religious
agitation. But Mr. Gladstone persisted in his intention, in what seemed
like giving up his brilliant prospects, but said it would not
necessarily be followed by resistance to the proposal about Maynooth.
Mr. Gladstone said that the proposed increase in the Maynooth endowment
and the establishment of non-sectarian colleges were at variance with
views he had written and uttered upon the relations of the Church and
State. "I am sensible how fallible my judgment is," said Mr. Gladstone,
"and how easily I might have erred; but still it has been my conviction
that although I was not to fetter my judgment as a member of Parliament
by a reference to abstract theories, yet, on the other hand, it was
absolutely due to the public and due to myself that I should, so far as
in me lay, place myself in a position to form an opinion upon a matter
of so great importance, that should not only be actually free from all
bias or leaning with respect to any consideration whatsoever, but an
opinion that should be unsuspected. On that account I have taken a
course most painful to myself in respect to personal feelings, and have
separated myself from men with whom and under whom I have long acted in
public life, and of whom I am bound to say, although I have now no
longer the honor of serving my most gracious Sovereign, that I continue
to regard them with unaltered sentiments both of public regard and
private attachment."
Then again he said: "My whole purpose was to place myself in a position
in which I should be free to consider any course without being liable
to any just suspicion on the ground of personal interest. It is not
profane if I now say, '_with a great price obtained I this freedom_.'
The political association in which I stood was to me at the time the
_alpha_ and _omega_ of public life. The government of Sir Robert Peel
was believed to be of immovable strength. My place, as President of the
Board of Trade, was at the very kernel of its most interesting
operations; for it was in progress from year to year, with continually
waxing courage, towards the emancipation of industry, and therein
towards the accomplishment of another great and blessed work of public
justice. Giving up what I highly prized, aware that
male sarta
Gratia nequicquam coit, et rescinditur.
I felt myself open to the charge of being opinionated and wanting in
deference to really great authorities, and I could not but know that I
should inevitably be regarded as fastidious and fanciful, fitter for a
dreamer, or possibly a schoolman, than for the active purposes of public
life in a busy and moving age."
There were some of his party angry and others who thought that there was
something almost Quixotic in Mr. Gladstone's honorable resignation,
because so soon as he felt himself free he gave his support to the
Maynooth Bill and also to the scheme for the extension of academical
education in Ireland, which latter was described by Sir R. Inglis as a
"gigantic scheme of godless education." In Greville's "Memoirs" we find:
"Gladstone's explanation is ludicrous. Everybody said that he had only
succeeded in showing that his resignation was unnecessary. He was
criticised as the possessor of a kind of supernatural virtue that could
scarcely be popular with the slaves of party, and he was considered
whimsical, fantastic, impracticable, a man whose 'conscience was so
tender that he could not go straight,' a visionary not to be relied
on--in fact, a character and intellect useless to the political
manager." "I am greatly alarmed at Gladstone's resignation. I fear it
foretells measures opposed to the Church truth," wrote Wilberforce; and
Peel told Gladstone beforehand that his reasons for his resignation
would be considered insufficient. But Mr. Gladstone's resignation, when
understood, elicited the liveliest expressions of regret from friend and
foe, as well as the most flattering testimonies as to his ability and
character. His chief, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord John Russell, the leader
of the Opposition, were alike complimentary in their remarks.
Dr. Russell, the biographer of Mr. Gladstone, says: "Mr. Gladstone's
retirement, by impairing his reputation for common sense, threatened
serious and lasting injury to his political career, But the whirligig
of time brought its revenges even more swiftly than usual. A conjunction
of events arose in which he was destined to repair the mischief which
the speculative side had wrought; but for the moment the speculative
side was uppermost."
Mr. Gladstone was fast leaving his Toryism behind. To show how far his
views had changed in the course of seven years, it may be said that in
his speech on these measures he observed how that exclusive support to
the Established Church was a doctrine that was being more and more
abandoned. Mr. Burke considered it contrary to wise policy to give
exclusive privileges to a negative creed like that of Protestantism.
They could not prove their religious scruples for denying this grant to
Roman Catholics, because they gave their votes of money to almost every
Dissenting seat. He hoped the concession now made--which was a great and
liberal gift, because unrestricted and given in a spirit of
confidence--would not lead to the renewal of agitation in Ireland by Mr.
O'Connell. It might be well for him to reflect that agitation was a
two-edged sword. Being conformable to justice and not contrary to
principle, he hoped the measure proposed would pass into a law.
W.T. Stead, in a recent article, said, in relation to Mr. Gladstone's
retirement from the Cabinet, that "It is ridiculous to pretend, with
Mr. Gladstone's career before us, that his course has been swayed by
calculating self-interest. He has been the very madman of politics from
the point of view of Mr. Worldly Wiseman. 'No man,' said he, the other
day, 'has ever committed suicide so often as I,' and that witness is
true. The first and perhaps the most typical of all his many suicides
was his resignation of his seat in Sir Robert Peel's Cabinet, not
because he disapproved of the Maynooth Grant, but because, as he had at
one time written against it, he was determined that his advocacy of it
should be purged of the last taint of self-interest. As Mr. George
Russell rightly remarks, 'This was an act of Parliamentary Quixotism too
eccentric to be intelligible. It argued a fastidious sensitiveness of
conscience, and a nice sense of political propriety so opposed to the
sordid selfishness and unblushing tergiversation of the ordinary
place-hunter as to be almost offensive.' But as Mr. Gladstone was then,
so he has been all his life--the very Quixote of conscience. Judged by
every standard of human probability, he has ruined himself over and over
and over again. He is always ruining himself, and always rising, like
the Phoenix, in renewed youth from the ashes of his funeral pyre. As was
said in homely phrase some years ago, he 'always keeps bobbing up
again.' What is the secret of this wonderful capacity of revival? How
is it that Mr. Gladstone seems to find even his blunders help him, and
the affirmation of principles that seem to be destructive to all chance
of the success of his policy absolutely helps him to its realization?"
From a merely human standpoint it is inexplicable. But
'If right or wrong in this God's world of ours
Be leagued with higher powers,'
then the mystery is not so insolvable. He believed in the higher powers.
He never shrank from putting his faith to the test; and on the whole,
who can deny that for his country and for himself he has reason to
rejoice in the verification of his working hypothesis?
'We walk by faith and not by sight,' he said once; 'and by no one so
much as by those who are in politics is this necessary.' It is the
evidence of things not seen, the eternal principles, the great invisible
moral sanctions that men are wont to call the laws of God, which alone
supply a safe guide through this mortal wilderness.
'Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, look here!
See one straightforward conscience put in pawn
To win a world; see the obedient sphere
By bravery's simple gravitation drawn!
Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old,
And by the Present's lips repeated still?
In our own single manhood to be bold,
Fortressed in conscience and impregnable.'
"Mr. Gladstone has never hesitated to counter at sharp right angles the
passion and the fury of the day. Those who represent him as ever strong
upon the strong side, wilfully shut their eyes to half his history. He
challenged Lord Palmerston over the Don Pacifico question, and was
believed to have wrecked himself almost as completely as when in 1876 he
countered even more resolutely the fantastic Jingoism of Lord
Beaconsfield. It is easy for those who come after and enter into the
spoils gained by sacrifices of which they themselves were incapable to
describe the Bulgarian agitation as an astute party move. The party did
not think so. Its leaders did not think so. Some of those who now halloo
loud enough behind Mr. Gladstone were then bitter enough in their
complaint that he had wrecked his party. One at least, who was
constrained to say the other thing in public, made up for it by bitter
and contemptuous cavilings in private. Now it is easy to see that Lord
Beaconsfield was mistaken and that Mr. Gladstone held the winning card
all along. But no one knew it at the time when the card had to be
played, certainly not Mr. Gladstone himself. He simply saw his duty a
dead sure thing, and, like Jim Bludsoe on the burning boat, 'He went for
it there and then.' It turned up trumps, but no one knew how heavy were
the odds against it save those who went through the stress and the
strain of that testing and trying time by his side."
In the summer of 1845 Mr. Gladstone proposed to his intimate friend, Mr.
J.R. Hope, that they should spend the month of September in a working
tour in Ireland, giving evidence of his characteristic desire always to
come in personal contact with any question that he had to discuss. He
suggests "their eschewing all grandeur, and taking little account even
of scenery, compared with the purpose of looking, from close quarters,
at the institutions for religion and education of the country, and at
the character of the people. It seems ridiculous to talk of supplying
the defects of second-hand information by so short a trip; but although
a longer time would be much better, yet even a very contracted one does
much when it is added to an habitual, though indirect, knowledge." The
projected trip, however, had to be abandoned.
Towards the close of the year 1845 Mr. Gladstone issued a pamphlet
entitled "Remarks upon recent Commercial Legislation," in which he not
only discussed the salutary effects of the late commercial policy, but
used arguments clearly showing that he was advancing to the position of
a free-trader. His general conclusion was that English statesmen should
use every effort to disburden of all charges, so far as the law was
concerned, the materials of industry, and thus enable the workman to
approach his work at home on better terms, as the terms in which he
entered foreign markets were altered for the worse against him.
While Mr. Gladstone was so willing to deal generously more than ever
before with the Irish Roman Catholics, his confidence in the Established
Episcopal Church of Ireland was growing less. "I am sorry," he wrote to
Bishop Wilberforce, "to express my apprehension that the Irish Church is
not in a large sense efficient; the working results of the last ten
years have disappointed me. I may be answered, Have faith in the
ordinance of God; but then I must see the seal and signature, and these,
how can I separate from ecclesiastical descent? The title, in short, is
questioned, and vehemently, not only by the Radicalism of the day, but
by the Roman Bishops, who claim to hold succession of St. Patrick, and
this claim has been alive all along from the Reformation, so that lapse
of years does nothing against it."
The name of Dr. Döllinger, the distinguished reformed Roman Catholic,
has been mentioned already in connection with that of Mr. Gladstone. In
the fall of 1845 Mr. Gladstone went to Munich and paid his first visit
to Dr. Döllinger. For a week he remained in daily intercourse with this
eminent divine, and the foundation was laid of a friendship which was
sustained by repeated visits and correspondence, and which lasted until
the doctor's death in 1890.
In the winter of 1845 Mr. Gladstone met with a painful accident that
resulted in a permanent injury to his hand. He was by no means what is
termed a sportsman, yet he was somewhat fond of shooting. His gun was
prematurely discharged while he was loading it, and shattered the first
finger of his left hand, so that amputation was necessary.
[Illustration: Loyal Ulster]