It was said that by this treaty the British nation was about
blindly to throw herself into the arms of this constant and
uniform foe.... Did it not much rather, by opening new sources of
wealth, speak this forcible language—that the interval of peace,
as it would enrich the nation, would also prove the means of
enabling her to combat her enemy with more effect when the day of
hostility should come? It did more than this; by promoting habits
of friendly intercourse and of mutual benefit, while it
invigorated the resources of Britain, it made it less likely that
she should have occasion to call forth these resources.—PITT
(February 12, 1787).
I
As we survey the panorama of a great man’s life, conspicuous peaks of time
and act stand out to fix the eye, and in our statesman’s long career the
budget of 1860 with its spurs of appendant circumstance, is one of these
commanding points. In the letter to Acton already quoted (p. 1), Mr.
Gladstone says:—
Before parliament met in 1860, the ’situation’ was very greatly
_tightened_ and _enhanced_ by three circumstances. First, the
disaster in China.(11) Secondly, a visit of Mr. Cobden’s to
Hawarden, when he proposed to me in a garden stroll, the French
treaty, and I, for myself and my share, adopted it (nor have I
ever for a moment repented or had a doubt) as rapidly as the
tender of office two months before. Thirdly, and the gravest of
all, the Savoy affair. If, as is supposed, I have Quixotism in my
nature, I can assure you that I was at this juncture much more
than satiated, and could have wished with Penelope that the
whirlwind would take me up, and carry me to the shore of the great
stream of Ocean.(12) And the wish would in this point not have
been extravagant: the whirlwind was there ready to hand. In and
from the midst of it was born the budget of 1860.
The financial arrangements of 1859 were avowedly provisional and
temporary, and need not detain us. The only feature was a rise in the
income tax from fivepence to ninepence—its highest figure so far in a time
of peace. “My budget,” he wrote to Mrs. Gladstone (July 16), “is just
through the cabinet, very kindly and well received, no one making
objection but Lewis, who preached low doctrine. It confirms me in the
belief I have long had, that he was fitter for most other offices than for
that I now hold.” “_July 21 or rather 22, one A.M._—Just come back from a
long night and stiff contention at the House of Commons.... It has been
rather nice and close fighting. Disraeli made a popular motion to trip me
up, but had to withdraw it, at any rate for the time. This I can say, it
was not so that I used him. I am afraid that the truce between us is over,
and that we shall have to pitch in as before.”
The only important speech was one on Italy (August 8),(13) of which
Disraeli said that though they were always charmed by the speaker’s
eloquence, this was a burst of even unusual brilliance, and it gave
pleasure in all quarters. “Spoke for an _oretta_ [short hour],” says the
orator, “on Italian affairs; my best offhand speech.” “The fish dinner,”
Mr. Gladstone writes, “went off very well, and I think my proposing Lord
Palmerston’s health (without speech) was decidedly approved. I have had a
warm message from Lord Lansdowne about my speech; and Lord P. told me that
on Tuesday night as he went upstairs on getting home he heard Lady P.
spouting as she read by candle-light; it turned out to be the same
effusion.”
Another incident briefly related to Mrs. Gladstone brings us on to more
serious ground: “_Hawarden, Sept. 12._—Cobden came early. Nothing could be
better than the luncheon, but I am afraid the dinner will be rather strong
with local clergy. I have had a walk and long talk with Cobden who, I
think, pleases and is pleased.” This was the garden walk of which we have
just heard, where Cobden, the ardent hopeful sower, scattered the good
seed into rich ground. The idea of a commercial treaty with France was in
the air. Bright had opened it, Chevalier had followed it up, Persigny
agreed, Cobden made an opportunity, Gladstone seized it. Cobden’s first
suggestion had been that as he was about to spend a part of the winter in
Paris, he might perhaps be of use to Mr. Gladstone in the way of inquiry.
Conversation expanded this into something more definite and more
energetic. Why should he not, with the informal sanction of the British
government, put himself into communication with the Emperor and his
ministers, and work out with them the scheme of a treaty that should at
once open the way to a great fiscal reform in both countries, and in both
countries produce a solid and sterling pacification of feeling? Cobden saw
Palmerston and tried to see Lord John Russell, and though he hardly
received encouragement, at least he was not forbidden to proceed upon his
volunteered mission.(14) “Gladstone,” wrote Cobden to Mr. Bright, “is
really almost the only cabinet minister of five years’ standing who is not
afraid to let his heart guide his head a little at times.” The Emperor had
played with the idea of a more open trade for five or six years, and
Cobden, with his union of economic, moral, and social elements, and his
incomparable gifts of argumentative persuasion, was the very man to strike
Napoleon’s impressionable mind. Although, having alienated the clericals
by his Italian policy, the ruler of France might well have hesitated
before proceeding to alienate the protectionists also, he became a convert
and did not shrink.
Both Cobden and I, says Mr. Gladstone, were keenly in favour of
such a treaty (I myself certainly), without intending thereby to
signify the smallest disposition to the promotion of tariff
treaties in general. I had been an active party to the various
attempts under Sir Robert Peel’s government to conclude such
treaties, and was as far as possible removed from any disposition
to the renewal of labour which was in itself so profitless, and
which was dangerously near to a practical assertion of a false
principle, namely that the reductions of indirect taxation,
permitted by fiscal considerations, are in themselves injurious to
the country that makes them, and are only to be entertained when a
compensation can be had for them.(15) ... The correspondence which
would in the ordinary course have been exchanged between the
foreign offices of the two countries, was carried through in a
series of personal letters between Mr. Cobden and myself. I
remember indeed that the Emperor or his government were desirous
to conceal from their own foreign minister (Walewski) the fact
that such a measure was in contemplation. On our side, the method
pursued was only recommended by practical considerations. I
contemplated including the conditions of the French treaty in a
new and sweeping revision of the tariff, the particulars of which
it was of course important to keep from the public eye until they
were ready to be submitted to parliament.
At the end of 1859 the question of the treaty was brought into the
cabinet, and there met with no general opposition, though some objection
was taken by Lewis and Wood, based on the ground that they ought not to
commit themselves by treaty engagements to a sacrifice of revenue, until
they had before them the income and the charges of the year. Writing to
his wife about some invitation to a country house, Mr. Gladstone says
(Jan. 11, 1860):—
I cannot go without a clear sacrifice of public duty. For the
measure is of immense importance and of no less nicety, and here
it all depends on me. Lord John backs me most cordially and well,
but it is no small thing to get a cabinet to give up one and a
half or two millions of revenue at a time when all the public
passion is for enormous expenditure, and in a case beset with
great difficulties. In _fact_, a majority of the cabinet is
indifferent or averse, but they have behaved very well. I almost
always agree with Lewis on other matters, but in trade and finance
I do not find his opinions satisfactory. Till it is through, this
vital question will need my closest and most anxious attention.
[Two days later he writes:] The cabinet has been again on the
French treaty. There are four or five zealous, perhaps as many who
would rather be without it. It has required pressure, but we have
got sufficient power now, if the French will do what is
reasonable. Lord John has been excellent, Palmerston rather
neutral. It is really a great European operation. [A fortnight
later (_Jan. 28_):] A word to say I have opened the fundamental
parts of my budget in the cabinet, and that I could not have hoped
a better reception. Nothing decided, for I did not ask it, and
indeed the case was not complete, but there was no general
[resistance], no decided objection; the tone of questioning was
favourable, Granville and Argyll delighted, Newcastle, I think,
ditto. Thank God.
_To Cobden, Jan. 28._—Criticism is busy; but the only thing really
formidable is the unavowed but strong conflict with that
passionate expectation of war, which no more bears disappointment
than if it were hope or love. _Feb. 6._—Cobbett once compared an
insignificant public man in an important situation to the
linch-pin in the carriage, and my position recalls his very apt
figure to my mind.
Of course in his zeal for the treaty and its connection with tariff
reform, Mr. Gladstone believed that the operation would open a great
volume of trade and largely enrich the country. But in one sense this was
the least of it:—
I had a reason of a higher order. The French Emperor had launched
his project as to Savoy and Nice. It should have been plain to all
those who desired an united Italy, that such an Italy ought not to
draw Savoy in its wake; a country severed from it by the
mountains, by language, by climate, and I suppose by pursuits. But
it does not follow that Savoy should have been tacked on to
France, while for the annexation of Nice it was difficult to find
a word of apology. But it could scarcely be said to concern our
interests, while there was not the shadow of a case of honour. The
susceptibilities of England were, however, violently aroused. Even
Lord Russell used imprudent language in parliament about looking
for other allies. A French panic prevailed as strong as any of the
other panics that have done so much discredit to this country. For
this panic, the treaty of commerce with France was the only
sedative. It was in fact a counter-irritant; and it aroused the
sense of commercial interest to counteract the war passion. It was
and is my opinion, that the choice lay between the Cobden treaty
and not the certainty, but the high probability, of a war with
France. (_Undated memo._)
II
Out of the commercial treaty grew the whole of the great financial scheme
of 1860. By his first budget Mr. Gladstone had marked out this year for a
notable epoch in finance. Happily it found him at the exchequer. The
expiry of certain annuities payable to the public creditor removed a
charge of some two millions, and Mr. Gladstone was vehemently resolved
that this amount should not “pass into the great gulf of expenditure there
to be swallowed up.” If the year, in such circumstances, is to pass, he
said to Cobden, “without anything done for trade and the masses, it will
be a great discredit and a great calamity.” The alterations of duty
required for the French treaty were made possible by the lapse of the
annuities, and laid the foundation of a plan that averted the discredit
and calamity of doing nothing for trade, and nothing for the masses of the
population. France engaged to reduce duties and remove prohibitions on a
long list of articles of British production and export, iron the most
important,—“the daily bread of all industries,” as Cobden called it.
England engaged immediately to abolish all duties upon all manufactured
articles at her ports, and to reduce the duties on wine and brandy. The
English reductions and abolitions extended beyond France to the
commodities of all countries alike. Mr. Gladstone called 1860 the last of
the cardinal and organic years of emancipatory fiscal legislation; it
ended a series of which the four earlier terms had been reached in 1842,
in 1845, in 1846, and 1853. With the French treaty, he used to say, the
movement in favour of free trade reached its zenith.
(M8) The financial fabric that rose from the treaty was one of the boldest
of all his achievements, and the reader who seeks to take the measure of
Mr. Gladstone as financier, in comparison with any of his contemporaries
in the western world, will find in this fabric ample material.(16) Various
circumstances had led to an immense increase in national expenditure. The
structure of warships was revolutionised by the use of iron in place of
wood. It was a remarkable era in artillery, and guns were urgently
demanded of new type. In the far East a quarrel had broken out with the
Chinese. The threats of French officers after the plot of Orsini had bred
a sense of insecurity in our own borders. Thus more money than ever was
required; more than ever economy was both unpopular and difficult. The
annual estimates stood at seventy millions; when Mr. Gladstone framed his
famous budget seven years before, that charge stood at fifty-two millions.
If the sole object of a chancellor of the exchequer be to balance his
account, Mr. Gladstone might have contented himself with keeping the
income-tax and duties on tea and sugar as they were, meeting the
remissions needed by the French treaty out of the sum released by the
expiry of the long annuities. Or he might have reduced tea and sugar to a
peace rate, and raised the income-tax from ninepence to a shilling.
Instead of taking this easy course, Mr. Gladstone after having
relinquished upwards of a million for the sake of the French treaty, now
further relinquished nearly a million more for the sake of releasing 371
articles from duties of customs, and a third million in order to abolish
the vexatious excise duty upon the manufacture of paper. Nearly one
million of all this loss he recouped by the imposition of certain small
charges and minor taxes, and by one or two ingenious expedients of
collection and account, and the other two millions he made good out of the
lapsed annuities. Tea and sugar he left as they were, and the income-tax
he raised from ninepence to tenpence. Severe economists, not quite
unjustly, called these small charges a blot on his escutcheon. Time soon
wiped it off, for in fact they were a failure.
The removal of the excise duty upon paper proved to be the chief
stumbling-block, and ultimately it raised more excitement than any other
portion of the scheme. The fiscal project became by and by associated with
a constitutional struggle between Lords and Commons. In the Commons the
majority in favour of abolishing the duty sank from fifty-three to nine;
troubles with China caused a demand for new expenditure; the yield from
the paper duty was wanted; and the Lords finding in all this a plausible
starting-point for a stroke of party business, or for the assertion of the
principle that to reject a repealing money bill was not the same thing as
to meddle with a bill putting on a tax, threw it out. Then when the Lords
had rejected the bill, many who had been entirely cool about taking off
the ’taxes upon knowledge’—for this unfavourable name was given to the
paper duty by its foes—rose to exasperation at the thought of the peers
meddling with votes of money. All this we shall see as we proceed.
This was the broad outline of an operation that completed the great
process of reducing articles liable to customs duties from 1052, as they
stood in 1842 when Peel opened the attack upon them; from 466 as Mr.
Gladstone found them in 1853; and from 419 as he found them now, down to
48, at which he now left them.(17) Simplification had little further to
go. “Why did you not wait,” he was asked, “till the surplus came, which
notwithstanding all drawbacks you got in 1863, and then operate in a quiet
way, without disturbing anybody?”(18) His answer was that the surplus
would not have come at all, because it was created by his legislation.
“The principle adopted,” he said, “was this. We are now (1860) on a high
table-land of expenditure. This being so, it is not as if we were merely
meeting an occasional and momentary charge. We must consider how best to
keep ourselves going during a _period_ of high charge. In order to do
that, we will aggravate a momentary deficiency that we may thereby make a
_great and permanent addition to productive power_.” This was his
ceaseless refrain—the steadfast pursuit of the durable enlargement of
productive power as the commanding aim of high finance.
III
At the beginning of the year the public expectation was fixed upon Lord
John Russell as the protagonist in the approaching battle of parliamentary
reform, and the eager partizans at the Carlton Club were confident that on
reform they would pull down the ministry. The partizans of another sort
assure us that “the whole character of the session was changed by Mr.
Gladstone’s invincible resolution to come forward in spite of his friends,
and in defiance of his foes, for his own _aristeia_ or innings.” The
explanation is not good-natured, and we know that it is not true; but what
is true is that when February opened, the interest of the country had
become centred at its highest pitch in the budget and the commercial
treaty. As the day for lifting the veil was close at hand, Mr. Gladstone
fell ill, and here again political benevolence surmised that his disorder
was diplomatic. An entry or two from Phillimore’s journal will bring him
before us as he was:—
_Jan. 29._—Gladstone’s emaciation in the past fortnight alarms me,
as it has, I find, many other persons. _Feb. 5._—Gladstone
seriously ill; all the afternoon in Downing Street; a slight
congestion of the lungs. Great treaty and financial speech put off
till Thursday. Was to have been to-morrow. Gladstone wished to see
me, but I would only stay a minute by his bedside. He looked very
pale. He must not speak for ten days, or Ferguson (his doctor)
said, he will meet Canning’s fate. _Feb. 6._—With Gladstone in the
evening. He is still in bed, but visibly better. _Feb. 7._—With
Gladstone a long time in the morning. Found him much better though
still in bed. Annoyed at the publication of the new treaty with
France in the Belgian papers, it being part of the scheme of his
finance measure. _Feb. 8._—Gladstone drove out to-day; bent on
speaking the day after to-morrow. Ferguson allows him. I again
protested. _Feb. 9._—Saw Gladstone; he is better. But I am
frightened at the proposed exertion of Friday. _Feb. 10._—Saw
Gladstone in the morning, radiant with expected success, and again
at night at 10 o’clock in Downing Street still more radiant with
triumph. Spoke for three hours and fifty minutes without
suffering. Thinks that the House will accept all that is material
in his finance scheme. _Feb. 13._—Dined with Gladstone; ordered
not to leave the house this week. _Feb. 25._—Called on the
Gladstones at breakfast time. Found them both exceedingly happy at
the immense majority of 116 which affirmed last night the
principle of his grand budget.(19) His hard dry cough distresses
me. Gladstone thinks he has done what Pitt would have done but for
the French Revolution. With characteristic modesty he said, “I am
a dwarf on the shoulders of a giant.”
Mr. Gladstone’s own entries are these:—
_Feb. 10, ’60._—Spoke 5-9 without great exhaustion; aided by a
great stock of egg and wine. Thank God! Home at 11. This was the
most arduous operation I have ever had in parliament. _March
9._—Spoke on various matters in the Treaty debate; voted in
282:56; a most prosperous ending to a great transaction in which I
heartily thank God for having given me a share. _March 23._—A long
day of 16-½ hours’ work.
Of the speech in which the budget was presented everybody agreed that it
was one of the most extraordinary triumphs ever witnessed in the House of
Commons. The casual delay of a week had raised expectation still higher;
hints dropped by friends in the secret had added to the general
excitement; and as was truly said by contemporaries, suspense that would
have been fatal to mediocrity actually served Mr. Gladstone. Even the
censorious critics of the leading journal found in the largeness and
variety of the scheme its greatest recommendation, as suggesting an accord
between the occasion, the man, and the measure, so marvellous that it
would be a waste of all three not to accept them. Among other hearers was
Lord Brougham, who for the first time since he had quitted the scene of
his triumphs a generation before, came to the House of Commons, and for
four hours listened intently to the orator who had now acquired the
supremacy that was once his own. “The speech,” said Bulwer, “will remain
among the monuments of English eloquence as long as the language lasts.”
Napoleon begged Lord Cowley to convey his thanks to Mr. Gladstone for the
copy of his budget speech he had sent him, which he said he would preserve
“as a precious souvenir of a man who has my thorough esteem, and whose
eloquence is of a lofty character commensurate with the grandeur of his
views.” Prince Albert wrote to Stockmar (March 17), “Gladstone is now the
real leader of the House, and works with an energy and vigour almost
incredible.”(20)
Almost every section of the trading and political community looked with
favour upon the budget as a whole, though it was true that each section
touched by it found fault with its own part. Mr. Gladstone said that they
were without exception free traders, but not free traders without
exception. The magnitude and comprehensiveness of the enterprise seized
the imagination of the country. At the same time it multiplied sullen or
uneasy interests. The scheme was no sooner launched, than the chancellor
of the exchequer was overwhelmed by deputations. Within a couple of days
he was besieged by delegates from the paper makers; distillers came down
upon him; merchants interested in the bonding system, wholesale
stationers, linen manufacturers, maltsters, licensed victuallers, all in
turn thronged his ante-room. He was now, says Greville (Feb. 15), “_the_
great man of the day!” The reduction of duties on currants created lively
excitement in Greece, and Mr. Gladstone was told that if he were to appear
there he could divide honours with Bacchus and Triptolemus, the latest
benefactors of that neighbourhood.
(M9) Political onlookers with whom the wish was not alien to their
thought, soon perceived that in spite of admiration for splendid eloquence
and incomparable dexterity, it would not be all sunshine and plain
sailing. At a very early moment the great editor of the _Times_ went about
saying that Gladstone would find it hard work to get his budget through;
if Peel with a majority of ninety needed it all to carry his budget, what
would happen to a government that could but command a majority of
nine?(21) Both the commercial treaty and the finance speedily proved to
have many enemies. Before the end of March Phillimore met a parliamentary
friend who like everybody else talked of Gladstone, and confirmed the
apprehension that the whigs obeyed and trembled and were frightened to
death. “We don’t know where he is leading us,” said Hayter, who had been
whipper-in. On the last day of the month Phillimore enters: “_March
30._—Gladstone has taken his name off the Carlton, which I regret. It is a
marked and significant act of entire separation from the _whole_ party and
will strengthen Disraeli’s hands. The whigs hate Gladstone. The moderate
conservatives and the radicals incline to him. The old tories hate him.”
For reasons not easy to trace, a general atmosphere of doubt and
unpopularity seemed suddenly to surround his name.
The fortunes of the budget have been succinctly described by its author:—
They were chequered, and they were peculiar in this, that the
first blow struck was delivered by one of the best among its
friends. Lord John Russell, keenly alive to the discredit of any
tampering as in former years with the question of the franchise,
insisted on introducing his Reform bill on March 1, when the
treaty and the financial proposals of the year, numerous and
complex as they were, had not proceeded beyond their early stages.
This was in flat violation of a rule of Lord Bacon’s, even more
weighty now than in his time, which Sir James Graham was fond of
quoting: “Never overlap business.” The enemies of the treaty were
thus invited to obstruct it through prolonged debating on reform,
and the enemies of reform to discharge a corresponding office by
prolonged debating on the finance. A large majority of the House
were in disguised hostility to the extension of the franchise. The
discussions on it were at once protracted, intermittent, and
languid. No division was taken against it. It was defeated by the
pure _vis inertiæ_ of the House skilfully applied: and it was
withdrawn on June 11. But it had done its work, by delaying the
_tail_ of the financial measures until a time when the marriage
effected by the treaty between England and France had outlived its
parliamentary honeymoon. There had intervened the Savoy and Nice
explosion; settlement with China was uncertain; the prospects of
the harvest were bad; French invasion was apprehended by many men
usually rational. The Paper Duty bill, which would have passed the
Commons by a large majority in the beginning of March, only
escaped defeat on May 8 by a majority of nine.(22)
When Lord John had asked the cabinet to stop the budget in order to fix a
day for his second reading, Mr. Gladstone enters in an autobiographic
memorandum of his latest years(23):—
I said to him, “Lord John, I will go down on my knees to you, to
entreat you not to press that request.” But he persevered; and
this although he was both a loyal colleague and a sincere friend
to the budget and to the French treaty. When reform was at last
got rid of, in order to prosecute finance we had much to do, and
in the midst of it there came upon us the news of hostilities in
China, which demanded at once an increase of outlay ... sufficient
to destroy my accruing balance, and thus to disorganise the
finance of the year. The opposition to the Paper bill now assumed
most formidable dimensions.... During a long course of years there
had grown up in the House of Commons a practice of finally
disposing of the several parts of the budget each by itself. And
the House of Lords had shown so much self-control in confining
itself to criticism on matters of finance, that the freedom of the
House of Commons was in no degree impaired. But there was the
opportunity of mischief; and round the carcass the vultures now
gathered in overwhelming force. It at once became clear that the
Lords would avail themselves of the opportunity afforded them by
the single presentation of financial bills, and would prolong, and
virtually re-enact a tax, which the representatives of the people
had repealed.
On May 5 the diary reports: “Cabinet. Lord Palmerston spoke 3/4 hour
against Paper Duties bill! I had to reply. Cabinet against him, except a
few, Wood and Cardwell in particular. Three wild schemes of foreign
alliance are afloat! Our old men (2) are unhappily our youngest.”
Palmerston not only spoke against the bill, as he had a right in cabinet
to do, but actually wrote to the Queen that he was bound in duty to say
that if the Lords threw out the bill—the bill of his own cabinet—“they
would perform a good public service.”(24)
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Phillimore’s notes show that the intense strain was telling on his hero’s
physical condition, though it only worked his resolution to a more
undaunted pitch:—
_May 9._—Found Gladstone in good spirits in spite of the narrow
majority on the paper duty last night, but ill with a cough. _May
15._—The whigs out of office, and perhaps in, abusing Gladstone
and lauding G. Lewis. I had much conversation with Walpole. Told
me he, Henley, and those who went with them would have followed
Gladstone if he had not joined this government, but added he was
justified in doing so. _May 18._—Gladstone is _ill_; vexed and
_indignant_ at the possible and probable conduct of the peers on
Monday. Nothing will prevent him from denouncing them in the
Commons, if they throw out the paper bill, as having violated in
substance and practically the constitution. Meanwhile his
unpopularity flows on.
IV
The rejection of the bill affecting the paper duty by the Lords was
followed by proceedings set out by Mr. Gladstone in one of his political
memoranda, dated May 26, 1860:—
Though I seldom have time to note the hairbreadth ’scapes of which
so many occur in these strange times and with our strangely
constructed cabinet, yet I must put down a few words with respect
to the great question now depending between the Lords and the
English nation. On Sunday, when it was well known that the Paper
Duties bill would be rejected, I received from Lord John Russell a
letter which enclosed one to him from Lord Palmerston. Lord
Palmerston’s came in sum to this: that the vote of the Lords would
not be a party vote, that as to the _thing done_ it was right,
that we could not help ourselves, that we should simply acquiesce,
and no minister ought to resign. Lord John in his reply to this,
stated that he took a much more serious view of the question and
gave reasons. Then he went on to say that though he did not agree
in the grounds stated by Lord Palmerston, he would endeavour to
arrive at the same conclusion. His letter accordingly ended with
practical acquiescence. And he stated to me his concurrence in
Lord Palmerston’s closing proposition.
Thereupon I wrote an immediate reply. We met in cabinet to
consider the case. Lord Palmerston started on the line he had
marked out. I think he proposed to use some meaningless words in
the House of Commons as to the value we set on our privileges, and
our determination to defend them if attacked, by way of garniture
to the act of their abandonment. Upon this I stated my opinions,
coming to the point that this proceeding of the House of Lords
amounted to the establishment of a revising power over the House
of Commons in its most vital function long declared exclusively
its own, and to a divided responsibility in fixing the revenue and
charge of the country for the year; besides aggravating
circumstances upon which it was needless to dwell. In this
proceeding nothing would induce me to acquiesce, though I
earnestly desired that the mildest means of correction should be
adopted. This was strongly backed in principle by Lord John; who
thought that as public affairs would not admit of our at once
confining ourselves to this subject, we should take it up the
first thing next session, and send up a new bill. Practical, as
well as other, objections were taken to this mode of proceeding,
and opposition was continued on the merits; Lord Palmerston keen
and persevering. He was supported by the Chancellor, Wood,
Granville (in substance), Lewis, and Cardwell, who thought nothing
could be done, but were ready to join in resigning if thought fit.
Lord John, Gibson, and I were for decided action. Argyll leaned
the same way. Newcastle was for inquiry to end in a declaratory
resolution. Villiers thought some step necessary. Grey argued
mildly, inclined I think to inaction. Herbert advised resignation,
opposed any other course. Somerset was silent, which I conceive
meant inaction. At last Palmerston gave in, and adopted with but
middling grace the proposition to set out with inquiries, and with
the intention to make as little of the matter as he could.
His language in giving notice, on Tuesday, of the committee went
near the verge of saying, We mean nothing. An unsatisfactory
impression was left on the House. Not a syllable was said in
recognition of the gravity of the occasion. Lord John had
unfortunately gone away to the foreign office. I thought I should
do mischief at that stage by appearing to catch at a part in the
transaction. Yesterday all was changed by the dignified
declaration of Lord John. I suggested to him that he should get
up, and Lord Palmerston, who had intended to keep the matter in
his own hands, gave way. But Lord Palmerston was uneasy and said,
“You won’t pitch it into the Lords,” and other things of the same
kind. On the whole, I hope that in this grave matter at least we
have turned the corner.
As we know, even the fighting party in the cabinet was forced to content
itself for the moment with three protesting resolutions. Lord Palmerston
and his chancellor of the exchequer both spoke in parliament. “The tone of
the two remonstrances,” says Mr. Gladstone euphemistically, “could not be
in exact accord; but by careful steering on my part, and I presume on his,
all occasion of scandal was avoided.” Not altogether, perhaps. Phillimore
says:—
_July 6._—A strange and memorable debate. Palmerston moving
resolution condemnatory of the Lords, and yet speaking in defence
of their conduct. Gladstone most earnestly and eloquently
condemning them, and declaring that action and not resolutions
became the House of Commons, and that though he agreed to the
language and spirit of the resolutions, if action were proposed he
would support the proposal, and taunted the conservatives with
silently abetting “a gigantic innovation on the constitution.”
Loudly and tempestuously cheered by the radicals, and no one else.
Yet he was the true conservative at this moment. But ought he to
have spoken this as chancellor of the exchequer, and from the
treasury bench, after the first lord of the treasury had spoken in
almost totally opposite sense? The answer may be that it was a
House of Commons, and not a government question. I fear he is very
unwell, and I greatly fear killing himself. 17.—“I have lived,” he
said, speaking of the debate on the Lords and the paper duty, “to
hear a radical read a long passage from Mr. Burke amid the jeers
and scoffs of the so-called conservatives.”
The struggle still went on:—
_July 20._—H. of C. Lost my Savings Bank Monies bill; my _first_
defeat in a measure of finance in the H. of C. This ought to be
very good for me; and I earnestly wish to make it so.
_Aug. 6._—H. of C. Spoke 1-½ hour on the Paper duty; a favourable
House. Voted in 266-233. A most kind and indeed notable reception
afterwards.
_Aug. 7._—This was a day of congratulations from many kind M.P.’s.
The occasion of the notable reception was the moving of his resolutions
reducing the customs duty on imported paper to the level of the excise
duty. This proceeding was made necessary by the treaty, and was taken to
be, as Mr. Gladstone intended that it should be, a clear indication of
further determination to abolish customs duty and excise duty alike. The
first resolution was carried by 33, and when he rose to move the second
the cheering from the liberal benches kept him standing for four or five
minutes—cheering intended to be heard the whole length of the corridor
that led to another place.(25)
(M10) The great result, as Greville says in a sentence that always amused
the chief person concerned, is “to give some life to half-dead,
broken-down, and tempest-tossed Gladstone.” In this rather tame fashion
the battle ended for the session, but the blaze in the bosom of the
chancellor of the exchequer was inextinguishable, as the Lords in good
time found out. Their rejection of the Paper Duties bill must have had no
inconsiderable share in propelling him along the paths of liberalism. The
same proceeding helped to make him more than ever the centre of popular
hopes. He had taken the unpopular side in resisting the inquiry into the
miscarriages of the Crimea, in pressing peace with Russia, in opposing the
panic on papal aggression, on the bill for divorce, and on the bill
against church rates; and he represented with fidelity the constituency
that was least of all in England in accord with the prepossessions of
democracy. Yet this made no difference when the time came to seek a
leader. “There is not,” Mr. Bright said, in the course of this quarrel
with the Lords, “a man who labours and sweats for his daily bread, there
is not a woman living in a cottage who strives to make her home happy for
husband and children, to whom the words of the chancellor of the exchequer
have not brought hope, and to whom his measures, which have been defended
with an eloquence few can equal and with a logic none can contest, have
not administered consolation.”
At the end of the session Phillimore reports:—
_Aug. 12._—Gladstone is physically weak, requires rest, air, and
generous living. He discoursed without the smallest reserve upon
political affairs, the feebleness of the government, mainly
attributable to the absence of any effective head; Palmerston’s
weakness in the cabinet, and his low standard for all public
conduct. He said in Peel’s cabinet, a cabinet minister if he had a
measure to bring forward consulted Peel and then the cabinet.
Nobody thought of consulting Palmerston first, but brought his
measure at once to the cabinet. Gladstone said his work in the
cabinet had been so constant and severe that his work in the House
of Commons was refreshing by comparison. I never heard him speak
so strongly of the timidity and vacillation of his comrades. The
last victory, which alone preserved the government from dropping
to pieces, was won in spite of them.
V
In a contemporary memorandum (May 30, 1860) on the opinions of the cabinet
at this date Mr. Gladstone sets out the principal trains of business with
which he and his colleagues were called upon to deal. It is a lively
picture of the vast and diverse interests of a minister disposed to take
his cabinet duties seriously. It is, too, a curious chart of the currents
and cross-currents of the time. Here are the seven heads as he sets them
down:—
(1) The Italian question—Austrian or anti-Austrian; (2) Foreign
policy in general—leaning towards calm and peace, or brusqueness
and war; (3) Defences and expenditure—alarm and money charges on
the one side, modest and timid retrenchment with confidence in our
position on the other; (4) Finance, as adapted to the one or the
other of these groups of ideas and feelings respectively; (5)
Reform—ultra-conservative on the one side, on the other, no fear
of the working class and the belief that something _real_ though
limited, should be done towards their enfranchisement; (6) Church
matters may perhaps be also mentioned, though there has been no
collision in regard to them, whatever difference there may be—they
have indeed held a very secondary place amidst the rude and
constant shocks of the last twelve months; (7) Lastly, the _coup
d’état_ on the paper duties draws a new line of division.
(M11) “In the many passages of argument and opinion,” Mr. Gladstone adds,
“the only person from whom I have never to my recollection differed on a
serious matter during this anxious twelvemonth is Milner Gibson.” The
reader will find elsewhere the enumeration of the various parts in this
complex dramatic piece.(26) Some of the most Italian members of the
cabinet were also the most combative in foreign policy, the most martial
in respect of defence, the most stationary in finance. In the matter of
reform, some who were liberal as to the franchise were conservative as to
redistribution. In matters ecclesiastical, those who like Mr. Gladstone
were most liberal elsewhere, were (with sympathy from Argyll) “most
conservative and church-like.”
On the paper duties there are, I think, only three members of the
cabinet who have a strong feeling of the need of a remedy for the
late aggression—Lord John Russell, Gibson, W. E. G.—and Lord John
Russell leans so much upon Palmerston in regard to foreign affairs
that he is weaker in other subjects when opposed to him, than
might be desired. With us in feeling are, more or less, Newcastle,
Argyll, Villiers. On the other side, and pretty decidedly—first
and foremost, Lord Palmerston; after him, the Chancellor,
Granville, Lewis, Wood, Cardwell, Herbert. It is easy to judge
what an odd shifting of parts takes place in our discussions. We
are not Mr. Burke’s famous mosaic, but we are a mosaic in
solution, that is to say, a kaleidoscope.(27) When the instrument
turns, the separate pieces readjust themselves, and all come out
in perfectly novel combinations. Such a cabinet ought not to be
acephalous.
Before he had been a year and a half in office, Mr. Gladstone wrote to
Graham (Nov. 27, ’60): “We live in anti-reforming times. All improvements
have to be urged in apologetic, almost in supplicatory tones. I sometimes
reflect how much less liberal as to domestic policy in any true sense of
the word, is this government than was Sir Robert Peel’s; and how much the
tone of ultra-toryism prevails among a large portion of the liberal
party.” “I speak a literal truth,” he wrote to Cobden, “when I say that in
these days it is more difficult to save a shilling than to spend a
million.” “The men,” he said, “who ought to have been breasting and
stemming the tide have become captains general of the alarmists,” and he
deplored Cobden’s refusal of office when the Palmerston government was
formed. All this only provoked him to more relentless energy. Well might
Prince Albert call it incredible.
VI
After the “gigantic innovation” perpetrated by the Lords, Mr. Gladstone
read to the cabinet (June 30, 1860) an elaborate memorandum on the paper
duty and the taxing powers of the two Houses. He dealt fully alike with
the fiscal and the constitutional aspects of a situation from which he was
“certain that nothing could extricate them with credit, except the united,
determined, and even authoritative action of the government.” He wound up
with a broad declaration that, to any who knew his tenacity of purpose
when once roused, made it certain that he would never acquiesce in the
pretensions of the other House. The fiscal consideration, he concluded,
“is nothing compared with the vital importance of maintaining the
exclusive rights of the House of Commons in matter of supply. There is
hardly any conceivable interference of the Lords hereafter, except sending
down a tax imposed by themselves, which would not be covered by this
precedent. It may be said they are wise and will not do it. Assuming that
they will be wise, yet I for one am not willing that the House of Commons
should hold on sufferance in the nineteenth century what it won in the
seventeenth and confirmed and enlarged in the eighteenth.”
The intervening months did not relax this valiant and patriotic
resolution. He wrote down a short version of the story in the last year of
his life:—
The hostilities in China reached a rather early termination, and
in the early part of the session of 1861 it appeared almost
certain that there would be a surplus for 1861-2 such as I thought
would make it possible again to operate on the paper duties.
Unfortunately, the income tax was at so high a rate that we could
not reasonably hope to carry paper duty repeal without taking a
penny off the tax. The double plan strained the probable means
afforded by the budget. In this dilemma I received most valuable
aid from the shrewd ingenuity of Milner Gibson, who said: Why not
fix the repeal of the paper duty at a later date than had been
intended, say on the 10th of October, which will reduce the loss
for the year? I gladly adopted the proposition, and proposed a
budget reducing the income tax by one penny, and repealing the
paper duties from October 10, 1861. With this was combined what
was more essential than either—the adoption of a new practice with
respect to finance, which would combine all the financial measures
of the year in a single bill. We had separate discussions in the
cabinet on the constitutional proposal [the single bill]. It was
not extensively resisted there, though quietly a good deal
misliked. I rather think the chancellor, Campbell, took strong
objection to it; and I well remember that the Duke of Newcastle
gave valuable and telling aid. So it was adopted. The budget was
the subject of a fierce discussion, in which Lord Palmerston
appeared to me to lose his temper for the first and only time. The
plan, however, to my great delight, was adopted. It was followed
by a strange and painful incident. I received with astonishment
from Lord Palmerston, immediately after the adoption of the
budget, a distinct notice that he should not consider it a cabinet
question in the House of Commons, where it was known that the
opposition and the paper makers would use every effort to destroy
the plan. I wrote an uncontroversial reply (with some
self-repression) and showed it to Granville, who warmly approved,
and was silent on the letter of Lord Palmerston. The battle in
parliament was hard, but was as nothing to the internal fighting;
and we won it. We likewise succeeded in the plan of uniting the
financial proposals in one bill. To this Spencer Walpole gave
honourable support; and it became a standing rule. The House of
Lords, for its misconduct, was deservedly extinguished, in effect,
as to all matters of finance.
Of the “internal fighting” we have a glimpse in the diary:—
_April 10, ’61._—Saw Lord Palmerston and explained to him my
plans, which did not meet his views. A laborious and anxious day.
11.—Cabinet. Explained my case 1-3. Chaos! 12.—Cabinet 1-3. Very
stiff. We ’broke up’ in one sense and all but in another.
13.—Cabinet 3-3/4-6. My plan as now framed was accepted, Lord
Palmerston yielding gracefully; Stanley of Alderley almost the
only kicker. The plan of one bill was accepted after fighting.
15.—H. of C., financial statement for three hours. The figures
rather made my head ache. It was the discharge of a long pent-up
excitement. _May 13._—Lord J.R. again sustained me most handsomely
in debate. Lord P. after hearing Graham amended his speech, but
said we must not use any words tending to make this a vote of
confidence. 30.—H. of C. Spoke one hour on omission of clause IV.
[that repealing the paper duty], and voted in 296-281. One of the
greatest nights in the whole of my recollection. _June
1._—Yesterday was a day of subsiding excitement. To-day is the
same. Habit enables me to expel exciting thought, but not the
subtler nervous action which ever comes with a crisis. 7.—To-day’s
debate in the H. of L. was a great event for me.
The abiding feature of constitutional interest in the budget of 1861 was
this inclusion of the various financial proposals in a single bill, so
that the Lords must either accept the whole of them, or try the impossible
performance of rejecting the whole of them. This was the affirmation in
practical shape of the resolution of the House of Commons in the previous
year, that it possessed in its own hands the power to remit and impose
taxes, and that the right to frame bills of supply in its own measure,
manner, time, and matter, is a right to be kept inviolable. Until now the
practice had been to make the different taxes the subject of as many
different bills, thus placing it in the power of the Lords to reject a
given tax bill without throwing the financial machinery wholly out of
gear. By including all the taxes in a single finance bill the power of the
Lords to override the other House was effectually arrested.
(M12) In language of that time, he had carried every stitch of free-trade
canvas in the teeth of a tempest that might have made the boldest
financial pilot shorten sail. Many even of his friends were sorry that he
did not reduce the war duty on tea and sugar, instead of releasing paper
from its duty of excise. Neither friends nor foes daunted him. He
possessed his soul in patience until the hour struck, and then came forth
in full panoply. Enthusiastic journalists with the gift of a poetic pen
told their millions of readers how, after weeks of malign prophecy, that
the great trickster in Downing Street would be proved to have beggared the
exchequer, that years of gloom and insolvency awaited us, suddenly, the
moment the magician chose to draw aside the veil, the darkness rolled
away; he had fluttered out of sight the whole race of sombre Volscians;
and where the gazers dreaded to see a gulf they beheld a golden monument
of glorious finance; like the traveller in the Arabian fable who was
pursued in the Valley of Shadows by unearthly imprecations, he never
glanced to right or left until he could disperse the shadows by a single
stroke. “He is,” says another onlooker, “in his ministerial capacity,
probably the best abused and the best hated man in the House; nevertheless
the House is honestly proud of him, and even the country party feels a
glow of pride in exhibiting to the diplomatic gallery such a transcendent
mouthpiece of a nation of shopkeepers. The audacious shrewdness of
Lancashire married to the polished grace of Oxford is a felicitous union
of the strength and culture of liberal and conservative England; and no
party in the House, whatever may be its likings or antipathies, can sit
under the spell of Mr. Gladstone’s rounded and shining eloquence without a
conviction that the man who can talk ‘shop’ like a tenth Muse is, after
all, a true representative man of the market of the world.”
In describing the result of the repeal of the paper duty a little after
this,(28) he used glowing words. “Never was there a measure so
conservative as that which called into vivid, energetic, permanent, and
successful action the cheap press of this country.” It was also a common
radical opinion of that hour that if the most numerous classes acquired
the franchise as well as cheap newspapers, the reign of peace would
thenceforth be unbroken. In a people of bold and martial temper such as
are the people of our island, this proved to be a miscalculation.
Meanwhile there is little doubt that Mr. Gladstone’s share in thus
fostering the growth of the cheap press was one of the secrets of his
rapid rise in popularity.