On Feb. 14, Mr. Gladstone reported to the Queen:—

The general impression last night appeared to be that the friends

of Trinity College were relieved; that the liberal party and the

nonconformists were well satisfied with the conformity between the

proposed measure and the accepted principles of university

organisation in England; but that the Roman catholics would think

themselves hardly or at least not generously used. All that Mr.

Gladstone has heard this morning through private channels, as well

as the general tone of the press, tends to corroborate the

favourable parts of what he gathered last night, and to give hope

that reasonable and moderate Roman catholics may see that their

real grievances will be removed; generally also to support the

expectation that the bill is not likely to pass.

Delane of the _Times_ said to Manning when they were leaving the House of

Commons, “This is a bill made to pass.” Manning himself heartily

acquiesced. Even the bitterest of Mr. Gladstone’s critics below the

gangway on his own side agreed, that if a division could have been taken

while the House was still under the influence of the three hours’ speech,

the bill would have been almost unanimously carried.(284) “It threw the

House into a mesmeric trance,” said the seconder of a hostile motion.

Effects like these, not purple passages, not epigrams nor aphorisms, are

the test of oratory. Mr. Bruce wrote home (Feb. 15): “Alas! I fear all

prospect of ministerial defeat is over. The University bill is so well

received that people say there will not be even a division on the second

reading. I see no other rock ahead, but sometimes they project their

snouts unexpectedly, and cause shipwreck.”

Soon did the projecting rocks appear out of the smooth water. Lord Spencer

had an interview with Cardinal Cullen at Dublin Castle (Feb. 25), and

found him though in very good humour and full of gratitude for fair

intentions, yet extremely hostile to the bill. It was in flat opposition,

he said, to what the Roman catholics had been working for in Ireland for

years; it continued the Queen’s Colleges, and set up another Queen’s

College in the shape of Trinity College with a large endowment; it

perpetuated the mixed system of education, to which he had always been

opposed, and no endowment nor assistance was given to the catholic

university; the council might appoint professors to teach English

literature, geology, or zoology who would be dangerous men in catholic

eyes. Lord Spencer gathered that the cardinal would be satisfied with a

sum down to redress inequality or a grant for buildings.

Archbishop Manning wrote to Cardinal Cullen the day after the bill was

produced, “strongly urging them to accept it.” It seemed to him to rest on

a base so broad that he could not tell how either the opposition or the

radical doctrinaires could attack it without adopting “the German

tyranny.” He admitted that he was more easily satisfied than if he were in

Ireland, but he thought the measure framed with skill and success. After a

fortnight the archbishop told Mr. Gladstone, that he still saw reason to

believe that the Irish hierarchy would not refuse the bill. On March 3rd,

he says he has done his utmost to conciliate confidence in it. By the 7th

he knew that his efforts had failed, but he urges Mr. Gladstone not to

take the episcopal opposition too much to heart. “Non-endowment, mixed

education, and godless colleges, are three bitter things to them.” “This,”

he wrote to Mr. Gladstone, when all was over (March 12) “is not your

fault, nor the bill’s fault, but the fault of England and Scotland and

three anti-catholic centuries.”

(M145) The debate began on March 3rd, and extended to four sittings. The

humour of the House was described by Mr. Gladstone as “fitful and

fluctuating.” Speeches “void of real argument or point, yet aroused the

mere prejudices of a section of the liberal party against popery and did

much to place the bill in danger.” Then that cause of apprehension

disappeared, and a new change passed over the shifting sky, for the

intentions of Irish members were reported to be dubious. There was not a

little heat and passion, mainly from below the ministerial gangway. The

gagging clauses jarred horribly, though they were trenchantly defended by

Mr. Lowe, the very man to whose line of knowledge and intellectual freedom

they seemed likely to be most repugnant. It soon appeared that neither

protestant nor catholic set any value on these securities for conscience,

and the general assembly of the presbyterians declared war upon the whole

scheme. The cabinet—“most harmonious at this critical time,”—still held

firmly that the bill was well constructed, so that if it once reached

committee it would not be easy to inflict mortal wounds. On March 8th the

prime minister reported to the Queen:—

Strange to say, it is the opposition of the Roman catholic bishops

that brings about the present difficulty; and this although they

have not declared an opposition to the bill outright, but have

wound up their list of objections with a resolution to present

petitions praying for its amendment. Still their attitude of what

may be called growling hostility has had these important results.

Firstly, it has deadened that general willingness of the liberal

party, which the measure itself had created, to look favourably on

a plan such as they might hope would obtain acquiescence, and

bring about contentment. Secondly, the great majority of the

bishops are even more hostile than the resolutions, which were

apparently somewhat softened as the price of unanimity; and all

_these_ bishops, working upon liberal Irish members through their

political interest in their seats, have proceeded so far that from

twenty to twenty-five may go against the bill, and as many may

stay away. When to these are added the small knot of discontented

liberals and mere fanatics which so large a party commonly

contains, the government majority, now taken at only 85,

disappears....

It is not in the power or the will of your Majesty’s advisers to

purchase Irish support by subserviency to the Roman bishops. Their

purpose has been to offer justice to all, and their hope has been

that what was just would be seen to be advantageous. As far as the

Roman catholics of Ireland are concerned, the cabinet conceive

that they are now at perfect liberty to throw up the bill. But

they are also of opinion that its abandonment would so impair or

destroy their moral power, as to render it impossible for them to

accept the defeat. There are whispers of a desire in the liberal

party, should the catastrophe arrive, to meet it by a vote of

confidence, which would probably be carried by a still larger

majority. But the cabinet look with extreme disfavour upon this

method of proceeding, which would offer them the verbal promise of

support just when its substance had been denied.

He then proceeds to more purely personal aspects and contingencies:—

What lies beyond it would be premature to describe as having been

regularly treated or even opened to-day. Mr. Gladstone considers

himself far more tied to the bill and the subject than his

colleagues; and if they upon a defeat were disposed to carry on

the government without him, he would with your Majesty’s sanction

take effectual means to provide at least against his being an

impediment in the way of an arrangement eligible in so many points

of view. But his colleagues appear at present indisposed to adopt

this method of solution. There would then remain for them the

question whether they should humbly tender their resignations to

your Majesty, or whether they should advise a dissolution of the

parliament, which was elected under other auspices. This would be

a matter of the utmost gravity for consideration at the proper

time. Mr. Gladstone as at present advised has no foregone

conclusion in favour of either alternative, and would act with his

colleagues as between them. But he does not intend to go into

opposition, and the dissolution of this government, brought about

through languor and through extensive or important defections in

the liberal party which has made him its leader, would be the

close of his political life. He has now for more than forty years

striven to serve the crown and country to the best of his power,

and he is willing, though with overtaxed faculties and diminishing

strength, to continue the effort longer, if he sees that the

continuance can be conducive to the objects which he has

heretofore had at heart; but the contingency to which he has last

referred, would be for him the proof that confidence was gone,

that usefulness was at an end, and that he might and ought to

claim the freedom which best befits the close of life.

The next day, in reporting that the estimates of the coming division were

far from improving, Mr. Gladstone returned in a few words to the personal

point:—

Mr. Gladstone is very grateful for your Majesty’s caution against

being swayed by private feelings, and he will endeavour to be on

his guard against them. He has, however, always looked to the

completion of that commission, so to call it, which events in a

measure threw into his hands five years ago, as the natural close

of the main work of the present government; and many circumstances

have combined to impress him with the hope that thus an honourable

path would be opened for his retirement. He ought, perhaps, to add

that he has the strongest opinion, upon political grounds and

grounds other than political, against spending old age under the

strain of that perpetual contention which is inseparable from his

present position; and this opinion could only be neutralised by

his perceiving a special call to remain: that is to say, some

course of public service to be done by him better than if it were

in other hands. Such a prospect he neither sees nor anticipates.

But it is premature to trouble your Majesty on this minor subject.

On the 9th Cardinal Cullen blazed forth in a pastoral that was read in all

the churches. He described the bill as richly endowing non-catholic and

godless colleges, and without giving one farthing to catholics, inviting

them to compete in their poverty, produced by penal laws and

confiscations, with those left in possession of enormous wealth. The new

university scheme only increased the number of Queen’s Colleges, so often

and so solemnly condemned by the catholic church and by all Ireland, and

gave a new impulse to that sort of teaching that separates education from

religion and its holy influences, and banishes God, the author of all

good, from our schools. The prelate’s pastoral had a decisive effect in

regions far removed from the ambit of his crosier. The tory leader could

not resist a temptation thus offered by the attitude of the Irish

cardinal, and the measure that had been much reviled as a dark concordat

between Mr. Gladstone and the pope, was now rejected by a concordat

between the pope’s men and Mr. Disraeli.

The discussion was on a high level in Mr. Gladstone’s judgment. Lyon

Playfair criticised details with some severity and much ability, but

intended to vote for the bill. Miall, the nonconformist leader, supported

the second reading, but required alterations that were admissible enough.

On March 10 Mr. Harcourt, who was not yet an old member, “opened the

discussion by a speech in advance of any he has yet delivered as to effect

upon the House. Severe in criticism on detail, he was favourable to the

substance of the bill.” One significant incident of the debate was a

declaration by Bentinck, a conservative ultra, that he would vote against

the bill in reliance on the declaration of Mr. Hardy, which he understood

to be a pledge for himself and others near him, not to take office during

the existence of the present parliament. “Mr. Hardy remained silent during

this appeal, which was several times repeated.” Then the end came (March

11-12):—

Mr. Disraeli rose at half-past ten, and spoke amidst rapt

attention till midnight. Mr. Gladstone followed in a speech of two

hours, and at two o’clock the division was called. During the

whole evening the greatest uncertainty had prevailed; for himself

Mr. Gladstone leaned to expecting an unfavourable result. The

numbers were, Ayes (for the government), 284; Noes, 287; majority

against the government, 3. It is said that 45 adherents of the

government, or thereabouts, voted against them. It was the Irish

vote that grew continually worse.(285)

(M146) Of the speech in which the debate was wound up Forster says in his

diary: “Gladstone, with the House dead against him and his bill, made a

wonderful speech—easy, almost playful, with passages of great power and

eloquence, but with a graceful play, which enabled him to plant deep his

daggers of satire in Horsman and Co.”(286) Speaker Brand calls it “a

magnificent speech, generous, high-minded, and without a taint of

bitterness, although he was sorely tried, especially by false friends.” He

vindicated the obnoxious clauses, but did not wish to adhere to them if

opinion from all quarters were adverse, and he admitted that it was the

opposition of members from Ireland that principally acted on his hearers.

His speech contained a remarkable passage, pronouncing definitely against

denominational endowment of university education.

Chapter XII. The Crisis. (1873)

.. alla fortuna, come vuol, son presto..

Pero giri fortuna la sua rota,

Come le piace, e il villan la sua marra.

—_Inferno_, xv. 93.

For fortune as she wills I am ready.. so

let her turn her wheel as she may please,

and the churl his spade.

I

A week of lively and eventful interests followed,—not only interesting in

the life of Mr. Gladstone, but raising points with important

constitutional bearings, and showing a match between two unsurpassed

masters of political sword-play. The story was told generally and

partially in parliament, but the reader who is curious about either the

episode itself, or Mr. Gladstone’s modes of mind and action, will find it

worth a little trouble to follow details with some closeness.

_March 11._—H. of C. Spoke 12-2, and voted in a division of

284-287—which was believed to cause more surprise to the opposite

side than it did to me. At 2.45 A.M. I apprised the Queen of our

defeat.

_Thursday, March 12._—Saw the Queen at 12.15. Failed to find

Granville. Cabinet 1-2-3/4. We discussed the matter with a general

tendency to resignation rather than dissolving. Confab. on my

position with Granville and Glyn, then joined by Bright. To the

Queen again at six to keep her informed. Large dinner party for

the Duke of Edinburgh, and an evening party afterwards, to hear

Joachim.

_Friday, March 13._—After seeing Mr. Glyn and Lord F. Cavendish, I

went at 10.40 to see Dr. Clark. He completed his examination, and

gave me his careful judgment. I went to Lord Granville, sketched

out to him and Glyn my views, and went to the cabinet at 12.15.

Stated the case between the two alternatives of resignation and

dissolution as far as regarded myself. On the side of resignation

it would not be necessary to make any final announcement [of his

retirement from the leadership]. I am strongly advised a temporary

rest. On the other hand, if we now dissolve, I anticipate that

_afterwards_ before any long time difficulties will arise, and my

mission will be terminated. So that the alternatives are not so

unequally weighed. The cabinet without any marked difference, or

at least without any positive assertion to the contrary,

determined on tendering their resignations.(287) After cabinet saw

Hartington and others respecting honours. At 2.45 saw the Queen

and resigned. The Queen informed me that she would send for Mr.

Disraeli; suggested for consideration whether I would include the

mention of this fact in my announcement to parliament, and added

as I was leaving the room, without looking (apparently) for an

answer, that she would inform me of what might take place. At 3.45

saw Granville respecting the announcements. Made announcement in

House of Commons at 4.30. More business at Downing Street, and

home at six.

At a quarter to seven, or a little later, Colonel Ponsonby called

with a communication from her Majesty. “Any news?” I said. “A

great deal,” he replied; and informed me as follows. Mr. Disraeli

had been with the Queen; did not see the means of carrying on the

government by the agency of his party under present circumstances;

did not ask for the dissolution of parliament (this was understood

to mean did not offer to become minister on condition of being

permitted to dissolve); did not say that his renunciation of the

task was final; recommended that the Queen should call for my

advice. Upon this the Queen sent Colonel Ponsonby, and he said,

“She considers this as sending for you anew.” I replied that I did

not regard the Queen’s reference of this intelligence to me, as

her calling upon me anew to undertake the work of government; that

none of my obligations to the sovereign were cancelled or impaired

by the resignation tendered and accepted; that I was still the

minister for the purpose of rendering any service she might be

pleased to call for in the matter on which she is engaged, exactly

as before, until she has a new minister, when my official

obligations will come to an end. That I felt there was great

inconvenience and danger of misapprehension out of doors in

proceeding over-rapidly with a matter of such gravity, and that

each step in it required to be well measured and ascertained

before proceeding to consider of the next following step. That I

had great difficulty in gathering any precise idea of Mr.

Disraeli’s account of what he could not do, and what he either

could or did not say that he could not. That as this account was

to present to me the state of facts on which I was commanded to

advise, it was quite necessary for me to have an accurate idea of

it, in order that I might do justice to her Majesty’s commands. I

would therefore humbly suggest that Mr. Disraeli might with great

propriety be requested to put his reply into writing. That I

presumed I might receive this reply, if it were her Majesty’s

pleasure to make it known to me, at some not late hour to-morrow,

when I would at once place myself in a condition to tender my

humble advice. This is an account of what Colonel Ponsonby might

fairly consider as my answer to her Majesty’s communication. I

enlarged the conversation, however, by observing that the division

which overthrew us was a party division. It bore the express

authentic symbol of its character in having party tellers on the

opposition as well as on the government side; that we were aware

of the great, even more than ordinary, efforts of Colonel Taylor,

with Mr. Disraeli’s countenance, to bring members to London and to

the House; that all this seemed to impose great obligations on the

opposition; and if so, that it would be the duty of the leader of

the opposition to use every exertion of consultation with his

friends and otherwise before declining the task, or in any manner

advising the Queen to look elsewhere. To Colonel Ponsonby indeed,

I observed that I thought Mr. Disraeli was endeavouring, by at

once throwing back on me an offer which it was impossible for me

at the time and under the circumstances to accept, to get up a

case of absolute necessity founded upon this refusal of mine, and

thus, becoming the indispensable man and party, to have in his

hands a lever wherewith to overcome the reluctance and resistance

of his friends, who would not be able to deny that the Queen must

have a government.

(M147) Mr. Disraeli’s reply to the Queen’s inquiry whether he was prepared

to form a government, was put into writing, and the two operative

paragraphs of it were sent through Colonel Ponsonby to Mr. Gladstone. They

ran as follows:—

In answer, Mr. Disraeli said he was prepared to form an

administration which he believed would carry on her Majesty’s

affairs with efficiency, and would possess her confidence; but he

could not undertake to carry on her Majesty’s government in the

present House of Commons. Subsequently, her Majesty having

remarked that Mr. Gladstone was not inclined to recommend a

dissolution of parliament, Mr. Disraeli stated that he himself

would not advise her Majesty to take that step.

Viewing these paragraphs as forming the answer offered by Mr. Disraeli to

the Queen, Mr. Gladstone reported to her (March 14) that “he did not find

himself able to gather their precise effect”:—

The former of the two, if it stood alone, would seem to imply that

Mr. Disraeli was prepared to accept office with a view to an

immediate dissolution of parliament, but not otherwise; since it

states that he believes himself able to form a suitable

administration, but not “to carry on your Majesty’s government in

the present House of Commons.” In the latter of the two paragraphs

Mr. Disraeli has supposed your Majesty to have remarked that “Mr.

Gladstone was not inclined to recommend a dissolution of

parliament,” and has stated that “he himself would not advise your

Majesty to take that step.” Your Majesty will without doubt

remember that Mr. Gladstone tendered no advice on the subject of

dissolution generally, but limited himself to comparing it with

the alternative of resignation, which was the only question at

issue, and stated that on the part of the cabinet he humbly

submitted resignation of their offices, which they deemed to be

the step most conformable to their duty. Mr. Gladstone does not

clearly comprehend the bearing of Mr. Disraeli’s closing words; as

he could not tender advice to your Majesty either affirmatively or

negatively on dissolution, without first becoming your Majesty’s

adviser. Founding himself upon the memorandum, Mr. Gladstone is

unable to say to what extent the apparent meaning of the one

paragraph is modified or altered by the other; and he is obliged

to trouble your Majesty, however reluctantly, with this

representation, inasmuch as a perfectly clear idea of the tenor of

the reply is a necessary preliminary to his offering any remark or

advice upon it; which, had it been a simple negative, he would

have felt it his duty to do.

Between six and seven in the evening Colonel Ponsonby came with a letter

from the Queen to the effect that Mr. Disraeli had unconditionally

declined to undertake the formation of a government. In obedience to the

Queen’s commands Mr. Gladstone proceeded to give his view of the position

in which her Majesty was placed:—

_March 15._—Not being aware that there can be a question of any

intermediate party or combination of parties which would be

available at the present juncture, he presumes that your Majesty,

if denied the assistance of the conservative or opposition party,

might be disposed to recur to the services of a liberal

government. He is of opinion, however, that either his late

colleagues, or any statesman or statesmen of the liberal party on

whom your Majesty might call, would with propriety at once observe

that it is still for the consideration of your Majesty whether the

proceeding which has taken place between your Majesty and Mr.

Disraeli can as yet be regarded as complete. The vote of the House

of Commons on Wednesday morning was due to the deliberate and

concerted action of the opposition, with a limited amount of

adventitious numerical aid. The division was a party division, and

carried the well-known symbol of such divisions in the appointment

of tellers of the opposition and government respectively. The vote

was given in the full knowledge, avowed in the speech of the

leader of the opposition, that the government had formally

declared the measure on which the vote was impending to be vital

to its existence. Mr. Gladstone humbly conceives that, according

to the well-known principles of our parliamentary government, an

opposition which has in this manner and degree contributed to

bring about what we term a crisis, is bound to use and to show

that it has used its utmost efforts of counsel and inquiry to

exhaust all practicable means of bringing its resources to the aid

of the country in its exigency. He is aware that his opinion on

such a subject can only be of slight value, but the same

observation will not hold good with regard to the force of a

well-established party usage. To show what that usage has been,

Mr. Gladstone is obliged to trouble your Majesty with the

following recital of facts from the history of the last half

century.... [_This apt and cogent recital the reader will find at

the end of the volume, see _Appendix_._]... There is, therefore, a

very wide difference between the manner in which the call of your

Majesty has been met on this occasion by the leader of the

opposition, and the manner which has been observed at every former

juncture, including even those when the share taken by the

opposition in bringing about the exigency was comparatively slight

or none at all. It is, in Mr. Gladstone’s view, of the utmost

importance to the public welfare that the nation should be

constantly aware that the parliamentary action certain or likely

to take effect in the overthrow of a government; the reception and

treatment of a summons from your Majesty to meet the necessity

which such action has powerfully aided in creating; and again the

resumption of office by those who have deliberately laid it

down,—are uniformly viewed as matters of the utmost gravity,

requiring time, counsel, and deliberation among those who are

parties to them, and attended with serious responsibilities. Mr.

Gladstone will not and does not suppose that the efforts of the

opposition to defeat the government on Wednesday morning were made

with a previously formed intention on their part to refuse any aid

to your Majesty, if the need should arise, in providing for the

government of the country; and the summary refusal, which is the

only fact before him, he takes to be not in full correspondence

either with the exigencies of the case, or as he has shown, with

the parliamentary usage. In humbly submitting this representation

to your Majesty, Mr. Gladstone’s wish is to point out the

difficulty in which he would find himself placed were he to ask

your Majesty for authority to inquire from his late colleagues

whether they or any of them were prepared, if your Majesty should

call on them, to resume their offices; for they would certainly,

he is persuaded, call on him, for their own honour, and in order

to the usefulness of their further service if it should be

rendered, to prove to them that according to usage every means had

been exhausted on the part of the opposition for providing for the

government of the country, or at least that nothing more was to be

expected from that quarter.

This statement, prepared after dinner, Mr. Gladstone took to Lord

Granville that night (March 14). The next morning he again saw Lord

Granville and Colonel Ponsonby, and despatched his statement to the Queen.

“At 2.45,” he writes to Granville:—

I saw the Queen, not for any distinct object, but partly to fill

the blank before the public. H.M. was in perfect humour. She will

use the whole or part of my long letter by sending it to Disraeli.

She seemed quite to understand our point of view, and told me

plainly what shows that the artful man _did_ say, if it came back

to him again at this juncture, he would not be bound by his

present refusal. I said, “But, ma’am, that is not before me.” “But

he told it to me,” she said.

(M148) The Queen sent Mr. Gladstone’s long letter to Mr. Disraeli, and he

replied in a tolerably long letter of his own. He considered Mr.

Gladstone’s observations under two heads: first, as an impeachment of the

opposition for contributing to the vote against the bill, when they were

not prepared to take office; second, as a charge against Mr. Disraeli

himself that he summarily refused to take office without exhausting all

practicable means of aiding the country in the exigency. On the first

article of charge, he described the doctrine advanced by Mr. Gladstone as

being “undoubtedly sound so far as this: that for an opposition to use its

strength for the express purpose of throwing out a government which it is

at the time aware that it cannot replace—having that object in view and no

other—would be an act of recklessness and faction that could not be too

strongly condemned.” But this, he contended, could not be imputed to the

conservative opposition of 1873. The Irish bill was from the first

strongly objected to by a large section of the liberal party, and on the

same grounds that led the conservative opposition to reject it, namely,

that it sacrificed Irish education to the Roman catholic hierarchy. The

party whom the bill was intended to propitiate rejected it as inadequate.

If the sense of the House had been taken, irrespective of considerations

of the political result of the division, not one-fourth of the House would

have voted for it. Mr. Gladstone’s doctrine, Disraeli went on, amounted to

this, that “whenever a minister is so situated that it is in his power to

prevent any other parliamentary leader from forming an administration

likely to stand, he acquires thereby the right to call on parliament to

pass whatever measures he and his colleagues think fit, and is entitled to

denounce as factious the resistance to such measures. Any such claim is

one not warranted by usage, or reconcilable with the freedom of the

legislature. It comes to this: that he tells the House of Commons, ‘Unless

you are prepared to put some one in my place, your duty is to do whatever

I bid you.’ To no House of Commons has language of this kind ever been

addressed; by no House of Commons would it be tolerated.”

As for the charge of summary refusal to undertake government, Mr. Disraeli

contented himself with a brief statement of facts. He had consulted his

friends, and they were all of opinion that it would be prejudicial to the

public interests for a conservative ministry to attempt to conduct

business in the present House of Commons. What other means were at his

disposal? Was he to open negotiations with a section of the late ministry,

and waste days in barren interviews, vain applications, and the device of

impossible combinations? Was he to make overtures to the considerable

section of the liberal party that had voted against the government? The

Irish Roman catholic gentlemen? Surely Mr. Gladstone was not serious in

such a suggestion. The charge of deliberate and concerted action against

the Irish bill was ’not entirely divested of some degree of exaggeration.’

His party was not even formally summoned to vote against the government

measure, but to support an amendment which was seconded from the liberal

benches, and which could only by a violent abuse of terms be described as

a party move.

On Saturday afternoon Mr. Gladstone had gone down to Cliveden, and there

at ten o’clock on the Sunday evening (March 16) he received a message from

the Queen, enclosing Mr. Disraeli’s letter, and requesting him to say

whether he would resume office. This letter was taken by Mr. Gladstone to

show that “nothing more was to be expected in that quarter,” and at eleven

o’clock he sent off the messenger with his answer in the affirmative:—

_March 16, 1873_, 10-3/4 P.M.—It is quite unnecessary for him to

comment upon any of the statements or arguments advanced by Mr.

Disraeli, as the point referred by your Majesty for him to

consider is not their accuracy, sufficiency, or relevancy, but

simply whether any further effort is to be expected from the

opposition towards meeting the present necessity. Your Majesty has

evidently judged that nothing more of this kind can be looked for.

Your Majesty’s judgment would have been conclusive with Mr.

Gladstone in the case, even had he failed to appreciate the full

cogency of the reason for it; but he is bound to state that he

respectfully concurs with your Majesty upon that simple question,

as one not of right but of fact. He therefore does not hesitate at

once to answer your Majesty’s gracious inquiry by saying that he

will now endeavour to prevail upon your Majesty’s late advisers

generally to resume their offices, and he again places all such

service as it is in his power to offer, at your Majesty’s

disposal. According to your Majesty’s command, then, he will

repair to London to-morrow morning, and will see some of the most

experienced members of the late government to review the position

which he regards as having been seriously unhinged by the shock of

last Wednesday morning; to such an extent indeed, that he doubts

whether either the administration or parliament can again be what

they were. The relations between them, and the course of business

laid down in the royal speech, will require to be reconsidered, or

at least reviewed with care.

II

_Tuesday, March 18._—[_To the Queen_] The cabinet met informally

at this house [11 Carlton House Terrace] at 2 P.M., and sat till

5-½.

The whole of the cabinet were ready to resume their offices. It

was decided to carry on the government in the present parliament,

without contemplating any particular limit of time for existence

in connection with the recent vote.

_Wednesday, March 19._—Went down to Windsor at midday; 3/4 hour

with the Queen on the resignation, the statement tomorrow, the

Duke of Edinburgh’s marriage, royal precedence, Tennyson’s honour;

also she mentioned railway accidents and an assault on a soldier,

and on luxury in food and dress. Dined with the Duke of Cambridge.

Speaker’s levee, saw Mr. Fawcett [who had been active in fomenting

hostility] and other members. Then Mrs. Glyn’s party.

_Thursday, March 20._—H. of C. Made my explanation. Advisedly let

pass Mr. Disraeli’s speech without notice.

Mr. Gladstone said among other things:—

I felt reluctance personally from a desire for rest, the title to

which had possibly been ... earned by labour. Also politically,

because I do not think that as a general rule the experience we

have had in former years of what may be called returning or

resuming governments, has been very favourable in its

character.... The subsequent fortunes of such governments lead to

the belief that upon the whole, though such a return may be the

lesser of two evils, yet it is not a thing in itself to be

desired. It reminds me of that which was described by the Roman

general according to the noble ode of Horace:—

... Neque amissos colores

Lana refert medicata fuco,

Nec vera virtus cum semel excidit

Curat reponi deterioribus.(288)

Mr. Disraeli made a lengthy statement, covering a much wider field. The

substance of the whole case after all was this. The minister could not

dissolve for the reason that the defeat had strengthened all the forces

against the bill and against the government, and the constituencies who

had never looked on it with much favour after its rejection by the Irish

to satisfy whom it had been invented, now regarded it with energetic

disfavour. The leader of the opposition, on the other hand, produced a

long string of ingenious reasons for not abiding by the result of what was

his own act: as, for example, that dissolution could not be instant; to

form a government would take time; financial business must be arranged; a

policy could not be shaped without access to official information; in this

interval motions would be made and carried on plausible questions, and

when the election came, his friends would go to the country as discredited

ministers, instead of being a triumphant opposition. In writing to his

brother Robertson, Mr. Gladstone glances at other reasons:—

_March 21._—We have gone through our crisis; and I fear that

nobody is much the better for it. For us it was absolutely

necessary to show that we did not consider return, as we had not

considered resignation, a light matter. As to the opposition, the

speech of Disraeli last night leaves it to be asked why did he not

come in, wind up the business of the session, and dissolve? There

is no reason to be given, except that a portion of his party was

determined not to be educated again, and was certain that if he

got in he would again commence this educating process. The

conservative party will never assume its natural position until

Disraeli retires; and I sometimes think he and I might with

advantage pair off together.

Speaker Brand says: “Disraeli’s tactics are to watch and wait, not showing

his hand nor declaring a policy; he desires to drive Gladstone to a

dissolution, when he will make the most of Gladstone’s mistakes, while he

will denounce a policy of destruction and confiscation, and take care to

announce no policy of his own. His weakness consists in the want of

confidence of some of his party.”

Chapter XIII. Last Days Of The Ministry. (1873)

ὤσπερ ἂν εἴ τις ναύκληρον πάντ᾽ ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ πράξαντα, καὶ

κατασκευάσαντα τὸ πλοῖον ἀφ᾽ ὧν ὑπελάμβανε σωθήσεσθαι, εἶτα

χειμῶνι χρησάμενον καὶ πονησάντων αὐτῷ τῶν σκευῶν ἤ καὶ

συντριβέτων ὅλως, τῆς ναυαγίας αἰτιῷτο.—DEMOSTHENES.

As if, when a shipmaster had done all he could for safety, and

fitted his vessel with everything to make her weathertight, then

when he meets a storm and all his tackle strains and labours until

it is torn to pieces, we should blame him for the wreck.

I

The shock of defeat, resignation, and restoration had no effect in

lessening ministerial difficulties. The months that followed make an

unedifying close to five glorious years of progress and reform. With

plenty of differences they recall the sunless days in which the second

administration of the younger Pitt ended that lofty career of genius and

dominion. The party was divided, and some among its leaders were centres

of petty disturbance. In a scrap dated at this period Mr. Gladstone wrote:

“Divisions in the liberal party are to be seriously apprehended from a

factious spirit on questions of economy, on questions of education in

relation to religion, on further parliamentary change, on the land laws.

On these questions generally my sympathies are with what may be termed the

advanced party, whom on other and general grounds I certainly will never

head nor lead.”

The quarrel between the government and the nonconformists was not

mitigated by a speech of Mr. Gladstone’s against a motion for the

disestablishment of the church. It was described by Speaker Brand as “firm

and good,” but the dissenters, with all their kindness for the prime

minister, thought it firm and bad.(289) To Dr. Allon, one of the most

respected of their leaders, Mr. Gladstone wrote (July 5):—

The spirit of frankness in which you write is ever acceptable to

me. I fear there may be much in your sombre anticipations. But if

there is to be a great schism in the liberal party, I hope I shall

never find it my duty to conduct the operations either of the one

or of the other section. The nonconformists have shown me great

kindness and indulgence; they have hitherto interpreted my acts

and words in the most favourable sense; and if the time has come

when my acts and words pass beyond the measure of their patience,

I contemplate with repugnance, at my time of life especially, the

idea of entering into conflict with them. A political severance,

somewhat resembling in this a change in religion, should at most

occur not more than once in life. At the same time I must observe

that no one has yet to my knowledge pointed out the expressions or

arguments in the speech, that can justly give offence.

A few personal jottings will be found of interest:—

_April 7, 1873._—H. of C. The budget and its reception mark a real

onward step in the session. 23.—Breakfast with Mr. C. Field to

meet Mr. Emerson. 30.—I went to see the remains of my dear friend

James Hope. Many sad memories but more joyful hopes. _May 15._—The

King and Queen of the Belgians came to breakfast at ten. A party

of twenty. They were most kind, and all went well.

_To the Queen_ (May 19).—Mr. Gladstone had an interview yesterday

at Chiselhurst with the Empress. He thought her Majesty much

thinner and more worn than last year, but she showed no want of

energy in conversation. Her Majesty felt much interest, and a

little anxiety, about the coming examination of the prince her son

at Woolwich.

_June 8._—Chapel royal at noon. It was touching to see Dean Hook

and hear him, now old in years and very old I fear in life; but he

kindled gallantly. 17.—Had a long conversation with Mr. Holloway

(of the pills) on his philanthropic plans; which are of great

interest. 25.—Audience of the Shah with Lord Granville and the

Duke of Argyll. Came away after 1-1/4 hours. He displayed abundant

acuteness. His gesticulation particularly expressive. 26.—Sixteen

to breakfast. Mme. Norman Neruda played for us. She is also most

pleasing in manner and character. Went to Windsor afterwards. Had

an audience. _July 1._—H. of C. Received the Shah soon after six.

A division on a trifling matter of adjournment took place during

his Majesty’s presence, in which he manifested an intelligent

interest. The circumstance of his presence at the time is singular

in this view (and of this he was informed, rather to his

amusement) that until the division was over he could not be

released from the walls of the House. It is probably, or possibly,

the first time for more than five hundred years that a foreign

sovereign has been under personal restraint of any kind in

England. [_Query, Mary Queen of Scots._]

(M149) Then we come upon an entry that records one of the deepest griefs

of this stage of Mr. Gladstone’s life—the sudden death of Bishop

Wilberforce:—

_July 19._—Off at 4.25 to Holmbury.(290) We were enjoying that

beautiful spot and expecting Granville with the Bishop of

Winchester, when the groom arrived with the message that the

Bishop had had a bad fall. An hour and a half later Granville

entered, pale and sad: “It’s all over.” In an instant the thread

of that very precious life was snapped. We were all in deep and

silent grief. 20.—Woke with a sad sense of a great void in the

world. 21.—Drove in the morning with Lord Granville to Abinger

Hall. Saw _him_, for the last time in the flesh, resting from his

labours. Attended the inquest; inspected the spot; all this cannot

be forgotten. 23.—Gave way under great heat, hard work, and

perhaps depression of force. Kept my bed all day.

“Of the special opinions of this great prelate,” he wrote to the Queen,

“Mr. Gladstone may not be an impartial judge, but he believes there can be

no doubt that there does not live the man in any of the three kingdoms of

your Majesty who has, by his own indefatigable and unmeasured labours,

given such a powerful impulse as the Bishop of Winchester gave to the

religious life of the country.” When he mentioned that the bishop’s family

declined the proposal of Westminster Abbey for his last resting place, the

Queen replied that she was very glad, for “to her nothing more gloomy and

doleful exists.”

“Few men,” Mr. Gladstone wrote later in this very year, “have had a more

varied experience of personal friendships than myself. Among the large

numbers of estimable and remarkable people whom I have known, and who have

now passed away, there is in my memory an inner circle, and within it are

the forms of those who were marked off from the comparative crowd even of

the estimable and remarkable, by the peculiarity and privilege of their

type.”(291) In this inner circle the bishop must have held a place, not

merely by habit of life, which accounts for so many friendships in the

world, but by fellowship in their deepest interests, by common ideals in

church and state, by common sympathy in their arduous aim to reconcile

greetings in the market-place and occupation of high seats, with the

spiritual glow of the soul within its own sanctuary.

(M150) While still grieving over this painful loss, Mr. Gladstone suddenly

found himself in a cauldron of ministerial embarrassments. An inquiry into

certain irregularities at the general post office led to the discovery

that the sum of eight hundred thousand pounds had been detained on its way

to the exchequer, and applied to the service of the telegraphs. The

persons concerned in the gross and inexcused irregularities were Mr.

Monsell, Mr. Ayrton, and the chancellor of the exchequer. “There probably

have been times,” Mr. Gladstone wrote to the Queen (Aug. 7), “when the

three gentlemen who in their several positions have been chiefly to blame

would have been summarily dismissed from your Majesty’s service. But on

none of them could any ill-intent be charged; two of them had, among

whatever errors of judgment, done much and marked good service to the

state.” Under the circumstances he could not resort to so severe a course

without injustice and harshness. “The recent exposures,” Mr. Gladstone

wrote to Lord Russell, “have been gall and wormwood to me from day to

day.” “Ever since the failure of the Irish University bill,” he said, “the

government has been in a condition in which, to say the least, it has had

no strength to spare, and has stood in need of all the strength it could

derive from internal harmony and vigorous administration.” The post office

scandal exposed to the broad light of day that neither harmony nor vigour

existed or could be counted on. It was evident that neither the postmaster

nor the chancellor of the exchequer could remain where they were. In

submitting new arrangements to the Queen, Mr. Gladstone said that he would

gladly have spared her the irksome duty of considering them, had it been

“in his power either on the one side to leave unnoticed the scandals that

have occurred, or on the other to have tendered a general resignation, or

to have advised a dissolution of parliament.” The hot weather and the

lateness of the session made the House of Commons disinclined for serious

conflict; still at the end of July various proceedings upon the scandals

took place, which. Mr. Gladstone described to the Queen as of “a truly

mortifying character.” Mr. Ayrton advanced doctrines of ministerial

responsibility that could not for a moment be maintained, and Mr.

Gladstone felt himself bound on the instant to disavow them.(292)

Sir Robert Phillimore gives a glimpse of him in these evil days:—

_July 24._—Gladstone dined here hastily; very unwell, and much

worn. He talked about little else than Bishop Wilberforce’s

funeral and the ecclesiastical appeals in the Judicature bill.

29th.—Saw Gladstone, better but pale. Said the government deserved

a vote of censure on Monsell and Lowe’s account. Monsell ought to

resign; but Lowe, he said, ought for past services to be defended.

30th..—Dined at Gladstone’s. Radical M.P.’s ... agreed that

government was tottering, and that Gladstone did everything.

Gladstone walks with a stick. _Aug. 7._—An interview with

Gladstone. He was communicative. A great reform of his government

has become necessary. The treasury to be swept out. He looked much

better.

Nothing at any time was so painful, almost intolerably painful, to Mr.

Gladstone as personal questions, and cabinet reconstruction is made up of

personal questions of the most trying and invidious kind. “I have had a

fearful week,” he wrote to the Duke of Argyll (Aug. 8), “but have come

through. A few behave oddly, most perfectly well, some incomparably well;

of these last I must name _honoris causâ_, Bright, Bruce, and F.

Cavendish.” To Mr. Bright he had written when the crisis first grew

acute:—

_Aug. 2._—You have seen the reports, without doubt, of what has

been going on. You can hardly conceive the reality. I apprehend

that the House of Commons by its abstinence and forbearance, must

be understood to have given us breathing time and space to

consider what can be done to renovate the government in something

like harmony and something like dignity. This will depend greatly

upon men and partly upon measures. Changes in men there must be,

and some without delay. A lingering and discreditable death, after

the life we have lived, is not an ending to which we ought to

submit without effort; and as an essential part of the best effort

that can be made, I am most desirous to communicate with you here.

I rely on your kindness to come up. Here only can I show you the

state of affairs, which is most dangerous, and yet not unhopeful.

From the diary:—

_Aug. 1._—Saw Lord F. Cavendish, also Lord Granville, Lord

Wolverton, Mr. Cardwell, repeatedly on the crisis. 2.—An anxious

day. The first step was taken, Cardwell broke to Lowe the

necessity of his changing his office. Also I spoke to Forster and

Fortescue. 4.—A very anxious day of constant conversation and

reflection, ending with an evening conclave. 5.—My day began with

Dr. Clark. Rose at eleven.... Wrote.... Most of these carried much

powder and shot. Some were Jack Ketch and Calcraft [the public

executioner] letters. 6.—Incessant interviews.... Much anxiety

respecting the Queen’s delay in replying. Saw Lord Wolverton late

with her reply. 9.—To Osborne. A long and satisfactory audience of

H.M. Attended the council, and received a third time the seals of

my old office.

This resumption of the seals of the exchequer, which could no longer be

left with Mr. Lowe, was forced upon Mr. Gladstone by his colleagues. From

a fragmentary note, he seems to have thought of Mr. Goschen for the vacant

post, “but deferring to the wishes of others,” he says, “I reluctantly

consented to become chancellor of the exchequer.” The latest instance of a

combination of this office with that of first lord of the treasury were

Canning in 1827, and Peel in 1884-5.(293)

The correspondence on this mass of distractions is formidable, but,

luckily for us it is now mere burnt-out cinder. The two protagonists of

discord had been Mr. Lowe and Mr. Ayrton, and we may as well leave them

with a few sentences of Mr. Gladstone upon the one, and to the other:—

Mr. Ayrton, he says, has caused Mr. Gladstone so much care and

labour on many occasions, that if he had the same task to

encounter in the case of a few other members of the cabinet, his

office would become intolerable. But before a public servant of

this class can properly be dismissed, there must be not only a

sufficient case against him, but a case of which the sufficiency

can be made intelligible and palpable to the world. Some of his

faults are very serious, yet he is as towards the nation an

upright, assiduous, and able functionary.

To Mr. Lowe, who had become home secretary, he writes (Aug. 13):—

I do not know whether the word “timid” was the right one for L——,

but, at any rate, I will give you proof that I am not “timid”;

though a coward in many respects I may be. I always hold that

politicians are the men whom, as a rule, it is most difficult to

comprehend, _i.e._ understand completely; and for my own part, I

never have thus understood, or thought I understood, above one or

two, though here and there I may get hold of an isolated idea

about others. Such an idea comes to me about you. I think the

clearness, power, and promptitude of your intellect are in one

respect a difficulty and a danger to you. You see everything in a

burning, almost a scorching light. The case reminds me of an

incident some years back. Sir D. Brewster asked me to sit for my

photograph in a black frost and a half mist in Edinburgh. I

objected about the light. He said, This is the best light; it is

all diffused, not concentrated. Is not your light too much

concentrated? Does not its intensity darken the surroundings? By

the surroundings, I mean the relations of the thing not only to

other things but to persons, as our profession obliges us

constantly to deal with persons. In every question flesh and blood

are strong and real even if extraneous elements, and we cannot

safely omit them from our thoughts.

Now, after all this impudence, let me try and do you a little more

justice. You have held for a long time the most important office

of the state. No man can do his duty in that office and be popular

_while_ he holds it. I could easily name the two worst chancellors

of the exchequer of the last forty years; against neither of them

did I ever hear a word while they were in (I might almost add, nor

for them after they were out). “Blessed are ye, when men shall

revile you.” You have fought for the public, tooth and nail. You

have been under a storm of unpopularity; but not a fiercer one

than I had to stand in 1860, when hardly any one dared to say a

word for me; but certainly it was one of my best years of service,

even though bad be the best. Of course, I do not say that this

necessity of being unpopular should induce us to raise our

unpopularity to the highest point. No doubt, both in policy and in

Christian charity, it should make us very studious to mitigate and

abate the causes as much as we can. This is easier for you than it

was for me, as your temper is good, and mine not good.

While I am fault-finding, let me do a little more, and take

another scrap of paper for the purpose. (I took only a scrap

before, as I was determined, then, not to “afflict you above

measure.”) I note, then, two things about you. Outstripping others

in the race, you reach the goal or conclusion before them; and,

being there, you assume that they are there also. This is

unpopular. You are unpopular this very day with a poor wretch,

whom you have apprised that he has lost his seat, and you have not

told him _how_. Again, and lastly, I think you do not get up all

things, but allow yourself a choice, as if politics were a

flower-garden and we might choose among the beds; as Lord

Palmerston did, who read foreign office and war papers, and let

the others rust and rot. This, I think, is partially true, I do

not say of your reading, but of your mental processes. You will, I

am sure, forgive the levity and officiousness of this letter for

the sake of its intention and will believe me always and sincerely

yours.

Then at last he escaped from Downing Street to Hawarden:—

_Aug. 11._—Off at 8.50 with a more buoyant spirit and greater

sense of relief than I have experienced for many years on this,

the only pleasant act of moving to me in the circuit of the year.

This gush is in proportion to the measure of the late troubles and

anxieties.

II

The reader will perhaps not thank me for devoting even a short page or two

to a matter that made much clatter of tongue and pen in its day. The

points are technical, minute, and to be forgotten as quickly as possible.

But the thing was an episode, though a trivial one enough, in Mr.

Gladstone’s public life, and paltry use was made of it in the way of

groundless innuendo. Being first lord of the treasury, he took besides the

office of chancellor of the exchequer. Was this a fresh acceptance of a

place of profit under the crown? Did he thereby come within the famous

statute of Anne and vacate his seat? Or was he protected by a provision in

the Act of 1867, to the effect that if any member had been duly re-elected

since his acceptance of any office referred to in the Act of Anne, he

should be free to accept any other such office without further

re-election? Mr. Gladstone had been re-elected after being first lord of

the treasury; was he free to accept the office of chancellor of the

exchequer in addition, without again submitting himself to his

constituents? The policy and object of the provision were obvious and they

were notorious. Unluckily, for good reasons not at all affecting this

object, Mr. Disraeli inserted certain words, the right construction of

which in our present case became the subject of keen and copious

contention. The section that had been unmistakable before, now ran that a

member holding an office of profit should not vacate his seat by his

subsequent acceptance of any other office “_in lieu of and in immediate

succession_ the one to the other.”(294) Not a word was said in the debate

on the clause as to the accumulation of offices, and nobody doubted that

the intention of parliament was simply to repeal the Act of Anne, in

respect of change of office by existing ministers. Was Mr. Gladstone’s a

case protected by this section? Was the Act of 1867, which had been passed

to limit the earlier statute, still to be construed in these circumstances

as extending it?

Unsuspected hares were started in every direction. What is a first lord of

the treasury? Is there such an office? Had it ever been named (up to that

time) in a statute? Is the chancellor of the exchequer, besides being

something more, also a commissioner of the treasury? If he is, and if the

first lord is only the same, and if there is no legal difference between

the lords of the treasury, does the assumption of the two parts by one

minister constitute a case of immediate succession by one commissioner to

another, or is the minister in Mr. Gladstone’s circumstances an

indivisible personality as commissioner discharging two sets of duties?

Then the precedents. Perceval was chancellor of the exchequer in 1809,

when he accepted in addition the office of first lord with an increased

salary, and yet he was held not to have vacated his seat.(295) Lord North

in 1770, then chancellor of the exchequer, was appointed first lord on the

resignation of the Duke of Grafton, and he at the same time retained his

post of chancellor; yet no writ was ordered, and no re-election took

place.

Into this discussion we need not travel. What concerns us here is Mr.

Gladstone’s own share in the transaction. The plain story of what proved a

complex affair, Mr. Gladstone recounted to the Speaker on August 16, in

language that shows how direct and concise he could be when handling

practical business:—

I had already sent you a preliminary intimation on the subject of

my seat for Greenwich, before I received your letter of the 14th.

I will now give you a more complete account of what has taken

place. Knowing only that the law had been altered with the view of

enabling the ministers to change offices without re-election, and

that the combination of my two offices was a proper and common

one, we had made no inquiry into the point of law, nor imagined

there was any at the time when, deferring to the wish of others, I

reluctantly consented to become C. of E. On Saturday last (Aug. 9)

when I was at Osborne, the question was opened to me. I must

qualify what I have stated by saying that on Friday afternoon some

one had started the question fully into view; and it had been, on

a summary survey, put aside. On Monday I saw Mr. Lambert, who I

found had looked into it; we talked of it fully; and he undertook

to get the materials of a case together. The Act throws the

initiative upon me; but as the matter seemed open to discussion, I

felt that I must obtain the best assistance, viz., that of the law

officers. I advisedly abstained from troubling or consulting Sir

E. May, because you might have a subsequent and separate part to

take, and might wish to refer to him. Also the blundering in the

newspapers showed that the question abounded in nice matter, and

would be all the better understood from a careful examination of

precedents. The law officers were out of town; but the

solicitor-general [Jessel] was to come up in the later part of the

week. It was not possible in so limited a time to get a case into

perfect order; still I thought that, as the _adverse_ argument lay

on the surface, I had better have him consulted. I have had no

direct communication with him. But Mr. Lambert with his usual

energy put together the principal materials, and I jotted down all

that occurred to me. Yesterday Mr. Lambert and my private

secretary, Mr. Gurdon, who, as well as the solicitor to the

treasury, had given attention to the subject, brought the matter

fully before the solicitor-general. He has found himself able to

write a full opinion on the questions submitted to him: 1. My

office as C. of E. is an office of profit. 2. My commissionership

of the treasury under the new patent in preparation is an “other

office” under the meaning of the late Act. 3. I cannot be advised

to certify to you any avoidance of the seat. Had the opinion of

Sir G. Jessel been adverse, I should at once have ceased to urge

the argument on the Act, strong as it appears to me to be; but in

point of form I should have done what I now propose to do, viz.,

to have the case made as complete as possible, and to obtain the

joint opinion of the law officers. Perhaps that of the chancellor

should be added. Here ends my narrative, which is given only for

your information, and to show that I have not been negligent in

this matter, the Act requiring me to proceed “forthwith.”

Speaker Brand replied (Aug. 18) that, while speaking with reserve on the

main point at issue, he had no hesitation in saying that he thought Mr.

Gladstone was taking the proper course in securing the best legal advice

in the matter. And he did not know what more could be done under present

circumstances.

(M151) The question put to Jessel was “Whether Mr. Gladstone, having

accepted the office of chancellor of the exchequer is not, under the

circumstances stated, protected by the provision contained in section 52

of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, from vacating his seat?”

Jessel answered “I am of opinion that he is so protected.” “I may be

wrong,” this strong lawyer once said, “and sometimes am; but I have never

any doubts.” His reasons on this occasion were as trenchant as his

conclusion. Next came Coleridge, the attorney-general. He wrote to Mr.

Gladstone on Sept. 1, 1873:—

I have now gone carefully through the papers as to your seat, and

looked at the precedents, and though I admit that the case is a

curious one, and the words of the statute not happily chosen, yet

_I have come clearly and without doubt to the same conclusion as

Jessel_, and I shall be quite prepared if need be to argue the

case in that sense in parliament. Still it may be very proper, as

you yourself suggest, that you should have a written and formal

opinion of the law officers and Bowen upon it.(296)

Selborne volunteered the opposite view (Aug. 21), and did not see how it

could be contended that Mr. Gladstone, being still a commissioner of the

treasury under the then existing commission, took the office of the

chancellor (with increase of pay) in lieu of, and in immediate succession

to, the other office which he still continued to hold. A day or two later,

Selborne, however, sent to Mr. Gladstone a letter addressed to himself by

Baron Bramwell. In this letter that most capable judge and strong-headed

man, said: “As a different opinion is I know entertained, I can’t help

saying that I think it clear Mr. Gladstone has not vacated his seat. His

case is within neither the spirit nor the letter of the statute.” He then

puts his view in the plain English of which he was a master. The lord

advocate (now Lord Young) went with the chancellor and against the English

law officers. Lowe at first thought that the seat was not vacated, and

then he thought that it was. “Sir Erskine May,” says Mr. Gladstone (Feb.

2, 1874), “has given a strong opinion that my seat is full.” Well might

the minister say that he thought “the trial of this case would fairly take

as long as Tichborne.” On September 21, the chancellor, while still

holding to his own opinion, wrote to Mr. Gladstone:—

You have followed the right course (especially in a question which

directly concerns the House of Commons) in obtaining the opinion

of the law officers of the crown.... But having taken this proper

course, and being disposed yourself to agree to the conclusions of

your official advisers, you are clearly free from all personal

fault, if you decide to act upon those conclusions and leave the

House, when it meets, to deal with them in way either of assent or

dissent, as it may think fit.

Coleridge and Jessel went on to the bench, and Sir Henry James and Sir

William Harcourt were brought up from below the gangway to be attorney and

solicitor. In November the new law officers were requested to try their

hands. Taking the brilliant and subtle Charles Bowen into company, they

considered the case, but did not venture (Dec. 1) beyond the singularly

shy proposition that strong arguments might be used both in favour of and

against the view that the seat was vacated.

Meanwhile the _Times_ had raised the question immediately (Aug. 11),

though not in adverse language. The unslumbering instinct of party had

quickly got upon a scent, and two keen-nosed sleuth hounds of the

opposition four or five weeks after Mr. Gladstone had taken the seals of

the exchequer, sent to the Speaker a certificate in the usual form (Sept.

17) stating the vacancy at Greenwich, and requesting him to issue a writ

for a new election. The Speaker reminded them in reply, that the law

governing the issue of writs during the recess in cases of acceptance of

office, required notification to him from the member accepting; and he had

received no such notification.(297) Everybody knew that in case of an

election, Mr. Gladstone’s seat was not safe, though when the time came he

was in fact elected. The final state and the outlook could not be better

described than in a letter from Lord Halifax to Mr. Gladstone (Dec. 9):—

_Lord Halifax to Mr. Gladstone._

_Dec. 9, 1873._—On thinking over the case as to your seat, I

really think it is simple enough. I will put my ideas shortly for

your benefit, or you may burn them. You did not believe that you

had vacated your seat on accepting the office of chancellor of the

exchequer, and you did not send notice to the Speaker as required

by the Act of 1858. Were you right? The solicitor-general said

that you were, in a deliberate opinion. The attorney-general

concurred. The present law officers consider it so very doubtful

that they will not give an opinion. The Speaker either from not

having your notice, or having doubts, has not ordered a new writ.

These are the facts. What should you do? _Up to the meeting_ of

parliament you clearly must act as if there was no doubt. If you

do not, you almost admit being wrong. You must assume yourself to

be right, that you are justified in the course which you have

taken, and act consistently on that view. When parliament meets, I

think the proper course would be for the Speaker to say that he

had received a certificate of vacancy from two members, but not

the notice from the member himself, and having doubts he referred

the matter to the House, according to the Act. This ensures the

priority of the question and calls on you to explain your not

having sent the notice. You state the facts as above, place

yourself in the hands of the House, and withdraw. I agree with

what Bright said that the House of Commons will deal quite fairly

in such a case. A committee will be appointed. I don’t think it

can last very long, and you will be absent during its sitting. No

important business can be taken during your absence, and I do not

know that any evil will ensue from shortening the period of

business before the budget. They may vote estimates, or take minor

matters.

This sensible view of Lord Halifax and Mr. Bright may be set against Lord

Selborne’s dogmatic assertion that a dissolution was the only escape. As

for his further assertion about his never doubting that this was the

determining cause of the dissolution, I can only say that in the mass of

papers connected with the Greenwich seat and the dissolution, there is no

single word in one of them associating in any way either topic with the

other. Mr. Gladstone acted so promptly in the affair of the seat that both

the Speaker of the House of Commons and Lord Selborne himself said that no

fault could be found with him. His position before the House was therefore

entirely straightforward. Finally Mr. Gladstone gave an obviously adequate

and sufficient case for the dissolution both to the Queen and to the

cabinet, and stated to at least three of his colleagues what was “the

determining cause,” and this was not the Greenwich seat, but something

wholly remote from it.(298)

III

The autumn recess began with attendance at Balmoral, of which a glimpse or

two remain:—

_To Mrs. Gladstone._

_Balmoral, Aug. 22, 1873._—The Queen in a long conversation asked

me to-day about you at Holyhead. She talked of many matters, and

made me sit down, because odd to say I had a sudden touch of my

enemy yesterday afternoon, which made me think it prudent to beg

off from dining with her, and keep on my back taking a strong dose

of sal volatile.... The Queen had occasion to speak about the

Crown Princess, lauded her talents, did not care a pin for her

(the Queen’s) opinion, used to care only for that of her

father....

_Aug. 24._—To-day I had a long talk. Nothing can be better than

her humour. She is going to Fort William on the 8th. I leave on

Saturday, but if I make my Highland walk it cannot be till Monday,

and all next week will probably be consumed in getting me home.

_Aug. 27._—I enclose a copy of my intimation to the Queen [the

engagement of his eldest daughter], which has drawn forth _in a

few minutes_ the accompanying most charming letter from her. I

think the original of this should be given to Agnes herself, as

she will think it a great treasure; we keeping a copy. Is it not a

little odd on our part, more than his, that (at least so far as I

am concerned) we have allowed this great Aye to be said, without a

single word on the subject of the means of support forthcoming? It

is indeed a proceeding worthy of the times of the Acts of the

Apostles! You perhaps know a little more than I do. _Your_ family

were not very worldly minded people, but you will remember that

before our engagement, Stephen was spirited up, most properly, to

put a question to me about means. Yesterday I was not so much

struck at hearing nothing on the subject of any sublunary

particular; but lo! again your letter of to-day arrives with all

about the charms of the orphanage, but not a syllable on beef and

mutton, bread and butter, which after all cannot be altogether

dispensed with.

Of this visit Lord Granville wrote to him (Sept. 20): “The Queen told me

last night that she had never known you so remarkably agreeable.” The

journey closed with a rather marked proof of bodily soundness in a man

nearly through his sixty-fourth year, thus recorded in his diary:—

_Aug. 25._—[At Balmoral]. Walked thirteen miles, quite fresh.

26.—Walked 8-½ miles in 2 h. 10 m. _Sept. 1._—Off at 9.15 [from

Invercauld] to Castleton and Derry Lodge, driving. From the Lodge

at 11.15, thirty-three miles to Kingussie on foot. Half an hour

for luncheon, 1/4 hour waiting for the ponies (the road so rough

on the hill); touched a carriageable road at 5, the top at 3. Very

grand hill views, floods of rain on Speyside. Good hotel at

Kingussie, but sorely disturbed by rats.

“Think,” he wrote to his daughter Mary from Naworth, “of my walking a good

three and thirty miles last Monday, some of it the roughest ground I ever

passed.” He was always wont to enjoy proofs of physical vigour, never

forgetting how indispensable it is in the equipment of the politician for

the athletics of public life. On his return home, he resumed the equable

course of life associated with that happy place, though political

consultations intruded:—

_Sept. 6._—Settled down again at Hawarden, where a happy family

party gathered to-day. 13.—Finished the long and sad but

profoundly interesting task of my letter to Miss Hope-Scott [on

her father]. Also sent her father’s letters (105) to her.... We

finished cutting down a great beech. Our politicians arrived.

Conversations with Bright, with Wolverton, with Granville, and

with all three till long past twelve, when I prayed to leave off

for the sake of the brain. 14.—Church morning and evening.... A

stiff task for a half exhausted brain. But I cannot desist from a

sacred task. Conversation with Lord Granville, Lord Wolverton, Mr.

Bright. 15.—Church, 8-½ A.M. Spent the forenoon in conclave till

two, after a preliminary conversation with Bright. Spent the

evening also in conclave, we have covered a good deal of

ground.... Cut down the half-cut alder. 16.—Final conversation

with Granville, with Wolverton, and with Bright, who went last.

18.—Wood-cutting with Herbert, then went up to Stephen’s school

feast, an animated and pretty scene. 21.—Read Manning’s letter to

Archbishop of Armagh. There is in it to me a sad air of unreality;

it is on stilts all through. 27.—Conversation with Mr. Palgrave

chiefly on Symonds and the Greek mythology.... Cut a tree with

Herbert. 28.—Conversation with Mr. Palgrave. He is tremendous, but

in all other respects good and full of mental energy and activity,

only the vent is rather large. 29.—Conversation with Mr. Palgrave,

pretty stiff. Wood-cutting with Herbert. Wrote a rough mem. and

computation for the budget of next year. I want eight millions to

handle! _Oct. 2._—Off at 8, London at 3.

The memorial letter on the departed friend of days long past, if less rich

than the companion piece upon Lord Aberdeen, is still a graceful example

of tender reminiscence and regret poured out in periods of grave

melody.(299) It is an example, too, how completely in the press of turbid

affairs, he could fling off the load and at once awake afresh the thoughts

and associations that in truth made up his inmost life.

(M152) Next came the autumn cabinets, with all their embarrassments, so

numerous that one minister tossed a scrap across the table to another, “We

ought to have impeached Dizzy for not taking office last spring.” Disraeli

had at least done them one service. An election took place at Bath in

October. The conservative leader wrote a violent letter in support of the

conservative candidate. “For nearly five years,” said Mr. Disraeli, “the

present ministers have harassed every trade, worried every profession and

assailed or menaced every class, institution, and species of property in

the country. Occasionally they have varied this state of civil warfare by

perpetrating some job which outraged public opinion, or by stumbling into

mistakes which have been always discreditable and sometimes ruinous. All

this they call a policy and seem quite proud of it; but the country has I

think made up its mind to close this career of plundering and

blundering.”(300) Mr. Gladstone described this curious outburst as “Mr.

Disraeli’s incomparable stroke on our behalf,” and in fact its effect on

public opinion was to send the liberal candidate to the head of the poll.

But the victory at Bath stood solitary in the midst of reverses.

As for the general legislative business of the coming session, Mr.

Gladstone thought it impossible to take up the large subject of the

extension of the county franchise, but they might encourage Mr. Trevelyan

to come forward with it on an early day, and give him all the help they

could. Still the board was bare, the meal too frugal. They were afraid of

proposing a change in the laws affecting the inheritance of land, or

reform of London government, or a burials bill, or a county government

bill. The home secretary was directed to draw up a bill for a group of

difficult questions as to employers and employed. No more sentences were

to be provided for Mr. Disraeli’s next electioneering letter.

December was mainly spent at Hawarden. A pleasant event was his eldest

daughter’s marriage, of which he wrote to the Duke of Argyll:—

The kindness of _all_ from the Queen down, to the cottagers and

poor folks about us, has been singular and most touching. Our

weather for the last fortnight has been delightful, and we

earnestly hope it may hold over to-morrow. I have not yet read

Renan’s _apôtres_. My opinion of him is completely dual. His life

of Our Lord I thought a piece of trumpery; his work _Sur les

langues sémitiques_ most able and satisfactory in its manner and

discussion.

The notes in the diary bring us up to the decision that was to end the

great ministry:—

_Dec. 1._—Dined at Mr. Forster’s and went to Drury Lane to see in

_Antony and Cleopatra_ how low our stage has fallen. Miss K. V. in

the ballet, dressed in black and gold, danced marvellously. 2.—To

Windsor, and had a long audience of the Queen. Dined with H.M.

Whist in evening. 3.—Castle. Prayers at 9; St. George’s at 10.30.

Off to Twickenham at 11.25. Visited Mr. Bohn, and saw his

collection; enormous and of very great interest. Then to Pembroke

Lodge, luncheon and long conversation with Lord Russell.... Read

_The Parisians_. 6.—Packing, etc., and off to Hawarden. 13.—Walked

with Stephen Glynne. I opened to him that I must give up my house

at or about the expiry of the present government. 15.—Read

Montalembert’s _Life_; also my article of 1852 on him. Mr. Herbert

(R.A.) came and I sat to him for a short time. 17.—Finished _Life_

of Montalembert. It was a pure and noble career personally; in a

public view unsatisfactory; the pope was a worm in the gourd all

through. His oratory was great. 19.—With Herbert set about making

a walk from Glynne Cottage to W. E. G. door. 20.—Sat to Mr.

Herbert. Worked on version of the “Shield” [_Iliad_]. Worked on

new path. 23.—Sat 1-3/4 hours to Mr. Herbert. Worked on correcting

version of the Shield and finished writing it out. Read

Aristophanes. 26.—24 to dinner, a large party gathered for the

marriage. 27.—The house continued full. At 10.30 the weather broke

into violent hail and rain. It was the only speck upon the

brightness of the marriage. 29.—Sixty-four years completed

to-day—what have they brought me? A weaker heart, stiffened

muscles, thin hairs; other strength still remains in my frame.

31.—Still a full house. The year ends as it were in tumult. My

constant tumult of business makes other tumult more sensible.... I

cannot as I now am, get sufficiently out of myself to judge

myself, and unravel the knots of being and doing of which my life

seems to be full.

_Jan. 1, 1874._—A little _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. 2.—Tree-cutting.

Read Fitzjames Stephen on _Parliamentary Government_, not

wizard-like. (No. 2.) 6.—Read _The Parisians_, vol. iv., Muir’s

beautiful version of Gray’s _Elegy_, and the Dizzy pamphlet on the

crisis. 8.—Revised and sent off the long letter to Lord Granville

on the political situation which I wrote yesterday. Axe work.

9.—Tree-cutting with Herbert. Sent off with some final touches my

version of the Shield and preface. 10.—Mr. Burnett [his agent]

died at one A.M. Requiescat. I grieve over this good and able man

sincerely, apart from the heavy care and responsibility of

replacing him, which must fall on me of necessity. 15.—Worked with

Herbert; we finished gravelling the path. It rather strains my

chest. 16.—Off to town after an early breakfast. Reached C. H. T.

about 3 P.M. Saw Lord Granville and others.

Chapter XIV. The Dissolution. (1874)

... Cette prétendue sagacité qui se croit profonde, quand elle

suppose partout des intrigues savantes, et met de petits drames

arrangés a la place de la vérité. II n’y a pas tant de

préméditation dans les affaires humaines, et leur cours est plus

naturel, que ne le croit le vulgaire.—GUIZOT.

The spurious sagacity that thinks itself deep, because it

everywhere takes for granted all sorts of knowing intrigues, and

puts little artful dramas in the place of truth. There is less

premeditation in human affairs, and their course is more natural

than people commonly believe.

I

In the summer of 1873 before leaving London for Hawarden, Mr. Gladstone

sent for the chairman of the board of inland revenue and for the head of

the finance department of the treasury; he directed them to get certain

information into order for him. His requests at once struck these

experienced officers with a surmise that he was nursing some design of

dealing with the income-tax. Here are two entries from his diary:—

_Aug. 11, 1873._—Saw Mr. Cardwell, to whom at the war office I

told in deep secrecy my ideas of the _possible_ finance of next

year, based upon the abolition of income-tax and sugar duties,

with partial compensation from spirit and death duties. _Sept.

29._—Wrote a rough mem. and computation for budget of next year. I

want eight millions to handle!

So much for the charitable tale that he only bethought him of the

income-tax, when desperately hunting for a card to play at a general

election.

The prospect was dubious and dark. To Mr. Bright he wrote from Hawarden

(Aug. 14):—

MY DEAR BRIGHT,—(Let us bid farewell to _Misters_.) ... As to the

parliamentary future of the question of education, we had better

talk when we meet. I remember your saying well and wisely how we

should look to the average opinion of the party. What we want at

present is a _positive_ force to carry us onward as a body. I do

not see that this can be got out of local taxation, or out of the

suffrage (whether we _act_ in that matter or not, and individually

I am more yes than no), or out of education. It may possibly, I

think, be had out of _finance_. Of course I cannot as yet see my

way on that subject; but until it is cleared, nothing else will to

me be clear. If it can be worked into certain shapes, it may

greatly help to mould the rest, at least for the time. I think the

effect of the reconstruction may be described as follows: First,

we have you. Secondly, we have emerged from the discredit and

disgrace of the exposures by an administration of mild penal

justice, which will be complete all round when Monsell has been

disposed of. Thirdly, we have now before us a clean stage for the

consideration of measures in the autumn. We must, I think, have a

good bill of fare, or none. If we differ on the things to be done,

this may end us in a way at least not dishonourable. If we agree

on a good plan, it must come to good, _whether_ we succeed or fail

with it. Such are my crude reflections, and such my outlook for

the future. Let me again say how sensible I am of the kindness,

friendship, and public spirit with which you have acted in the

whole of this matter.

In the early part of the year his mind was drawing towards a decision of

moment. On January 8, 1874, he wrote a letter to Lord Granville, and the

copy of it is docketed, “First idea of Dissolution.” It contains a full

examination of the actual case in which they found themselves; it is

instructive on more than one constitutional point, and it gives an

entirely intelligible explanation of a step that was often imputed to

injurious and low-minded motives:—

_Hawarden, Jan. 8, 1874._—The signs of weakness multiply, and for

some time have multiplied, upon the government, in the loss of

control over the legislative action of the House of Lords, the

diminution of the majority in the House of Commons without its

natural compensation in increase of unity and discipline, and the

almost unbroken series of defeats at single elections in the

country.(301) In truth the government is approaching, though I

will not say it has yet reached, the condition in which it will

have ceased to possess that amount of power which is necessary for

the dignity of the crown and the welfare of the country; and in

which it might be a godsend if some perfectly honourable

difference of opinion among ourselves on a question requiring

immediate action were to arise, and to take such a course as to

release us collectively from the responsibilities of office.

The general situation being thus unfavourable, the ordinary

remedies are not available. A ministry with a majority, and with

that majority not in rebellion, could not resign on account of

adverse manifestations even of very numerous single

constituencies, without making a precedent, and constitutionally a

bad precedent; and only a very definite and substantive difficulty

could warrant resignation without dissolution, after the

proceedings of the opposition in March last, when they, or at any

rate their leaders and their whips, brought the Queen into a

ministerial crisis, and deserted her when there. If then we turn

to consider dissolution, what would be its results? In my opinion

the very best that could happen would be that we should come back

with a small majority composed of Irish home rulers and a decided

minority without them; while to me it seems very doubtful whether

even with home rulers counted in, we should command a full half of

the House of Commons. In a word, dissolution means either

immediate death, or at the best death a little postponed, and the

party either way shattered for the time. For one I am anxious to

continue where we are, because I am very loath to leave the party

in its present menacing condition, without having first made every

effort in our power to avert this public mischief.

If I have made myself intelligible up to this point, the question

that arises is, can we make out such a course of policy for the

session, either in the general conduct of business, or in some

departments and by certain measures, as will with reasonable

likelihood reanimate some portion of that sentiment in our favour,

which carried us in a manner so remarkable through the election of

1868? I discuss the matter now in its aspect towards party: it is

not necessary to make an argument to show that our option can only

be among things all of which are sound in principle. First, then,

I do not believe that we can find this recovery of vital force in

our general administration of public business. As men,

notwithstanding the advantage drawn from Bright’s return, the

nation appears to think that it has had enough of us, that our

lease is out. It is a question of measures then: can we by any

measures materially mend the position of the party for an

impending election?...

Looking to legislation, there are but three subjects which appear

to me to be even capable of discussion in the view I have

presented. They are local taxation, the county suffrage, and

finance. I am convinced it is not in our power to draw any great

advantage, as a party, from the subject of local taxation....

Equally strong is my opinion with respect to the party bearings of

the question of the county franchise. We have indeed already

determined not to propose it as a government. Had we done so, a

case would have opened at once, comfortably furnished not with men

opposing us on principle, like a part of those who opposed in

1866, but with the men of pretext and the men of disappointment,

with intriguers and with egotists. And I believe that in the

present state of opinion they would gain their end by something

like the old game of playing redistribution against the

franchise....

Can we then look to finance as supplying what we want? This is the

only remaining question. It does not admit, as yet, of a positive

answer, but it admits conditionally of a negative answer. It is

easy to show what will prevent our realising our design through

the finance of the year. We cannot do it, unless the circumstances

shall be such as to put it in our power, by the possession of a

very wide margin, to propose something large and strong and

telling upon both the popular mind and the leading elements of the

constituency.... We cannot do it, without running certain risks of

the kind that were run in the budget of 1853: I mean without some

impositions, as well as remissions, of taxes. We cannot do it,

without a continuance of the favourable prospects of harvest and

of business. Lastly, we cannot do it unless we can frame our

estimates in a manner to show our desire to adhere to the

principles of economy which we proposed and applied with such

considerable effect in 1868-70. But, subject to the fulfilment of

these conditions, my opinion is that we _can_ do it: can frame a

budget large enough and palpably beneficial enough, not only to do

much good to the country, but sensibly to lift the party in the

public view and estimation. And this, although a serious sum will

have to be set apart, even in the present year, for the claims of

local taxation....

If we can get from three-quarters of a million upwards towards a

million off the naval and military estimates jointly, then as far

as I can judge we shall have left the country no reason to

complain, and may proceed cheerily with our work; though we should

not escape the fire of the opposition for having failed to

maintain the level of Feb. 1870; which indeed we never announced

as our ultimatum of reduction. I have had no communication with

those of our colleagues who would most keenly desire reductions; I

might say, with any one.... I will only add that I think a broad

difference of opinion among us on such a question as this would be

a difference of the kind which I described near the opening of

this letter, as what might be in certain circumstances, however

unwelcome in itself, an escape from a difficulty otherwise

incapable of solution.

Let me now wind up this long story by saying that my desire in

framing it has been simply to grasp the facts, and to set aside

illusions which appear to me to prevail among sections of the

liberal party, nowhere so much as in that section which believes

itself to be the most enlightened. If we can only get a correct

appreciation of the position, I do not think we shall fail in

readiness to suit our action to it; but I am bound to confess

myself not very sanguine, if the _best_ come to the best, as to

immediate results, though full of confidence, if we act aright, as

to the future and early reward.

II

(M153) In notes written in the last year of his life, Mr. Gladstone adds a

detail of importance to the considerations set out in the letter to Lord

Granville. The reader will have observed that among the conditions

required for his operation on the income-tax he names economic estimates.

In this quarter, he tells us, grave difficulties arose:—

No trustworthy account of the dissolution of parliament which took

place early in 1874 has ever been published. When I proposed the

dissolution to the cabinet, they acceded to it without opposition,

or, I think, even discussion. The actual occasion of the measure

was known, I think, only to Lord Granville and Lord Cardwell with

myself, it having a sufficient warrant from other sources.

In 1871, the year of the abolition of purchase and other important

army reforms, I had, in full understanding with Cardwell, made a

lengthened speech, in which I referred to the immediate

augmentations of military expenditure which the reforms demanded,

but held out to the House of Commons the prospect of compensating

abatements at early dates through the operation of the new system

of relying considerably upon reserves for imperial defence.

When Cardwell laid before me at the proper time, in view of the

approaching session, his proposed estimates for 1874-5, I was

strongly of opinion that the time had arrived for our furnishing

by a very moderate reduction of expenditure on the army, some

earnest of the reality of the promise made in 1871 which had been

so efficacious in procuring the enlargement that we had then

required. Cardwell, though not an extravagant minister, objected

to my demand of (I think) £200,000. I conferred with Granville,

who, without any direct knowledge of the subject, took my side,

and thought Cardwell would give way. But he continued to resist;

and, viewing the age of the parliament, I was thus driven to the

idea of dissolution, for I regarded the matter as virtually

involving the whole question of the value of our promises, an

anticipation which has proved to be correct. Cardwell entered

readily into the plan of dissolving, and moreover thought that if

my views carried the day with the constituencies, this would

enable him to comply.

The papers in my hands confirm Mr. Gladstone’s recollection on this part

of the transaction, except that Mr. Goschen, then at the head of the

admiralty, was to some extent in the same position as Mr. Cardwell. The

prime minister was in active controversy with both the great spending

departments, and with little chance of prevailing. It was this controversy

that opened the door for immediate dissolution, though the general grounds

for dissolution at some near time were only too abundant. Here is his note

of the position,—in a minute addressed to Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Goschen:—

_Jan. 22, 1874._—We arrived yesterday at the conclusion that,

apart from this or that shade of view as to exact figure of the

estimates, the measure now proposed stood well on its own general

grounds. This being so, after consulting Lord Granville, and

indeed at his suggestion, I have in a preparatory letter to the

Queen founded myself entirely on general grounds. This being so, I

would propose to consider the point raised between us as one

adjourned, though with a perfect knowledge in each of our minds as

to the views of the others. My statement to the cabinet must be on

the same basis as my statement to the Queen. The actual decision

of the estimates would stand over from to-morrow’s cabinet, until

we saw our way as to their position and as to the time for their

production. I am sure I might reckon on your keeping the future as

far as possible open, and unprejudiced by contracts for works or

for building or construction. Any reference to economy which I

make to-morrow will be in general terms such as I propose to use

in an address. If I have made myself clear and you approve, please

to signify it on this paper, or to speak to me as you may prefer.

I am reluctant to go out, with my chest still tender, in the fog.

Cardwell, in the few words of his minute in reply makes no objection. Mr.

Goschen says: “I quite take the same view as you do. Indeed, I had

proposed myself to ask you whether what had passed between us had not

better remain entirely confidential for the present, as it is best not to

state differences where the statement of them is not indispensable.”

The diary for these important days is interesting:—

_Jan.17, ’74._—The prospects of agreement with the two departments

on estimates are for the present bad. 18.—This day I thought of

dissolution. Told Bright of it. In evening at dinner told

Granville and Wolverton. All seemed to approve. My first thought

of it was as an escape from a difficulty. I soon saw on reflection

that it was the best thing in itself. 19.—Confined all day in bed

with tightness on the chest. Much physicking. 20.—Bed all day. I

spent the chief part of the day and evening in reflection on our

“crisis,” and then in preparing a letter to go to the Queen for

her information at once, and a long address for an unnamed

constituency—almost a pamphlet—setting out the case of the

government in an immediate appeal to the country. 21.—Altered and

modified letter to the Queen, which went off. Came down at two.

Much conversation to-day on the question of my own seat.

23.—Cabinet 12-1/4-4. Address further amended there on partial

perusal. In evening corrected proofs of address, which runs well.

A very busy stirring day of incessant action.

In the letter of Jan. 21 to the Queen, Mr. Gladstone recapitulates the

general elements of difficulty, and apprises her Majesty that it will be

his duty at the meeting of the cabinet fixed for the 23rd, to recommend

his colleagues humbly and dutifully to advise an immediate dissolution, as

the best means of putting an end to the disadvantage and the weakness of a

false position. He trusts that the Queen may be pleased to assent. The

Queen (Jan. 22) acknowledged the receipt of his letter “with some

surprise,” as she had understood him to say when last at Windsor that he

did not think of recommending a dissolution until the end of the session

or later. But she expressed her “full appreciation of the difficulties of

Mr. Gladstone’s position,” and assented, thinking that “in the present

circumstances it would be desirable to obtain an expression of the

national opinion.”

The next day (23rd) the cabinet met, and Mr. Gladstone in the evening

reported the proceedings to the Queen:—

_To the Queen._

_Jan. 23, 1874._—... Mr. Gladstone laid before the cabinet a

pretty full outline of the case as to the weakness of the

government since the crisis of last March, and the increase of

that weakness, especially of late, from the unfavourable character

of local indications; as to the false position in which both the

crown and the House of Commons are placed when there can be no

other government than the one actually existing; finally, as to

the present calls of business and prospects of the country,

especially as to its finance, which are such as in Mr. Gladstone’s

judgment, to warrant the presentation of a very favourable picture

of what may be effected with energy and prudence during the

present year. In this picture is included, as Mr. Gladstone on

Wednesday intimated might be the case, the total repeal of the

income-tax. The cabinet unanimously concurred, upon a review of

its grounds, in the wisdom of the proposed measure. It is as yet

profoundly secret, but to-morrow morning it will be placed before

the world with a lengthened and elaborate exposition, in the shape

of an address from Mr. Gladstone to his constituents at Greenwich.

There can be no doubt that a large portion of the public will at

first experience that emotion of surprise which your Majesty so

very naturally felt on receiving Mr. Gladstone’s letter. But,

judging from such indications as have reached them, the cabinet

are disposed to anticipate that this course will be approved by

all those who are in any degree inclined to view their general

policy with sympathy or favour. Large portions, and the most

important portions, of Mr. Gladstone’s address were read to and

considered by the cabinet, and it was in some respects amended at

the suggestion of his esteemed colleagues. It is, however, so

framed as not to commit them equally with himself, except only as

to the remissions of taxes and aid to local rates contemplated in

the finance of the year. This method of stating generally the case

of the government in substance corresponds to the proceedings of

Sir R. Peel in 1834-5, when he addressed the electors of Tamworth.

Before concluding, Mr. Gladstone will humbly offer to your Majesty

a brief explanation. When he last adverted to the duration of the

present parliament, his object was to remind your Majesty of the

extreme point to which that duration might extend. When he had the

honour of seeing your Majesty at Windsor,(302) the course of the

local elections had been more favourable, and Mr. Gladstone had

not abandoned the hope of retaining sufficient strength for the

due conduct of affairs in the present House. On this question, the

events of the last few weeks and the prospects of the present

moment have somewhat tended to turn the scale in his mind and that

of his colleagues.(303) But finally it was not within his power,

until the fourth quarter of the financial year had well begun, to

forecast the financial policy and measures which form a necessary

and indeed the most vital part of the matter to be stated to the

public. Immediately after he had been able sufficiently to ripen

his own thoughts on the matter, he did not scruple to lay them

before your Majesty; and your Majesty had yourself in one sense

contributed to the present conclusion by forcibly pointing out to

Mr. Gladstone on one or more occasions that in the event of

difficulty, under the present peculiar circumstances, no

alternative remained except a dissolution. The mild weather is

very favourable to Mr. Gladstone, and if as he has prayed there

shall be a council on Monday, he hopes to have the honour of

coming down to Osborne.

To his eldest son he wrote on the following day:—

We here of the cabinet(304) and the whips are in admirable

spirits. We dissolve on Finance. The surplus will be over five

millions. We promise as in our judgment practicable,—1. Pecuniary

aid to local taxation, but with reform of it. 2. Repeal of the

income-tax. 3. Some great remission in the class of articles of

consumption. (This last remission probably means sugar, but

nothing is to be said by any member of the government as to choice

of the article.) We make it a question of confidence on the

_prospective_ budget. As far as we can judge, friends will much

approve our course, although for the public there may at first be

surprise, and the enemy will be furious.

III

The prime minister’s manifesto to his constituents at Greenwich was

elaborate and sustained. In substance it did no more than amplify the

various considerations that he had set forth in his letter to Lord

Granville. The pith of it was a promise to diminish local taxation, and to

repeal the income-tax. At the same time marked relief was to be given to

the general consumer in respect of articles of popular consumption. One

effective passage dealt with the charge that the liberal party had

endangered the institutions of the country. “It is time,” said Mr.

Gladstone, “to test this trite and vague allegation. There has elapsed a

period of forty, or more exactly forty-three years, since the liberal

party acquired the main direction of public affairs. This followed another

period of about forty years beginning with the outbreak of the

revolutionary war, during which there had been an almost unbroken rule of

their opponents, who claimed and were reputed to be the great preservers

of the institutions of the country.” He then invited men to judge by

general results, and declared that the forty years of tory rule closing in

1830 left institutions weaker than it had found them, whereas the liberal

term of forty years left throne, laws, and institutions not weaker but

much stronger. The address was a fine bold composition, but perhaps it

would have been more effective with a public that was impatient and out of

humour, if it had been shorter.

(M154) The performance was styled by his rival “a prolix narrative,” but

it is said that in spite of this Mr. Disraeli read it with much alarm. He

thought its freshness and boldness would revive Mr. Gladstone’s authority,

and carry the elections. His own counter-manifesto was highly artificial.

He launched sarcasms about the Greenwich seat, about too much energy in

domestic legislation, and too little in foreign policy; about an act of

folly or of ignorance rarely equalled in dealing with the straits of

Malacca (though for that matter not one elector in a hundred thousand had

ever heard of this nefarious act). While absolving the prime minister

himself, “certainly at present,” from hostility to our national

institutions and the integrity of the empire, he drew a picture of

unfortunate adherents—some assailed the monarchy, others impugned the

independence of the House of Lords, while others would relieve parliament

altogether from any share in the government of one portion of the United

Kingdom; others, again, urged Mr. Gladstone to pursue his peculiar policy

by disestablishing the anglican as he has despoiled the Irish church; even

trusted colleagues in his cabinet openly concurred with them in their

desire altogether to thrust religion from the place which it ought to

occupy in national education. What is remarkable in Disraeli’s address is

that to the central proposal of his adversary he offered no objection. As

for remission of taxation, he said, that would be the course of any party

or any ministry. As for the promise of reduced local burdens and the

abolition of the income-tax, why, these “were measures which the

conservative party have always favoured and which the prime minister and

his friends have always opposed.”

By critics of the peevish school who cry for better bread than can be made

of political wheat, Mr. Gladstone’s proffer to do away with the income-tax

has been contumeliously treated as dangling a shameful bait. Such talk is

surely pharisaic stuff. As if in 1852 Disraeli in his own address had not

declared that the government would have for its first object to relieve

the agricultural interest from certain taxes. Was that a bribe? As if Peel

in 1834-5 had not set forth in the utmost detail all the measures that he

intended to submit to parliament if the constituencies would give him a

majority. Was this to drive an unprincipled bargain? As if every minister

does not always go to the country on promises, and as if the material of

any promise could be more legitimate than a readjustment of taxation. The

proceeding was styled a sordid huckstering of a financial secret for a

majority. Why was it more sordid to seek a majority for abolition of the

income-tax, than it was sordid in Peel in 1841 to seek a majority for corn

laws, or in whigs and Manchester men to seek to win upon free trade? Why

is it an ignoble bargain to promise to remove the tax from income, and

pure statesmanship to remove the tax from bread? “Give us a majority,”

said Mr. Gladstone, “and we will do away with income-tax, lighten local

burdens, and help to free the breakfast table.” If people believed him,

what better reason could they have than such a prospect as this for

retaining him in the place of their chief ruler?

IV

Parliament was dissolved on January 26, and the contending forces

instantly engaged. Mr. Gladstone did not spare himself:—

_Jan. 26, ’74._—8-3/4-5-3/4. To Osborne. Audience of H.M. who

quite comprehends the provisional character of the position. ...

Boundless newspaper reading. 28.—2-5. To Greenwich. Spoke an hour

to 5000. An enthusiastic meeting, but the general prospects are

far from clear.(305) 31.—-Woolwich meeting. The meeting disturbed

by design was strangely brought round again. _Feb. 2._—Third great

meeting and speech of an hour at New Cross for Deptford. Much

enthusiasm and fair order. 3.—Many telegrams and much conversation

with Granville and Wolverton in the evening. The general purport

was first indifferent, then bad. My own election for Greenwich

after Boord the distiller, is more like a defeat than a victory,

though it places me in parliament again. A wakeful night, but more

I believe from a little strong coffee drunk incautiously, than

from the polls, which I cannot help and have done all in my power

to mend.

The Greenwich seat, the cause of such long perturbation, was saved after

all, but as Mr. Gladstone wrote to a defeated colleague, “In some points

of view it is better to be defeated outright, than to be pitched in like

me at Greenwich.” The numbers were Boord (C.) 6193, Gladstone (L.) 5968,

Liardet (C.) 5561, Langley (L.) 5255.

(M155) The conservative reaction was general. Scotland and Wales still

returned a liberal majority, but even in these strongholds a breach was

made—a net loss of 3 in Wales, of 9 in Scotland. From the English counties

145 tories were returned, and no more than 27 liberals, a loss of 13. In

the greater boroughs, hitherto regarded as staunchly ministerial, some of

the most populous returned tories. The metropolitan elections went against

the government, and 7 seats were lost—three in the city, one in

Westminster, in both cases by immense majorities. The net liberal loss in

the English boroughs was 32. In England and Wales the tory majority was

105; in Great Britain it stood at 83. When all was over, the new House

contained a conservative majority of 48, or on another estimate, of 50,

but really, in Mr. Gladstone’s words, “of much greater strength.”

Numbers, as Mr. Gladstone said afterwards, did not exhibit the whole

measure of the calamity. An extraordinary portent arose in that quarter

from which so many portents spring. “The liberal majority reckoned to have

been returned from Ireland was at once found to be illusory. Out of the

105 members the liberals were little more than a dozen. The period

immediately following the Church Act and Land Act had been chosen as one

appropriate for a formal severance of the Irish national party from the

general body of British liberals. Their number was no less than

fifty-eight, an actual majority of the Irish representation. They assumed

the name of home rulers, and established a separate parliamentary

organisation. On some questions of liberal opinion co-operation was still

continued. But, as regards the party, the weight of the home rulers

clearly told more in favour of the conservative ministry than of the

opposition; and the liberal party would have been stronger not weaker had

the entire body been systematically absent.”(306) Before the election was

over, Mr. Chichester Fortescue had warned him that he expected defeat in

the county of Louth, for which he had sat ever since 1847; the defeat

came. Mr. Gladstone wrote to him (Feb. 11):—

I receive with great concern your dark prognostication of the

result of the Louth election. It would be so painful in a public

view with regard to the gratitude of Irishmen, that I will still

hope for a better result. But with reference to the latter part of

your letter, I at once write to say that in the double event of

your rejection and your wish, I consider your claim to a peerage

indisputable. It would be hard to name the man who has done for

Ireland all that you have done, or any man that knew the greatest

Irish questions as you know them.

Mr. Parnell, by the way, was not elected for Meath until April 1875.

V

As the adverse verdict became more and more emphatic, Mr. Gladstone stated

to the Queen (Feb. 13) what was the bias of his mind, on the question

whether the expiring government should await its sentence from parliament.

He had no doubt, he said, that this course was the one most agreeable to

usage, and to the rules of parliamentary government; any departure from it

could only be justified upon exceptional grounds. He was not, however,

clear that this case, like that of 1868, was to be treated as exceptional,

partly by reason of prevalent opinion, partly because it should be

considered what is fair to an incoming administration with reference to

the business, especially the financial business, of the year. Lord

Granville from the first seems to have been against waiting for formal

decapitation by the new House of Commons. To him Mr. Gladstone wrote (Feb.

7):—

I presume you will answer Bismarck’s kind telegram. Please to

mention me in your reply or not as you think proper. As to the

impending crisis of our fate, one important element, I admit, will

be the feeling of the party. I have asked Peel (whose first

feeling seems rather to be with you) to learn what he can. I tend

to harden in my own view, principle and precedent seeming to me

alike clear. There are four precedents of our own time—1835, 1841,

1852, 1859, under three ministers. The only case the other way is

that of 1868 of which the circumstances were altogether peculiar.

But I admit it to be very doubtful whether we should get beyond

the address. On the other hand I admit freely that I have no title

to press my view beyond a certain point.

(M156) “It is parliament,” he argued, “not the constituencies, that ought

to dismiss the government, and the proper function of the House of Commons

cannot be taken from it without diminishing somewhat in dignity and

authority.” There would be reproach either way, he said; either it would

be clinging to office, or it would be running away. To run away was in

every circumstance of politics the thing to Mr. Gladstone most unbearable.

According to Sir Robert Phillimore (Feb. 8) “Gladstone would have met

parliament but his colleagues objected, though it seems they would have

stood by him if he had pressed them to do so; but as he did not mean, or

was not going, to fight in the van of opposition, he thought it unfair to

press them.”

_Feb. 16, ’74._—Cabinet dinner 8-12. It went well. I did something

towards snapping the ties and winding out of the coil.

Conversation afterwards with Granville, on the flags up and down.

Then with Wolverton. To bed at 1-3/4, but lay three hours awake

(rare with me) with an overwrought brain. ... 17.—12-½-6. Went to

Windsor, and on behalf of the cabinet resigned. Took with me

_Merchant of Venice_ and _Thomas à Kempis_, each how admirable in

its way!(307) 20.—Went by 5.10 to Windsor, final audience and

kissed hands. Her Majesty very kind, the topics of conversation

were of course rather limited. 21.—I cleared my room in Downing

Street and bade it farewell, giving up my keys except the cabinet

key. 28.—Set aside about 300 vols. of pamphlets for the shambles.

_March 3._—I have given up all my keys; quitted Downing Street a

week ago; not an official box remains. But I have still the daily

visit of a kind private secretary; when that drops all is over.

5.—Hamilton paid me his last visit. To-morrow I encounter my own

correspondence single-handed.

The Queen repeated a former proposal of a peerage. In returning some

submissions for her approval, she wished “likewise to record her offer to

Mr. Gladstone of a mark of her recognition of his services which, however,

he declines from motives which she fully appreciates.” Mr. Gladstone

writes to his brother Sir Thomas (Feb. 13):—

Accept my best thanks for your kind note of yesterday. My reply to

the Queen was first made twelve months ago when we proposed to

resign simply from the failure of a great measure in H. of C. I

repeated it this year with similar expressions of gratitude, but

with the remark that even if my mind had been open on the

question, I did not think I could have accepted anything while

under that national condemnation which has been emphatically

enough pronounced at the elections. I may be wrong in my view of

the matter generally; but I can only judge for the best. I do not

see that I am wanted or should be of use in the House of Lords,

and there would be more discrepancy between rank and fortune,

which is a thing on the whole rather to be deprecated. On the

other hand, I know that the line I have marked out for myself in

the H. of C. is one not altogether easy to hold; but I have every

disposition to remain quiet there, and shall be very glad if I can

do so.

VI

Letters from two of his colleagues explain the catastrophe. The shrewd

Lord Halifax says to him (Feb 12):—

As far as I can make out people are frightened—the masters were

afraid of their workmen, manufacturers afraid of strikes,

churchmen afraid of the nonconformists, many afraid of what is

going on in France and Spain—and in very unreasoning fear have all

taken refuge in conservatism. Ballot enabled them to do this

without apparently deserting their principles and party. Things in

this country as elsewhere are apt to run for a time in opposite

directions. The reaction from the quiet of Palmerston’s government

gave you strength to remove four or five old-standing abuses which

nobody had ventured to touch for years. The feelings of those who

suffer from the removal of abuses are always stronger than those

of the general public who are benefited. Gratitude for the Reform

bill and its sequel of improvements hardly gave a liberal majority

in 1835, and gratitude for the removal of the Irish church,

purchase, etc., has not given us a majority in 1874.

(M157) Mr. Bright wrote to him that as things had turned out, it would

perhaps have been wiser first to secure the budget; with that and better

organisation, the result might have been better three or six months later.

In Lancashire, said Bright, publicans and Irishmen had joined together,

one for delirium tremens and the other for religious education. The 25th

clause and Mr. Forster’s obstinacy, he added, had done much to wreck the

ship. Mr. Gladstone’s own diagnosis was not very different. To his brother

Robertson he wrote (Feb. 6):—

For many years in the House of Commons I have had more fighting

than any other man. For the last five years I have had it almost

all, and of it a considerable part has been against those

“independent” liberals whose characters and talents seem to be

much more appreciated by the press and general public, than the

characters and talents of quieter members of the party. I do not

speak of such men as ——, who leave office or otherwise find

occasion to vindicate their independence, and vote against us on

the questions immediately concerned. These men make very little

noise and get very little applause. But there is another and more

popular class of independent liberals who have been represented by

the _Daily News_, and who have been one main cause of the weakness

of the government, though they (generally) and their organ have

rallied to us too late during the election. We have never

recovered from the blow which they helped to strike on the Irish

Education bill.

But more immediately operative causes have determined the

elections. I have no doubt what is the principal. We have been

borne down in a torrent of gin and beer. Next to this has been the

action of the Education Act of 1870, and the subsequent

controversies. Many of the Roman catholics have voted against us

because we are not denominational; and many of the dissenters have

at least abstained from voting because we are. Doubtless there

have been other minor agencies; but these are the chief ones. The

effect must be our early removal from office. For me that will be

a very great change, for I do not intend to assume the general

functions of leader of the opposition, and my great ambition or

design will be to spend the remainder of my days, if it please

God, in tranquillity, and at any rate in freedom from political

strife.

When a short idle attempt was made in the new parliament to raise a debate

upon the date and circumstances of the dissolution, Disraeli used language

rightly called by Mr. Gladstone “generous.” “The right honourable

gentleman’s friends,” he said, “were silent, and I must confess I admire

their taste and feeling. If I had been a follower of a parliamentary chief

as eminent, even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed

rather to exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism. I should remember the

great victories which he had fought and won; I should remember his

illustrious career; its continuous success and splendour, not its

accidental or even disastrous mistakes.”(308)

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

One word upon the place of this election in our financial history. In

1874, the prosperity of the country and the movement of the revenue gave

an opportunity for repeal of the income-tax. That opportunity never

recurred. The election of 1874 was the fall of the curtain; the play that

had begun in 1842 came to its last scene. It marked the decision of the

electorate that the income-tax—introduced in time of peace by Peel and

continued by Mr. Gladstone, for the purpose of simplifying the tariff and

expanding trade—should be retained for general objects of government and

should be a permanent element of our finance. It marked at the same time

the prospect of a new era of indefinitely enlarged expenditure, with the

income-tax as a main engine for raising ways and means. Whether this

decision was wise or unwise, we need not here discuss.

BOOK VII. 1874-1880

Chapter I. Retirement From Leadership. (1874-1875)

“ἐγὼ μὲν, ὧναξ, πρεσβύτερός τε ἤδη εἰμὶ καὶ βαρὺς ἀείρεσθαι; σὺ δέ

τινα τῶνδε τῶν νεωτέρων κέλευε ταῦτα ποιέειν.”—HERODOTUS iv. 150.

“I am too old, O king, and slow to stir; so bid thou one of the

younger men here do these things.”

A member of the great government of 1868, in a letter to one of his

family, gave an account of the final meeting of the cabinet:—

_Feb. 17, 1874._—I doubt—he says—whether I ever passed a more

eventful evening than yesterday. The whole cabinet was assembled.

We resolved after full discussion of pros and cons, and some

slight difference of opinion, to resign at once. After which came

the startling announcement that Gladstone would no longer retain

the leadership of the liberal party, nor resume it, unless the

party had settled its differences. He will not expose himself to

the insults and outrages of 1866-8, and he has a keen sense of the

disloyalty of the party during the last three years. He will sit

as a private member and occasionally speak for himself, but he

will not attend the House regularly, nor assume any one of the

functions of leader. He does this not from anger, but because he

says that it is absolutely necessary to party action to learn that

all the duties and responsibilities do not rest on the leaders,

but that followers have their obligations too. As a consequence of

this Cardwell retires to the House of Lords. He will not take the

leadership, nor will he consent to serve under any one but

Gladstone. He is too old, he says. Lowe protests against the

anarchical experiment, and talks of Hartington as leader. As

neither Lowe, nor Bright, nor Goschen, nor Forster is in a

position to act as leader, it may come to this, so that the

liberal front benches of the two Houses will be entirely

remodelled.(309)

Here is Mr. Gladstone’s own account, written twenty-three years later, and

confirmed by all other accessible papers of the moment:—

I was most anxious to make the retirement of the ministry the

occasion of my own. I had served for more than forty years. My

age—65—was greater than that of Sir Robert Peel at his retirement

in 1846, or at his death in 1850, and was much beyond that at

which most of the leading commoners of the century had terminated

their political career, together with their natural life. I felt

myself to be in some measure out of touch with some of the

tendencies of the liberal party, especially in religious matters.

Sir A. Clark, whom I consulted, would give me on medical grounds

no encouragement whatever. But I deeply desired an interval

between parliament and the grave. In spite of the solicitations of

my friends I persisted. For 1874 there was a sort of compromise

“without prejudice.” As having a title to some rest I was not a

very regular attendant, but did not formally abdicate.

(M158) He found specific reasons for withdrawal in the state of the party

(Feb. 12):—

1. The absence of any great positive aim (the late plan [budget]

having failed) for which to co-operate. 2. The difficulty of

establishing united and vigorous action in the liberal party for

the purposes of economy. 3. The unlikelihood of arriving at any

present agreement respecting education.

In another fragment of the same date, he says:—