POLITICS AGAIN.
When Parliament met in 1859, an amendment was moved to the Address in a
maiden speech from Lord Hartington, which was carried after a three
nights' debate, Mr. Gladstone voting with the Government. Lord Derby and
his colleagues instantly resigned. A new Government was formed--Lord
Palmerston Premier, Lord John Russell leader of the House of Commons,
with Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer. A spirited opposition
to Mr. Gladstone's re-election for the University took place. Lord
Chandos--afterwards the Duke of Buckingham--came forward as the
Conservative candidate. In an address put forward on his behalf by
Professor Mansel, it was stated: 'By his acceptance of office Mr.
Gladstone must now be considered as having given his adherence to the
Liberal party as at present reconstructed, and as approving of the policy
of those who overthrew Lord Derby's Government at the late division. By
his vote on that division Mr. Gladstone expressed his confidence in the
Administration of Lord Derby. By accepting office he now expresses his
confidence in the administration of Lord Derby's opponent and successor.'
In a letter to Dr. Hawkins, the Provost of Oriel, Mr. Gladstone wrote:
'Various differences of opinion, both on foreign and domestic matters,
separated me during great part of the Administration of Lord Palmerston
from a body of men with the majority of whom I had acted in perfect
harmony under Lord Aberdeen. I promoted the vote of the House of
Commons, which in February led to the downfall of that Ministry. Such
having been the case, I thought it my clear duty to support, as far as I
was able, the Government of Lord Derby. Accordingly, on the various
occasions during the existence of the late Parliament when they were
seriously threatened with danger of embarrassment, I found myself, like
many other independent members, lending them such assistance as was in my
power.'
The Oxford election terminated in Mr. Gladstone's triumph over his
opponent. It is curious to note how entirely Mr. Gladstone concurred
with Lord John Russell. He worked hard in the Cabinet and in Parliament
for his lordship's Reform Bill, and regarded with aversion Lord
Palmerston's fortifications. In a letter to Her Majesty we read:
'Viscount Palmerston hopes to be able to overcome his objections, but if
that should prove impossible, however great the loss to the Government by
the retirement of Mr. Gladstone, it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone
than to run the risk of losing Portsmouth or Plymouth.' When his
colleague's scruples had been overcome, Lord Palmerston wrote to his
Sovereign: 'Mr. Gladstone told Lord Palmerston this evening that he
wished it to be understood that, though acquiescing in the step now taken
about the fortifications, he kept himself free to take such course as he
might think fit upon the subject next year; to which Lord Palmerston
consented. That course will probably be the same which Mr. Gladstone
took last year--namely, ineffectual opposition and ultimate
acquiescence.'
Mr. Gavan Duffy has given us a correct picture of Gladstone as he
appeared to him about this time: 'Mr. Gladstone was not yet the official
leader of the Peelites, but he was the most noteworthy of them, and
attracted close observation. He was habitually grave, it seemed to me,
and spoke as if he uttered oracles; yet he left the impression that his
speeches were not only improvised, but that the process of adopting a
conclusion was not always complete when he rose to speak. But the vigour
and grace of his rhetoric put criticism to flight. The House, which
relished the persiflage of Palmerston, thought Gladstone too serious, and
resented a little, I think, the subdued tone of contemptuous superiority
in which he addressed the leader of the House. He was as smooth as silk,
but there was manifestly a reserve of vehement and angry passion ready to
break out when it was provoked.'
In a book just published by Mr. Hogan we get a glance at Mr. Gladstone as
Colonial Secretary. In Queensland a town still bears his name. The town
of Gladstone, which is now within the limits of North Queensland, has
been somewhat overshadowed by Rockhampton, which owes its existence to
the gold fever which, at the time when folk began to talk of 'North
Australia,' nobody foresaw. The period, indeed, seems to us now
curiously remote, though it is still fresh in the mind of the statesman
whose name was bestowed upon the capital of the intended new colony. So
much, at least, appears from the prefatory note addressed to the author:
'DEAR MR. HOGAN,
'My recollections of "Gladstone" were most copious, and are now
nearly half a century old.
'The period, December, 1845, when I became Colonial Secretary, was
one when the British Government had begun to feel nonplussed by the
question of Transportation. Under the pressure of this difficulty,
Lord Stanley, or the Colonial Office of his day, framed a plan for
the establishment, as an experiment, of a pure penal colony without
free settlers (at least, at the outset).
'When I came in, the plan might have been arrested in the event of
disapproval; but the Government were, I think, committed, and I had
only to put the last hand to the scheme.
'So it went on towards execution.
'In July, 1846, the Government was changed, and Lord Grey succeeded
me. He said he would make none but necessary changes in pending
measures. He, however, annihilated this scheme. For that I do not
know that he is to be severely blamed. But he went on and dealt with
the question in such a way as to produce a mess--I think more than
one--far worse than any that he found. The result was the total and
rather violent and summary extinction of the entire system.
'Here I lost sight of the fate of "Gladstone." It has my good
wishes, but I have nothing else to give.
'Yours very faithful,
'W. E. GLADSTONE.'
Mr. Hogan deals with the decline and fall of transportation. It had
ceased in New South Wales before Mr. Gladstone came into office. It had
broken down also in Norfolk Island, and the hideous practice in Van
Diemen's Land, known as 'the probation system,' was causing considerable
excitement. It was at this time that Lord Stanley conceived the notion
of a new penal colony in North Australia, and it fell to his successor,
Mr. Gladstone, to give it form and substance. Mr. Hogan does not spare
Mr. Gladstone's political errors; he is, on the contrary, rather given to
dwelling upon them with an acerbity which is to be regretted. We all
know that the venerable statesman, who has now well-nigh outlived the
bitterness of party rancour, had in those days much to learn. He was
undoubtedly, at one time, of opinion that the right of the mother country
to found penal settlements at the Antipodes was incontestable; but this
view was then shared by most politicians outside the thoughtful circle of
the Philosophical Radicals. It is clear, moreover, that Mr. Gladstone
came to the subject of transportation with a sincere conviction that it
was possible to convert criminals into good citizens, whose presence on
the soil would be, not a curse, but an advantage. There is a remarkable
State paper in the shape of a memorandum addressed to Sir Eardley Wilmot,
who had been sent out specially to inaugurate the probation system. In
this, after commenting with the enthusiasm natural to a young statesman
on the practicability of reformation, he goes on to say: 'Considerations
yet more sacred enhance the importance of it, for it is impossible to
forget in how large a proportion of cases these unhappy people have every
claim on our sympathy which the force of temptation, adverse
circumstances of life, ignorance and neglected education, can afford to
those who have incurred the penalty of the law.'
But our colonists, no doubt, saw in such utterances only a pharisaism
which overlooks the fact that this is pre-eminently a sort of charity
which should begin at home. Mr. Gladstone, as appears from his
despatches, was profoundly dissatisfied with the way in which Sir Eardley
Wilmot--who was an old man, with probably an old-fashioned aversion to
new ideas--performed, or, rather, did not perform, his duties, and
finally dismissed him. Unfortunately, at the same time he addressed him
in a private or 'secret' letter, in which he referred to certain rumours
that had reached him of irregularities in Sir Eardley's private life,
which, as they were subsequently disproved, and Sir Eardley died during
the controversy, awakened much sympathy. Mr. Hogan gives great
prominence to this old scandal, and there can be no doubt that Sir
Eardley was unjustly treated; but it is manifest that it was not the
malicious rumours, but the neglect of duty, that was the ground of his
dismissal. Mr. Gladstone's complaint is:
'You have under your charge and responsibility many thousand convicts
formed into probation parties, or living together at Government depots.
It is only with extreme rarity that you advert in your despatches to the
moral condition of these men. You have discussed the economical
questions connected with their maintenance or their coercion, and you
have even entered into argument, though in a manner too little
penetrating, upon their offences against the laws. But into the inner
world of their mental, moral and spiritual state, either you have not
made it a part of your duty to examine, or else--which for the present
issue is, I apprehend, conclusive--you have not placed Her Majesty's
Government in possession of the results.'
It is curious to note Mr. Gladstone's unpopularity in the Colonies. When
Sir Henry Parkes, the New South Wales Premier, visited England, he
writes: 'I had a long conversation with Mr. Gladstone, in the course of
which I told him that he had been often charged in Australia, both in the
newspapers and in speeches, with being indifferent, if not inimical, to
the preservation of the connection between the colonies and England. He
was visibly surprised at what I told him, and said I was authorized to
say that he had never at any time favoured such view, and that I might
challenge any person making the charge to produce proof in support of
it.' On another occasion Sir Henry Parkes writes: 'We talked for two
hours chiefly on Australian topics, and I recollect very vividly his
animated inquiry as to whether many of the young men of the country
entered the Church.'
The Budget of 1860 was distinguished mainly for two things--the
Commercial Treaty with France, initiated by Mr. Cobden, and the Taxes on
Knowledge.
In the debate on this subject in 1852, Mr. Gladstone, then in opposition,
intimated that, though he should like to see the paper duty repealed when
the proper time had come, if books and newspapers were dearer than they
ought to be, the blame was not so much with fiscal requirements as with
the trades unionism, which wickedly raised the wages of compositors and
others to a level far above their deserts. If the working-classes wanted
cheap literature, he thought that they had a sufficient remedy in their
own hands, as they themselves could cheapen the labour by which the
literature was produced (quoted from Fox Bourne's 'History of the
Newspaper Press').
In the following year Mr. Gladstone, after the Government had been
beaten, as a compromise, proposed to reduce the advertisement duty from
one shilling and sixpence to sixpence. But he was again defeated, and
the tax, in spite of him, was abolished altogether. The final stage was
reached in 1861, when the paper duty was abolished, Mr. Gladstone being
Chancellor of the Exchequer, after the Bill had been defeated in the
House of Lords. 'It entailed,' wrote Mr. Gladstone in the _Nineteenth
Century_, 'the severest Parliamentary struggle in which I have ever been
engaged.' The repeal of the paper duty was the arrival of a new era in
literature--of the penny newspaper, of the popular magazine, of cheap
reprints of all our great standard authors.
On February 15 Mr. Greville writes: 'When I left London a fortnight ago
the world was anxiously expecting Gladstone's speech, in which he was to
put the Commercial Treaty and the Budget before the world. His own
confidence, and that of most of his colleagues, in his success was
unbounded, but many inveighed bitterly against the treaty. Clarendon
shook his head, Overstone pronounced against the treaty, the _Times_
thundered against it, and there is little doubt that it was unpopular,
and becoming more so every day. Then came Gladstone's unlucky illness,
which compelled him to put off his expose, and made it doubtful whether
he would not be physically disabled from doing justice to the subject.
His doctor says he ought to have taken two months' rest instead of two
days. However, at the end of his two days' delay he came forth and,
_consensus omnium_, achieved one of the greatest triumphs that the House
of Commons ever witnessed. Everybody, I have heard from home, admits
that it was a magnificent display, not to be surpassed in ability of
execution, and that he carried the House of Commons with him. I can well
believe it, for when I read the report of it next day it carried me along
with it likewise.' The only parties not gratified were the Temperance
Reformers, who did not like the cheap Gladstone claret which was
immediately introduced at the dinner-tables, nor that clause of the new
Bill which was to give grocers licenses to sell the cheap wines of
France, and which was to make the fortune of the great house of Gilbey.
Lord Russell became a peer, and left Mr. Gladstone to fight the good
fight in the House of Commons, about this time. Gladstone and Disraeli
were fully recognised as the leaders of their respective parties. In the
life of Mr. Richard Redgrave, under the date of 1860, Mr. Redgrave gives
a description of Mr. Gladstone's reply to Mr. Disraeli's attack on the
French Treaty. A friend who was present told him: 'Mr. Gladstone was in
such a state of excitement that everyone dreaded an attack from him; that
his punishment of Mr. Disraeli was most ferocious. He was like a
Cherokee Indian fighting; he first knocked down his adversary, then he
stamped upon him, then he got excited and danced on him; he scalped him,
and then took him between his finger and thumb like a miserable insect,
and looked at him, and held him up to contempt.'
Mr. Macarthy's judicious criticism may be quoted here.
'It is idle to contend that between Gladstone and Disraeli any love was
lost, and that many people thought it was unhandsome on the part of Mr.
Gladstone not to attend his great rival's obsequies, and to bury his
animosities in the grave. In 1862 Disraeli complained to the Bishop of
Oxford that he and others kept the Church as Mr. Gladstone's nest-egg
when he became a Whig till it was almost addled. At this time Disraeli
wrote: "I wish you could have induced Gladstone to have joined Lord
Derby's Government when Lord Ellenborough resigned in 1858. It was not
my fault that he did not; I almost went on my knees to him. Had he done
so, the Church and everything else would have been in a very different
position." In 1867 the Bishop of Oxford writes: "The most wonderful
thing is the rise of Disraeli. It is not the mere assertion of talent,
as you hear so many say; it seems to me quite beside that. He has been
able to teach the House of Commons almost to ignore Gladstone, and at
present lords it over him, and, I am told, says that he will hold him
down for twenty years." Disraeli, however, did himself no good when, in
1878, he described Mr. Gladstone as a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated
with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical
imagination that at all times can command an interminable and
inconsistent series of arguments to malign his opponents and to glorify
himself.'
Disraeli was never happy in statement. When he had to explain a policy,
financial or other, he might really be regarded as a very dull speaker.
Gladstone was specially brilliant in statement. He could give to an
exposition of figures the fascination of a romance or a poem. Mr.
Gladstone never could, under any circumstances, be a dull speaker. He
was no equal of Disraeli in the gift of sarcasm, and what Disraeli
himself called 'flouts and jeers.' But in his reply he swept his
antagonist before him with his marvellous eloquence, compounded of reason
and passion.
On the breaking out of the American Civil War, Mr. Gladstone was
undoubtedly on the side of the South: Jefferson Davis, he said, had made
a nation of the South--a speech of which Mr. Gladstone repented a few
years after. But it took a long time for the North to forgive or forget
his unfortunate speech. Bishop Fraser, writing in 1865, says: 'They have
just got hold of about a dozen subscribers to the Confederate Loan, among
whom is W. E. Gladstone, down, to my surprise, for 2,000. This, as you
might expect, is a topic for excited editorials, and the cry is that the
American Government ought to demand his dismissal from the Ministry.'
In time the Americans began to understand Mr. Gladstone better, and to
appreciate him and his good feeling towards their country more. Major
Pond, the well-known American, for twenty years endeavoured to get the
G.O.M.--as he has long been known on both sides of the Atlantic--to cross
the Atlantic on a lecturing tour. In 1880 Mr. Gladstone wrote to him: 'I
have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, with all the kindness it
expresses and the dazzling prospects which it offers. Unhappily, my
reply lies not in vague expressions of hope, but in the burden of seventy
years and of engagements and duties beyond my strength, by desertion of
which, even for the time needed, I should really be disentitling myself
to the goodwill of the American people, which I prize so highly.'
Notwithstanding this refusal, Major Pond returned to the attack, and
offered the Grand Old Man seven thousand pounds for twenty lectures,
which Mr. Gladstone declined. As a gentleman, he was bound to do so. It
would have been a sorry sight to have seen the G.O.M. carted all over
America as a show on a lecturing tour.
'To Americans,' says _Table Talk_, 'the venerable ex-leader of the
Liberal Party in the British Parliament is not only a great Englishman,
but the greatest of all Englishmen, and his demise, which, it is to be
hoped, will yet be long postponed, will be regarded as a calamity to all
the English-speaking races. It has always been a matter of keen regret
throughout the American continent that Mr. Gladstone has never been able
to pay a visit to those whom the Grand Old Man described in his memorable
article in the _North American Review_ as "kin beyond sea." In July,
1894, a well-organized attempt was made to induce Mr. Gladstone to cross
the ocean. A letter of invitation was sent to him, signed by the then
Vice-President of the United States, Mr. Adlai Stevenson, by Mr. Chauncey
Depew, by Dr. Pepper, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, by
seventy Senators and one hundred Congressmen, by the Governors of a large
number of the States, as well as nearly all the members of Mr.
Cleveland's Cabinet and of the Supreme Bench at Washington. It was
intimated to the aged statesman that the most extraordinary arrangements
would be made for his comfort, including the most luxurious (of course,
free) transportation for himself, Mrs. Gladstone, and such companions and
attendants as he desired; a special service of private cars on all the
railways, and the unlimited use of an Atlantic cable during the time of
his absence from England. Mr. Gladstone was also promised immunity from
"interviewers, party politicians, advertisers, and hand-shakers." Mr.
Gladstone's reply covered three pages of large size writing-paper, and
was written by himself entirely. At that time, it will be remembered,
Mr. Gladstone's eyes were giving him great trouble, and he pathetically
wrote: "Undoubtedly your letter supplied the strongest motives for an
attempt to brave the impossible. But I regret to say it reaches me at a
time when, were I much younger, it could not be open to me to consider
this question." At the same time, while unable to accept such a
flattering invitation, Mr. Gladstone, in concluding his letter, begged
that the American nation would remain assured of "my unalterable interest
in your country."'
It was scarcely necessary to write that. In his celebrated article on
'Kith and Kin' Mr. Gladstone had shown how far our American cousins had
shot ahead of the old folks at home.
In 1866 Sir Richard Temple wrote of the opening debate: 'Next it was Mr.
Gladstone's turn to speak. I had understood privately that he was going
to make some announcement that would imply the resignation of the Liberal
leadership. He was known to be disappointed at his failure to obtain a
majority at the General Election. . . . In fact, however, he said
nothing to imply resignation, but, on the contrary, was evidently
prepared to oppose the Government and challenge them to propose a measure
in favour of Ireland, if they had one. It was in this speech that,
alluding to his reserve on the question of Home Rule until the fit moment
for action should arrive, he described himself as an old Parliamentary
hand. He had long been a coiner of phrases that have become household
words in Parliament, and yet this description became famous among us at
once.'
Lord Houghton writes in 1866: 'I sat by Gladstone at the Delameres'. He
was very much excited, not only about politics, but cattle plague, china,
and everything else. It is indeed a contrast to Palmerston's "Ha, ha!"
and _laissez faire_.' Again in 1868 Lord Houghton writes: 'Gladstone is
the great triumph, but, as he owns that he has to drive a four-in-hand
consisting of English Liberals, English Dissenters, Scotch Presbyterians,
and Irish Catholics, he requires all his courage to look his difficulties
in the face, and trust to surmount them.'
In 1849 Lord Malmesbury writes: 'Dined with the Cannings, and met Mr.
Gladstone and Mr. Phillimore. We were anxious to see the former, as he
is a man much spoken of as one who will come to the front. We were
disappointed at his appearance, which is that of a Roman Catholic priest;
but he is very agreeable.' On another occasion Malmesbury speaks of
Gladstone as 'a dark horse.' In 1866 Lady Palmerston tells Lord
Malmesbury that his lordship had very serious apprehensions as to Mr.
Gladstone's future career, and considered him a very dangerous and
reckless politician. About the same time Lord Palmerston said to the
Earl of Shaftesbury: 'Gladstone will soon have it all his own way, and
when he gets my place we shall have strange doings.' A little later on
Lord Malmesbury refers to the zest with which Mr. Gladstone had taken to
singing nigger melodies.
Mr. Gladstone in 1865, questioned on the subject of the Irish Church,
wrote: 'It would be very difficult for me to subscribe to any
interpretation of my speech on the Irish Church like that of your
correspondent, which contains so many conditions and bases of a plan for
dealing with a question apparently remote and at the same time full of
difficulties on every side. My reasons are, I think, plain. First,
because the question is remote, and out of all bearing on the practical
politics of the day, I think it would be far worse for me than
superfluous to determine upon any scheme or bases of a scheme with
respect to it. Secondly, because it is difficult, even if I anticipated
any likelihood of being called on to deal with it, I should think it
right to take no decision beforehand as to the mode of dealing with the
difficulties. But my first reason is that which chiefly sways. As far
as I know, my speech signifies pretty clearly the broad distinction
between the abstract and the practical views of the subject. And I think
I have stated strongly my sense of the responsibility attaching to the
opening of such a question except in a state of things which gives
promise of satisfactorily settling it. . . . In any measure dealing with
the Church of Ireland, I think (though I scarcely expect ever to be
called on to share in such a measure), the Act of Union must be
recognised, and must have important consequences, especially with
reference to the position of the hierarchy.'
A little amusement will be created by the following:
Mr. Jerningham, author of 'Reminiscences of an Attache,' met Mr.
Gladstone at Strawberry Hill just after the Liberal defeat on the Reform
Bill. Sitting near him at breakfast, Mr. Jerningham asked Mr. Gladstone
for his autograph.
'"Certainly," he said; "but you must ask me a question on paper, and I
will answer it."
'I was twenty-three years of age--very proud of being in such interesting
company at such a time, and therefore most anxious to justify my presence
by some clever question.
'I wrote down quickly the following, and, rather pleased with it, gave it
to Mr. Gladstone. It ran thus: "What is Mr. Gladstone's opinion of the
difference which exists in 1866 between a Liberal and a moderate
Conservative?"
'Mr. Gladstone crumpled up the paper, and, apparently much annoyed, said
he did not think he could answer such a question.
'I was so concerned by his look of vexation that I went up to one of the
ladies and repeated my question to her, so as to gather from her in which
way I had offended.
'She nearly screamed--at least, so far as that person could ever utter a
sound--and asked how I could ever have been so bold.
'The truth dawned upon me. The moderate Conservatives of 1866 had
dissolved a powerful Liberal Ministry, and I had inquired what he thought
of them--of the very statesman who had put their moderate principles to
the test.'
After this _faux pas_ one is not surprised that Mr. Jerningham rejoiced
that a dinner in town obliged him to leave his hosts on that very
afternoon. But, after all, the storm soon blew over, and the incident
had a pleasant ending. As Mr. Jerningham was on his way to Richmond,
whom should he find upon the boat at Twickenham but Mr. Gladstone
himself! So ends the tale:
'I very modestly bade good-bye to him without any allusion to my
indiscretion of the morning; but with infinite kindness and charm of
manner, he said, "I have not forgotten you," and pulled out of his pocket
my original question and his characteristic answer to it:
"'Strawberry Hill, June 24, 1866.
"'The word Moderate, as far as my observation goes, does no great
credit--according to the manner in which it is now used--either to
the word Liberal or to the word Conservative. Every Liberal claims
to be Conservative; every Conservative to be Liberal. I know of no
solution of the question between them except the test of their works.
'"Yours very truly,
'"W. E. GLADSTONE."'
Count Beust says: 'When I was ambassador in London, Mr. Gladstone, who
was then in office, was caricatured with his colleagues in a piece called
"The Happy Land," at the Court Theatre. This annoyed the Premier, and
the piece was taken off.'