Chapter XII. Accession Of Lord Salisbury. (1885)

Politics are not a drama where scenes follow one another according

to a methodical plan, where the actors exchange forms of speech,

settled beforehand: politics are a conflict of which chance is

incessantly modifying the whole course.—SOREL.

I

In tendering his resignation to the Queen on the day following his

parliamentary defeat (June 9), and regretting that he had been unable to

prepare her for the result, Mr. Gladstone explained that though the

government had always been able to cope with the combined tory and

nationalist oppositions, what had happened on this occasion was the silent

withdrawal, under the pressure of powerful trades, from the government

ranks of liberals who abstained from voting, while six or seven actually

voted with the majority. “There was no previous notice,” he said, “and it

was immediately before the division that Mr. Gladstone was apprised for

the first time of the likelihood of a defeat.” The suspicions hinted that

ministers, or at least some of them, unobtrusively contrived their own

fall. Their supporters, it was afterwards remarked, received none of those

imperative adjurations to return after dinner that are usual on solemn

occasions; else there could never have been seventy-six absentees. The

majority was composed of members of the tory party, six liberals, and

thirty-nine nationalists. Loud was the exultation of the latter contingent

at the prostration of the coercion system. What was natural exultation in

them, may have taken the form of modest satisfaction among many liberals,

that they could go to the country without the obnoxious label of coercion

tied round their necks. As for ministers, it was observed that if in the

streets you saw a man coming along with a particularly elastic step and a

joyful frame of (M80) countenance, ten to one on coming closer you would

find that it was a member of the late cabinet.(124)

The ministerial crisis of 1885 was unusually prolonged, and it was

curious. The victory had been won by a coalition with the Irish; its

fruits could only be reaped with Irish support; and Irish support was to

the tory victors both dangerous and compromising. The normal process of a

dissolution was thought to be legally impossible, because by the

redistribution bill the existing constituencies were for the most part

radically changed; and a new parliament chosen on the old system of seats

and franchise, even if it were legally possible, would still be empty of

all semblance of moral authority. Under these circumstances, some in the

tory party argued that instead of taking office, it would be far better

for them to force Mr. Gladstone and his cabinet to come back, and leave

them to get rid of their internal differences and their Irish

embarrassments as they best could. Events were soon to demonstrate the

prudence of these wary counsels. On the other hand, the bulk of the tory

party like the bulk of any other party was keen for power, because power

is the visible symbol of triumph over opponents, and to shrink from office

would discourage their friends in the country in the electoral conflict

now rapidly approaching.

The Queen meanwhile was surprised (June 10) that Mr. Gladstone should make

his defeat a vital question, and asked whether, in case Lord Salisbury

should be unwilling to form a government, the cabinet would remain. To

this Mr. Gladstone replied that to treat otherwise an attack on the

budget, made by an ex-cabinet minister with such breadth of front and

after all the previous occurrences of the session, would be contrary to

every precedent,—for instance, the notable case of December 1852,—and it

would undoubtedly tend to weaken and lower parliamentary government.(125)

If an opposition defeated a government, they must be prepared to accept

the responsibility of their action. As to the second question, he answered

that a refusal by Lord Salisbury would obviously change the situation. On

this, the Queen accepted the resignations (June 11), and summoned Lord

Salisbury to Balmoral. The resignations were announced to parliament the

next day. Remarks were made at the time, indeed by the Queen herself, at

the failure of Mr. Gladstone to seek the royal presence. Mr. Gladstone’s

explanation was that, viewing “the probably long reach of Lord

Hartington’s life into the future,” he thought that he would be more

useful in conversation with her Majesty than “one whose ideas might be

unconsciously coloured by the limited range of the prospect before him,”

and Lord Hartington prepared to comply with the request that he should

repair to Balmoral. The visit was eventually not thought necessary by the

Queen.

In his first audience Lord Salisbury stated that though he and his friends

were not desirous of taking office, he was ready to form a government; but

in view of the difficulties in which a government formed by him would

stand, confronted by a hostile majority and unable to dissolve, he

recommended that Mr. Gladstone should be invited to reconsider his

resignation. Mr. Gladstone, however (June 13), regarded the situation and

the chain of facts that had led up to it, as being so definite, when

coupled with the readiness of Lord Salisbury to undertake an

administration, that it would be a mere waste of valuable time for him to

consult his colleagues as to the resumption of office. Then Lord Salisbury

sought assurances of Mr. Gladstone’s support, as to finance, parliamentary

time, and other points in the working of executive government. These

assurances neither Mr. Gladstone’s own temperament, nor the humour of his

friends and his party—for the embers of the quarrel with the Lords upon

the franchise bill were still hot—allowed him to give, and he founded

himself on the precedent of the communications of December 1845 between

Peel and Russell. In this default of assurances, Lord Salisbury thought

that he should render the Queen no useful service by taking office. So

concluded the first stage.

(M81) Though declining specific pledges, Mr. Gladstone now wrote to the

Queen (June 17) that in the conduct of the necessary business of the

country, he believed there would be no disposition to embarrass her

ministers. Lord Salisbury, however, and his colleagues were unanimous in

thinking this general language insufficient. The interregnum continued. On

the day following (June 18), Mr. Gladstone had an audience at Windsor,

whither the Queen had now returned. It lasted over three-quarters of an

hour. “The Queen was most gracious and I thought most reasonable.”

(_Diary._) He put down in her presence some heads of a memorandum to

assist her recollection, and the one to which she rightly attached most

value was this: “In my opinion,” Mr. Gladstone wrote, “the whole value of

any such declaration as at the present circumstances permit, really

depends upon the spirit in which it is given and taken. For myself and any

friend of mine, I can only say that the spirit in which we should

endeavour to interpret and apply the declaration I have made, would be the

same spirit in which we entered upon the recent conferences concerning the

Seats bill.” To this declaration his colleagues on his return to London

gave their entire and marked approval, but they would not compromise the

liberty of the House of Commons by further and particular pledges.

It was sometimes charged against Mr. Gladstone that he neglected his duty

to the crown, and abandoned the Queen in a difficulty. This is wholly

untrue. On June 20, Sir Henry Ponsonby called and opened one or two

aspects of the position, among them these:—

1. Can the Queen do anything more?

I answered, As you ask me, it occurs to me that it might help Lord

Salisbury’s going on, were she to make reference to No. 2 of my

memorandum [the paragraph just quoted], and to say that in her

judgment he would be safe in receiving it in a spirit of trust.

2. If Lord Salisbury fails, may the Queen rely on you?

I answered that on a previous day I had said that if S. failed,

the situation would be altered. I hoped, and on the whole thought,

he would go on. But if he did not? I could not promise or expect

smooth water. The movement of questions such as the Crimes Act and

Irish Local Government might be accelerated. But my desire would

be to do my best to prevent the Queen being left without a

government.(126)

Mr. Gladstone’s view of the position is lucidly stated in the following

memorandum, like the others, in his own hand, (June 21):—

1. I have endeavoured in my letters (_a_) to avoid all

controversial matter; (_b_) to consider not what the incoming

ministers had a right to ask, but what it was possible for us in a

spirit of conciliation to give.

2. In our opinion there was no right to demand from us anything

whatever. The declarations we have made represent an extreme of

concession. The conditions required, _e.g._ the first of them

[control of time], place in abeyance the liberties of parliament,

by leaving it solely and absolutely in the power of the ministers

to determine on what legislative or other questions (except

supply) it shall be permitted to give a judgment. The House of

Commons may and ought to be disposed to facilitate the progress of

all necessary business by all reasonable means as to supply and

otherwise, but would deeply resent any act of ours by which we

agreed beforehand to the extinction of its discretion.

The difficulties pleaded by Lord Salisbury were all in view when

his political friend, Sir M. H. Beach, made the motion which, as

we apprised him, would if carried eject us from office, and are

simply the direct consequences of their own action. If it be true

that Lord Salisbury loses the legal power to advise and the crown

to grant a dissolution, that cannot be a reason for leaving in the

hands of the executive an absolute power to stop the action

(except as to supply) of the legislative and corrective power of

the House of Commons. At the same time these conditions do not

appear to me to attain the end proposed by Lord Salisbury, for it

would still be left in the power of the House to refuse supplies,

and thereby to bring about in its worst form the difficulty which

he apprehends.

It looked for a couple of days as if he would be compelled (M82) to

return, even though it would almost certainly lead to disruption of the

liberal cabinet and party.(127) The Queen, acting apparently on Mr.

Gladstone’s suggestion of June 20, was ready to express her confidence in

Mr. Gladstone’s assurance that there would be no disposition on the part

of himself or his friends to embarrass new ministers. By this expression

of confidence, the Queen would thus make herself in some degree

responsible as it were for the action of the members of the defeated

Gladstone government in the two Houses. Still Lord Salisbury’s

difficulties—and some difficulties are believed to have arisen pretty

acutely within the interior conclaves of his own party—remained for

forty-eight hours insuperable. His retreat to Hatfield was taken to mark a

second stage in the interregnum.

June 22 is set down in the diary as “a day of much stir and vicissitude.”

Mr. Gladstone received no fewer than six visits during the day from Sir

Henry Ponsonby, whose activity, judgment, and tact in these duties of

infinite delicacy were afterwards commemorated by Lord Granville in the

House of Lords.(128) He brought up from Windsor the draft of a letter that

might be written by the Queen to Lord Salisbury, testifying to her belief

in the sincerity and loyalty of Mr. Gladstone’s words. Sir Henry showed

the draft to Mr. Gladstone, who said that he could not be party to certain

passages in it, though willing to agree to the rest. The draft so altered

was submitted to Lord Salisbury; he demanded modification, placing a more

definite interpretation on the words of Mr. Gladstone’s previous letters

to the Queen. Mr. Gladstone was immovable throughout the day in declining

to admit any modifications in the sense desired; nor would he consent to

be privy to any construction or interpretation placed upon his words which

Lord Salisbury, with no less tenacity than his own, desired to extend.

At 5.40 [June 22] Sir H. Ponsonby returned for a fifth interview,

his infinite patience not yet exhausted.... He said the Queen

believed the late government did not wish to come back. I simply

reminded him of my previous replies, which, he remembered, nearly

as follows:—That if Lord Salisbury failed, the situation would be

altered. That I could not in such a case promise her Majesty

smooth water. That, however, a great duty in such circumstances

lay upon any one holding my situation, to use his best efforts so

as, _quoad_ what depended upon him, not to leave the Queen without

a government. I think he will now go to Windsor.—_June 22, ’85_, 6

P.M.

The next day (June 23), the Queen sent on to Lord Salisbury the letter

written by Mr. Gladstone on June 21, containing his opinion that

facilities of supply might reasonably be provided, without placing the

liberties of the House of Commons in abeyance, and further, his

declaration that he felt sure there was no idea of withholding ways and

means, and that there was no danger to be apprehended on that score. In

forwarding this letter, the Queen expressed to Lord Salisbury her earnest

desire to bring to a close a crisis calculated to endanger the best

interests of the state; and she felt no hesitation in further

communicating to Lord Salisbury her opinion that he might reasonably

accept Mr. Gladstone’s assurances. In deference to these representations

from the Queen, Lord Salisbury felt it his duty to take office, the crisis

ended, and the tory party entered on the first portion of a term of power

that was destined, with two rather brief interruptions, to be prolonged

for many years.(129) In reviewing this interesting episode in the annals

of the party system, it is impossible not to observe the dignity in form,

the patriotism in substance, the common-sense in result, that marked the

proceedings alike of the sovereign and of her two ministers.

II

After accepting Mr. Gladstone’s resignation the Queen, on June 13,

proffered him a peerage:—

_The Queen to Mr. Gladstone._

Mr. Gladstone mentioned in his last letter but one, his intention

of proposing some honours. But before she considers these, she

wishes to offer him an Earldom, as a mark of her recognition of

his long and distinguished services, and she believes and thinks

he will thereby be enabled still to render great service to his

sovereign and country—which if he retired, as he has repeatedly

told her of late he intended to do shortly,—he could not. The

country would doubtless be pleased at any signal mark of

recognition of Mr. Gladstone’s long and eminent services, and the

Queen believes that it would be beneficial to his health,—no

longer exposing him to the pressure from without, for more active

work than he ought to undertake. Only the other day—without

reference to the present events—the Queen mentioned to Mrs.

Gladstone at Windsor the advantage to Mr. Gladstone’s health of a

removal from one House to the other, in which she seemed to agree.

The Queen trusts, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone will accept the

offer of an earldom, which would be very gratifying to her.

The outgoing minister replied on the following day:—

Mr. Gladstone offers his humble apology to your Majesty. It would

not be easy for him to describe the feelings with which he has

read your Majesty’s generous, most generous letter. He prizes

every word of it, for he is fully alive to all the circumstances

which give it value. It will be a precious possession to him and

to his children after him. All that could recommend an earldom to

him, it already has given him. He remains, however, of the belief

that he ought not to avail himself of this most gracious offer.

Any service that he can render, if small, will, however, be

greater in the House of Commons than in the House of Lords; and it

has never formed part of his views to enter that historic chamber,

although he does not share the feeling which led Sir R. Peel to

put upon record what seemed a perpetual or almost a perpetual

self-denying ordinance for his family.

When the circumstances of the state cease, as he hopes they may

ere long, to impose on him any special duty, he will greatly covet

that interval between an active career and death, which the

profession of politics has always appeared to him especially to

require. There are circumstances connected with the position of

his family, which he will not obtrude upon your Majesty, but

which, as he conceives, recommend in point of prudence the

personal intention from which he has never swerved. He might

hesitate to act upon the motives to which he has last adverted,

grave as they are, did he not feel rooted in the persuasion that

the small good he may hope hereafter to effect, can best be

prosecuted without the change in his position. He must beg your

Majesty to supply all that is lacking in his expression from the

heart of profound and lasting gratitude.

To Lord Granville, the nearest of his friends, he wrote on the same day:—

I send you herewith a letter from the Queen which moves and almost

upsets me. It must have cost her much to write, and it is really a

pearl of great price. Such a letter makes the subject of it

secondary—but though it would take me long to set out my reasons,

I remain firm in the intention to accept nothing for myself.

Lord Granville replied that he was not surprised at the decision. “I

should have greatly welcomed you,” he said, “and under some circumstances

it might be desirable, but I think you are right now.”

Here is Mr. Gladstone’s letter to an invaluable occupant of the

all-important office of private secretary:—

_To Mr. E. W. Hamilton._

_June 30, 1885._—Since you have in substance (and in form?)

received the appointment [at the Treasury], I am unmuzzled, and

may now express the unbounded pleasure which it gives me, together

with my strong sense (not disparaging any one else) of your

desert. The modesty of your letter is as remarkable as its other

qualities, and does you the highest honour. I can accept no

tribute from you, or from any one, with regard to the office of

private secretary under me except this, that it has always been

made by me a strict and severe office, and that this is really the

only favour I have ever done you, or any of your colleagues to

whom in their several places and measures I am similarly obliged.

As to your services to me they have been simply indescribable. No

one I think could dream, until by experience he knew, to what an

extent in these close personal relations devolution can be

carried, and how it strengthens the feeble knees and thus also

sustains the fainting heart.

III

The declaration of the Irish policy of the new government was made to

parliament by no less a personage than the lord-lieutenant.(130) The prime

minister had discoursed on frontiers in Asia and frontiers in Africa, but

on Ireland he was silent. Lord Carnarvon, on the contrary, came forward

voluntarily with a statement of policy, and he opened it on the broadest

general lines. His speech deserves as close attention as any deliverance

of this memorable period. It laid down the principles of that alternative

system of government, with which the new ministers formally challenged

their predecessors. Ought the Crimes Act to be re-enacted as it stood; or

in part; or ought it to be allowed to lapse? These were the three courses.

Nobody, he thought, would be for the first, because some provisions had

never been put in force; others had been put in force but found useless;

and others again did nothing that might not be done just as well under the

ordinary law. The re-enactment of the whole statute, therefore, was

dismissed. But the powers for changing venue at the discretion of the

executive; for securing special juries at the same discretion; for holding

secret inquiry without an accused person; for dealing summarily with

charges of intimidation—might they not be continued? They were not

unconstitutional, and they were not opposed to legal instincts. No, all

quite true; but then the Lords should not conceal from themselves that

their re-enactment would be in the nature of special or exceptional

legislation. He had been looking through coercion Acts, he continued, and

had been astonished to find that ever since 1847, with some very short

intervals hardly worth mentioning, Ireland had lived under exceptional and

coercive legislation. What sane man could admit this to be a satisfactory

or a wholesome state of things? Why should not they try to extricate

themselves from this miserable habit, and aim at some better solution?

“Just as I have seen in English colonies across the sea a combination of

English, Irish, and Scotch settlers bound together in loyal obedience to

the law and the crown, and contributing to the general prosperity of the

country, so I cannot conceive that there is any irreconcilable bar here in

their native home and in England to the unity and the amity of the two

nations.” He went to his task individually with a perfectly free, open,

and unprejudiced mind, to hear, to question, and, as far as might be, to

understand. “My Lords, I do not believe that with honesty and

single-mindedness of purpose on the one side, and with the willingness of

the Irish people on the other, it is hopeless to look for some

satisfactory solution of this terrible question. My Lords, these I believe

to be the opinions and the views of my colleagues.”(131)

This remarkable announcement, made in the presence of the prime minister,

in the name of the cabinet as a whole, and by a man of known purity and

sincerity of character, was taken to be an express renunciation, not

merely of the policy of which notice had been given by the outgoing

administration, but of coercion as a final instrument of imperial rule. It

was an elaborate repudiation in advance of that panacea of firm and

resolute government, which became so famous before twelve months were

over. It was the suggestion, almost in terms, that a solution should be

sought in that policy which had brought union both within our colonies,

and between the colonies and the mother country, and men did not forget

that this suggestion was being made by a statesman who had carried

federation in Canada, and tried to carry it in South Africa. We cannot

wonder that upon leading members of the late government, and especially

upon the statesman who had been specially responsible for Ireland, the

impression was startling and profound. Important members of the tory party

hurried (M83) from Ireland to Arlington Street, and earnestly warned their

leader that he would never be able to carry on with the ordinary law. They

were coldly informed that Lord Salisbury had received quite different

counsel from persons well acquainted with the country.

The new government were not content with renouncing coercion for the

present. They cast off all responsibility for its practice in the past.

Ostentatiously they threw overboard the viceroy with whom the only fault

that they had hitherto found, was that his sword was not sharp enough. A

motion was made by the Irish leader calling attention to the

maladministration of the criminal law by Lord Spencer. Forty men had been

condemned to death, and in twenty-one of these cases the capital sentence

had been carried out. Of the twenty-one executions six were savagely

impugned, and Mr. Parnell’s motion called for a strict inquiry into these

and some other convictions, with a view to the full discovery of truth and

the relief of innocent persons. The debate soon became famous from the

principal case adduced, as the Maamtrasna debate. The topic had been so

copiously discussed as to occupy three full sittings of the House in the

previous October. The lawyer who had just been made Irish chancellor, at

that time pronounced against the demand. In substance the new government

made no fresh concession. They said that if memorials or statements were

laid before him, the viceroy would carefully attend to them. No minister

could say less. But incidental remarks fell from the government that

created lively alarm in tories and deep disgust in liberals. Sir Michael

Hicks Beach, then leader of the House, told them that while believing Lord

Spencer to be a man of perfect honour and sense of duty, “he must say very

frankly that there was much in the Irish policy of the late government

which, though in the absence of complete information he did not condemn,

he should be very sorry to make himself responsible for.”(132) An even

more important minister emphasised the severance of the new policy from

the old. “I will tell you,” cried Lord Randolph Churchill, “how the

present government is foredoomed to failure. They will be foredoomed to

failure if they go out of their way unnecessarily to assume one jot or

tittle of the responsibility for the acts of the late administration. It

is only by divesting ourselves of all responsibility for the acts of the

late government, that we can hope to arrive at a successful issue.”(133)

Tory members got up in angry fright, to denounce this practical

acquiescence by the heads of their party in what was a violent Irish

attack not only upon the late viceroy, but upon Irish judges, juries, and

law officers. They remonstrated against “the pusillanimous way” in which

their two leaders had thrown over Lord Spencer. “During the last three

years,” said one of these protesting tories, “Lord Spencer has upheld

respect for law at the risk of his life from day to day, with the

sanction, with the approval, and with the acknowledgment inside and

outside of this House, of the country, and especially of the conservative

party. Therefore I for one will not consent to be dragged into any

implied, however slight, condemnation of Lord Spencer, because it happens

to suit the exigencies of party warfare.”(134) This whole transaction

disgusted plain men, tory and liberal alike; it puzzled calculating men;

and it had much to do with the silent conversion of important and leading

men.

The general sentiment about the outgoing viceroy took the form of a

banquet in his honour (July 24), and some three hundred members of the two

Houses attended, including Lord Hartington, who presided, and Mr. Bright.

The two younger leaders of the radical wing who had been in the late

cabinet neither signed the invitation nor were present. But on the same

evening in another place, Mr. Chamberlain recognised the high qualities

and great services of Lord Spencer, though they had not always agreed upon

details. He expressed, however, his approval both of the policy and of the

arguments which had led the new government to drop the Crimes Act. At the

same time he denounced the “astounding tergiversation” of ministers, and

energetically declared that “a strategic movement of that kind, executed

in opposition to the notorious convictions of the men who effected it,

carried out for party purposes and party purposes alone, is the most

flagrant instance of political dishonesty this country has ever known.”

(M84) Lord Hartington a few weeks later told his constituents that the

conduct of the government, in regard to Ireland, had dealt a heavy blow

“both at political morality, and at the cause of order in Ireland.” The

severity of such judgments from these two weighty statesmen testifies to

the grave importance of the new departure.

The enormous change arising from the line adopted by the government was

visible enough even to men of less keen vision than Mr. Gladstone, and it

was promptly indicated by him in a few sentences in a letter to Lord Derby

on the very day of the Maamtrasna debate:—

Within the last two or three weeks, he wrote, the situation has

undergone important changes. I am not fully informed, but what I

know looks as if the Irish party so-called in parliament, excited

by the high biddings of Lord Randolph, had changed what was

undoubtedly Parnell’s ground until within a very short time back.

It is now said that a central board will not suffice, and that

there must be a parliament. This I suppose may mean the repeal of

the Act of Union, or may mean an Austro-Hungarian scheme, or may

mean that Ireland is to be like a great colony such as Canada. Of

all or any of these schemes I will now only say that, of course,

they constitute an entirely new point of departure and raise

questions of an order totally different to any that are involved

in a central board appointed for local purposes.

Lord Derby recording his first impressions in reply (July 19) took the

rather conventional objection made to most schemes on all subjects, that

it either went too far or did not go far enough. Local government he

understood, and home rule he understood, but a quasi-parliament in Dublin,

not calling itself such though invested with most of the authority of a

parliament, seemed to him to lead to the demand for fuller recognition. If

we were forced, he said, to move beyond local government as commonly

understood, he would rather have Ireland treated like Canada. “But the

difficulties every way are enormous.” On this Mr. Gladstone wrote a little

later to Lord Granville (Aug. 6):—

As far as I can learn, both you and Derby are on the same lines as

Parnell, in rejecting the smaller and repudiating the larger

scheme. It would not surprise me if he were to formulate something

on the subject. For my own part I have seen my way pretty well as

to the particulars of the minor and rejected plan, but the idea of

the wider one puzzles me much. At the same time, _if_ the election

gives a return of a decisive character, the sooner the subject is

dealt with the better.

So little true is it to say that Mr. Gladstone only thought of the

possibility of Irish autonomy after the election.

IV

Apart from public and party cares, the bodily machinery gave trouble, and

the fine organ that had served him so nobly for so long showed serious

signs of disorder.

_To Lord Richard Grosvenor._

_July 14._—After two partial examinations, a thorough examination

of my throat (larynx _versus_ pharynx) has been made to-day by Dr.

Semon in the presence of Sir A. Clark, and the result is rather

bigger than I had expected. It is, that I have a fair chance of

real recovery provided I keep silent almost like a Trappist, but

all treatment would be nugatory without this rest; that the other

alternative is nothing dangerous, but merely the constant passage

of the organ from bad to worse. He asked what demands the H. of C.

would make on me. I answered about three speeches of about five

minutes each, but he was not satisfied and wished me to get rid of

it altogether, which I must do, perhaps saying instead a word by

letter to some friend. Much time has almost of necessity been

lost, but I must be rigid for the future, and even then I shall be

well satisfied if I get back before winter to a natural use of the

voice in conversation. This imports a considerable change in the

course of my daily life. Here it is difficult to organise it

afresh. At Hawarden I can easily do it, but there I am at a

distance from the best aid. I am disposed to “_top up_,” with a

sea voyage, but this is No. 3—Nos. 1 and 2 being rest and then

treatment.

The sea voyage that was to “top up” the rest of the treatment began on

August 8, when the Gladstones became the guests of Sir Thomas and Lady

Brassey on the _Sunbeam_. They sailed from Greenhithe to Norway, and after

a three weeks’ cruise, were set ashore at Fort George on September 1. Mr.

Gladstone made an excellent tourist; was full of interest in all he saw;

and, I dare say, drew some pleasure from the demonstrations of curiosity

and admiration that attended his presence from the simple population

wherever he moved. Long expeditions with much climbing and scrambling were

his delight, and he let nothing beat him. One of these excursions, the

ascent to the Vöringfos, seems to deserve a word of commemoration, in the

interest either of physiology or of philosophic musings after Cicero’s

manner upon old age. “I am not sure,” says Lady Brassey in her most

agreeable diary of the cruise,(135) “that the descent did not seem rougher

and longer than our journey up had been, although, as a matter of fact, we

got over the ground much more quickly. As we crossed the green pastures on

the level ground near the village of Sæbö we met several people taking

their evening stroll, and also a tourist apparently on his way up to spend

the night near the Vöringfos. The wind had gone down since the morning,

and we crossed the little lake with fair rapidity, admiring as we went the

glorious effects of the setting sun upon the tops of the precipitous

mountains, and the wonderful echo which was aroused for our benefit by the

boatmen. An extremely jolty drive, in springless country carts, soon

brought us to the little inn at Vik, and by half-past eight we were once

more on board the _Sunbeam_, exactly ten hours after setting out upon our

expedition, which had included a ride or walk, as the case might be, of

eighteen miles, independently of the journey by boat and cart—a hardish

day’s work for any one, but really a wonderful undertaking for a man of

seventy-five, who disdained all proffered help, and insisted on walking

the whole distance. No one who saw Mr. Gladstone that evening at dinner in

the highest spirits, and discussing subjects both grave and gay with the

greatest animation, could fail to admire his marvellous pluck and energy,

or, knowing what he had shown himself capable of doing in the way of

physical exertion, could feel much anxiety on the score of the failure of

his strength.”

He was touched by a visit from the son of an old farmer, who brought him

as an offering from his father to Mr. Gladstone a curiously carved

Norwegian bowl three hundred years old, with two horse-head handles.

Strolling about Aalesund, he was astonished to find in the bookshop of the

place a Norse translation of Mill’s _Logic_. He was closely observant of

all religious services whenever he had the chance, and noticed that at

Laurvig all the tombstones had prayers for the dead. He read perhaps a

little less voraciously than usual, and on one or two days, being unable

to read, he “meditated and reviewed”—always, I think, from the same point

of view—the point of view of Bunyan’s _Grace Abounding_, or his own

letters to his father half a century before. Not seldom a vision of the

coming elections flitted before the mind’s eye, and he made notes for what

he calls an _abbozzo_ or sketch of his address to Midlothian.

BOOK IX. 1885-1886

Chapter I. Leadership And The General Election. (1885)

Our understanding of history is spoiled by our knowledge of the

event.—HELPS.

I

Mr. Gladstone came back from his cruise in the _Sunbeam_ at the beginning

of September; leaving the yacht at Fort George and proceeding to Fasque to

celebrate his elder brother’s golden wedding. From Fasque he wrote to Lord

Hartington (Sept. 3): “I have returned to terra firma extremely well in

general health, and with a better throat; in full expectation of having to

consider anxious and doubtful matters, and now finding them rather more

anxious and doubtful than I had anticipated. As yet I am free to take a

share or not in the coming political issues, and I must weigh many things

before finally surrendering this freedom.” His first business, he wrote to

Sir W. Harcourt (Sept. 12), was to throw his thoughts into order for an

address to his constituents, framed only for the dissolution, and “written

with my best care to avoid treading on the toes of either the right or the

left wing.” He had communicated, he said, with Granville, Hartington, and

Chamberlain; by both of the two latter he had been a good deal buffeted;

and having explained the general idea with which he proposed to write, he

asked each of the pair whether upon the whole their wish was that he

should go on or cut out. “To this question I have not yet got a clear

affirmative answer from either of them.”

“The subject of Ireland,” he told Lord Hartington, “has perplexed me much

even on the North Sea,” and he expressed some regret that in a recent

speech his correspondent had felt it necessary at this early period to

join issue in so pointed a manner with Mr. Parnell and his party.

Parnell’s speech was, no doubt, he said, “as bad as bad could be, and

admitted of only one answer. But the whole question of the position which

Ireland will assume after the general election is so new, so difficult,

and as yet, I think, so little understood, that it seems most important to

reserve until the proper time all possible liberty of examining it.”

The address to his electors, of which he had begun to think on board the

_Sunbeam_, was given to the public on September 17. It was, as he said, as

long as a pamphlet, and a considerable number of politicians doubtless

passed judgment upon it without reading it through. The whigs, we are

told, found it vague, the radicals cautious, the tories crafty; but

everybody admitted that it tended to heal feuds. Mr. Goschen praised it,

and Mr. Chamberlain, though raising his own flag, was respectful to his

leader’s manifesto.(136)

The surface was thus stilled for the moment, yet the waters ran very deep.

What were “the anxious and doubtful matters,” what “the coming political

issues,” of which Mr. Gladstone had written to Lord Hartington? They were,

in a word, twofold: to prevent the right wing from breaking with the left;

and second, to make ready for an Irish crisis, which as he knew could not

be averted. These were the two keys to all his thoughts, words, and deeds

during the important autumn of 1885—an Irish crisis, a solid party. He was

not the first great parliamentary leader whose course lay between two

impossibilities.

All his letters during the interval between his return from the cruise in

the _Sunbeam_ and the close of the general election disclose with perfect

clearness the channels in which events and his judgment upon them were

moving. Whigs and radicals alike looked to him, and across him fought

their battle. The Duke of Argyll, for example, (M85) taking advantage of a

lifelong friendship to deal faithfully with him, warned him that the long

fight with “Beaconsfieldism” had thrown him into antagonism with many

political conceptions and sympathies that once had a steady hold upon him.

Yet they had certainly no less value and truth than they ever had, and

perhaps were more needed than ever in face of the present chaos of

opinion. To this Mr. Gladstone replied at length:—

_To the Duke of Argyll._

_Sept. 30, 1885._—I am very sensible of your kind and sympathetic

tone, and of your indulgent verdict upon my address. It was

written with a view to the election, and as a practical document,

aiming at the union of all, it propounds for immediate action what

all are supposed to be agreed on. This is necessarily somewhat

favourable to the moderate section of the liberal party. You will

feel that it would not have been quite fair to the advanced men to

add some special reproof to them. And reproof, if I had presumed

upon it, would have been two-sided. Now as to your suggestion that

I should say something in public to indicate that I am not too

sanguine as to the future. If I am unable to go in this

direction—and something I may do—it is not from want of sympathy

with much that you say. But my first and great cause of anxiety

is, believe me, the condition of the tory party. As at present

constituted, or at any rate moved, it is destitute of all the

effective qualities of a respectable conservatism.... For their

administrative spirit I point to the Beaconsfield finance. For

their foreign policy they have invented Jingoism, and at the same

time by their conduct _re_ Lord Spencer and the Irish

nationalists, they have thrown over—and they formed their

government only by means of throwing over—those principles of

executive order and caution which have hitherto been common to all

governments....

There are other chapters which I have not time to open. I deeply

deplore the oblivion into which public economy has fallen; the

prevailing disposition to make a luxury of panics, which

multitudes seem to enjoy as they would a sensational novel or a

highly seasoned cookery; and the leaning of both parties to

socialism, which I radically disapprove. I must lastly mention

among my causes of dissatisfaction the conduct of the timid or

reactionary whigs. They make it day by day more difficult to

maintain that most valuable characteristic of our history, which

has always exhibited a good proportion of our great houses at the

head of the liberal movement. If you have ever noted of late years

a too sanguine and high-coloured anticipation of our future, I

should like to be reminded of it. I remain, and I hope always to

be, your affectionate friend.

The correspondence with Lord Granville sets out more clearly than anything

else could do Mr. Gladstone’s general view of the situation of the party

and his own relation to it, and the operative words in this

correspondence, in view of the maelstrom to which they were all drawing

nearer, will be accurately noted by any reader who cares to understand one

of the most interesting situations in the history of party. To Lord

Granville he says (September 9, 1885), “The problem for me is to make if

possible a statement which will hold through the election and not to go

into conflict with either the right wing of the party for whom Hartington

has spoken, or the left wing for whom Chamberlain, I suppose, spoke last

night. I do not say they are to be treated as on a footing, but I must do

no act disparaging to Chamberlain’s wing.” And again to Lord Granville a

month later (Oct. 5):—

You hold a position of great impartiality in relation to any

divergent opinions among members of the late cabinet. No other

person occupies ground so thoroughly favourable. I turn to myself

for one moment. I remain at present in the leadership of the

party, first with a view to the election, and secondly with a view

to being, by a bare possibility, of use afterwards in the Irish

question if it should take a favourable turn; but as you know,

with the intention of taking no part in any schism of the party

should it arise, and of avoiding any and all official

responsibility, should the question be merely one of liberal _v._

conservative and not one of commanding imperial necessity, such as

that of Irish government may come to be after the dissolution.

He goes on to say that the ground had now been sufficiently laid for going

to the election with a united front, that ground being the common

profession of a limited creed (M86) or programme in the liberal sense,

with an entire freedom for those so inclined, to travel beyond it, but not

to impose their own sense upon all other people. No one, he thought, was

bound to determine at that moment on what conditions he would join a

liberal government. If the party and its leaders were agreed as to

immediate measures on local government, land, and registration, were not

these enough to find a liberal administration plenty of work, especially

with procedure, for several years? If so, did they not supply a ground

broad enough to start a government, that would hold over, until the proper

time should come, all the questions on which its members might not be

agreed, just as the government of Lord Grey held over, from 1830 to 1834,

the question whether Irish church property might or might not be applied

to secular uses?

As for himself, in the event of such a government being formed (of which I

suppose Lord Granville was to be the head), “My desire would be,” he says,

“to place myself in your hands for all purposes, except that of taking

office; to be present or absent from the House, and to be absent for a

time or for good, as you might on consultation and reflection think best.”

In other words Mr. Gladstone would take office to try to settle the Irish

question, but for nothing else. Lord Granville held to the view that this

was fatal to the chances of a liberal government. No liberal cabinet could

be constructed unless Mr. Gladstone were at its head. The indispensable

chief, however, remained obdurate.

An advance was made at this moment in the development of a peculiar

situation by important conversations with Mr. Chamberlain. Two days later

the redoubtable leader of the left wing came to Hawarden for a couple of

days, and Mr. Gladstone wrote an extremely interesting account of what

passed to Lord Granville:(137)—

_To Lord Granville._

_Hawarden, Oct. 8, 1885._—Chamberlain came here yesterday and I

have had a great deal of conversation with him. He is a good man

to talk to, not only from his force and clearness, but because he

speaks with reflection, does not misapprehend or (I think)

suspect, or make unnecessary difficulties, or endeavour to

maintain pedantically the uniformity and consistency of his

argument throughout.

As to the three points of which he was understood to say that they

were indispensable to the starting of a liberal government, I

gather that they stand as follows:—

1. As to the authority of local authorities for compulsory

expropriation.(138) To this he adheres; though I have said I could

not see the justification for withholding countenance from the

formation of a government with considerable and intelligible plans

in view, because it would not at the first moment bind all its

members to this doctrine. He intimates, however, that the form

would be simple, the application of the principle mild; that he

does not expect wide results from it, and that Hartington, he

conceives, is not disposed wholly to object to everything of the

kind.

2. As regards readjustment of taxation, he is contented with the

terms of my address, and indisposed to make any new terms.

3. As regards free education, he does not ask that its principle

be adopted as part of the creed of a new cabinet. He said it would

be necessary to reserve his right individually to vote for it. I

urged that he and the new school of advanced liberals were not

sufficiently alive to the necessity of refraining when in

government from declaring by _vote_ all their individual opinions;

that a vote founded upon time, and the engagements of the House at

the moment with other indispensable business, would imply no

disparagement to the principle, which might even be expressly

saved (“without prejudice”) by an amending resolution; that he

could hardly carry this point to the rank of a _sine quâ non_. He

said,—That the sense of the country might bind the liberal

majority (presuming it to exist) to declare its opinion, even

though unable to give effect to it at the moment; that he looked

to a single declaration, not to the sustained support of a

measure; and he seemed to allow that if the liberal sense were so

far divided as not to show a unanimous front, in that case it

might be a question whether some plan other than, and short of, a

direct vote might be pursued.(139)

The question of the House of Lords and disestablishment he regards

as still lying in the remoter distance.

All these subjects I separated entirely from the question of

Ireland, on which I may add that he and I are pretty well agreed;

unless upon a secondary point, namely, whether Parnell would be

satisfied to acquiesce in a County Government bill, good so far as

it went, maintaining on other matters his present general

attitude.(140) We agreed, I think, that a prolongation of the

present relations of the Irish party would be a national disgrace,

and the civilised world would scoff at the political genius of

countries which could not contrive so far to understand one

another as to bring their differences to an accommodation.

All through Chamberlain spoke of reducing to an absolute minimum

his idea of necessary conditions, and this conversation so far

left untouched the question of men, he apparently assuming

(wrongly) that I was ready for another three or four years’

engagement.

_Hawarden, Oct. 8, 1885._—In another “private,” but less private

letter, I have touched on measures, and I have now to say what

passed in relation to men.

He said the outline he had given depended on the supposition of my

being at the head of the government. He did not say he could

adhere to it on no other terms, but appeared to stipulate for a

new point of departure.

I told him the question of my time of life had become such, that

in any case prudence bound him, and all who have a future, to

think of what is to follow me. That if a big Irish question should

arise, and arise in such a form as to promise a possibility of

settlement, that would be a crisis with a beginning and an end,

and perhaps one in which from age and circumstances I might be

able to supply aid and service such as could not be exactly had

without me.(141) Apart from an imperious demand of this kind the

question would be that of dealing with land laws, with local

government, and other matters, on which I could render _no_

special service, and which would require me to enter into a new

contest for several years, a demand that ought not to be made, and

one to which I could not accede. I did not think the adjustment of

personal relations, or the ordinary exigencies of party,

constituted a call upon me to continue my long life in a course of

constant pressure and constant contention with half my

fellow-countrymen, until nothing remained but to step into the

grave.

He agreed that the House of Lords was not an available resort. He

thought I might continue at the head of the government, and leave

the work of legislation to others.(142) I told him that all my

life long I had had an essential and considerable share in the

legislative work of government, and to abandon it would be an

essential change, which the situation would not bear.

He spoke of the constant conflicts of opinion with Hartington in

the late cabinet, but I reverted to the time when Hartington used

to summon and lead meetings of the leading commoners, in which he

was really the least antagonistic of men.

He said Hartington might lead a whig government aided by the

tories, or might lead a radical government.... I recommended his

considering carefully the personal composition of the group of

leading men, apart from a single personality on which reliance

could hardly be placed, except in the single contingency to which

I have referred as one of a character probably brief.

He said it might be right for him to look as a friend on the

formation of a liberal government, having (as I understood)

moderate but intelligible plans, without forming part of it. I

think this was the substance of what passed.

Interesting as was this interview, it did not materially alter Mr.

Gladstone’s disposition. After it had taken place he wrote to Lord

Granville (Nov. 10):—

_To Lord Granville._

I quite understand how natural it is that at the present juncture

pressure, and even the whole pressure, should from both quarters

be brought to bear upon me. Well, if a special call of imperial

interest, such as I have described, should arise, I am ready for

the service it may entail, so far as my will is concerned. But a

very different question is raised. Let us see how matters stand.

A course of action for the liberals, moderate but substantial, has

been sketched. The party in general have accepted it. After the

late conversations, there is no reason to anticipate a breach upon

any of the conditions laid down anywhere for immediate adoption,

between the less advanced and the more advanced among the leaders.

It must occupy several years, and it may occupy the whole

parliament. According to your view they will, unless on a single

condition [_i.e._ Mr. Gladstone’s leadership], refuse to combine

in a cabinet, and to act, with a majority at their back; and will

make over the business voluntarily to the tories in a minority, at

the commencement of a parliament. Why? They agree on the subjects

before them. Other subjects, unknown as yet, may arise to split

them. But this is what may happen to any government, and _it_ can

form no reason.

But what _is_ the condition demanded? It is that a man of

seventy-five,(143) after fifty-three years’ service, with _no_

particular qualification for the questions in view should enter

into a fresh contract of service in the House of Commons, reaching

according to all likelihood over three, four, or five years, and

without the smallest reasonable prospect of a break. And this is

not to solve a political difficulty, but to soothe and conjure

down personal misgivings and apprehensions. I have not said

jealousies, because I do _not_ believe them to be the operative

cause; perhaps they do not exist at all.

I firmly say this is not a reasonable condition, or a tenable

demand, in the circumstances supposed. Indeed no one has

endeavoured to show that it is. Further, abated action in the

House of Commons is out of the question. We cannot have, in these

times, a figurehead prime minister. I have gone a very long way in

what I have said, and I really cannot go further.

Lord Aberdeen, taking office at barely seventy in the House of

Lords, apologised in his opening speech for doing this at a time

when his mind ought rather to be given to “other thoughts.” Lord

Palmerston in 1859 did not speak thus. But he was bound to no plan

of any kind; and he was seventy-four, _i.e._ in his seventy-fifth

year.

II

It is high time to turn to the other deciding issue in the case. Though

thus stubborn against resuming the burden of leadership merely to compose

discords between Chatsworth and Birmingham, Mr. Gladstone was ready to be

of use in the Irish question, “if it should take a favourable turn.” As if

the Irish question ever took a favourable turn. We have seen in the

opening of the present chapter, how he spoke to Lord Hartington of a

certain speech of Mr. Parnell’s in September, “as bad as bad could be.”

The secret of that speech was a certain fact that must be counted a

central hinge of these far-reaching transactions. In July, a singular

incident had occurred, nothing less strange than an interview between the

new lord-lieutenant and the leader of the Irish party. To realise its full

significance, we have to recall the profound odium that at this time

enveloped Mr. Parnell’s name in the minds of nearly all Englishmen. For

several years and at that moment he figured in the public imagination for

all that is sinister, treasonable, dark, mysterious, and unholy. He had

stood his trial for a criminal conspiracy, and was supposed only to have

been acquitted by the corrupt connivance of a Dublin jury. He had been

flung into prison and kept there for many months without trial, as a

person reasonably suspected of lawless practices. High treason was the

least dishonourable of the offences imputed to him and commonly credited

about him. He had been elaborately accused before the House of Commons by

one of the most important men in it, of direct personal responsibility for

outrages and murders, and he left the accusation with scant reply. He was

constantly denounced as the apostle of rapine and rebellion. That the

viceroy of the Queen should (M87) without duress enter into friendly

communication with such a man, would have seemed to most people at that

day incredible and abhorrent. Yet the incredible thing happened, and it

was in its purpose one of the most sensible things that any viceroy ever

did.(144)

The interview took place in a London drawing-room. Lord Carnarvon opened

the conversation by informing Mr. Parnell, first, that he was acting of

himself and by himself, on his own exclusive responsibility; second, that,

he sought information only, and that he had not come for the purpose of

arriving at any agreement or understanding however shadowy; third, that he

was there as the Queen’s servant, and would neither hear nor say one word

that was inconsistent with the union of the two countries. Exactly what

Mr. Parnell said, and what was said in reply, the public were never

authentically told. Mr. Parnell afterwards spoke(145) as if Lord Carnarvon

had given him to understand that it was the intention of the government to

offer Ireland a statutory legislature, with full control over taxation,

and that a scheme of land purchase was to be coupled with it. On this, the

viceroy denied that he had communicated any such intention. Mr. Parnell’s

story was this:—

Lord Carnarvon proceeded to say that he had sought the interview

for the purpose of ascertaining my views regarding—should he call

it?—a constitution for Ireland. But I soon found out that he had

brought me there in order that he might communicate his own views

upon the matter, as well as ascertain mine.... In reply to an

inquiry as to a proposal which had been made to build up a central

legislative body upon the foundation of county boards, I told him

I thought this would be working in the wrong direction, and would

not be accepted by Ireland; that the central legislative body

should be a parliament in name and in fact.... Lord Carnarvon

assured me that this was his own view also, and he strongly

appreciated the importance of giving due weight to the sentiment

of the Irish in this matter.... He had certain suggestions to this

end, taking the colonial model as a basis, which struck me as

being the result of much thought and knowledge of the subject....

At the conclusion of the conversation, which lasted for more than

an hour, and to which Lord Carnarvon was very much the larger

contributor, I left him, believing that I was in complete accord

with him regarding the main outlines of a settlement conferring a

legislature upon Ireland.(146)

It is certainly not for me to contend that Mr. Parnell was always an

infallible reporter, but if closely scrutinised the discrepancy in the two

stories as then told was less material than is commonly supposed. To the

passage just quoted, Lord Carnarvon never at any time in public offered

any real contradiction. What he contradicted was something different. He

denied that he had ever stated to Mr. Parnell that it was the intention of

the government, if they were successful at the polls, to establish the

Irish legislature, with limited powers and not independent of imperial

control, which he himself favoured. He did not deny, any more than he

admitted, that he had told Mr. Parnell that on opinion and policy they

were very much at one. How could he deny it, after his speech when he

first took office? Though the cabinet was not cognisant of the nature of

these proceedings, the prime minister was. To take so remarkable a step

without the knowledge and assent of the head of the government, would have

been against the whole practice and principles of our ministerial system.

Lord Carnarvon informed Lord Salisbury of his intention of meeting Mr.

(M88) Parnell, and within twenty-four hours after the meeting, both in

writing and orally, he gave Lord Salisbury as careful and accurate a

statement as possible of what had passed. We can well imagine the close

attention with which the prime minister followed so profoundly interesting

a report, and at the end of it he told the viceroy that “he had conducted

the conversation with Mr. Parnell with perfect discretion.” The knowledge

that the minister responsible for the government of Ireland was looking in

the direction of home rule, and exchanging home rule views with the great

home rule leader, did not shake Lord Salisbury’s confidence in his fitness

to be viceroy.

This is no mere case of barren wrangle and verbal recrimination. The

transaction had consequences, and the Carnarvon episode was a pivot. The

effect upon the mind of Mr. Parnell was easy to foresee. Was I not

justified, he asked long afterwards, in supposing that Lord Carnarvon,

holding the views that he now indicated, would not have been made viceroy

unless there was a considerable feeling in the cabinet that his views were

right?(147) Could he imagine that the viceroy would be allowed to talk

home rule to him—however shadowy and vague the words—unless the prime

minister considered such a solution to be at any rate well worth

discussing? Why should he not believe that the alliance formed in June to

turn Mr. Gladstone out of office and eject Lord Spencer from Ireland, had

really blossomed from being a mere lobby manœuvre and election expedient,

into a serious policy adopted by serious statesmen? Was it not certain

that in such remarkable circumstances Mr. Parnell would throughout the

election confidently state the national demand at its very highest?

In 1882 and onwards up to the Reform Act of 1885, Mr. Parnell had been

ready to advocate the creation of a central council at Dublin for

administrative purposes merely. This he thought would be a suitable

achievement for a party that numbered only thirty-five members. But the

assured increase of his strength at the coming election made all the

difference. When semi-official soundings were taken from more than one

liberal quarter after the fall of the Gladstone government, it was found

that Mr. Parnell no longer countenanced provisional reforms. After the

interview with Lord Carnarvon, the mercury rose rapidly to the top of the

tube. Larger powers of administration were not enough. The claim for

legislative power must now be brought boldly to the front. In unmistakable

terms, the Irish leader stated the Irish demand, and posed both problem

and solution. He now declared his conviction that the great and sole work

of himself and his friends in the new parliament would be the restoration

of a national parliament of their own, to do the things which they had

been vainly asking the imperial parliament to do for them.(148)

III

When politicians ruminate upon the disastrous schism that followed Mr.

Gladstone’s attempt to deal with the Irish question in 1886, they ought

closely to study the general election of 1885. In that election, though

leading men foresaw the approach of a marked Irish crisis, and awaited the

outcome of events with an overshadowing sense of pregnant issues, there

was nothing like general concentration on the Irish prospect. The strife

of programmes and the rivalries of leaders were what engrossed the popular

attention. The main body of the British electors were thinking mainly of

promised agrarian booms, fair trade, the church in danger, or some other

of their own domestic affairs.

Few forms of literature or history are so dull as the narrative of

political debates. With a few exceptions, a political speech like the

manna in the wilderness loses its savour on the second day. Three or four

marked utterances of this critical autumn, following all that has been set

forth already, will enable the reader to understand the division of

counsel that prevailed immediately before the great change of policy in

1886, and the various strategic evolutions, masked movements, and play of

mine, sap, and countermine, that led to it. As has just been described,

and with good reason, (M89) for he believed that he had the Irish viceroy

on his side, Mr. Parnell stood inflexible. In his speech of August 24

already mentioned, he had thrown down his gauntlet.

Much the most important answer to the challenge, if we regard the effect

upon subsequent events, was that of Lord Salisbury two months later. To

this I shall have to return. The two liberal statesmen, Lord Hartington

and Mr. Chamberlain, who were most active in this campaign, and whose

activity was well spiced and salted by a lively political antagonism,

agreed in a tolerably stiff negative to the Irish demand. The whig leader

with a slow mind, and the radical leader with a quick mind, on this single

issue of the campaign spoke with one voice. The whig leader(149) thought

Mr. Parnell had made a mistake and ensured his own defeat: he

overestimated his power in Ireland and his power in parliament; the Irish

would not for the sake of this impossible and impracticable undertaking,

forego without duress all the other objects which parliament was ready to

grant them; and it remained to be seen whether he could enforce his iron

discipline upon his eighty or ninety adherents, even if Ireland gave him

so many.

The radical leader was hardly less emphatic, and his utterance was the

more interesting of the two, because until this time Mr. Chamberlain had

been generally taken throughout his parliamentary career as leaning

strongly in the nationalist direction. He had taken a bold and energetic

part in the proceedings that ended in the release of Mr. Parnell from

Kilmainham. He had with much difficulty been persuaded to acquiesce in the

renewal of any part of the Coercion Act, and had absented himself from the

banquet in honour of Lord Spencer. Together with his most intimate ally in

the late government, he had projected a political tour in Ireland with Mr.

Parnell’s approval and under his auspices. Above all, he had actually

opened his electoral campaign with that famous declaration which was so

long remembered: “The pacification of Ireland at this moment depends, I

believe, on the concession to Ireland of the right to govern itself in the

matter of its purely domestic business. Is it not discreditable to us that

even now it is only by unconstitutional means that we are able to secure

peace and order in one portion of her Majesty’s dominions? It is a system

as completely centralised and bureaucratic as that with which Russia

governs Poland, or as that which prevailed in Venice under the Austrian

rule. An Irishman at this moment cannot move a step—he cannot lift a

finger in any parochial, municipal, or educational work, without being

confronted with, interfered with, controlled by, an English official,

appointed by a foreign government, and without a shade or shadow of

representative authority. I say the time has come to reform altogether the

absurd and irritating anachronism which is known as Dublin Castle. That is

the work to which the new parliament will be called.”(150) Masters of

incisive speech must pay the price of their gifts, and the sentence about

Poland and Venice was long a favourite in many a debate. But when the

Irish leader now made his proposal for removing the Russian yoke and the

Austrian yoke from Ireland, the English leader drew back. “If these,” he

said, “are the terms on which Mr. Parnell’s support is to be obtained, I

will not enter into the compact.” This was Mr. Chamberlain’s

response.(151)

IV

The language used by Mr. Gladstone during this eventful time was that of a

statesman conscious of the magnitude of the issue, impressed by the

obscurity of the path along which parties and leaders were travelling, and

keenly alive to the perils of a premature or unwary step. Nothing was

easier for the moment either for quick minds or slow minds, than to face

the Irish demand beforehand with a bare, blank, wooden _non possumus_. Mr.

Gladstone had pondered the matter more deeply. His gift of political

imagination, his wider experience, and his personal share in some chapters

of the modern history of Europe and its changes, planted him on a height

whence he commanded a view of possibilities (M90) and necessities, of

hopes and of risks, that were unseen by politicians of the beaten track.

Like a pilot amid wandering icebergs, or in waters where familiar buoys

had been taken up and immemorial beacons put out, he scanned the scene

with keen eyes and a glass sweeping the horizon in every direction. No

wonder that his words seemed vague, and vague they undoubtedly were.

Suppose that Cavour had been obliged to issue an election address on the

eve of the interview at Plombières, or Bismarck while he was on his visit

to Biarritz. Their language would hardly have been pellucid. This was no

moment for ultimatums. There were too many unascertained elements. Yet

some of those, for instance, who most ardently admired President Lincoln

for the caution with which he advanced step by step to the abolition

proclamation, have most freely censured the English statesman because he

did not in the autumn of 1885 come out with either a downright Yes or a

point-blank No. The point-blank is not for all occasions, and only a

simpleton can think otherwise.

In September Mr. Childers—a most capable administrator, a zealous

colleague, wise in what the world regards as the secondary sort of wisdom,

and the last man to whom one would have looked for a plunge—wrote to Mr.

Gladstone to seek his approval of a projected announcement to his

constituents at Pontefract, which amounted to a tolerably full-fledged

scheme of home rule.(152) In view of the charitable allegation that Mr.

Gladstone picked up home rule after the elections had placed it in the

power of the Irish either to put him into office or to keep him out of

office, his reply to Mr. Childers deserves attention:—

_To Mr. Childers._

_Sept. 28, 1885._—I have a decided sympathy with the general scope

and spirit of your proposed declaration about Ireland. If I offer

any observations, they are meant to be simply in furtherance of

your purpose.

1. I would disclaim giving any exhaustive list of Imperial

subjects, and would not “put my foot down” as to revenue, but

would keep plenty of elbow-room to keep all customs and excise,

which would probably be found necessary.

2. A general disclaimer of particulars as to the form of any local

legislature might suffice, without giving the Irish expressly to

know it might be decided mainly by their wish.

3. I think there is no doubt Ulster would be able to take care of

itself in respect to education, but a question arises and forms, I

think, the most difficult part of the whole subject, whether some

defensive provisions for the owners of land and property should

not be considered.

4. It is evident you have given the subject much thought, and my

sympathy goes largely to your details as well as your principle.

But considering the danger of placing confidence in the leaders of

the national party at the present moment, and the decided

disposition they have shown to raise their terms on any favourable

indication, I would beg you to consider further whether you should

_bind_ yourself at present to any details, or go beyond general

indications. If you say in terms (and this I do not dissuade) that

you are ready to consider the question whether they can have a

legislature for all questions not Imperial, this will be a great

step in advance; and anything you may say beyond it, I should like

to see veiled in language not such as to commit you.

The reader who is now acquainted with Mr. Gladstone’s strong support of

the Chamberlain plan in 1885, and with the bias already disclosed, knows

in what direction the main current of his thought must have been setting.

The position taken in 1885 was in entire harmony with all these

premonitory notes. Subject, said Mr. Gladstone, to the supremacy of the

crown, the unity of the empire, and all the authority of parliament

necessary for the conservation of that unity, every grant to portions of

the country of enlarged powers for the management of their own affairs,

was not a source of danger, but a means of averting it. “As to the

legislative union, I believe history and posterity will consign to

disgrace the name and memory of every man, be he who he may, and on

whichever side of the Channel he may dwell, that having the power to aid

in an equitable settlement between Ireland and Great Britain, shall use

that power not to aid, but to prevent or retard it.”(153) These and all

the other large and profuse sentences of the Midlothian address were

undoubtedly open to more than one construction, and they either admitted

or excluded home rule, as might happen. The fact that, though it was

running so freely in his own mind, he did not put Irish autonomy into the

forefront of his address, has been made a common article of charge against

him. As if the view of Irish autonomy now running in his mind were not

dependent on a string of hypotheses. And who can imagine a party leader’s

election address that should have run thus?—“ If Mr. Parnell returns with

a great majority of members, and if the minority is not weighty enough,

and if the demand is constitutionally framed, and if the Parnellites are

unanimous, then we will try home rule. And this possibility of a

hypothetical experiment is to be the liberal cry with which to go into

battle against Lord Salisbury, who, so far as I can see, is nursing the

idea of the same experiment.”

Some weeks later, in speaking to his electors in Midlothian, Mr. Gladstone

instead of minimising magnified the Irish case, pushed it into the very

forefront, not in one speech, but in nearly all; warned his hearers of the

gravity of the questions soon to be raised by it, and assured them that it

would probably throw into the shade the other measures that he had

described as ripe for action. He elaborated a declaration, of which much

was heard for many months and years afterwards. What Ireland, he said, may

deliberately and constitutionally demand, unless it infringes the

principles connected with the honourable maintenance of the unity of the

empire, will be a demand that we are bound at any rate to treat with

careful attention. To stint Ireland in power which might be necessary or

desirable for the management of matters purely Irish, would be a great

error; and if she was so stinted, the end that any such measure might

contemplate could not be attained. Then came the memorable appeal: “Apart

from the term of whig and tory, there is one thing I will say and will

endeavour to impress upon you, and it is this. It will be a vital danger

to the country and to the empire, if at a time when a demand from Ireland

for larger powers of self-government is to be dealt with, there is not in

parliament a party totally independent of the Irish vote.”(154) Loud and

long sustained have been the reverberations of this clanging sentence. It

was no mere passing dictum. Mr. Gladstone himself insisted upon the same

position again and again, that “for a government in a minority to deal

with the Irish question would not be safe.” This view, propounded in his

first speech, was expanded in his second. There he deliberately set out

that the urgent expediency of a liberal majority independent of Ireland

did not foreshadow the advent of a liberal government to power. He

referred to the settlement of household suffrage in 1867. How was the tory

government enabled to effect that settlement? Because there was in the

House a liberal majority which did not care to eject the existing

ministry.(155) He had already reminded his electors that tory governments

were sometimes able to carry important measures, when once they had made

up their minds to it, with greater facility than liberal governments

could. For instance, if Peel had not been the person to propose the repeal

of the corn laws, Lord John would not have had fair consideration from the

tories; and no liberal government could have carried the Maynooth

Act.(156)

The plain English of the abundant references to Ireland in the Midlothian

speeches of this election is, that Mr. Gladstone foresaw beyond all shadow

of doubt that the Irish question in its largest extent would at once

demand the instant attention of the new parliament; that the best hope of

settling it would be that the liberals should have a majority of their

own; that the second best hope lay in its settlement by the tory

government with the aid of the liberals; but that, in any case, the worst

of all conditions under which a settlement could be attempted—an attempt

that could not be avoided—would be a situation in which Mr. Parnell should

hold the balance between parliamentary parties.

The precise state of Mr. Gladstone’s mind at this moment is best shown in

a very remarkable letter written by him to Lord Rosebery, under whose roof

at Talmeny he was staying at the time:—

_To Lord Rosebery._

_Dalmeny Park, 13th Nov. 1885._—You have called my attention to

the recent speech of Mr. Parnell, in which he expresses the desire

that I should frame a plan for giving to Ireland, without

prejudice to imperial unity and interests, the management of her

own affairs. The subject is so important that, though we are

together, I will put on paper my view of this proposal. For the

moment I assume that such a plan can be framed. Indeed, if I had

considered this to be hopeless, I should have been guilty of great

rashness in speaking of it as a contingency that should be kept in

view at the present election. I will first give reasons, which I

deem to be of great weight, against my producing a scheme,

reserving to the close one reason, which would be conclusive in

the absence of every other reason.

1. It is not the province of the person leading the party in

opposition, to frame and produce before the public detailed

schemes of such a class.

2. There are reasons of great weight, which make it desirable that

the party now in power should, if prepared to adopt the principle,

and if supported by an adequate proportion of the coming House of

Commons, undertake the construction and proposal of the measure.

3. The unfriendly relations between the party of nationalists and

the late government in the expiring parliament, have of necessity

left me and those with whom I act in great ignorance of the

interior mind of the party, which has in parliament systematically

confined itself to very general declarations.

4. That the principle and basis of an admissible measure have been

clearly declared by myself, if not by others, before the country;

more clearly, I think, than was done in the case of the Irish

disestablishment; and that the particulars of such plans in all

cases have been, and probably must be, left to the discretion of

the legislature acting under the usual checks.

But my final and paramount reason is, that the production at this

time of a plan by me would not only be injurious, but would

destroy all reasonable hope of its adoption. Such a plan, proposed

by the heads of the liberal party, is so certain to have the

opposition of the tories _en bloc_, that every computation must be

founded on this anticipation. This opposition, and the appeals

with which it will be accompanied, will render the carrying of the

measure difficult even by a united liberal party; hopeless or most

difficult, should there be serious defection.

Mr. Parnell is apprehensive of the opposition of the House of

Lords. That idea weighs little with me. I have to think of

something nearer, and more formidable. The idea of constituting a

legislature for Ireland, whenever seriously and responsibly

proposed, will cause a mighty heave in the body politic. It will

be as difficult to carry the liberal party and the two British

nations in favour of a legislature for Ireland, as it was easy to

carry them in the case of Irish disestablishment. I think that it

may possibly be done; but only by the full use of a great

leverage. That leverage can only be found in their equitable and

mature consideration of what is due to the fixed desire of a

nation, clearly and constitutionally expressed. Their

prepossessions will not be altogether favourable; and they cannot

in this matter be bullied.

I have therefore endeavoured to lay the ground by stating largely

the possibility and the gravity, even the solemnity, of that

demand. I am convinced that this is the only path which can lead

to success. With such a weapon, one might go hopefully into

action. But I well know, from a thousand indications past and

present, that a new project of mine launched into the air, would

have no _momentum_ which could carry it to its aim. So, in my

mind, stands the case....

Three days before this letter, Mr. Gladstone had replied to one from Lord

Hartington:—

_To Lord Hartington._

_Dalmeny, Nov. 10, 1885._—I made a beginning yesterday in one of

my conversation speeches, so to call them, on the way, by laying

it down that I was particularly bound to prevent, if I could, the

domination of sectional opinion over the body and action of the

party.

I wish to say something about the modern radicalism. But I must

include this, that if it is rampant and ambitious, the two most

prominent causes of its forwardness have been: 1. Tory democracy.

2. The gradual disintegration of the liberal aristocracy. On both

these subjects my opinions are strong. I think the conduct of the

Duke of Bedford and others has been as unjustifiable as it was

foolish, especially after what we did to save the House of Lords

from itself in the business of the franchise.

Nor can I deny that the question of the House of Lords, of the

church, or both, will probably split the liberal party. But let it

split decently, honourably, and for cause. That it should split

now would, so far as I see, be ludicrous.

So far I have been writing in great sympathy with you, but now I

touch a point where our lines have not been the same. You have, I

think, courted the hostility of Parnell. Salisbury has carefully

avoided doing this, and last night he simply confined himself to

two conditions, which you and I both think vital; namely, the

unity of the empire and an honourable regard to the position of

the “minority,” _i.e._ the landlords. You will see in the

newspapers what Parnell, _making_ for himself an opportunity, is

reported to have said about the elections in Ulster now at hand.

You have opened a vista which appears to terminate in a possible

concession to Ireland of full power to manage her own local

affairs. But I own my leaning to the opinion that, if that

consummation is in any way to be contemplated, action at a stroke

will be more honourable, less unsafe, less uneasy, than the

jolting process of a series of partial measures. This is my

opinion, but I have no intention, as at present advised, of

signifying it. I have all along in public declarations avoided

offering anything to the nationalists, beyond describing the

limiting rule which must govern the question. It is for them to

ask, and for us, as I think, to leave the space so defined as open

and unencumbered as possible. I am much struck by the increased

breadth of Salisbury’s declaration last night; he dropped the “I

do not see how.”

We shall see how these great and difficult matters develop

themselves. Meantime be assured that, with a good deal of

misgiving as to the future, I shall do what little I can towards

enabling all liberals at present to hold together with credit and

good conscience.

V

Mr. Gladstone’s cardinal deliverance in November had been preceded by an

important event. On October 7, 1885, Lord Salisbury made that speech at

Newport, which is one of the tallest and most striking landmarks in the

shifting sands of this controversy. It must be taken in relation to Lord

Carnarvon’s declaration of policy on taking office, and to his exchange of

views with Mr. Parnell at the end of July. Their first principle, said

Lord Salisbury, was to extend to Ireland, so far as they could, all the

institutions of this country. But one must remember that in Ireland the

population is on several subjects deeply divided, and a government is

bound ’on all matters of essential justice’ to protect a minority against

a majority. Then came remarkable sentences: “Local authorities are more

exposed to the temptation of enabling the majority to be unjust to the

minority when they obtain jurisdiction over a small area, than is the case

when the authority derives its sanction and extends its jurisdiction over

a wider area. In a large central authority, the wisdom of several parts of

the country will correct the folly and mistakes of one. In a local

authority, that correction is to a much greater extent wanting, and it

would be impossible to leave that out of sight, in any extension of any

such local authority in Ireland.” This principle was often used in the

later controversy as a recognition by Lord Salisbury that the creation of

a great central body would be a safer policy than the mere extension of

self-government in Irish counties. In another part of the speech, it is

true, the finger-post or weather-vane pointed in the opposite direction.

“With respect to the larger organic questions connected with Ireland,”

said Lord Salisbury, “I cannot say much, though I can speak emphatically.

I have nothing to say but that the traditions of the party to which we

belong, are on this point clear and distinct, and you may rely upon it our

party will not depart from them.” Yet this emphatic refusal to depart from

the traditions of the tory party did not prevent Lord Salisbury from

retaining at that moment in his cabinet an Irish viceroy, with whom he

(M91) was in close personal relations, and whose active Irish policy he

must have known to be as wide a breach in tory tradition as the mind of

man can imagine. So hard is it in distracted times, the reader may

reflect, even for men of honourable and lofty motive to be perfectly

ingenuous.

The speaker next referred to the marked way in which Mr. Parnell, a day or

two before, had mentioned the position of Austro-Hungary. “I gathered that

some notion of imperial federation was floating in his mind. With respect

to Ireland, I am bound to say that I have never seen any plan or any

suggestion which gives me at present the slightest ground for anticipating

that it is in that direction that we shall find any substantial solution

of the difficulties of the problem.” In an electric state of the political

atmosphere, a statesman who said that at present he did not think federal

home rule possible, was taken to imply that he might think it possible,

by-and-by. No door was closed.

It was, however, Lord Salisbury’s language upon social order that gave

most scandal to simple consciences in his own ranks. You ask us, he said,

why we did not renew the Crimes Act. There are two answers: we could not,

and it would have done no good if we could. To follow the extension of the

franchise by coercion, would have been a gross inconsistency. To show

confidence by one act, and the absence of confidence by a simultaneous

act, would be to stultify parliament. Your inconsistency would have

provoked such intense exasperation, that it would have led to ten times

more evil, ten times more resistance to the law, than your Crimes Act

could possibly have availed to check. Then the audience was favoured with

a philosophic view of boycotting. This, said the minister, is an offence

which legislation has very great difficulty in reaching. The provisions of

the Crimes Act against it had a very small effect. It grew up under that

Act. And, after all, look at boycotting. An unpopular man or his family go

to mass. The congregation with one accord get up and walk out. Are you

going to indict people for leaving church? The plain fact is that

boycotting “is more like the excommunication or interdict of the middle

ages, than anything that we know now.” “The truth about boycotting is that

it depends on the passing humour of the population.”

It is important to remember that in the month immediately preceding this

polished apologetic, there were delivered some of the most violent

boycotting speeches ever made in Ireland.(157) These speeches must have

been known to the Irish government, and their occurrence and the purport

of them must presumably have been known therefore to the prime minister.

Here was indeed a removal of the ancient buoys and beacons that had

hitherto guided English navigation in Irish waters. There was even less of

a solid ultimatum at Newport, than in those utterances in Midlothian which

were at that time and long afterwards found so culpably vague, blind, and

elusive. Some of the more astute of the minister’s own colleagues were

delighted with his speech, as keeping the Irishmen steady to the tory

party. They began to hope that they might even come within five-and-twenty

of the liberals when the polling began.

The question on which side the Irish vote in Great Britain should be

thrown seems not to have been decided until after Mr. Gladstone’s speech.

It was then speedily settled. On Nov. 21 a manifesto was issued, handing

over the Irish vote in Great Britain solid to the orator of the Newport

speech. The tactics were obvious. It was Mr. Parnell’s interest to bring

the two contending British parties as near as might be to a level, and

this he could only hope to do by throwing his strength upon the weaker

side. It was from the weaker side, if they could be retained in office,

that he would get the best terms.(158) The document was composed with

vigour and astuteness. But the phrases of the manifesto were the least

important part of it. It was enough that the hard word was passed. Some

estimated the loss to the liberal party in this island at twenty seats,

others at forty. Whether twenty or forty, these lost seats made a fatal

difference in the division on the Irish bill a few months later, and when

(M92) that day had come and gone, Mr. Parnell sometimes ruefully asked

himself whether the tactics of the electoral manifesto were not on the

whole a mistake. But this was not all and was not the worst of it. The

Irish manifesto became a fiery element in a sharp electioneering war, and

threw the liberals in all constituencies where there was an Irish vote

into a direct and angry antagonism to the Irish cause and its leaders;

passions were roused, and things were said about Irishmen that could not

at once be forgotten; and the great task of conversion in 1886, difficult

in any case, was made a thousand times more difficult still by the

arguments and antipathies of the electoral battle of 1885. Meanwhile it

was for the moment, and for the purposes of the moment, a striking

success.

Chapter II. The Polls In 1885. (1885)

I would say that civil liberty can have no security without

political power.—C. J. FOX.

I

The election ran a chequered course (Nov. 23-Dec. 19). It was the first

trial of the whole body of male householders, and it was the first trial

of the system of single-member districts. This is not the place for a

discussion of the change of electoral area. As a scheme for securing

representation of minorities it proved of little efficacy, and many

believe that the substitution of a smaller constituency for a larger one

has tended to slacken political interest, and to narrow political

judgment. Meanwhile some of those who were most deeply concerned in

establishing the new plan, were confident that an overwhelming liberal

triumph would be the result. Many of their opponents took the same view,

and were in despair. A liberal met a tory minister on the steps of a club

in Pall Mall, as they were both going to the country for their elections.

“I suppose,” said the tory, “we are out for twenty years to come.” _O

pectora cæca!_ He has been in office for nearly fifteen of the eighteen

years since. In September one of the most authoritative liberal experts

did not see how the tories were to have more than 210 out of the 670

seats, including the tory contingent from Ireland. Two months later the

expert admitted that the tory chances were improving, mainly owing to what

in electioneering slang was called the church scare. Fair trade, too, had

made many converts in Lancashire. On the very eve of the polls the

estimate at liberal headquarters was a majority of forty over tories and

Irishmen combined.

II

(M93) As I should have told the reader on an earlier page, Mr. Gladstone

had proceeded to his own constituency on November 9. The previous month

had found, as usual, endless other interests to occupy him, quite apart

from politics. These are the ordinary entries. “Worked, say, five hours on

books. Three more hours reduced my books and rooms to apparent order, but

much detail remains. Worked mildly on books.” In this region he would have

said of disorder and disarray what Carlyle said to dirt, “Thou shalt not

abide with me.” As to the insides of books, his reading was miscellaneous:

Madame d’Arblay, Bodley’s _Remains_, Bachaumont’s _Anecdotes_, Cuvier’s

_Theory of the Earth_, Whewell on _Astronomy_, the _Life of B. Gilpin_,

Hennell’s _Inquiry_, Schmidt’s _Social Effects of Christianity_, Miss

Martineau’s _Autobiography_, Anderson on _Glory of the Bible,_ Barrow’s

_Towards the Truth_, and so on—many of the books now stone-dead. Besides

such reading as this, he “made a beginning of a paper on Hermes, and read

for it,” and worked hard at a controversial article, in reply to M.

Réville, upon the Dawn of Creation and Worship. When he corrected the

proof, he found it ill-written, and in truth we may rather marvel at, than

admire, the hardihood that handled such themes amid such

distractions.(159) Much company arrived. “Count Münster came to luncheon;

long walk and talk with him. The Derby-Bedford party came and went. I had

an hour’s good conversation with Lord D. Tea in the open air. _Oct.

7._—Mr. Chamberlain came. Well, and much conversation. _Oct. 8._—Mr.

Chamberlain. Three hours of conversation.”

Before the end of the month the doctors reported excellently of the

condition of his vocal cords, and when he started for Dalmeny and the

scene of the exploits of 1880 once more, he was in spirits to enjoy “an

animated journey,” and the vast enthusiasm with which Edinburgh again

received him. His speeches were marked by undiminished fire. He boldly

challenged a verdict on policy in the Soudan, while freely admitting that

in some points, not immaterial, his cabinet had fallen into error, though

in every case the error was fostered by the party opposite; and he pointed

to the vital fact that though the party opposite were in good time, they

never dreamed of altering the policy. He asked triumphantly how they would

have fared in the Afghan dispute, if the policy anterior to 1880 had not

been repudiated. In his address he took the same valiant line about South

Africa. “In the Transvaal,” he said, “we averted a war of European and

Christian races throughout South African states, which would have been

alike menacing to our power, and scandalous in the face of civilisation

and of Christendom. As this has been with our opponents a favourite

subject of unmeasured denunciation, so I for one hail and reciprocate

their challenge, and I hope the nation will give a clear judgment on our

refusal to put down liberty by force, and on the measures that have

brought about the present tranquillity of South Africa.” His first speech

was on Ireland, and Ireland figured, as we have seen, largely and

emphatically to the last. Disestablishment was his thorniest topic, for

the scare of the church in danger was working considerable havoc in

England, and every word on Scottish establishment was sure to be

translated to establishment elsewhere. On the day on which he was to

handle it, his entry is: “Much rumination, and made notes which in

speaking I could not manage to see. Off to Edinburgh at 2.30. Back at 6.

Spoke seventy minutes in Free Kirk Hall: a difficult subject. The present

agitation does not strengthen in my mind the principle of establishment.”

His leading text was a favourite and a salutary maxim of his, that “it is

a very serious responsibility to take political questions out of their

proper time and their proper order,” and the summary of his speech was

that the party was agreed upon certain large and complicated questions,

such as were enough for one parliament to settle, and that it would be an

error to attempt to thrust those questions aside, to cast them into the

shade and the darkness, “for the sake of a subject of which I will not

undervalue the importance, but of which I utterly deny the maturity at the

present moment.”(160)

On Nov. 27 the poll was taken; 11,241 electors out of 12,924, or 87 per

cent., recorded their votes, and of these 7879 voted for Mr. Gladstone,

and 3248 for Mr. Dalrymple, or a majority of 4631. So little impression

had been made (M94) in Midlothian by Kilmainham, Majuba, Khartoum,

Penjdeh, and the other party cries of a later period.

III

Let us turn to the general result, and the final composition of Mr.

Gladstone’s thirteenth parliament. The polls of the first three or four

days were startling. It looked, in the phrases of the time, as if there

were conservative reaction all round, as if the pendulum had swung back to

the point of tory triumph in 1874, and as if early reverses would wind up

in final rout. Where the tories did not capture the seat, their numbers

rose and the liberal majorities fell. At the end of four days the liberals

in England and Wales had scored 86 against 109 for their adversaries. When

two-thirds of the House had been elected, the liberals counted 196, the

tories 179, and the Irish nationalists 37. In spite of the early panic or

exultation, it was found that in boroughs of over 100,000 the liberals had

after all carried seventeen, against eight for their opponents. But the

tories were victorious in a solid Liverpool, save one Irish seat; they won

all the seats in Manchester save one; and in London, where liberals had

been told by those who were believed to know, that they would make a clean

sweep, there were thirty-six tories against twenty-six liberals. Two

members of the late liberal cabinet and three subordinate ministers were

thrown out. “The verdict of the English borough constituencies,” cried the

_Times_, “will be recorded more emphatically than was even the case in

1874 in favour of the conservatives. The opposition have to thank Mr.

Chamberlain not only for their defeat at the polls, but for the

irremediable disruption and hopeless disorganisation of the liberal party

with its high historic past and its high claims to national gratitude. His

achievement may give him such immortality as was won by the man who burned

down the temple of Diana at Ephesus.”(161) The same writers have ever

since ascribed the irremediable disruption to Mr. Gladstone and the Irish

question.

Now came the counties with their newly enfranchised hosts. Here the tide

flowed strong and steady. Squire and parson were amazed to see the

labourer, of whose stagnant indifference to politics they had been so

confident, trudging four or five miles to a political meeting, listening

without asking for a glass of beer to political speeches, following point

upon-point, and then trudging back again dumbly chewing the cud.

Politicians with gifts of rhetoric began to talk of the grand revolt of

the peasants, and declared that it was the most remarkable transformation

since the conversion of the Franks. Turned into prose, this meant that the

liberals had extended their area into large rural provinces where hitherto

tory supremacy had never been disputed. Whether or no Mr. Chamberlain had

broken the party in the boroughs, his agrarian policy together with the

natural uprising of the labourer against the party of squire and farmer,

had saved it in the counties. The nominees of such territorial magnates as

the Northumberlands, the Pembrokes, the Baths, the Bradfords, the Watkin

Wynns, were all routed, and the shock to territorial influence was felt to

be profound. An ardent agrarian reformer, who later became a conspicuous

unionist, writing to Mr. Gladstone in July a description of a number of

great rural gatherings, told him, “One universal feature of these meetings

is the joy, affection, and unbounded applause with which your name is

received by these earnest men. Never in all your history had you so strong

a place in the hearts of the common people, as you have to-day. It

requires to be seen to be realised.”

All was at last over. It then appeared that so far from there being a

second version of the great tory reaction of 1874, the liberals had now in

the new parliament a majority over tories of 82, or thirty under the

corresponding majority in the year of marvel, 1880. In great Britain they

had a majority of 100, being 333 against 233.(162) But (M95) they had no

majority over tories and Irishmen combined. That hopeful dream had glided

away through the ivory gate.

Shots between right wing and left of the liberal party were exchanged to

the very last moment. When the borough elections were over, the Birmingham

leader cried that so far from the loss in the boroughs being all the fault

of the extreme liberals, it was just because the election had not been

fought on their programme, but was fought instead on a manifesto that did

not include one of the points to which the extreme liberals attached the

greatest importance. For the sake of unity, they had put aside their most

cherished principles, disestablishment for instance, and this, forsooth,

was the result.(163) The retort came as quickly as thunder after the

flash. Lord Hartington promptly protested from Matlock, that the very

crisis of the electoral conflict was an ill-chosen moment for the public

expression of doubt by a prominent liberal as to the wisdom of a policy

accepted by the party, and announced by the acknowledged leader of the

whole party. When the party had found some more tried, more trusted, more

worthy leader, then might perhaps be the time to impugn the policy. These

reproachful ironies of Lord Hartington boded ill for any prospect of the

heroes of this fratricidal war of the platform smoothing their wrinkled

fronts in a liberal cabinet.

IV

In Ireland the result shed a strong light on the debating prophecies that

the extension of the county franchise would not be unfavourable to the

landlord interest; that it would enable the deep conservative interest of

the peasantry to vindicate itself against the nationalism of the towns;

that it would prove beyond all doubt that the Irish leader did not really

speak the mind of a decided majority of the people of Ireland. Relying on

the accuracy of these abstract predictions, the Irish tories started

candidates all over the country. Even some of them who passed for shrewd

and candid actually persuaded themselves that they were making an

impression on the constituencies. The effect of their ingenuous operations

was to furnish such a measure of nationalist strength, as would otherwise

have seemed incredible almost to the nationalists themselves. An instance

or two will suffice. In two divisions of Cork, the tories polled 300 votes

against nearly 10,000 for the nationalists. In two divisions of Mayo, the

tories polled 200 votes against nearly 10,000 for the nationalists. In one

division of Kilkenny there were 4000 nationalist votes against 170 for the

tory, and in another division 4000 against 220. In a division of Kerry the

nationalist had over 3000 votes against 30 for the tory,—a hundred to one.

In prosperous counties with resident landlords and a good class of gentry

such as Carlow and Kildare, in one case the popular vote was 4800 against

750, and in the other 3169 against 467. In some fifty constituencies the

popular majorities ranged in round numbers from 6500 the highest, to 2400

the lowest. Besides these constituencies where a contest was so futile,

were those others in which no contest was even attempted.

In Ulster a remarkable thing happened. This favoured province had in the

last parliament returned nine liberals. Lord Hartington attended a banquet

at Belfast (Nov. 5) just before the election. It was as unlucky an affair

as the feast of Belshazzar. His mission was compared by Orange wits to

that of the Greek hero who went forth to wrestle with Death for the body

of an old woman. The whole of the liberal candidates in Ulster fell down

as dead men. Orangemen and catholics, the men who cried damnation to King

William and the men who cried “To hell with the Pope,” joined hands

against them. In Belfast itself, nationalists were (M96) seen walking to

the booths with orange cards in their hats to vote for orangemen against

liberals.(164) It is true that the paradox did not last, and that the Pope

and King William were speedily on their old terms again. Within six

months, the two parties atoned for this temporary backsliding into

brotherly love, by one of the most furious and protracted conflagrations

that ever raged even in the holy places of Belfast. Meanwhile nationalism

had made its way in the south of the province, partly by hopes of reduced

rents, partly by the energy of the catholic population, who had not tasted

political power for two centuries. The adhesion of their bishops to the

national movement in the Monaghan election had given them the signal three

years before. Fermanagh, hitherto invariably Orange, now sent two

nationalists. Antrim was the single county out of the thirty-two counties

of Ireland that was solid against home rule, and even in Antrim in one

contest the nationalist was beaten only by 35 votes.

Not a single liberal was returned in the whole of Ireland. To the last

parliament she had sent fourteen. They were all out bag and baggage.

Ulster now sent eighteen nationalists and seventeen tories. Out of the

eighty-nine contests in Ireland, Mr. Parnell’s men won no fewer than

eighty-five, and in most of them they won by such overwhelming majorities

as I have described. It was noticed that twenty-two of the persons

elected, or more than one-fourth of the triumphant party, had been put in

prison under the Act of 1881. A species of purge, moreover, had been

performed. All half-hearted nationalists, the doubters and the faithless,

were dismissed, and their places taken by men pledged either to obey or

else go.

The British public now found out on what illusions they had for the last

four years been fed. Those of them who had memories, could recollect how

the Irish secretary of the day, on the third reading of the first Coercion

bill in 1881, had boldly appealed from the Irish members to the People of

Ireland. “He was sure that he could appeal with confidence from gentlemen

sitting below the gangway opposite to their constituents.”(165) They

remembered all the talk about Mr. Parnell and his followers being a mere

handful of men and not a political party at all, and the rest of it. They

had now a revelation what a fool’s paradise it had been.

As a supreme electoral demonstration, the Irish elections of 1885 have

never been surpassed in any country. They showed that neither remedial

measures nor repressive measures had made even the fleeting shadow of an

impression on the tenacious sentiment of Ireland, or on the powerful

organisation that embodied and directed it. The Land Act had made no

impression. The two Coercion Acts had made none. The imperial parliament

had done its best for five years. Some of the ablest of its ministers had

set zealous and intrepid hands to the task, and this was the end. Whether

you counted seats or counted votes, the result could not be twisted into

anything but what it was—the vehement protest of one of the three kingdoms

against the whole system of its government, and a strenuous demand for its

reconstruction on new foundations.

Endeavours were made to discredit so startling and unwelcome a result. It

was called “the carefully prepared verdict of a shamefully packed jury.”

Much was made of the number of voters who declared themselves illiterate,

said to be compelled so to do in order that the priest or other

intimidatory person might see that they voted right. As a matter of fact

the percentage of illiterate voters answered closely to the percentage of

males over twenty-one in the census returns, who could neither read nor

write. Only two petitions followed the general election, one at Belfast

against a nationalist, and the other at Derry against a tory, and in

neither of the two was undue influence or intimidation alleged. The routed

candidates in Ireland, like the same unlucky species elsewhere, raised the

usual chorus of dolorous explanation. The register, they cried, was in a

shameful condition; the polling stations were too few or too remote; the

loyalists were afraid, and the poll did not represent their real numbers;

people did not believe that the ballot was really secret; the percentage

of illiterates was monstrous; promises and pledges went for nothing. Such

are ever the too familiar voices of mortified electioneering.

(M97) There was also the best known of all the conclusive topics from tory

Ireland. It was all done, vowed the tories, by the bishops and clergy;

they were indefatigable; they canvassed at the houses and presided at

meetings; they exhorted their flocks from the altar, and they drilled them

at the polling-booths. The spiritual screw of the priest and the temporal

screw of the league—there was the whole secret. Such was the story, and it

was not wholly devoid of truth; but then what balm, what comfort, had even

the truth of it for British rulers?

Some thousands of voters stayed away from the polls. It was ingeniously

explained that their confidence in British rule had been destroyed by the

Carnarvon surrender; a shopkeeper would not offend his customers for the

sake of a Union Jack that no longer waved triumphant in the breeze. They

were like the Arab sheikhs at Berber, who, when they found that the

Egyptian pashas were going to evacuate, went over to the Mahdi. The

conventions appointed to select the candidates were denounced as the mere

creatures of Mr. Parnell, the Grand Elector. As if anything could have

shown a more politic appreciation of the circumstances. There are

situations that require a dictator, not to impose an opinion, but to

kindle an aspiration; not to shape a demand, but to be the effective organ

of opinion and demand. Now in the Irish view was one of those situations.

In the last parliament twenty-six seats were held by persons designated

nominal home rulers; in the new parliament, not one. Every new nationalist

member pledged himself to resign whenever the parliamentary party should

call upon him. Such an instrument grasped in a hand of iron was

indispensable, first to compel the British government to listen, and

second, to satisfy any British government disposed to listen, that in

dealing with Mr. Parnell they were dealing with nationalist Ireland, and

with a statesman who had the power to make his engagements good. You need

greater qualities, said Cardinal De Retz, to be a good party leader than

to be emperor of the universe. Ireland is not that portion of the universe

in which this is least true.

Chapter III. A Critical Month (December 1885)

Whoever has held the post of minister for any considerable time

can never absolutely, unalterably maintain and carry out his

original opinions. He finds himself in the presence of situations

that are not always the same—of life and growth—in connection with

which he must take one course one day, and then, perhaps, another

on the next day. I could not always run straight ahead like a

cannon ball.—BISMARCK.

I

The month of December was passed by Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden, in such

depth of meditation as it is easy for us to conjecture. The composition of

his party, the new situation in parliament, the mutual relations of

important individuals, the Irish case, his own share in respect of the

Irish case, the strange new departure in Irish policy announced and acted

upon by the subsisting cabinet—from all these points of view it was now

his business to survey the extraordinary scene. The knot to be unravelled

in 1886 was hardly less entangled than that which engaged the powerful

genius of Pitt at the opening of the century. Stripped of invidious

innuendo, the words of Lord Salisbury a few weeks later state with

strength and truth the problem that now confronted parliament and its

chief men. “Up to the time,” said the tory prime minister, “when Mr.

Gladstone took office, be it for good or evil, for many generations

Ireland had been governed through the influence and the action of the

landed gentry. I do not wish to defend that system. There is a good deal

to be said for it, and a good deal to be said against it. What I wish to

insist upon is, not that that system was good, but that the statesman who

undertook to overthrow it, should have had something to put in its place.

He utterly destroyed it. By the Land Act of 1870, by the Ballot Act of

1872, by the Land Act of 1881, and last of all by the Reform bill of 1884,

the power of the landed gentry in Ireland is absolutely shattered; and he

now stands before the formidable problem of a country deprived of a system

of government under which it had existed for many generations, and

absolutely without even a sketch of a substitute by which the ordinary

functions of law and order can be maintained. Those changes which he

introduced into the government of Ireland were changes that were admirable

from a parliamentary point of view. They were suited to the dominant

humour of the moment. But they were barren of any institutions by which

the country could be governed and kept in prosperity for the future.”(166)

This is a statement of the case that biographer and historian alike should

ponder. Particularly should they remember that both parties had renounced

coercion.

Mr. Gladstone has publicly explained the working of his mind, and both his

private letters at the time, and many a conversation later, attest the

hold which the new aspect, however chimerical it may now seem to those who

do not take long views, had gained upon him. He could not be blind to the

fact that the action and the language of the tory ministers during the

last six months had shown an unquestionable readiness to face the new

necessities of a complex situation with new methods. Why should not a

solution of the present difficulties be sought in the same co-operation of

parties, that had been as advantageous as it was indispensable in other

critical occasions of the century? He recalled other leading precedents of

national crisis. There was the repeal of the Test Act in 1828; catholic

emancipation in 1829; the repeal of the corn law in 1846; the extension of

the franchise in 1867. In the history of these memorable transactions, Mr.

Gladstone perceived it to be extremely doubtful whether any one of these

measures, all carried as they were by tory governments, could have become

law except under the peculiar conditions which secured for each of them

both the aid of the liberal vote in the House of Commons, and the

authority possessed by all tory governments in the House of Lords. What

was the situation? The ministerial party just reached the figure of two

hundred and fifty-one. Mr. Gladstone had said in the course of the

election that for a government in a minority to deal with the Irish

question would not be safe, such an operation could not but be attended by

danger; but the tender of his support to Lord Salisbury was a

demonstration that he thought the operation might still properly be

undertaken.(167)

_To Herbert Gladstone._

_December 10, 1885._—1. The nationalists have run in political

alliance with the tories for years; more especially for six

months; most of all at the close during the elections, when _they_

have made us 335 (say) against 250 [conservatives] instead of 355

against 230. This alliance is therefore at its zenith. 2. The

question of Irish government ought for the highest reasons to be

settled at once, and settled by the allied forces, (1) because

they have the government, (2) because their measure will have fair

play from all, most, or many of us, which a measure of ours would

not have from the tories. 3. As the allied forces are half the

House, so that there is not a majority against them, no

constitutional principle is violated by allowing the present

cabinet to continue undisturbed for the purpose in view. 4. The

plan for Ireland ought to be produced by the government of the

day. Principles may be laid down by others, but not the detailed

interpretation of them in a measure. I have publicly declared I

produce no plan until the government has arrived at some issue

with the Irish, as I hope they will. 5. If the moment ever came

when a plan had to be considered with a view to production on

behalf of the liberal party, I do not at present see how such a

question could be dissociated from another vital question, namely,

who are to be the government. For a government alone can carry a

measure, though some outline of essentials might be put out in a

motion or resolution.

Happening in these days to meet in the neighbouring (M98) palace of a whig

magnate, Mr. Balfour, a young but even then an important member of the

government, with whom as a veteran with a junior of high promise he had

long been on terms of friendly intimacy, Mr. Gladstone began an informal

conversation with him upon the condition of Ireland, on the stir that it

was making in men’s minds, and on the urgency of the problem. The

conversation he followed up by a letter (Dec. 20). Every post, he said,

bore him testimony to the growing ferment. In urging how great a calamity

it would be if so vast a question should fall into the lines of party

conflict, he expressed his desire to see it taken up by the government,

and to be able, with reserve of necessary freedom, to co-operate in their

design. Mr. Balfour replied with courteous scepticism, but promised to

inform Lord Salisbury. The tactical computation was presumably this, that

Lord Salisbury would lose the Orange group from Ireland and the extreme

tories in England, but would keep the bulk of his party. On the other

hand, Mr. Gladstone in supporting a moderate home rule would drop some of

the old whigs and some of the extreme radicals, but he too would keep the

bulk of the liberal party. Therefore, even if Mr. Parnell and his

followers should find the scheme too moderate to be endurable, still Lord

Salisbury with Mr. Gladstone’s help would settle the Irish question as

Peel with the help of the whigs settled the question of corn.

Both at the time and afterwards Mr. Gladstone was wont to lay great stress

upon the fact that he had opened this suggestion and conveyed this proffer

of support. For instance, he writes to Lord Hartington (Dec. 20): “On

Tuesday I had a conversation with Balfour at Eaton, which in conformity

with my public statements, I think, conveyed informally a hope that they

would act, as the matter is so serious, and as its becoming a party

question would be a great national calamity. I have written to him to say

(without speaking for others) that if they can make a proposal for the

purpose of settling definitely the question of Irish government, I shall

wish with proper reserves to treat it in the spirit in which I have

treated Afghanistan and the Balkan Peninsula.”

The language of Lord Carnarvon when he took office and of Lord Salisbury

at Newport, coupled with the more substantial fact of the alliance between

tories and nationalists before and during the election, no doubt warranted

Mr. Gladstone’s assumption that the alliance might continue, and that the

talk of a new policy had been something more than an electioneering

manœuvre. Yet the importance that he always attached to his offer of

support for a definite settlement, or in plainer English, some sort of

home rule, implies a certain simplicity. He forgot in his patriotic zeal

the party system. The tory leader, capable as his public utterances show

of piercing the exigencies of Irish government to the quick, might

possibly, in the course of responsible consultations with opponents for a

patriotic purpose, have been drawn by argument and circumstance on to the

ground of Irish autonomy, which he had hitherto considered, and considered

with apparent favour, only in the dim distance of abstract meditation or

through the eyes of Lord Carnarvon. The abstract and intellectual

temperament is sometimes apt to be dogged and stubborn; on the other hand,

it is often uncommonly elastic. Lord Salisbury’s clear and rationalising

understanding might have been expected to carry him to a thoroughgoing

experiment to get rid of a deep and inveterate disorder. If he thought it

politic to assent to communication with Mr. Parnell, why should he not

listen to overtures from Mr. Gladstone? On the other hand, Lord

Salisbury’s hesitation in facing the perils of an Irish settlement in

reliance upon the co-operation of political opponents is far from being

unintelligible. His inferior parliamentary strength would leave him at the

mercy of an extremely formidable ally. He may have anticipated that, apart

from the ordinary temptations of every majority to overthrow a minority,

all the strong natural impulses of the liberal leader, his vehement

sympathy with the principle of nationality, the irresistible attraction

for him of all the grand and eternal commonplaces of liberty and

self-government, would inevitably carry him much further on the Irish road

than either Lord Salisbury himself may have been disposed to travel, or

than he could be sure of persuading his party to follow. He may (M99) well

have seen grounds for pause before committing himself to so delicate and

precarious an enterprise.

II

Early in December Lord Granville was at Hawarden, and the two discussed

the crucial perplexities of the hour, not going further than agreement

that responsibility lay with the government, and that the best chance for

settlement lay in large concession. From Hawarden Lord Granville went to

Chatsworth, where he found Lord Spencer on his way to visit Mr. Gladstone;

but nothing important passed among the three leaders thus brought together

under the roof of Lord Hartington. Lord Granville imparted to Lord Spencer

and Lord Hartington that Mr. Gladstone was full of Ireland in the

direction of some large concession of self-government. The host discussed

the thing dispassionately without much expression of opinion. Proceeding

to Hawarden, Lord Spencer was there joined by Lord Rosebery. Their chief

repeated to them the propositions already stated (p. 258). Mr. Gladstone

wrote to Lord Granville (Dec. 9):

You have, I think, acted very prudently in not returning here. It

would have been violently canvassed. Your report is as favourable

as could be expected. I think my conversations with Rosebery and

Spencer have also been satisfactory. What I expect is a healthful,

slow fermentation in many minds, working towards the final

product. It is a case of between the devil and the deep sea. But

our position is a bed of roses, compared with that of the

government....

Lord Spencer was hardly second in weight to Mr. Gladstone himself. His

unrivalled experience of Irish administration, his powers of firm decision

in difficult circumstances, and the impression of high public spirit,

uprightness, and fortitude, which had stamped itself deep upon the public

mind, gave him a force of moral authority in an Irish crisis that was

unique. He knew the importance of a firm and continuous system in Ireland.

Such a system he had inflexibly carried out. Extreme concessions had been

extorted from him by the radicals in the cabinet, and when the last moment

of the eleventh hour had arrived, it looked as if he would break up the

government by insisting. Then the government was turned out, and the party

of “law and order” came in. He saw his firm and continuous system at the

first opportunity flouted and discarded. He was aware, as officials and as

the public were aware, that his successor at Dublin Castle made little

secret that he had come over to reverse the policy. Lord Spencer, too,

well knew in the last months of his reign at Dublin that his own system,

in spite of outward success, had made no mark upon Irish disaffection. It

is no wonder that after his visit to Hawarden, he laboured hard at

consideration of the problem that the strange action of government on the

one hand, and the speculations of a trusted leader on the other, had

forced upon him. On Mr. Gladstone he pressed the question whether a

general support should be given to Irish autonomy as a principle, before

particulars were matured. In any case he perceived that the difficulty of

governing Ireland might well be increased by knowledge of the mere fact

that Mr. Gladstone and himself, whether in office or in opposition, were

looking in the direction of autonomy. Somebody said to Mr. Gladstone,

people talked about his turning Spencer round his thumb. “It would be more

true,” he replied, “that he had turned me round his.” That is, I suppose,

by the lessons of Lord Spencer’s experience.

In the middle of the month Lord Hartington asked Mr. Gladstone for

information as to his views and intentions on the Irish question as

developed by the general election. The rumours in the newspapers, he said,

as well as in private letters, were so persistent that it was hard to

believe them without foundation. Mr. Gladstone replied to Lord Hartington

in a letter of capital importance in its relation to the prospects of

party union (Dec. 17):—

_To Lord Hartington._

The whole stream of public excitement is now turned upon me, and I

am pestered with incessant telegrams which I have no defence

against, but either suicide or Parnell’s method of

self-concealment. The truth is, I have more or less of opinions

and ideas, but no intentions or negotiations. In these ideas and

opinions there is, I think, little that I have not more or less

conveyed in public declarations; in principle nothing. I will try

to lay them before you. I consider that Ireland has now spoken;

and that an effort ought to be made _by the government_ without

delay to meet her demands for the management by an Irish

legislative body of Irish as distinct from imperial affairs. Only

a government can do it, and a tory government can do it more

easily and safely than any other. There is first a postulate that

the state of Ireland shall be such as to warrant it. The

conditions of an admissible plan are—

1. Union of the empire and due supremacy of parliament.

2. Protection for the minority—a difficult matter on which I have

talked much with Spencer, certain points, however, remaining to be

considered.

3. Fair allocation of imperial charges.

4. A statutory basis seems to me better and safer than the revival

of Grattan’s parliament, but I wish to hear much more upon this,

as the minds of men are still in so crude a state on the whole

subject.

5. Neither as opinions nor as instructions have I to any one alive

promulgated these ideas as decided on by me.

6. As to intentions, I am determined to have none at present, to

leave space to the government—I should wish to encourage them if I

properly could—above all, on no account to say or do anything

which would enable the nationalists to establish rival biddings

between us. If this storm of rumours continues to rage, it may be

necessary for me to write some new letter to my constituents, but

I am desirous to do nothing, simply leaving the field open for the

government until time makes it necessary to decide. Of our late

colleagues I have had most communication with Granville, Spencer,

Rosebery. Would you kindly send this on to Granville?

I think you will find this in conformity with my public

declarations, though some blanks are filled up. I have in truth

thought it my duty without in the least committing myself or any

one else, to think through the subject as well as I could, being

equally convinced of its urgency and bigness. If H. and N. are

with you, pray show them this letter, which is a very hasty one,

for I am so battered with telegrams that I hardly know whether I

stand on my head or my heels....

With regard to the letter I sent you, my opinion is that there is

a Parnell party and a separation or civil war party, and the

question which is to have the upper hand will have to be decided

in a limited time. My earnest recommendation to everybody is not

to commit himself. Upon this rule, under whatever pressure, I

shall act as long as I can. There shall be no private negotiation

carried on by me, but the time may come when I shall be obliged to

speak publicly. Meanwhile I hope you will keep in free and full

communication with old colleagues. Pray put questions if this

letter seems ambiguous....

Pray remember that I am at all times ready for personal

communication, should you think it desirable.

III

Before receiving this letter, Lord Hartington was startled, as all the

world was, to come on something in the newspapers that instantly created a

new situation. Certain prints published on December 17 what was alleged to

be Mr. Gladstone’s scheme for an Irish settlement.(168) It proposed in

terms the creation of an Irish parliament. Further particulars were given

in detail, but with these we need not concern ourselves. The Irish

parliament was enough. The public mind, bewildered as it was by the

situation that the curious issue of the election had created, was thrown

by this announcement into extraordinary commotion. The facts are these.

Mr. Herbert Gladstone visited London at this time (Dec. 14), partly in

consequence of a speech made a few days before by Sir C. Dilke, and of the

club talk which the speech had set going. It was taken to mean that he and

Mr. Chamberlain, the two radical leaders, thought that such an Irish

policy as might be concocted between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell would

receive no general support from the liberal party, and that it would be

much safer to (M100) leave the tories in power, in the expectation that

some moderate measures of reform might be got from them, and that

meanwhile they would become committed with the Irishmen. Tactics of this

kind were equivalent to the exclusion of Mr. Gladstone, for in every

letter that he wrote he pronounced the Irish question urgent. Mr. Herbert

Gladstone had not been long in London before the impression became strong

upon him, that in the absence of a guiding hint upon the Irish question,

the party might be drifting towards a split. Under this impression he had

a conversation with the chief of an important press agency, who had

previously warned him that the party was all at sea. To this gentleman, in

an interview at which no notes were taken and nothing read from papers—so

little formal was it—he told his own opinions on the assumed opinions of

Mr. Gladstone, all in general terms, and only with the negative view of

preventing friendly writers from falling into traps. Unluckily it would

seem to need at least the genius of a Bismarck, to perform with precision

and success the delicate office of inspiring a modern oracle on the

journalistic tripod. Here, what was intended to be a blameless negative

soon swelled, as the oracular fumes are wont to do, into a giant positive.

In conversations with another journalist, who was also his private friend

(Dec. 15), he used language which the friend took to justify the pretty

unreserved announcement that Mr. Gladstone was about to set to work in

earnest on home rule.

“With all these matters,” Mr. Herbert Gladstone wrote to a near relative

at the time, “my father had no more connection than the man in the moon,

and until each event occurred, he knew no more of it than the man in the

street.” Mr. Gladstone on the same day (Dec. 17) told the world by

telegraph that the statement was not an accurate representation of his

views, but a speculation upon them; he added that it had not been

published with his knowledge or authority. There can be no doubt, whatever

else may be said, that the publication was neither to his advantage, nor

in conformity with his view of the crisis. No statesman in our history has

ever been more careful of the golden rule of political strategy—to neglect

of which Frederick the Great traced the failure of Joseph II.—not to take

the second step before you have taken the first. Neither scheme nor

intention had yet crystallised in his mind. Never was there a moment when

every consideration of political prudence more imperatively counselled

silence. Mr. Gladstone’s denial of all responsibility was not found to be

an explicit contradiction; it was a repudiation of the two newspapers, but

it was not a repudiation of an Irish parliament. Therefore people believed

the story the more. Friends and foes became more than ever alert, excited,

alarmed, and in not a few cases vehemently angry. This unauthorised

publication with the qualified denial, placed Mr. Gladstone in the very

position which he declared that he would not take up; it made him a

trespasser on ground that belonged to the government. Any action on his

part would in his own view not only be unnecessary; it would be

unwarrantable; it would be in the highest degree injurious and

mischievous.(169) Yet whatever it amounted to, some of this very injury

and mischief followed.