_Dec. 29, 1896._—My long and tangled life this day concludes its

87th year. My father died four days short of that term. I know of

no other life so long in the Gladstone family, and my profession

has been that of politician, or, more strictly, minister of state,

an extremely short-lived race when their scene of action has been

in the House of Commons, Lord Palmerston being the only complete

exception. In the last twelve months eyes and ears may have

declined, but not materially. The occasional contraction of the

chest is the only inconvenience that can be called new. I am not

without hope that Cannes may have a [illegible] to act upon it.

The blessings of family life continue to be poured in the largest

measure upon my unworthy head. Even my temporal affairs have

thriven. Still old age is appointed for the gradual loosening and

succeeding snapping of the threads. I visited Lord Stratford when

he was, say, 90 or 91 or thereabouts. He said to me, “It is not a

blessing.” As to politics, I think the basis of my mind is laid

principally in finance and philanthropy. The prospects of the

first are darker than I have ever known them. Those of the second

are black also, but with more hope of some early dawn. I do not

enter on interior matters. It is so easy to write, but to write

honestly nearly impossible. Lady Grosvenor gave me to-day a

delightful present of a small crucifix. I am rather too

independent of symbol.

This is the last entry in the diaries of seventy years.

At the end of January 1897, the Gladstones betook themselves once more to

Lord Rendel’s _palazzetto_, as they called it, at Cannes.

I had hoped during this excursion, he journalises, to make much

way with my autobiographica. But this was in a large degree

frustrated, first by invalidism, next by the eastern question, on

which I was finally obliged to write something.(312) Lastly, and

not least, by a growing sense of decline in my daily amount of

brain force available for serious work. My power to read (but to

read very slowly indeed since the cataract came) for a

considerable number of hours daily, thank God, continues. This is

a great mercy. While on my outing, I may have read, of one kind

and another, twenty volumes. Novels enter into this list rather

considerably. I have begun seriously to ask myself whether I shall

ever be able to face “The Olympian Religion.”

The Queen happened to be resident at Cimiez at this time, and Mr.

Gladstone wrote about their last meeting:—

A message came down to us inviting us to go into the hotel and

take tea with the Princess Louise. We repaired to the hotel, and

had our tea with Miss Paget, who was in attendance. The Princess

soon came in, and after a short delay we were summoned into the

Queen’s presence. No other English people were on the ground. We

were shown into a room tolerably, but not brilliantly lighted,

much of which was populated by a copious supply of Hanoverian

royalties. The Queen was in the inner part of the room, and behind

her stood the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge.

Notwithstanding my enfeebled sight, my vision is not much impaired

for practical purposes in cases such as this, where I am

thoroughly familiar with the countenance and whole contour of any

person to be seen. My wife preceded, and Mary followed me. The

Queen’s manner did not show the old and usual vitality. It was

still, but at the same time very decidedly kind, such as I had not

seen it for a good while before my final resignation. She gave me

her hand, a thing which is, I apprehended, rather rare with men,

and which had never happened with me during all my life, though

that life, be it remembered, had included some periods of rather

decided favour. Catherine sat down near her, and I at a little

distance. For a good many years she had habitually asked me to

sit. My wife spoke freely and a good deal to the Queen, but the

answers appeared to me to be very slight. As to myself, I

expressed satisfaction at the favourable accounts I had heard of

the accommodation at Cimiez, and perhaps a few more words of

routine. To speak frankly, it seemed to me that the Queen’s

peculiar faculty and habit of conversation had disappeared. It was

a faculty, not so much the free offspring of a rich and powerful

mind, as the fruit of assiduous care with long practice and much

opportunity. After about ten minutes, it was signified to us that

we had to be presented to all the other royalties, and so passed

the remainder of this meeting.

In the early autumn of 1897 he found himself affected by (M186) what was

supposed to be a peculiar form of catarrh. He went to stay with Mr.

Armitstead at Butterstone in Perthshire. I saw him on several occasions

afterwards, but this was the last time when I found him with all the

freedom, full self-possession, and kind geniality of old days. He was

keenly interested at my telling him that I had seen James Martineau a few

days before, in his cottage further north in Inverness-shire; that

Martineau, though he had now passed his ninety-second milestone on life’s

road, was able to walk five or six hundred feet up his hillside every day,

was at his desk at eight each morning, and read theology a good many hours

before he went to bed at night. Mr. Gladstone’s conversation was varied,

glowing, full of reminiscence. He had written me in the previous May,

hoping among other kind things that “we may live more and more in sympathy

and communion.” I never saw him more attractive than in the short pleasant

talks of these three or four days. He discussed some of the sixty or

seventy men with whom he had been associated in cabinet life,(313) freely

but charitably, though he named two whom he thought to have behaved worse

to him than others. He repeated his expression of enormous admiration for

Graham. Talked about his own voice. After he had made his long budget

speech in 1860, a certain member, supposed to be an operatic expert, came

to him and said, “You must take great care, or else you will destroy the

_colour_ in your voice.” He had kept a watch on general affairs. The

speech of a foreign ruler upon divine right much incensed him. He thought

that Lord Salisbury had managed to set the Turk up higher than he had

reached since the Crimean war; and his policy had weakened Greece, the

most liberal of the eastern communities. We fought over again some old

battles of 1886 and 1892-4. Mr. Armitstead had said to him—“Oh, sir,

you’ll live ten years to come.” “I do trust,” he answered as he told me

this, “that God in his mercy will spare me that.”

II

Then came months of distress. The facial annoyance grew into acute and

continued pain, and to pain he proved to be exceedingly sensitive. It did

not master him, but there were moments that seemed almost of collapse and

defeat. At last the night was gathering

About the burning crest

Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun.(314)

They took him at the end of November (1897) to Cannes, to the house of

Lord Rendel.

Sometimes at dinner he talked with his host, with Lord Welby, or Lord

Acton, with his usual force, but most of the time he lay in extreme

suffering and weariness, only glad when they soothed him with music. It

was decided that he had better return, and in hope that change of air

might even yet be some palliative, he went to Bournemouth, which he

reached on February 22. For weeks past he had not written nor read, save

one letter that he wrote in his journey home to Lady Salisbury upon a

rather narrow escape of her husband’s in a carriage accident. On March 18

his malady was pronounced incurable, and he learned that it was likely to

end in a few weeks. He received the verdict with perfect serenity and with

a sense of unutterable relief, for his sufferings had been cruel. Four

days later he started home to die. On leaving Bournemouth before stepping

into the train, he turned round, and to those who were waiting on the

platform to see him off, he said with quiet gravity, “God bless you and

this place, and the land you love.” At Hawarden he bore the dreadful

burden of his pain with fortitude, supported by the ritual ordinances of

his church and faith. Music soothed him, the old composers being those he

liked best to hear. Messages of sympathy were read to him, and he listened

silently or with a word of thanks.

“The retinue of the whole world’s good wishes” flowed to the “large upper

chamber looking to the sunrising, where the aged pilgrim lay.” Men and

women of every communion offered up earnest prayers for him. Those who

were of no communion thought with pity, sympathy, and sorrow of

A Power passing from the earth

To breathless Nature’s dark abyss.

(M187) From every rank in social life came outpourings in every key of

reverence and admiration. People appeared—as is the way when death

comes—to see his life and character as a whole, and to gather up in his

personality, thus transfigured by the descending shades, all the best

hopes and aspirations of their own best hours. A certain grandeur

overspread the moving scene. Nothing was there for tears. It was “no

importunate and heavy load.” The force was spent, but it had been nobly

spent in devoted and effective service for his country and his fellow-men.

From the Prince of the Black Mountain came a telegram: “Many years ago,

when Montenegro, my beloved country, was in difficulties and in danger,

your eloquent voice and powerful pen successfully pleaded and worked on

her behalf. At this time vigorous and prosperous, with a bright future

before her, she turns with sympathetic eye to the great English statesman

to whom she owes so much, and for whose present sufferings she feels so

deeply.” And he answered by a message that “his interest in Montenegro had

always been profound, and he prayed that it might prosper and be blessed

in all its undertakings.”

Of the thousand salutations of pity and hope none went so much to his

heart as one from Oxford—an expression of true feeling, in language worthy

of her fame:—

At yesterday’s meeting of the hebdomadal council, wrote the

vice-chancellor, an unanimous wish was expressed that I should

convey to you the message of our profound sorrow and affection at

the sore trouble and distress which you are called upon to endure.

While we join in the universal regret with which the nation

watches the dark cloud which has fallen upon the evening of a

great and impressive life, we believe that Oxford may lay claim to

a deeper and more intimate share in this sorrow. Your brilliant

career in our university, your long political connection with it,

and your fine scholarship, kindled in this place of ancient

learning, have linked you to Oxford by no ordinary bond, and we

cannot but hope that you will receive with satisfaction this

expression of deep-seated kindliness and sympathy from us.

We pray that the Almighty may support you and those near and dear

to you in this trial, and may lighten the load of suffering which

you bear with such heroic resignation.

To this he listened more attentively and over it he brooded long, then he

dictated to his youngest daughter sentence by sentence at intervals his

reply:—

There is no expression of Christian sympathy that I value more

than that of the ancient university of Oxford, the God-fearing and

God-sustaining university of Oxford. I served her, perhaps

mistakenly, but to the best of my ability. My most earnest prayers

are hers to the uttermost and to the last.

When May opened, it was evident that the end was drawing near. On the 13th

he was allowed to receive visits of farewell from Lord Rosebery and from

myself, the last persons beyond his household to see him. He was hardly

conscious. On the early morning of the 19th, his family all kneeling

around the bed on which he lay in the stupor of coming death, without a

struggle he ceased to breathe. Nature outside—wood and wide lawn and

cloudless far-off sky—shone at her fairest.

III

On the day after his death, in each of the two Houses the leader made the

motion, identical in language in both cases save the few final words about

financial provision in the resolution of the Commons:—

That an humble Address be presented to her Majesty praying that

her Majesty will be graciously pleased to give directions that the

remains of the Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone be interred at

the public charge, and that a monument be erected in the

Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster, with an inscription

expressive of the public admiration and attachment and of the high

sense entertained of his rare and splendid gifts, and of his

devoted labours to parliament and in great offices of state, and

to assure her Majesty that this House will make good the expenses

attending the same.

The language of the movers was worthy of the British parliament at its

best, worthy of the station of those who (M188) used it, and worthy of the

figure commemorated. Lord Salisbury was thought by most to go nearest to

the core of the solemnity:—

What is the cause of this unanimous feeling? Of course, he had

qualities that distinguished him from all other men; and you may

say that it was his transcendent intellect, his astonishing power

of attaching men to him, and the great influence he was able to

exert upon the thought and convictions of his contemporaries. But

these things, which explain the attachment, the adoration of those

whose ideas he represented, would not explain why it is that

sentiments almost as fervent are felt and expressed by those whose

ideas were not carried out by his policy. My Lords, I do not think

the reason is to be found in anything so far removed from the

common feelings of mankind as the abstruse and controversial

questions of the policy of the day. They had nothing to do with

it. Whether he was right, or whether he was wrong, in all the

measures, or in most of the measures which he proposed—those are

matters of which the discussion has passed by, and would certainly

be singularly inappropriate here; they are really remitted to the

judgment of future generations, who will securely judge from

experience what we can only decide by forecast. It was on account

of considerations more common to the masses of human beings, to

the general working of the human mind, than any controversial

questions of policy that men recognised in him a man

guided—whether under mistaken impressions or not, it matters

not—but guided in all the steps he took, in all the efforts that

he made, by a high moral ideal. What he sought were the

attainments of great ideals, and, whether they were based on sound

convictions or not, they could have issued from nothing but the

greatest and the purest moral aspirations; and he is honoured by

his countrymen, because through so many years, across so many

vicissitudes and conflicts, they had recognised this one

characteristic of his action, which has never ceased to be felt.

He will leave behind him, especially to those who have followed

with deep interest the history of the later years—I might almost

say the later months of his life—he will leave behind him the

memory of a great Christian statesman. Set up necessarily on

high—the sight of his character, his motives, and his intentions

would strike all the world. They will have left a deep and most

salutary influence on the political thought and the social thought

of the generation in which he lived, and he will be long

remembered not so much for the causes in which he was engaged or

the political projects which he favoured, but as a great example,

to which history hardly furnishes a parallel, of a great Christian

man.

Mr. Balfour, the leader in the Commons, specially spoke of him as “the

greatest member of the greatest deliberative assembly that the world has

seen,” and most aptly pointed to Mr. Gladstone’s special service in

respect of that assembly.

One service he did, in my opinion incalculable, which is

altogether apart from the judgment that we may be disposed to pass

upon particular opinions, or particular lines of policy which Mr.

Gladstone may from time to time have advocated. Sir, he added a

dignity, as he added a weight, to the deliberations of this House

by his genius, which I think it is impossible adequately to

replace. It is not enough for us to keep up simply a level, though

it be a high level, of probity and of patriotism. The mere average

of civic virtue is not sufficient to preserve this Assembly from

the fate that has overcome so many other Assemblies, products of

democratic forces. More than this is required; more than this was

given to us by Mr. Gladstone. He brought to our debates a genius

which compelled attention, he raised in the public estimation the

whole level of our proceedings, and they will be most ready to

admit the infinite value of his service who realise how much of

public prosperity is involved in the maintenance of the worth of

public life, and how perilously difficult most democracies

apparently feel it to be to avoid the opposite dangers into which

so many of them have fallen.

Sir William Harcourt spoke of him as friend and official colleague:—

I have heard men who knew him not at all, who have asserted that

the supremacy of his genius and the weight of his authority

oppressed and overbore those who lived with him and those who

worked under him. Nothing could be more untrue. Of all chiefs he

was the least exacting. He was the most kind, the most tolerant,

he was the most placable. How seldom in this House was the voice

of personal anger heard from his lips. These are the true marks of

greatness.

Lord Rosebery described his gifts and powers, his concentration, the

multiplicity of his interests, his labour of every day, and almost of

every hour of every day, in fashioning an intellect that was mighty by

nature. And besides this panegyric on the departed warrior, he touched

with felicity and sincerity a note of true feeling in recalling to his

hearers

the solitary and pathetic figure, who for sixty years, shared all

the sorrows and all the joys of Mr. Gladstone’s life, who received

his confidence and every aspiration, who shared his triumphs with

him and cheered him under his defeats; who by her tender

vigilance, I firmly believe, sustained and prolonged his years.

When the memorial speeches were over the House of Commons adjourned. The

Queen, when the day of the funeral came, telegraphed to Mrs. Gladstone

from Balmoral:—

My thoughts are much with you to-day, when your dear husband is

laid to rest. To-day’s ceremony will be most trying and painful

for you, but it will be at the same time gratifying to you to see

the respect and regret evinced by the nation for the memory of one

whose character and intellectual abilities marked him as one of

the most distinguished statesmen of my reign. I shall ever

gratefully remember his devotion and zeal in all that concerned my

personal welfare and that of my family.

IV

It was not at Westminster only that his praise went forth. Famous men, in

the immortal words of Pericles to his Athenians, have the whole world for

their tomb; they are commemorated not only by columns and inscriptions in

their own land; in foreign lands too a memorial of them is graven in the

hearts of men. So it was here. No other statesman on our famous roll has

touched the imagination of so wide a world.

The colonies through their officers or more directly, sent to Mrs.

Gladstone their expression of trust that the worldwide admiration and

esteem of her honoured and illustrious husband would help her to sustain

her burden of sorrow. The ambassador of the United States reverently

congratulated her and the English race everywhere, upon the glorious

completion of a life filled with splendid achievements and consecrated to

the noblest purposes. The President followed in the same vein, and in

Congress words were found to celebrate a splendid life and character. The

President of the French republic wished to be among the first to associate

himself with Mrs. Gladstone’s grief: “By the high liberality of his

character,” he said, “and by the nobility of his political ideal, Mr.

Gladstone had worthily served his country and humanity.” The entire French

government requested the British ambassador in Paris to convey the

expression of their sympathy and assurance of their appreciation,

admiration, and respect for the character of the illustrious departed. The

Czar of Russia telegraphed to Mrs. Gladstone: “I have just received the

painful news of Mr. Gladstone’s decease, and consider it my duty to

express to you my feelings of sincere sympathy on the occasion of the

cruel and irreparable bereavement which has befallen you, as well as the

deep regret which this sad event has given me. The whole of the civilised

world will beweep the loss of a great statesman, whose political views

were so widely humane and peaceable.”

In Italy the sensation was said to be as great as when Victor Emmanuel or

Garibaldi died. The Italian parliament and the prime minister telegraphed

to the effect that “the cruel loss which had just struck England, was a

grief sincerely shared by all who are devoted to liberty. Italy has not

forgotten, and will never forget, the interest and sympathy of Mr.

Gladstone in events that led to its independence.” In the same key,

Greece: the King, the first minister, the university, the chamber,

declared that he was entitled to the gratitude of the Greek people, and

his name would be by them for ever venerated. From Roumania, Macedonia,

Norway, Denmark, tributes came “to the great memory of Gladstone, one of

the glories of mankind.” Never has so wide and honourable a pomp all over

the globe followed an English statesman to the grave.

IV

On May 25, the remains were brought from Hawarden, and in the middle of

the night the sealed coffin was placed in Westminster Hall, watched until

the funeral by the piety of relays of friends. For long hours each day

great multitudes filed past the bier. It was a striking demonstration of

national feeling, for the procession contained every rank, and contingents

came from every part of the kingdom. On Saturday, May 28, the body was

committed to the grave in Westminster Abbey. No sign of high honour was

absent. The heir to the throne and his son were among those who bore the

pall. So were the prime minister and the two leaders of the parties in

both Houses. The other pall-bearers were Lord Rosebery who had succeeded

him as prime minister, the Duke of Rutland who had half a century before

been Mr. Gladstone’s colleague at Newark, and Mr. Armitstead and Lord

Rendel, who were his private friends. Foreign sovereigns sent their

representatives, the Speaker of the House of Commons was there in state,

and those were there who had done stout battle against him for long years;

those also who had sat with him in council and stood by his side in

frowning hours. At the head of the grave was “the solitary and pathetic

figure” of his wife. Even men most averse to all pomps and shows on the

occasions and scenes that declare so audibly their nothingness, here were

only conscious of a deep and moving simplicity, befitting a great citizen

now laid among the kings and heroes. Two years later, the tomb was opened

to receive the faithful and devoted companion of his life.

Chapter X. Final.

Anybody can see the host of general and speculative questions raised by a

career so extraordinary. How would his fame have stood if his political

life had ended in 1854, or 1874, or 1881, or 1885? What light does it shed

upon the working of the parliamentary system; on the weakness and strength

of popular government; on the good and bad of political party; on the

superiority of rule by cabinet or by an elected president; on the

relations of opinion to law? Here is material for a volume of

disquisition, and nobody can ever discuss such speculations without

reference to power as it was exercised by Mr. Gladstone. Those thronged

halls, those vast progresses, those strenuous orations—what did they

amount to? Did they mean a real moulding of opinion, an actual impression,

whether by argument or temper or personality or all three, on the minds of

hearers? Or was it no more than the same kind of interest that takes men

to stage-plays with a favourite performer? This could hardly be, for his

hearers gave him long spells of power and a practical authority that was

unique and supreme. What thoughts does his career suggest on the relations

of Christianity to patriotism, or to empire, or to what has been called

neo-paganism? How many points arise as to the dependence of ethics on

dogma? These are deep and living and perhaps burning issues, not to be

discussed at the end of what the reader may well have found a long

journey. They offer themselves for his independent consideration.

I

Mr. Gladstone’s own summary of the period in which he (M189) had been so

conspicuous a figure was this, when for him the drama was at an end:—

Of his own career, he says, it is a career certainly chargeable

with many errors of judgment, but I hope on the whole, governed at

least by uprightness of intention and by a desire to learn. The

personal aspect may now readily be dismissed as it concerns the

past. But the public aspect of the period which closes for me with

the fourteen years (so I love to reckon them) of my formal

connection with Midlothian is too important to pass without a

word. I consider it as beginning with the Reform Act of Lord

Grey’s government. That great Act was for England improvement and

extension, for Scotland it was political birth, the beginning of a

duty and a power, neither of which had attached to the Scottish

nation in the preceding period. I rejoice to think how the

solemnity of that duty has been recognised, and how that power has

been used. The three-score years offer us the pictures of what the

historian will recognise as a great legislative and administrative

period—perhaps, on the whole, the greatest in our annals. It has

been predominantly a history of emancipation—that is of enabling

man to do his work of emancipation, political, economical, social,

moral, intellectual. Not numerous merely, but almost numberless,

have been the causes brought to issue, and in every one of them I

rejoice to think that, so far as my knowledge goes, Scotland has

done battle for the right.

Another period has opened and is opening still—a period possibly

of yet greater moral dangers, certainly a great ordeal for those

classes which are now becoming largely conscious of power, and

never heretofore subject to its deteriorating influences. These

have been confined in their actions to the classes above them,

because they were its sole possessors. Now is the time for the

true friend of his country to remind the masses that their present

political elevation is owing to no principles less broad and noble

than these—the love of liberty, of liberty for all without

distinction of class, creed or country, and the resolute

preference of the interests of the whole to any interest, be it

what it may, of a narrower scope.(315)

A year later, in bidding farewell to his constituents “with sentiments of

gratitude and attachment that can never be effaced,” he proceeds:—

Though in regard to public affairs many things are disputable,

there are some which belong to history and which have passed out

of the region of contention. It is, for example as I conceive,

beyond question that the century now expiring has exhibited since

the close of its first quarter a period of unexampled activity

both in legislative and administrative changes; that these

changes, taken in the mass, have been in the direction of true and

most beneficial progress; that both the conditions and the

franchises of the people have made in relation to the former state

of things, an extraordinary advance; that of these reforms an

overwhelming proportion have been effected by direct action of the

liberal party, or of statesmen such as Peel and Canning, ready to

meet odium or to forfeit power for the public good; and that in

every one of the fifteen parliaments the people of Scotland have

decisively expressed their convictions in favour of this wise,

temperate, and in every way remarkable policy.(316)

To charge him with habitually rousing popular forces into dangerous

excitement, is to ignore or misread his action in some of the most

critical of his movements. “Here is a man,” said Huxley, “with the

greatest intellect in Europe, and yet he debases it by simply following

majorities and the crowd.” He was called a mere mirror of the passing

humours and intellectual confusions of the popular mind. He had nothing,

said his detractors, but a sort of clever pilot’s eye for winds and

currents, and the rising of the tide to the exact height that would float

him and his cargo over the bar. All this is the exact opposite of the

truth. What he thought was that the statesman’s gift consisted in insight

into the facts of a particular era, disclosing the existence of material

for forming public opinion and directing public opinion to a given

purpose. In every one of his achievements of high mark—even in his last

marked failure of achievement—he expressly formed, or endeavoured to form

and create, the public opinion upon which he knew that in the last resort

he must depend.

(M190) We have seen the triumph of 1853.(317) Did he, in renewing the most

hated of taxes, run about anxiously feeling the pulse of public opinion?

On the contrary, he grappled with the facts with infinite labour—and half

his genius was labour—he built up a great plan; he carried it to the

cabinet; they warned him that the House of Commons would be against him;

the officials of the treasury told him the Bank would be against him; that

a strong press of commercial interests would be against him. Like the bold

and sinewy athlete that he always was, he stood to his plan; he carried

the cabinet; he persuaded the House of Commons; he vanquished the Bank and

the hostile interests; and in the words of Sir Stafford Northcote, he

changed and turned for many years to come, a current of public opinion

that seemed far too powerful for any minister to resist. In the

tempestuous discussions during the seventies on the policy of this country

in respect of the Christian races of the Balkan Peninsula, he with his own

voice created, moulded, inspired, and kindled with resistless flame the

whole of the public opinion that eventually guided the policy of the

nation with such admirable effect both for its own fame, and for the good

of the world. Take again the Land Act of 1881, in some ways the most

deep-reaching of all his legislative achievements. Here he had no flowing

tide, every current was against him. He carried his scheme against the

ignorance of the country, against the prejudice of the country, and

against the standing prejudices of both branches of the legislature, who

were steeped from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot in the

strictest doctrines of contract.

Then his passion for economy, his ceaseless war against public profusion,

his insistence upon rigorous keeping of the national accounts—in this

great department of affairs he led and did not follow. In no sphere of his

activities was he more strenuous, and in no sphere, as he must well have

known, was he less likely to win popularity. For democracy is spendthrift;

if, to be sure, we may not say that most forms of government are apt to be

the same.

In a survey of Mr. Gladstone’s performances, some would place this of

which I have last spoken, as foremost among his services to the country.

Others would call him greatest in the associated service of a skilful

handling and adjustment of the burden of taxation; or the strengthening of

the foundations of national prosperity and well-being by his reformation

of the tariff. Yet others again choose to remember him for his share in

guiding the successive extensions of popular power, and simplifying and

purifying electoral machinery. Irishmen at least, and others so far as

they are able to comprehend the history and vile wrongs and sharp needs of

Ireland, will have no doubt what rank in legislation they will assign to

the establishment of religious equality and agrarian justice in that

portion of the realm. Not a few will count first the vigour with which he

repaired what had been an erroneous judgment of his own and of vast hosts

of his countrymen, by his courage in carrying through the submission of

the Alabama claims to arbitration. Still more, looking from west to east,

in this comparison among his achievements, will judge alike in its result

and in the effort that produced it, nothing equal to the valour and

insight with which he burst the chains of a mischievous and degrading

policy as to the Ottoman empire. When we look at this exploit, how in face

of an opponent of genius and authority and a tenacity not inferior to his

own, in face of strongly rooted tradition on behalf of the Turk, and an

easily roused antipathy against the Russian, by his own energy and

strength of arm he wrested the rudder from the hand of the helmsman and

put about the course of the ship, and held England back from the enormity

of trying to keep several millions of men and women under the yoke of

barbaric oppression and misrule,—we may say that this great feat alone was

fame enough for one statesman. Let us make what choice we will of this or

that particular achievement, how splendid a list it is of benefits

conferred and public work effectually performed. Was he a good

parliamentary tactician, they ask? Was his eye sure, his hand firm, his

measurement of forces, distances, and possibilities of change in wind and

tide accurate? Did he usually hit the proper moment for a magisterial

intervention? Experts did not (M191) always agree on his quality as

tactician. At least he was pilot enough to bring many valuable cargoes

safely home.

He was one of the three statesmen in the House of Commons of his own

generation who had the gift of large and spacious conception of the place

and power of England in the world, and of the policies by which she could

maintain it. Cobden and Disraeli were the other two. Wide as the poles

asunder in genius, in character, and in the mark they made upon the

nation, yet each of these three was capable of wide surveys from high

eminence. But Mr. Gladstone’s performances in the sphere of active

government were beyond comparison.

Again he was often harshly judged by that tenacious class who insist that

if a general principle be sound, there can never be a reason why it should

not be applied forthwith, and that a rule subject to exceptions is not

worth calling a rule; and the worst of it is that these people are mostly

the salt of the earth. In their impatient moments they dismissed him as an

opportunist, but whenever there was a chance of getting anything done,

they mostly found that he was the only man with courage and resolution

enough to attempt to do it. In thinking about him we have constantly to

remember, as Sir George Lewis said, that government is a very rough affair

at best, a huge rough machine, not the delicate springs, wheels, and

balances of a chronometer, and those concerned in working it have to be

satisfied with what is far below the best. “Men have no business to talk

of disenchantment,” Mr. Gladstone said; “ideals are never realised.” That

is no reason, he meant, why men should not persist and toil and hope, and

this is plainly the true temper for the politician. Yet he did not feed

upon illusions. “The history of nations,” he wrote in 1876, “is a

melancholy chapter; that is, the history of governments is one of the most

immoral parts of human history.”

II

It might well be said that Mr. Gladstone took too little, rather than too

much trouble to be popular. His religious conservatism puzzled and

irritated those who admired and shared his political liberalism, just as

churchmen watched with uneasiness and suspicion his radical alliances.

Neither those who were churchmen first, nor those whose interests were

keenest in politics, could comprehend the union of what seemed

incompatibles, and because they could not comprehend they sometimes in

their shallower humours doubted his sincerity. Mr. Gladstone was never,

after say 1850, really afraid of disestablishment; on the contrary he was

much more afraid of the perils of establishment for the integrity of the

faith. Yet political disestablishers often doubted him, because they had

not logic enough to see that a man may be a fervent believer in anglican

institutions and what he thinks catholic tradition, and yet be as ready as

Cavour for the principle of free church in free state.

It is curious that some of the things that made men suspicious, were in

fact the liveliest tokens of his sincerity and simplicity. With all his

power of political imagination, yet his mind was an intensely literal

mind. He did not look at an act or a decision from the point of view at

which it might be regarded by other people. Ewelme, the mission to the

Ionian Islands, the royal warrant, the affair of the judicial committee,

vaticanism, and all the other things that gave offence, and stirred

misgivings even in friends, showed that the very last question he ever

asked himself was how his action would look; what construction might be

put upon it, or even would pretty certainly be put upon it; whom it would

encourage, whom it would estrange, whom it would perplex. Is the given end

right, he seemed to ask; what are the surest means; are the means as right

as the end, as right as they are sure? But right—on strict and literal

construction. What he sometimes forgot was that in political action,

construction is part of the act, nay, may even be its most important

part.(318)

The more you make of his errors, the more is the need to explain his vast

renown, the long reign of his authority, the substance and reality of his

powers. We call men great for many reasons apart from service wrought or

eminence of intellect or even from force and depth of character. To (M192)

have taken a leading part in transactions of decisive moment; to have

proved himself able to meet demands on which high issues hung; to combine

intellectual qualities, though moderate yet adequate and sufficient, with

the moral qualities needed for the given circumstance—with daring,

circumspection, energy, intrepid initiative; to have fallen in with one of

those occasions in the world that impart their own greatness even to a

mediocre actor, and surround his name with a halo not radiating from

within but shed upon him from without—in all these and many other ways men

come to be counted great. Mr. Gladstone belongs to the rarer class who

acquired authority and fame by transcendent qualities of genius within, in

half independence of any occasions beyond those they create for

themselves.

III

Of his attitude in respect of church parties, it is not for me to speak.

He has himself described at least one aspect of it in a letter to an

inquirer, which would be a very noble piece by whomsoever written, and in

the name of whatsoever creed or no-creed, whether Christian or Rationalist

or Nathan the Wise Jew’s creed. It was addressed to a clergyman who seems

to have asked of what section Mr. Gladstone considered himself an

adherent:—

_Feb. 4, 1865._—It is impossible to misinterpret either the

intention or the terms of your letter; and I thank you for it

sincerely. But I cannot answer the question which you put to me,

and I think I can even satisfy you that with my convictions I

should do wrong in replying to it in any manner. Whatever reason I

may have for being painfully and daily conscious of every kind of

unworthiness, yet I am sufficiently aware of the dignity of

religious belief to have been throughout a political life, now in

its thirty-third year, steadily resolved never by my own voluntary

act to make it the subject of any compact or assurance with a view

to a political object. You think (and pray do not suppose I make

this matter of complaint) that I have been associated with one

party in the church of England, and that I may now lean rather

towards another.... There is no one about whom information can be

more easily had than myself. I have had and have friends of many

colours, churchmen high and low, presbyterians, Greeks, Roman

catholics, dissenters, who can speak abundantly, though perhaps

not very well of me. And further, as member for the university, I

have honestly endeavoured at all times to put my constituents in

possession of all I could convey to them that could be considered

as in the nature of a fact, by answering as explicitly as I was

able all questions relating to the matters, and they are numerous

enough, on which I have had to act or speak. Perhaps I shall

surprise you by what I have yet further to say. I have never by

any conscious act yielded my allegiance to any person or party in

matters of religion. You and others may have called me (without

the least offence) a churchman of some particular kind, and I have

more than once seen announced in print my own secession from the

church of England. These things I have not commonly contradicted,

for the atmosphere of religious controversy and contradiction is

as odious as the atmosphere of mental freedom is precious, to me;

and I have feared to lose the one and be drawn into the other, by

heat and bitterness creeping into the mind. If another chooses to

call himself, or to call me, a member of this or that party, I am

not to complain. But I respectfully claim the right not to call

myself so, and on this claim, I have I believe acted throughout my

life, without a single exception; and I feel that were I to waive

it, I should at once put in hazard that allegiance to Truth, which

is at once the supreme duty and the supreme joy of life. I have

only to add the expression of my hope that in what I have said

there is nothing to hurt or to offend you; and, if there be, very

heartily to wish it unsaid.

Yet there was never the shadow of mistake about his own fervent faith. As

he said to another correspondent:—

_Feb. 5, 1876._—I am in principle a strong denominationalist. “One

fold and one shepherd” was the note of early Christendom. The

shepherd is still one and knows his sheep; but the folds are many;

and, without condemning any others, I am of opinion that it is

best for us all that we should all of us be jealous for the honour

of whatever we have and hold as positive truth, appertaining to

the Divine Word and the foundation and history of the Christian

community. I admit that this question becomes one of circumstance

and degree, but I take it as I find it defined for myself by and

in my own position.

IV

Of Mr. Gladstone as orator and improvisatore, enough has been said and

seen. Besides being orator and statesman he was scholar and critic.

Perhaps scholar in his interests, not in abiding contribution. The most

copious of his productions in this delightful but arduous field was the

three large volumes on _Homer and the Homeric Age_, given to the world in

1858. Into what has been well called the whirlpool of Homeric

controversies, the reader shall not here be dragged. Mr. Gladstone himself

gave them the go-by, with an indifference and disdain such as might have

been well enough in the economic field if exhibited towards a

protectionist farmer, or a partisan of retaliatory duties on manufactured

goods, but that were hardly to the point in dealing with profound and

original critics. What he too contemptuously dismissed as Homeric

“bubble-schemes,” were in truth centres of scientific illumination. At the

end of the eighteenth century Wolf’s famous _Prolegomena_ appeared, in

which he advanced the theory that Homer was no single poet, nor a name for

two poets, nor an individual at all; the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were

collections of independent lays, folk-lore and folk-songs connected by a

common set of themes, and edited, redacted, or compacted about the middle

of the sixth century before Christ. A learned man of our own day has said

that F. A. Wolf ought to be counted one of the half dozen writers that

within the last three centuries have most influenced thought. This would

bring Wolf into line with Descartes, Newton, Locke, Kant, Rousseau, or

whatever other five master-spirits of thought from then to now the

judicious reader may select. The present writer has assuredly no

competence to assign Wolf’s place in the history of modern criticism, but

straying aside for a season from the green pastures of Hansard, and

turning over again the slim volume of a hundred and fifty pages in which

Wolf discusses his theme, one may easily discern a fountain of broad

streams of modern thought (apart from the particular thesis) that to Mr.

Gladstone, by the force of all his education and his deepest

prepossessions, were in the highest degree chimerical and dangerous.

He once wrote to Lord Acton (1889) about the Old Testament and Mosaic

legislation:—

Now I think that the most important parts of the argument have in

a great degree a solid standing ground apart from the destructive

criticism on dates and on the text: and I am sufficiently aware of

my own rawness and ignorance in the matter not to allow myself to

judge definitely, or condemn. I feel also that I have a

prepossession derived from the criticisms in the case of Homer. Of

them I have a very bad opinion, not only in themselves, but as to

the levity, precipitancy, and shallowness of mind which they

display; and here I do venture to speak, because I believe myself

to have done a great deal more than any of the destructives in the

examination of the text, which is the true source of the materials

of judgment. They are a soulless lot; but there was a time when

they had possession of the public ear as much I suppose as the Old

Testament destructives now have, within their own precinct. It is

only the constructive part of their work on which I feel tempted

to judge; and I must own that it seems to me sadly wanting in the

elements of rational probability.

This unpromising method is sufficiently set out when he says: “I find in

the plot of the _Iliad_ enough of beauty, order, and structure, not merely

to sustain the supposition of its own unity, but to bear an independent

testimony, should it be still needed, to the existence of a personal and

individual Homer as its author.”(319) From such a method no permanent

contribution could come.

Yet scholars allow that Mr. Gladstone in these three volumes, as well as

in _Juventus Mundi_ and his _Homeric Primer_, has added not a little to

our scientific knowledge of the Homeric poems,(320) by his extraordinary

mastery of the text, the result of unwearied and prolonged industry, aided

(M193) by a memory both tenacious and ready. Taking his own point of view,

moreover, anybody who wishes to have his feeling about the _Iliad_ and

_Odyssey_ as delightful poetry refreshed and quickened, will find

inspiring elements in the profusion, the eager array of Homer’s own lines,

the diligent exploration of aspects and bearings hitherto unthought of.

The “theo-mythology” is commonly judged fantastic, and has been compared

by sage critics to Warburton’s _Divine Legation_—the same comprehensive

general reading, the same heroic industry in marshalling the particulars

of proof, the same dialectical strength of arm, and all brought to prove

an unsound proposition.(321) Yet the comprehensive reading and the

particulars of proof are by no means without an interest of their own,

whatever we may think of the proposition; and here, as in all his literary

writing distinguished from polemics, he abounds in the ethical elements.

Here perhaps more than anywhere else he impresses us by his love of beauty

in all its aspects and relations, in the human form, in landscape, in the

affections, in animals, including above all else that sense of beauty

which made his Greeks take it as one of the names for nobility in conduct.

Conington, one of the finest of scholars, then lecturing at Oxford on

Latin poets and deep in his own Virgilian studies, which afterwards bore

such admirable fruit, writes at length (Feb. 14, 1857) to say how grateful

he is to Mr. Gladstone for the care with which he has pursued into details

a view of Virgil that they hold substantially in common, and proceeds with

care and point to analyse the quality of the Roman poet’s art, as some

years later he defended against Munro the questionable proposition of the

superiority in poetic style of the graceful, melodious, and pathetic

Virgil to Lucretius’s mighty muse.

No field has been more industriously worked for the last forty years than

this of the relations of paganism to the historic religion that followed

it in Europe. The knowledge and the speculations into which Mr. Gladstone

was thus initiated in the sixties may now seem crude enough; but he

deserves some credit in English, though not in view of German, speculation

for an early perception of an unfamiliar region of comparative science,

whence many a product most unwelcome to him and alien to his own beliefs

has been since extracted. When all is said, however, Mr. Gladstone’s place

is not in literary or critical history, but elsewhere.

His style is sometimes called Johnsonian, but surely without good ground.

Johnson was not involved and he was clear, and neither of these things can

always be said of Mr. Gladstone. Some critic charged him in 1840 with

“prolix clearness.” The old charge, says Mr. Gladstone upon this, was

“obscure compression. I do not doubt that both may be true, and the former

may have been the result of a well-meant effort to escape from the

latter.” He was fond of abstract words, or the nearer to abstract the

better, and the more general the better. One effect of this was

undoubtedly to give an indirect, almost a shifty, air that exasperated

plain people. Why does he beat about the bush, they asked; why cannot he

say what he means? A reader might have to think twice or thrice or twenty

times before he could be sure that he interpreted correctly. But then

people are so apt to think once, or half of once; to take the meaning that

suits their own wish or purpose best, and then to treat that as the only

meaning. Hence their perplexity and wrath when they found that other doors

were open, and they thought a mistake due to their own hurry was the

result of a juggler’s trick. On the other hand a good writer takes all the

pains he can to keep his reader out of such scrapes.

His critical essays on Tennyson and Macaulay are excellent. They are

acute, discriminating, generous. His estimate of Macaulay, apart from a

piece of polemical church history at the end, is perhaps the best we have.

“You make a very just remark,” said Acton to him, “that Macaulay was

afraid of contradicting his former self, and remembered all he had written

since 1825. At that time his mind was formed, and so it remained. What

literary influences acted on the formation of his political opinions, what

were his religious sympathies, and what is his exact place among

historians, you have rather avoided discussing. There is still something

to say on these points.” To Tennyson Mr. Gladstone believed himself to

have been unjust, especially in the passages of _Maud_ devoted to the

war-frenzy, and when he came to reprint the article he admitted that he

had not sufficiently remembered that he was dealing with a dramatic and

imaginative composition.(322) As he frankly said of himself, he was not

strong in the faculties of the artist, but perhaps Tennyson himself in

these passages was prompted much more by politics than by art. Of this

piece of retractation the poet truly said, “Nobody but a noble-minded man

would have done that.”(323) Mr. Gladstone would most likely have chosen to

call his words a qualification rather than a recantation. In either case,

it does not affect passages that give the finest expression to one of the

very deepest convictions of his life,—that war, whatever else we may

choose to say of it, is no antidote for Mammon-worship and can never be a

cure for moral evils:—

It is, indeed, true that peace has its moral perils and

temptations for degenerate man, as has every other blessing,

without exception, that he can receive from the hand of God. It is

moreover not less true that, amidst the clash of arms, the noblest

forms of character may be reared, and the highest acts of duty

done; that these great and precious results may be due to war as

their cause; and that one high form of sentiment in particular,

the love of country, receives a powerful and general stimulus from

the bloody strife. But this is as the furious cruelty of Pharaoh

made place for the benign virtue of his daughter; as the

butchering sentence of Herod raised without doubt many a mother’s

love into heroic sublimity; as plague, as famine, as fire, as

flood, as every curse and every scourge that is wielded by an

angry Providence for the chastisement of man, is an appointed

instrument for tempering human souls in the seven-times heated

furnace of affliction, up to the standard of angelic and

archangelic virtue.

War, indeed, has the property of exciting much generous and noble

feeling on a large scale; but with this special recommendation it

has, in its modern forms especially, peculiar and unequalled

evils. As it has a wider sweep of desolating power than the rest,

so it has the peculiar quality that it is more susceptible of

being decked in gaudy trappings, and of fascinating the

imagination of those whose proud and angry passions it inflames.

But it is, on this very account, a perilous delusion to teach that

war is a cure for moral evil, in any other sense than as the

sister tribulations are. The eulogies of the frantic hero in

_Maud_, however, deviate into grosser folly. It is natural that

such vagaries should overlook the fixed laws of Providence. Under

these laws the mass of mankind is composed of men, women, and

children who can but just ward off hunger, cold, and nakedness;

whose whole ideas of Mammon-worship are comprised in the search

for their daily food, clothing, shelter, fuel; whom any casualty

reduces to positive want; and whose already low estate is yet

further lowered and ground down, when “the blood-red blossom of

war flames with its heart of fire.”...

Still war had, in times now gone by, ennobling elements and

tendencies of the less sordid kind. But one inevitable

characteristic of modern war is, that it is associated throughout,

in all particulars, with a vast and most irregular formation of

commercial enterprise. There is no incentive to Mammon-worship so

remarkable as that which it affords. The political economy of war

is now one of its most commanding aspects. Every farthing, with

the smallest exceptions conceivable, of the scores or hundreds of

millions which a war may cost, goes directly, and very violently,

to stimulate production, though it is intended ultimately for

waste or for destruction. Even apart from the fact that war

suspends, _ipso facto_, every rule of public thrift, and tends to

sap honesty itself in the use of the public treasure for which it

makes such unbounded calls, it therefore is the greatest feeder of

that lust of gold which we are told is the essence of commerce,

though we had hoped it was only its occasional besetting sin. It

is, however, more than this; for the regular commerce of peace is

tameness itself compared with the gambling spirit which war,

through the rapid shiftings and high prices which it brings,

always introduces into trade. In its moral operation it more

resembles, perhaps the finding of a new gold-field, than anything

else.

More remarkable than either of these two is his piece on Leopardi (1850),

the Italian poet, whose philosophy and (M194) frame of mind, said Mr.

Gladstone, “present more than any other that we know, more even than that

of Shelley, the character of unrelieved, unredeemed desolation—the very

qualities in it which attract pitying sympathy, depriving it of all

seductive power.” It is curious that he should have selected one whose

life lay along a course like Leopardi’s for commemoration, as a man who in

almost every branch of mental exertion seems to have had the capacity for

attaining, and generally at a single bound, the very highest excellence.

“There are many things,” he adds, “in which Christians would do well to

follow him: in the warmth of his attachments; in the moderation of his

wants; in his noble freedom from the love of money; in his all-conquering

assiduity.”(324) Perhaps the most remarkable sentence of all is this: “...

what is not needful, and is commonly wrong, namely, is to pass a judgment

on our fellow-creatures. Never let it be forgotten that there is scarcely

a single moral action of a single man of which other men can have such a

knowledge, in its ultimate grounds, its surrounding incidents, and the

real determining causes of its merits, as to warrant their pronouncing a

conclusive judgment upon it.”

The translation of poetry into poetry, as Coleridge said, is difficult

because the translator must give brilliancy without the warmth of original

conception, from which such brilliancy would follow of its own accord. But

we must not judge Mr. Gladstone’s translation either of Horace’s odes or

of detached pieces from Greek or Italian, as we should judge the professed

man of letters or poet like Coleridge himself. His pieces are the

diversions of the man of affairs, with educated tastes and interest in

good literature. Perhaps the best single piece is his really noble

rendering of Manzoni’s noble ode on the death of Napoleon; for instance:—

From Alp to farthest Pyramid,

From Rhine to Mansanar,

How sure his lightning’s flash foretold

His thunderbolts of war!

To Don from Scilla’s height they roar,

From North to Southern shore.

And this was glory? After-men,

Judge the dark problem. Low

We to the Mighty Maker bend

The while, Who planned to show

What vaster mould Creative Will

With him could fill.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

As on the shipwrecked mariner

The weltering wave’s descent—

The wave, o’er which, a moment since,

For distant shores he bent

And bent in vain, his eager eye;

So on that stricken head

Came whelming down the mighty Past.

How often did his pen

Essay to tell the wondrous tale

For after times and men,

And o’er the lines that could not die

His hand lay dead.

How often, as the listless day

In silence died away,

He stood with lightning eye deprest,

And arms across his breast,

And bygone years, in rushing train,

Smote on his soul amain:

The breezy tents he seemed to see,

And the battering cannon’s course,

And the flashing of the infantry,

And the torrent of the horse,

And, obeyed as soon as heard,

Th’ ecstatic word.

Always let us remember that his literary life was part of the rest of his

life, as literature ought to be. He was no mere reader of many books, used

to relieve the strain of mental anxiety or to slake the thirst of literary

or intellectual curiosity. Reading with him in the days of his full vigour

was a habitual communing with the master spirits of mankind, as a

vivifying and nourishing part of life. As we have seen, he would not read

Dante in the session, nor unless he could have a large draught. Here as

elsewhere in the ordering of his days he was methodical, systematic, full.

V

(M195) Though man of action, yet Mr. Gladstone too has a place by

character and influences among what we may call the abstract, moral,

spiritual forces that stamped the realm of Britain in his age. In a new

time, marked in an incomparable degree by the progress of science and

invention, by vast mechanical, industrial, and commercial development, he

accepted it all, he adjusted his statesmanship to it all, nay, he revelled

in it all, as tending to ameliorate the lot of the “mass of men, women,

and children who can just ward off hunger, cold, and nakedness.” He did

not rail at his age, he strove to help it. Following Walpole and Cobden

and Peel in the policies of peace, he knew how to augment the material

resources on which our people depend. When was Britain stronger, richer,

more honoured among the nations—I do not say always among the diplomatic

chanceries and governments—than in the years when Mr. Gladstone was at the

zenith of his authority among us? When were her armed forces by sea and

land more adequate for defence of every interest? When was her material

resource sounder? When was her moral credit higher? Besides all this, he

upheld a golden lamp.

The unending revolutions of the world are for ever bringing old phases

uppermost again. Events from season to season are taken to teach sinister

lessons, that the Real is the only Rational, force is the test of right

and wrong, the state has nothing to do with restraints of morals, the

ruler is emancipated. Speculations in physical science were distorted for

alien purposes, and survival of the fittest was taken to give brutality a

more decent name. Even new conceptions and systems of history may be

twisted into release of statesmen from the conscience of Bishop Butler’s

plain man. This gospel it was Mr. Gladstone’s felicity to hold at bay.

Without bringing back the cosmopolitanism of the eighteenth century,

without sharing all the idealisms of the middle of the nineteenth, he

resisted with his whole might the odious contention that moral progress in

the relations of nations and states to one another is an illusion and a

dream.

This vein perhaps brings us too near to the regions of dissertation. Let

us rather leave off with thoughts and memories of one who was a vivid

example of public duty and of private faithfulness; of a long career that

with every circumstance of splendour, amid all the mire and all the

poisons of the world, lighted up in practice even for those who have none

of his genius and none of his power his own precept, “Be inspired with the

belief that life is a great and noble calling; not a mean and grovelling

thing, that we are to shuffle through as we can, but an elevated and lofty

destiny.”

APPENDIX

Irish Local Government, 1883. (Page 103)

_Mr. Gladstone to Lord Granville_

_Cannes, Jan. 22, 1883._—Today I have been a good deal distressed

by a passage as reported in Hartington’s very strong and able

speech, for which I am at a loss to account, so far does it travel

out into the open, and so awkward are the intimations it seems to

convey. I felt that I could not do otherwise than telegraph to you

in cipher on the subject. But I used words intended to show that,

while I thought an immediate notification needful, I was far from

wishing to hasten the reply, and desired to leave altogether in

your hands the mode of touching a delicate matter. Pray use the

widest discretion.

I console myself with thinking it is hardly possible that

Hartington can have meant to say what nevertheless both _Times_

and _Daily News_ make him seem to say, namely, that we recede

from, or throw into abeyance, the declarations we have constantly

made about our desire to extend local government, properly so

called, to Ireland on the first opportunity which the state of

business in parliament would permit. We announced our intention to

do this at the very moment when we were preparing to suspend the

Habeas Corpus Act. Since that time we have seen our position in

Ireland immensely strengthened, and the leader of the agitation

has even thought it wise, and has dared, to pursue a somewhat

conciliatory course. Many of his coadjutors are still as vicious,

it may be, as ever, but how can we say (for instance) to the

Ulster men, you shall remain with shortened liberties and without

local government, because Biggar & Co. are hostile to British

connection?

There has also come prominently into view a new and powerful set

of motives which, in my deliberate judgment, require us, for the

sake of the United Kingdom even more than for the sake of Ireland,

to push forward this question. Under the present highly

centralised system of government, every demand which can be

started on behalf of a poor and ill-organised country, comes

directly on the British government and treasury; if refused it

becomes at once a head of grievance, if granted not only a new

drain but a certain source of political complication and

embarrassment. The peasant proprietary, the winter’s distress, the

state of the labourers, the loans to farmers, the promotion of

public works, the encouragement of fisheries, the promotion of

emigration, each and every one of these questions has a sting, and

the sting can only be taken out of it by our treating it in

correspondence with a popular and responsible Irish body,

competent to act for its own portion of the country.

Every consideration which prompted our pledges, prompts the

recognition of them, and their extension, rather than curtailment.

The Irish government have in preparation a Local Government bill.

Such a bill may even be an economy of time. By no other means that

I can see shall we be able to ward off most critical and

questionable discussions on questions of the class I have

mentioned. The argument that we cannot yet trust Irishmen with

popular local institutions is the mischievous argument by which

the conservative opposition to the Melbourne government resisted,

and finally crippled, the reform of municipal corporations in

Ireland. By acting on principles diametrically opposite, we have

broken down to thirty-five or forty what would have been a party,

in this parliament, of sixty-five home rulers, and have thus

arrested (or at the very least postponed) the perilous crisis,

which no man has as yet looked in the face; the crisis which will

arise when a large and united majority of Irish members demand

some fundamental change in the legislative relations of the two

countries. I can ill convey to you how dear are my thoughts, or

how earnest my convictions, on this important subject....

General Gordon’s Instructions. (Page 153)

_The following is the text of General Gordon’s Instructions (Jan. 18,

1884)_:—

Her Majesty’s government are desirous that you should proceed at

once to Egypt, to report to them on the military situation in the

Soudan, and on the measures it may be advisable to take for the

security of the Egyptian garrisons still holding positions in that

country, and for the safety of the European population in

Khartoum. You are also desired to consider and report upon the

best mode of effecting the evacuation of the interior of the

Soudan, and upon the manner in which the safety and good

administration by the Egyptian government of the ports on the sea

coast can best be secured. In connection with this subject you

should pay especial consideration to the question of the steps

that may usefully be taken to counteract the stimulus which it is

feared may possibly be given to the slave trade by the present

insurrectionary movement, and by the withdrawal of the Egyptian

authority from the interior. You will be under the instructions of

Her Majesty’s agent and consul-general at Cairo, through whom your

reports to Her Majesty’s government should be sent under flying

seal. You will consider yourself authorised and instructed to

perform such other duties as the Egyptian government may desire to

entrust to you, and as may be communicated to you by Sir E.

Baring. You will be accompanied by Colonel Stewart, who will

assist you in the duties thus confided to you. On your arrival in

Egypt you will at once communicate with Sir E. Baring, who will

arrange to meet you and will settle with you whether you should

proceed direct to Suakin or should go yourself or despatch Colonel

Stewart _viâ_ the Nile.

The Military Position In The Soudan, April 1885. (Page 179)

_This Memorandum, dated April 9, 1885, was prepared by Mr. Gladstone for

the cabinet_:—

The commencement of the hot season appears, with other

circumstances, to mark the time for considering at large our

position in the Soudan. Also a declaration of policy is now

demanded from us in nearly all quarters.... When the betrayal of

Khartoum had been announced, the desire and intention of the

cabinet were to reserve for a later decision the question of an

eventual advance upon that place, should no immediate movement on

it be found possible. The objects they had immediately in view

were to ascertain the fate of Gordon, to make every effort on his

behalf, and to prevent the extension of the area of disturbance.

But Lord Wolseley at once impressed upon the cabinet that he

required, in order to determine his immediate military movements,

to know whether they were to be based upon the plan of an eventual

advance on Khartoum, or whether the intention of such an advance

was to be abandoned altogether. If the first plan were adopted,

Lord Wolseley declared his power and intention to take Berber, and

even gave a possible date for it, in the middle of March. The

cabinet, adopting the phrase which Lord Wolseley had used, decided

upon the facts as they then stood before it: (_a_) Lord Wolseley

was to calculate upon proceeding to Khartoum after the hot season,

to overthrow the power of the Mahdi there; (_b_) and,

consequently, on this decision, they were to commence the

construction of a railway from Suakin to Berber, in aid of the

contemplated expedition; (_c_) an expedition was also to be sent

against Osman Digna, which would open the road to Berber; but Lord

Wolseley’s demand for this expedition applied alike to each of the

two military alternatives which he had laid before the cabinet.

There was no absolute decision to proceed to Khartoum at any time;

and the declarations of ministers in parliament have treated it as

a matter to be further weighed; but all steps have thus far been

taken to prepare for it, and it has been regarded as at least

probable. In approaching the question whether we are still to

proceed on the same lines, it is necessary to refer to the motives

which under the directions of the cabinet were stated by Lord

Granville and by me, on the 19th of February, as having

contributed to the decision, I copy out a part of the note from

which he and I spoke:—

Objects in the Soudan which we have always deemed fit for

consideration as far as circumstances might allow:—

1. The case of those to whom Gordon held himself bound in honour.

2. The possibility of establishing an orderly government at

Khartoum.

3. Check to the slave trade.

4. The case of the garrisons.

A negative decision would probably have involved the abandonment

at a stroke of all these objects. And also (we had to consider)

whatever dangers, proximate or remote, in Egypt or in the East

might follow from the triumphant position of the Mahdi; hard to

estimate, but they may be very serious.

Two months, which have passed since the decision of the government

(Feb. 5), have thrown light, more or less, upon the several points

brought into view on the 19th February. 1. We have now no

sufficient reason to assume that any of the population of Khartoum

felt themselves bound to Gordon, or to have suffered on his

account; or even that any large numbers of men in arms perished in

the betrayal of the town, or took his part after the enemy were

admitted into it. 2. We have had no tidings of anarchy at

Khartoum, and we do not know that it is governed worse, or that

the population is suffering more, than it would be under a Turkish

or Egyptian ruler. 3. It is not believed that the possession of

Khartoum is of any great value as regards the slave trade. 4. Or,

after the failure of Gordon with respect to the garrisons, that

the possession of Khartoum would, without further and formidable

extensions of plan, avail for the purpose of relieving them. But

further, what knowledge have we that these garrisons are unable to

relieve themselves? There seems some reason to believe that the

army of Hicks, when the action ceased, fraternised with the

Mahdi’s army, and that the same thing happened at Khartoum. Is

there ground to suppose that they are hateful unless as

representatives of Egyptian power? and ought they not to be

released from any obligation to present themselves in that

capacity?

With regard to the larger question of eventual consequences in

Egypt or the East from the Mahdi’s success at Khartoum, it is open

to many views, and cannot be completely disposed of. But it may be

observed—1. That the Mahdi made a trial of marching down the Nile

and speedily abandoned it, even in the first flush of his success.

2. That cessation of operations in the Soudan does not at this

moment mean our military inaction in the East. 3. That the

question is one of conflict, not with the arms of an enemy, but

with Nature in respect of climate and supply. 4. There remains

also a grave question of justice, to which I shall revert.

Should the idea of proceeding to Khartoum be abandoned, the

railway from Suakin, as now projected, would fall with it, since

it was adopted as a military measure, subsidiary to the advance on

Khartoum. The prosecution of it as a civil or commercial

enterprise would be a new proposal, to be examined on its merits.

The military situation appears in some respects favourable to the

re-examination of the whole subject. The general has found himself

unable to execute his intention of taking Berber, and this failure

alters the basis on which the cabinet proceeded in February, and

greatly increases the difficulty of the autumn enterprise. On the

one hand Wolseley’s and Graham’s forces have had five or six

considerable actions, and have been uniformly victorious. On the

other hand, the Mahdi has voluntarily retired from Khartoum, and

Osman Digna has been driven from the field, but cannot, as Graham

says, be followed into the mountains.(325) While the present

situation may thus seem opportune, the future of more extended

operations is dark. In at least one of his telegrams, Wolseley has

expressed a very keen desire to get the British army out of the

Soudan.(326) He has now made very large demands for the autumn

expedition, which, judging from previous experience and from

general likelihood, are almost certain to grow larger, as he comes

more closely to confront the very formidable task before him;

while in his letter to Lord Hartington he describes this affair to

be _the greatest __“__since 1815,__”_ and expresses his hope that

all the members of the cabinet clearly understand this to be the

case. He also names a period of between two or three years for the

completion of the railway, while he expresses an absolute

confidence in the power and resources of this country with vast

effort to insure success. He means without doubt military success.

Political success appears much more problematical.

There remains, however, to be considered a question which I take

to be of extreme importance. I mean the moral basis of the

projected military operations. I have from the first regarded the

rising of the Soudanese against Egypt as a justifiable and

honourable revolt. The cabinet have, I think, never taken an

opposite view. Mr. Power, in his letter from Khartoum before

Gordon’s arrival, is decided and even fervent in the same sense.

We sent Gordon on a mission of peace and liberation. From such

information as alone we have possessed, we found this missionary

of peace menaced and besieged, finally betrayed by some of his

troops, and slaughtered by those whom he came to set free. This

information, however, was fragmentary, and was also one-sided. We

have now the advantage of reviewing it as a whole, of reading it

in the light of events, and of some auxiliary evidence such as

that of Mr. Power.

I never understood how it was that Gordon’s mission of peace

became one of war. But we knew the nobleness of his philanthropy,

and we trusted him to the uttermost, as it was our duty to do. He

never informed us that he had himself changed the character of the

mission. It seemed strange that one who bore in his hands a

charter of liberation should be besieged and threatened; but we

took everything for granted in his favour, and against his

enemies; and we could hardly do otherwise. Our obligations in this

respect were greatly enhanced by the long interruption of

telegraphic communication. It was our duty to believe that, if we

could only know what he was prevented from saying to us,

contradictions would be reconciled, and language of excess

accounted for. We now know from the letters of Mr. Power that when

he was at Khartoum with Colonel de Coetlogon before Gordon’s

arrival, a retreat on Berber had been actually ordered; it was

regarded no doubt as a serious work of time, because it involved

the removal of an Egyptian population;(327) but it was deemed

feasible, and Power expresses no doubt of its accomplishment.(328)

As far as, amidst its inconsistencies, a construction can be put

on Gordon’s language, it is to the effect that there was a

population and a force attached to him, which he could not remove

and would not leave.(329) But De Coetlogon did not regard this

removal as impracticable, and was actually setting about it. Why

Gordon did not prosecute it, why we hear no more of it from Power

after Gordon’s arrival, is a mystery. Instructed by results we now

perceive that Gordon’s title as governor-general might naturally

be interpreted by the tribes in the light of much of the language

used by him, which did not savour of liberation and evacuation,

but of powers of government over the Soudan; powers to be used

benevolently, but still powers of government. Why the Mahdi did

not accept him is not hard to understand, but why was he not

accepted by those local sultans, whom it was the basis of his

declared policy to re-invest with their ancient powers, in spite

of Egypt and of the Mahdi alike? Was he not in short interpreted

as associated with the work of Hicks, and did he not himself give

probable colour to this interpretation? It must be borne in mind

that on other matters of the gravest importance—on the use of

Turkish force—on the use of British force—on the employment of

Zobeir—Gordon announced within a very short time contradictory

views, and never seemed to feel that there was any need of

explanation, in order to account for the contradictions. There is

every presumption, as well as every sign, that like fluctuation

and inconsistency crept into his words and acts as to the

liberation of the country; and this, if it was so, could not but

produce ruinous effects. Upon the whole, it seems probable that

Gordon, perhaps insensibly to himself, and certainly without our

concurrence, altered the character of his mission, and worked in a

considerable degree against our intentions and instructions.

There does not appear to be any question now of the security of

the army, but a most grave question whether we can demonstrate a

necessity (nothing less will suffice) for making war on a people

who are struggling against a foreign and armed yoke, not for the

rescue of our own countrymen, not for the rescue _so far as we

know_ of an Egyptian population, but with very heavy cost of

British life as well as treasure, with a serious strain on our

military resources at a most critical time, and with the most

serious fear that if we persist, we shall find ourselves engaged

in an odious work of subjugation. The discontinuance of these

military operations would, I presume, take the form of a

suspension _sine die,_ leaving the future open; would require

attention to be paid to defence on the recognised southern

frontier of Egypt, and need not involve any precipitate

abandonment of Suakin.

Home Rule Bill, 1886. (Page 308)

(M196) _The following summary of the provisions of the Home Rule bill of

1886 supplements the description of the bill given in Chapter V. Book

X._:—

One of the cardinal difficulties of all free government is to make

it hard for majorities to act unjustly to minorities. You cannot

make this injustice impossible but you may set up obstacles. In

this case, there was no novelty in the device adopted. The

legislative body was to be composed of two orders. The first order

was to consist of the twenty-eight representative peers, together

with seventy-five members elected by certain scheduled

constituencies on an occupation franchise of twenty-five pounds

and upwards. To be eligible for the first order, a person must

have a property qualification, either in realty of two hundred

pounds a year, or in personalty of the same amount, or a capital

value of four thousand pounds. The representative peers now

existing would sit for life, and, as they dropped off, the crown

would nominate persons to take their place up to a certain date,

and on the exhaustion of the twenty-eight existing peers, then the

whole of the first order would become elective under the same

conditions as the seventy-five other members.

The second order would consist of 206 members, chosen by existing

counties and towns under the machinery now operative. The two

orders were to sit and deliberate together, but either order could

demand a separate vote. This right would enable a majority of one

order to veto the proposal of the other. But the veto was only to

operate until a dissolution, or for three years, whichever might

be the longer interval of the two.

The executive transition was to be gradual. The office of viceroy

would remain, but he would not be the minister of a party, nor

quit office with an outgoing government. He would have a privy

council; within that council would be formed an executive body of

ministers like the British cabinet. This executive would be

responsible to the Irish legislature, just as the executive

government here is responsible to the legislature of this country.

If any clause of a bill seemed to the viceroy to be _ultra vires_,

he could refer it to the judicial committee of the privy council

in London. The same reference, in respect of a section of an Irish

Act, lay open either to the English secretary of state, or to a

suitor, defendant, or other person concerned.

Future judges were to hold the same place in the Irish system as

English judges in the English system; their office was to be

during good behaviour; they were to be appointed on the advice of

the Irish government, removable only on the joint address of the

two orders, and their salaries charged on the Irish consolidated

fund. The burning question of the royal Irish constabulary was

dealt with provisionally. Until a local force was created by the

new government, they were to remain at the orders of the lord

lieutenant. Ultimately the Irish police were to come under the

control of the legislative body. For two years from the passing of

the Act, the legislative body was to fix the charge for the whole

constabulary of Ireland.

In national as in domestic housekeeping, the figure of available

income is the vital question. The total receipts of the Irish

exchequer would be £8,350,000, from customs, excise, stamps,

income-tax, and non-tax revenue. On a general comparison of the

taxable revenues of Ireland and Great Britain, as tested more

especially by the property passing under the death duties, the

fair proportion due as Ireland’s share for imperial purposes, such

as interest on the debt, defence, and civil charge, was fixed at

one-fifteenth. This would bring the total charge properly imperial

up to £3,242,000. Civil charges in Ireland were put at £2,510,000,

and the constabulary charge on Ireland was not to exceed

£1,000,000, any excess over that sum being debited to England. The

Irish government would be left with a surplus of £404,000. This

may seem a ludicrously meagre amount, but, compared with the total

revenue, it is equivalent to a surplus on our own budget of that

date of something like five millions.

The true payment to imperial charges was to be £1,842,000 because

of the gross revenue above stated of £1,400,000 though paid in

Ireland in the first instance was really paid by British consumers

of whisky, porter, and tobacco. This sum, deducted from

£3,342,000, leaves the real Irish contribution, namely £1,842,000.

A further sum of uncertain, but substantial amount, would go to

the Irish exchequer from another source, to which we have now to

turn. With the proposals for self-government were coupled

proposals for a settlement of the land question. The ground-work

was an option offered to the landlords of being bought out under

the terms of the Act. The purchaser was to be an Irish state

authority, as the organ representing the legislative body. The

occupier was to become the proprietor, except in the congested

districts, where the state authority was to be the proprietor. The

normal price was to be twenty years’ purchase of the net rental.

The most important provision, in one sense, was that which

recognised the salutary principle that the public credit should

not be resorted to on such a scale as this merely for the benefit

of a limited number of existing cultivators of the soil, without

any direct advantage to the government as representing the

community at large. That was effected by making the tenant pay an

annual instalment, calculated on the gross rental, while the state

authority would repay to the imperial treasury a percentage

calculated on the net rental, and the state authority would pocket

the difference, estimated to be about 18 per cent. on the sum

payable to the selling landlord. How was all this to be secured?

Principally, on the annuities paid by the tenants who had

purchased their holdings, and if the holdings did not satisfy the

charge, then on the revenues of Ireland. All public revenues

whatever were to be collected by persons appointed by the Irish

government, but these collectors were to pay over all sums that

came into their hands to an imperial officer, to be styled a

receiver-general. Through him all rents and Irish revenues

whatever were to pass, and not a shilling was to be let out for

Irish purposes until their obligations to the imperial exchequer

had been discharged.

On The Place Of Italy. (Page 415)

By the provisions of nature, Italy was marked out for a

conservative force in Europe. As England is cut off by the

channel, so is Italy by the mountains, from the continental

mass.... If England commits follies they are the follies of a

strong man who can afford to waste a portion of his resources

without greatly affecting the sum total.... She has a huge free

margin, on which she might scrawl a long list of follies and even

crimes without damaging the letterpress. But where and what is the

free margin in the case of Italy, a country which has contrived in

less than a quarter of a century of peace, from the date of her

restored independence, to treble (or something near it) the

taxation of her people, to raise the charge of her debt to a point

higher than that of England, and to arrive within one or two short

paces of national bankruptcy?...

Italy by nature stands in alliance neither with anarchy nor with

Caesarism, but with the cause and advocates of national liberty

and progress throughout Europe. Never had a nation greater

advantages from soil and climate, from the talents and

dispositions of the people, never was there a more smiling

prospect (if we may fall back upon the graceful fiction) from the

Alpine tops, even down to the Sicilian promontories, than that

which for the moment has been darkly blurred. It is the heart’s

desire of those, who are not indeed her teachers, but her friends,

that she may rouse herself to dispel once and for ever the evil

dream of what is not so much ambition as affectation, may

acknowledge the true conditions under which she lives, and it

perhaps may not yet be too late for her to disappoint the

malevolent hopes of the foes of freedom, and to fulfil every

bright and glowing prediction which its votaries have ever uttered

on her behalf.—_“__The Triple Alliance and Italy’s Place in

it__”__ (Contemporary Review, Oct. 1889)._

The Glasgow Peroration. (Page 492)

_After describing the past history of Ireland as being for more than five

hundred years ’one almost unbroken succession of political storm and

swollen tempest, except when those tempests were for a time interrupted by

a period of servitude and by the stillness of death,’ Mr. Gladstone went

on_:—

Those storms are in strong contrast with the future, with the

present. The condition of the Irish mind justifies us in

anticipating. It recalls to my mind a beautiful legend of ancient

paganism—for that ancient paganism, amongst many legends false and

many foul, had also some that were beautiful. There were two

Lacedæmonian heroes known as Castor and Pollux, honoured in their

life and more honoured in their death, when a star was called

after them, and upon that star the fond imagination of the people

fastened lively conceptions; for they thought that when a ship at

sea was caught in a storm, when dread began to possess the minds

of the crew, and peril thickened round them, and even alarm was

giving place to despair, that if then in the high heavens this

star appeared, gradually and gently but effectually the clouds

disappeared, the winds abated, the towering billows fell down to

the surface of the deep, calm came where there had been uproar,

safety came where there had been danger, and under the beneficent

influence of this heavenly body the terrified and despairing crew

came safely to port. The proposal which the liberal party of this

country made in 1886, which they still cherish in their mind and

heart, and which we trust and believe, they are about now to carry

forward, that proposal has been to Ireland and the political

relations of the two countries what the happy star was believed to

be to the seamen of antiquity. It has produced already

anticipations of love and good will, which are the first fruits of

what is to come. It has already changed the whole tone and temper

of the relations, I cannot say yet between the laws, but between

the peoples and inhabitants of these two great islands. It has

filled our hearts with hope and with joy, and it promises to give

us in lieu of the terrible disturbances of other times, with their

increasing, intolerable burdens and insoluble problems, the

promise of a brotherhood exhibiting harmony and strength at home,

and a brotherhood which before the world shall, instead of being

as it hitherto has been for the most part, a scandal, be a model

and an example, and shall show that we whose political wisdom is

for so many purposes recognised by the nations of civilised Europe

and America have at length found the means of meeting this oldest

and worst of all our difficulties, and of substituting for

disorder, for misery, for contention, the actual arrival and the

yet riper promise of a reign of peace.—_Theatre Royal, Glasgow,

July 2, 1892._

The Naval Estimates Of 1894.

(M197) _The first paragraph of this memorandum will be found on p. 508_:—

This might be taken for granted as to 1854, 1870, and 1884. That

it was equally true in my mind of 1859 may be seen by any one who

reads my budget speech of July 18, 1859. I defended the provision

as required by and for the time, and for the time only. The

occasion in that year was the state of the continent. It was

immediately followed by the China war (No. 3) and by the French

affair (1861-2), but when these had been disposed of economy

began; and, by 1863-4, the bulk of the new charge had been got rid

of.

There is also the case of the fortifications in 1860, which would

take me too long to state fully. But I will state briefly (1) my

conduct in that matter was mainly or wholly governed by regard to

peace, for I believed, and believe now, that in 1860 there were

only two alternatives; one of them, the French treaty, and the

other, war with France. And I also believed in July 1860 that the

French treaty must break down, unless I held my office. (2) The

demand was reduced from nine millions to about five (has this been

done now?) (3) I acted in concert with my old friend and

colleague, Sir James Graham. We were entirely agreed.

_Terse figures of new estimates_

The “approximate figure” of charge involved in the new plan of the

admiralty is £4,240,000, say 4-½ millions. Being an increase

(subject probably to some further increase in becoming an act)

1. On the normal navy estimate 1888-9 (_i.e._ before the Naval

Defence Act) of, in round numbers, 4-¼ millions

2. On the first year’s total charge under the Naval Defence Act of

(1,979,000), 2 millions

3. On the estimates of last year 1893-94 of 3 millions

4. On the total charge of 1893-4 of (1,571,000), 1-½ million

5. On the highest amount ever defrayed from the year’s revenue

(1892-3), 1-½ million

6. On the highest expenditure of any year under the Naval Defence

Act which included 1,150,000 of borrowed money, 359,000

Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet Colleagues. (Page 525)

_The following is the list of the seventy ministers who served in cabinets

of which Mr. Gladstone was a member_:—

1843-45. Peel.

Wellington.

Lyndhurst.

Wharncliffe.

Haddington.

Buccleuch.

Aberdeen.

Graham.

Stanley.

Ripon.

Hardinge.

Goulburn.

Knatchbull.

1846. Ellenborough.

S. Herbert.

Granville Somerset.

Lincoln.

1852-55. Cranworth.

Granville.

Argyll.

Palmerston.

Clarendon.

C. Wood.

Molesworth.

Lansdowne.

Russell.

G. Grey.

1855. Panmure.

Carlisle.

1859-65. Campbell.

G. C. Lewis.

Duke of Somerset.

Milner Gibson.

Elgin.

C. Villiers.

1859-65. Cardwell.

Westbury.

Ripon.

Stanley of Alderley.

1865-66. Hartington.

Goschen.

1868-74. Hatherley.

Kimberley.

Bruce.

Lowe.

Childers.

Bright.

C. Fortescue.

Stansfeld.

Selborne.

Forster.

1880-85. Spencer.

Harcourt.

Northbrook.

Chamberlain.

Dodson.

Dilke.

Derby.

Trevelyan.

Lefevre.

Rosebery.

1886. Herschell.

C. Bannerman.

Mundella.

John Morley.

1892. Asquith.

Fowler.

Acland.

Bryce.

A. Morley.

CHRONOLOGY

All speeches unless otherwise stated were made in the House of Commons.

1880.

Feb. “Free trade, railways and the growth of commerce,” in _Nineteenth

Century_.

Feb. 27. At St. Pancras on obstruction, liberal unity and errors of

government.

Feb. 27. On rules dealing with obstruction.

March “Russia and England,” in _Nineteenth Century_.

March 5. On motion in favour of local option.

March 11. Issues address to electors of Midlothian.

March 15. Criticises budget.

March 17. At Music Hall, Edinburgh, on government’s eastern policy.

March 18. At Corstorphine on Anglo-Turkish convention.

March 18. At Ratho on neglect of domestic legislation.

March 19. At Davidson’s Mains on indictment of the government. At Dalkeith

on the government and class interests.

March 20. At Juniper Green, and at Balerno, replies to tory criticism of

liberal party. At Midcalder on abridgment of rights of parliament.

March 22. At Gilmerton on church disestablishment. At Loanhead on the

eastern policy of liberal and tory parties.

March 23. At Gorebridge and at Pathhead.

March 25. At Penicuik on Cyprus.

March 30. At Stow on finance.

April “Religion, Achaian and Semitic,” in _Nineteenth Century_.

April 2. At West Calder on liberal record and shortcomings of the

government.

April 5. Elected for Midlothian: Mr. Gladstone, 1579; Lord Dalkeith, 1368.

April 7. Returns to Hawarden.

April 28. Second administration formed.

May. Anonymous article, “The Conservative Collapse,” in _Fortnightly

Review_.

May 8. Returned unopposed for Midlothian.

May 11. Publication of correspondence with Count Karolyi, Austrian

ambassador.

May 16. Receives deputation of farmers on agricultural reform.

May 20. On government’s Turkish policy.

May 21. Moves reference to committee of Mr. Bradlaugh’s claim to take his

seat in parliament.

May 25. On South African federation.

June 1. On government’s policy regarding Cyprus.

June 10. Introduces supplementary budget.

June 16. On reduction of European armaments.

June 18. On resolution in favour of local option. Moves second reading of

Savings Banks bill.

June 22. On resolution that Mr. Bradlaugh be allowed to make a

declaration.

July 1. On Mr. Bradlaugh’s case.

July 5, 26. On Compensation for Disturbances (Ireland) bill.

July 23. Explains government’s policy regarding Armenia.

July 30-Aug. 9. Confined to room by serious illness.

Aug. 26-Sept. 4. Makes sea trip in the _Grantully Castle_ round England

and Scotland.

Sept. 4. On government’s Turkish policy.

Nov. 9. At lord mayor’s banquet on Ireland and foreign and colonial

questions.

1881.

Jan. 6. On Ireland.

Jan. 21. On annexation of Transvaal.

Jan. 28. On Irish Protection of Person and Property bill.

Feb. 3. Brings in closure resolution.

Feb. 23. Falls in garden at Downing Street.

March 15. Moves vote of condolence on assassination of Alexander II.

March 16. On grant in aid of India for expenses of Afghan war.

March 28. On county government and local taxation.

April 4. Introduces budget.

April 7. Brings in Land Law (Ireland) bill.

April 26 and 27. On Mr. Bradlaugh’s case.

May 2. Resigns personal trusteeship of British Museum.

May 4. Supports Welsh Sunday Closing bill.

May 5. Supports vote of thanks on military operations in Afghanistan.

May 9. Tribute to Lord Beaconsfield.

May 16. On second reading of Irish Land bill.

June 10. On the law of entail.

June 24. On Anglo Turkish convention.

July 25. On vote of censure on Transvaal.

July 29. On third reading of Irish Land bill.

Aug. 6. At Mansion House on fifteen months’ administration.

Aug. 18. On Mr. Parnell’s vote of censure on the Irish executive.

Oct. 7. Presented with an address by corporation of Leeds: on land and

“fair trade.” At banquet in Old Cloth Hall on Ireland.

Oct. 8. Presented with address by Leeds Chamber of Commerce: on free

trade. Mass meeting of 25,000 persons in Old Cloth Hall on foreign and

colonial policy.

Oct. 13. Presented with address by city corporation at Guildhall: on

Ireland and arrest of Mr. Parnell.

Oct. 27. At Knowsley on the aims of the Irish policy.

Nov. 9. At lord mayor’s banquet on government’s Irish policy and

parliamentary procedure.

1882.

Jan. 12. At Hawarden on agriculture.

Jan. 31. On local taxation to deputation from chambers of agriculture.

Feb. 7. On Mr. Bradlaugh’s claim.

Feb. 9. On home rule amendment to address.

Feb. 16. On the Irish demand for home rule.

Feb. 20. Moves first of new procedure rules.

Feb. 21. On local taxation.

Feb. 21 and 22. On Mr. Bradlaugh’s case.

Feb. 27. Meeting of liberal party at Downing Street. On House of Lords’

committee to inquire into Irish Land Act.

Feb. 27. Moves resolution declaring parliamentary inquiry into Land Act

injurious to interests of good government.

March 3. On persecution of Jews in Russia.

March 6. Supports resolution for legislation on parliamentary oaths.

March 10. On proposed state acquisition of Irish railways.

March 17. On British North Borneo Company’s charter.

March 21. On parliamentary reform.

March 23. On grant to Duke of Albany.

March 30. On closure resolution.

March 31. On inquiry into ecclesiastical commission.

April 17. Opposes motion for release of Cetewayo.

April 18. On diplomatic communications with Vatican.

April 24. Introduces budget.

April 26. On the Irish Land Act Amendment bill.

May 2. Statement of Irish policy, announces release of “suspects,” and

resignation of Mr. Forster.

May 4. On Mr. Forster’s resignation.

May 8. Moves adjournment of the House on assassination of Lord F.

Cavendish and Mr. Burke.

May 15. Brings in Arrears of Rent (Ireland) bill.

May 19. On second reading of Prevention of Crime (Ireland) bill.

May 22. On Arrears bill.

May 24. On Prevention of Crime bill.

May 26-June 1. On government’s Egyptian policy.

June 14. On Egyptian crisis.

June 17. On Mr. Bright’s resignation.

July 12. On bombardment of Alexandria.

July 21. On third reading of Arrears bill.

July 24. Asks for vote of credit for £2,300,000.

July 27. Concludes debate on vote of credit.

July 28. On national expenditure.

Aug. 8. On Lords’ amendments to Arrears bill.

Aug. 9. On suspension of Irish members, July 1.

Aug. 16. On events leading to Egyptian war.

Oct. 25-31, and Dec. 1. On twelve new rules of procedure.

Oct. 26. Moves vote of thanks to forces engaged in Egyptian campaign.

Nov. 24. Opposes demand for select committee on release of Mr. Parnell.

Dec. 13. Celebrates political jubilee.

1883.

Jan. 6-16. Suffers from sleeplessness at Hawarden.

Jan. 17. Leaves England for south of France.

March 2. Returns to London.

March 14. On Irish Land Law (1881) Amendment bill.

March 16. On Boer invasion of Bechuanaland.

April 3. On Channel tunnel.

April 6. On increase in national expenditure.

April 17. On local taxation.

April 19. On Lords Alcester and Wolseley’s annuity bills.

April 26. On Parliamentary Oaths Act (1866) Amendment bill.

May 2. At National Liberal club on conservative legacy of 1880 and work of

liberal administration, 1880-1883.

May 7. On Contagious Diseases Acts.

May 25. On reforms in Turkey.

May 29. Meeting of liberal party at foreign office: on state of public

business.

June 2. At Stafford House: tribute to Garibaldi.

June 12. On revision of purchase clauses of Land Act.

June 23. On withdrawal of provisional agreement for second Suez canal.

July 27. On India and payment for Egyptian campaign.

July 30. On future negotiations with Suez canal company.

Aug. 6. On government’s Transvaal and Zululand policies.

Aug. 6-7. On British occupation of Egypt.

Aug. 18. Protests against violent speeches of Irish members.

Aug. 21. On work of the session.

Sept. Italian translation of Cowper’s hymn: “Hark my soul! It is the

Lord,” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Aug. 8-21. In _Pembroke Castle_ round coast of Scotland to Norway and

Copenhagen.

Aug. 13. At Kirkwall: on changes during half century of his political

life.

Sept. 18. Entertains the Emperor and Empress of Russia, the King and Queen

of Denmark, at dinner on board _Pembroke Castle_ in Copenhagen harbour.

Dec. 22. At Hawarden, to deputation of liberal working men on reform of

the franchise.

1884.

Jan. 5. At Hawarden on condition of agriculture.

Jan 31. Receives deputations from Leeds conference, etc., on Franchise

bill.

Feb. 11 and 21. On Mr. Bradlaugh’s attempt to take the oath.

Feb. 12. On Egyptian and Soudan policy in reply to vote of censure.

Feb. 13. On re-establishment of grand committees.

Feb. 25. Moves resolution of thanks to Speaker Brand on his retirement.

Feb. 28. Explains provisions of Representation of the People (Franchise)

bill.

March 3. In defence of retention of Suakin.

March 6. On government’s Egyptian policy.

March 10-19. Confined to his room by a chill.

March 19 to April 7. Recuperates at Coombe Warren.

March 31. On death of Duke of Albany.

April 3. On General Gordon’s mission in Soudan.

April 7. On second reading of Franchise bill.

May 12. On vote of censure regarding General Gordon.

May 27. On Egyptian financial affairs.

June 10. Opposes amendment to Franchise bill granting suffrage to women.

June 23. On terms of agreement with France on Egypt.

June 26. On third reading of Franchise bill.

July 8. On second reading of London Government bill.

July 10. Meeting of the liberal party: on rejection of Franchise bill by

House of Lords.

July 11. On negotiations with Lord Cairns on Franchise bill.

July 18. At Eighty club on relation of politics of the past to politics of

the future.

Aug. 2. On failure of conference on Egyptian finance.

Aug. 11. On Lord Northbrook’s mission to Egypt.

Aug. 30. At Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, on Lords and Franchise bill.

Sept. 1. At Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, in defence of his administration.

Sept. 2. In Waverley Market on demand of Lords for dissolution.

Sept. 26. Returns to Hawarden.

Oct. 16. Cuts first sod on Wirral railway: on railway enterprise.

Oct. 23. On Franchise bill.

Oct. 28. Defends Lord Spencer’s Irish administration.

Nov. 4. Lays foundation stone of National Liberal club: on liberal

administrations of past half century.

Nov. 6 and 10. On second reading of Franchise bill.

Nov. 21. On Mr. Labouchere’s motion for reform of House of Lords.

Dec. 1. Brings in Redistribution bill.

Dec. 4. On second reading of Redistribution bill.

1885.

Feb. 23. On vote of censure on Soudan policy.

March 26. Moves ratification of Egyptian financial agreement.

April 9. Announces occupation of Penjdeh by Russians.

April 16. In defence of Egyptian Loan bill.

April 21. Asks for vote of credit for war preparations.

April 27. On Soudan and Afghanistan.

May 4. Announces agreement with Russia on Afghan boundary dispute.

May 14. On Princess Beatrice’s dowry.

June 8. Defends increase of duties on beer and spirits.

June 9. Resignation of government.

June 24. Reads correspondence on crisis.

July 6. On legislation on parliamentary oaths.

July 7. On intentions of the new government.

Aug. 8-Sept. 1. In Norway.

Sept. 17. Issues address to Midlothian electors.

Nov. “Dawn of Creation and of Worship,” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Nov. 9. At Albert Hall, Edinburgh, on proposals of Irish party.

Nov. 11. At Free Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, on disestablishment.

Nov. 17. At West Calder on Ireland, foreign policy, and free trade.

Nov. 21. At Dalkeith on finance and land reform.

Nov. 23. At inauguration of Market Cross, Edinburgh: on history of the

cross.

Nov. 24. At Music Hall, Edinburgh, on tory tactics and Mr. Parnell’s

charges.

Nov. 27. Elected for Midlothian: Mr. Gladstone, 7879; Mr. Dalrymple, 3248.

1886.

Jan. “Proem to Genesis: a Plea for a Fair Trial,” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Jan. 21. On government’s policy in India, the Near East and Ireland.

Jan. 26. In support of amendment for allotments.

Feb. 3. Third administration formed.

Feb. 4. Issues address to electors of Midlothian.

Feb. 10. Returned unopposed for Midlothian.

Feb. 22. On comparative taxation of England and Ireland. On annexation of

Burmah.

Feb. 23. On Ireland’s contribution to imperial revenue.

March 4. On condition of Ireland.

March 6-12. Confined to his room by a cold.

April 6. On death of Mr. W. E. Forster.

April 8. Brings in Government of Ireland (Home Rule) bill.

April 13. On first reading of Home Rule bill.

April 16. Explains provisions of Irish Land Purchase bill.

May 1. Issues address to electors of Midlothian on Home Rule bill.

May 10. Moves second reading of Home Rule bill.

May 27. Meeting of liberal party at the foreign office: on the Home Rule

bill.

May 28. Explains intentions regarding the Home Rule bill.

June 7-8. Concludes debate on Home Rule bill.

June 10. Announces dissolution of parliament.

June 14. Issues address to electors of Midlothian.

June 18. At Music Hall, Edinburgh, on home rule.

June 21. At Music Hall, Edinburgh, on home rule.

June 22. At Glasgow on home rule.

June 25. At Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on home rule.

June 28. At Liverpool on Ulster and home rule.

July 2. Returned unopposed for Midlothian and Leith.

July 20. Resignation of third administration.

Aug. 19-24. On government’s Irish, policy.

Aug. 25. Leaves England for Bavaria.

Aug 28. “_The Irish Question: (1) History of an Idea; (2) Lessons of the

Election_,” published.

Sept. 19. Returns to London.