^ ,:i <\v '" 'i'' u' •■ ' ■ r r ,i' iiiitlluuiiiuiiiUlilluillipjpjj iiiiHitiinniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii r-^ :i>» -^:3 ^:^r^ .? ■ R^ 'OUl^ rr' fdi H P^T) pI ^^■5 d rSRP ^^ ^^tTrT J^ON Df I, THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES I William Ewart Gladstone. Standard American Edition. LIFE AND TIMES OF William E.Gladstone an account ot His Ancestry and Boyhood His Career at Eton and Oxford His Entrance into Public Life His Rise to Leadership and Fame His Genius as Statesman and Author AND His Influence on the Progress of The Nineteenth Century By John Clark Ridpath author of ■■Great Races of Mankind," " Cvclop/Cdia of Universal History," ■■Histor\ OF 'THE United States," Etc., Etc. /" Sol^ '\ ^i ^cruitton \, CINCINNATI THE JONES BROTHERS PUBLISHING CO, J898 Coiiyrightcil. is;i8, liy TIIK JONKS BROTHERS PrBLISIIING CO. Cincinnati. 0/7 (See p. 6iS.) 126826G v u PREFACE. O interpret the life of a great historical personage is not an easy task. In proportion as the given career has intertwined itself -with the lines of general causation and made itself a brilliant thread in the "^J history of an epoch, by so much t^e more is the interpretation of that career made difficult. The highest lives are closest to the Universal Flow, and to know them and translate them into language involves a knowledge of the profound .sources and tendencies of the whole human drama. The small life is incon.spicuous and is causative of little ; the great life is con- spicuous and causative of much. The life of the great man is not a biography, but a history. His purposes and actions tend constantly to the impersonal. In such a life there is always a star- tling paradox ; for while its individuality becomes more and more intense, its personality becomes less and less distinct. The unity of the man, strengthened more and more by the conflicts through which he passes, is strongly set upon a disk which widens ever, like the penumbra of a star, until it covers the firma- ment. By the common consent of men and nations William Ewart Gladstone has been a great fig-ure, a powerful personage, in the history of our times. For quite half a century his name has been heard. At the date of his death it was fully sixty years since his first book was brilliantly and adversely reviewed by the ablest critic and essayist of England. At times the fame of Gladstone has sounded across seas and continents, rising above the historical roar and clamor of the Western nations. For more than threescore years Gladstone sat in the British House of Com- mons. We think that no other statesman of ancient or modern times continued for such an incredible period to participate actively in the legislation of his country. Certainly no other of any age or nation retired more honorably from the arena in which he had so long performed a conspicuous part. It is my purpose in this volume to present for American readers a compara- tively full account of the Life and Times of William E. Gladstone. To write his life has involved to a considerable extent a recital of the history of his times. As soon as Gladstone appeared in the British Cabinet he began to influence and b PREFACE. even to direct public affairs. As early as 1853, when, as Chancellor of the Ex- chequer in the ministry of the Earl of Aberdeen, he found himself under the responsibility of supplying the resources with which to support an army and a navy in the Black Sea during the Crimean War, he influenced conspicuously the direction of events. More and more this influence broadened and deepened, until in several crises of English history he was actually the determining force ; that is, he was the individual consciousness by the agency of which History deter- mined what should and what should not be in the current evolution of English nationality. To delineate this life succinctly and adequately in its relation with the general movement in the last half of the nineteenth century has been my duty. To delineate it in a manner s\iited to the easy apprehension of American readers has also been my olhce and desire. To this end I have considered, first, what may be called a section of general history at the date of Gladstone's birth ; also the ancestral conditions and forces which brought him forth. The manner of life which prevailed in his boyhood and in his school days at Eton I have tried to describe. It has been my purpose, wherever this life of Gladstone has touched the institutions of his times, to interpret them also. This plan has led to the pres- entation of sketches of Eton School and Oxford University, at which seats of discipline and learning the young Gladstone was trained for the duties of life. In his going forth for a brief sojourn in the south of Europe the same method of noting the social and political conditions through which he passed has been adopted. It was on the circuit of Italy that the 3'oung publicist — merchant and politician alike by lineage and environment — came into contact with the Nea- politan prisons and first revealed himself as a public man to the consciousness of his countrymen. In this connection I shall only indicate in briefest outline the course of Glad- stone's life from the beginning of his public career to the sunset of his days. The year 1832 sees him, a young man only twenty-three years of age, entering the House of Commons. He goes into that arena as a Tory, a Conservative. He has for his patron the Duke of Newcastle. He begins by defending social and political abuses. He becomes the apologist of Negro slavery, for his father had sugar plantations in the West Indies, and his father was " an honorable man." The younger Glad.stone makes his way under this banner for several sessions. The year 1838 witnes.ses his apparition as an author. He writes The State in its Relations ivitli the Church, and gets therefor a merited castigation at the hands of Macaulay. By this time the ancient Oxford notes her son with pride. In 1847 he becomes her representative in the House of Commons. And this relation he holds for eighteen years. During this period Gladstone became an PREFACE. 9 historical personage. First he was Vice-President and then President of the Board of Trade. In 1845 he actually resigned from the British ministry on account of a conscientious scruple! Then he became Secretary of State for the Colonies. At that epoch a man with a conscience was still available ! It was in the interval between 1846 and 1852 that Gladstone showed the first unmistakable signs of a purpose to desert the tents of the Tories. His liberalism came on like a dawn tending to sunrise. Meanwhile, in 1852, he accepted the place of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the ministry of Aberdeen. From Con- servatism he had passed by the way of Peelism near the mouth of the cave of Adullam — but had not entered. After the fall of Aberdeen he continued in office under Palmerston for a short season, and then resigned. In the years 1858-59 he became Special Commissioner of Great Britain to the Ionian Islands, and in this office he secured the cession of the islands to Greece. By this time his liberalism had become so pronounced that he accepted the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston and Earl Russell, his successor. Now he became leader of the House of Commons, and his star entered the ascendant. It was in December of 1868 that Gladstone became, for the first time. Prime Minister of England. His first term in this office continued for five years and two months. In this interval the Irish Church was disestablished and the Irish Land Act passed. The reaction of 1874 carried Gladstone into opposition. In this attitude he stood for six years in gladiatorial antagonism to his great rival, Benjamin Disraeli. Xot until 1880 did the reverse tides of British opinion carry him again to the premiership of Great Britain. Then came the Home Rule agitation, and the great deeps of England were stirred; and after the victorious ^Midlothian campaign Gladstone came back to the highest office in the gift of the British nation. For five years the Home Rule struggle continued, until it culminated in tem- porary defeat. The bill which Gladstone had prepared with so much skill and defended with so much eloquence, at last reached the crisis of a vote, and failed in the very hands of its author. Then there was a brief appeal to the country, then a third brief interval in the office of Prime Minister, extending from February to July, 1886. Then the crisis broke, and Gladstone went out of office for an- other period of six years. This was the epoch of the Salisbury ascendency. But the Home Rule sjDirit would not down. The tide rises again and roars along the shore. In 1S92 Gladstone, being already in his eightj--third year, is for ihe fourth time summoned by the Queen to conduct her government. Now by a victorious battle shall Home Rule be accompli.shed. In 1893 the Prime Minis- ter brings in his bill, and in the face of all manner of opposition carries it through the House of Commons. For the hour it appears that Ireland shall be lifted into lO PREFACE. a new relation with the British empire and with the world. But the House of Lords, that dilapidated roost for the croaking birds of the Middle Ages, comes to the rescue of the Past, and the bill for the Home Rule of Ireland is negatived. Thus near the end of his career, in 1894, William E. Gladstone was obliged to give over the project of Home Rule, and presently to retire from the arena in which he had so long been the foremost actor. In doing so he shook his hand in defiance not only at the House of Lords, but at the whole system of aristocratic organization and ancient privilege which are represented b_v that House and held as in a keep unto the judgment of the last day. There remains only the period of the Grand Old Man's retirement in the halls and haunts of Hawarden. Of this last span of a heroic career the closing chapter of this work will give an adequate account. The closing days of Glad- stone's life were hallowed to an unusual degree by the sympathies and respect of mankind. The eyes of the world long rested upon him as one of the noblest off- spring of a great century. His tottering step was marked. The slow incoming of decrepitude, the deepening wrinkles on the furrowed face — these were recorded in the journalism of all nations. It is the story of this life, considered in its historical relations, which I have sought to delineate in the following pages. I beg leave to commend the recital to the consideration of my countrymen ; for it is full of interest and inspiration. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Year 1S09. Conditions of Passage in i8og — State of War and Civil Service in England — Aerial Navigation — Industrial Conditions — Stale of Inquiiy — Geology in Particular — Astronomical Knowledge — Constitution of Nature — Davy and Herschel — Status of Slavery and the Slave Trade — Servitude of Woman — Transit of Napoleon the Great — Ebb and Flow of Political Conditions in America and France — Ascendency of the .Vovi Homines — Clash of British and Gallic Sympathies in America — Personnel of Leadership in the United States — What Bonaparte was Doing — The Present Work a Life and a History — Coincident Avatar of Darwin and Lincoln — Tennyson and Poe — Mendelssohn — All These the Offspring of Revolution, .--... 25-29 CHAPTER II. Ancestry and Boyhood. Primitive Seat of the Gladstone Stock — Arthurshiel — The Old Gledstanes — Meaning and Transformation of the Name — William Gladstane — John — He of Mid-Toftcombs — Thomas Gladstone — Coming of the Gladstonian Cliaracter — Apparition of the Commercial Instinct — Thomas Gladstone and Helen Neilson — John Gladstone, the Scotch Englishman — Time of his Birth — How He Founded the Family — His Relations with Corrie — -His First Commercial Exploit — Success of his American Adventuie — "Coirie, Gladstone, and Bradshaw " — John Gladstone and Company — President of the West India Association — Liverpool Becomes the Gladstonian Seat — Growth of the Family — Commercial Conditions at the Time of the Great One's Birth — Sir John Gladstone in Politics — His Relations with Canning and Peel — Birth of William Ewart — Destinies of his Brothers and Sisters — How the Poor are Hampered in England — And how the Rich Emerge — Mythical Strains of Noble Blood in the Gladstone — Princely Folk Slixed in with the Burgher — Gladstone Born in a Crisis — His Star the Planet of Commerce and Politics — Reaction of the Environment — Incidents of William Ewart's First Years — Touch of Hannah More — He Hears Great Guns at Edinburgh — Witnesses the Uproar of Victory in Liverpool — Remembers Canning — Other Platitudes of Childhood — Age of Twelve — Impact of Scotch Discipline — Robustness of the Burgher Boy — Deriva- tion of Sentiments — Primary Studies — Sir John Discovers Possibilities — We Must Educate, - 30-37 CHAPTER III. At E to.s' AND Oxford. Crisis in 1S21 — Choice of Eton — Stoiy of that .School from Henry YI — The Town of Eton — Purposes of King Henry — Sketch of the Youth Gladstone — The Curriculum to which He was Exposed— Comparisons of Then and Now — Philosophical Yiew of Collegiate Training at the Close of the First Quarter of Our Century — Nature of Subcolleges in Great Britain — Winchester and Westminster Schools — Sketch of the " Royal School" of Eton — Predominance of the Greek and Latin Languages — Class Divisions of the School — List of Text-books — Absence of Natural Science and Mathematics — Critique from the Edinburgh Rcviciu — Quantum of Greek and Latin Readings — Quality of the Texts — Authors specially Considered — Merits of Fagging and Flogging — Seniority being Substituted for Merit — Posterior Compulsion — The Head Master as a Flogger — How Wellington Got his Courage — Introduction of Gladstone to this Discipline — Further Criticism of the Edinburgh Review — Athletic Sports at Eton — The Etonian Periodicals — Gladstone Juventis Dips his Pen — He Becomes an Able Editor — The Eton Miscellany Flourishes — Contributors thereto — Gladstone and Ilallam Freres — How They Hurled their Lances — First N'om de Plume — Principia of the Gladstonian Style — His " View of Lethe " — Phases of Poetical Adoles- cence — The Youth's Vision of the Drowning Immortals — Narrow Range of Things Taught — The Gladstonian Epic of the Lion Heart — Increase of Mental Activity — Glimpses of Ambition in the Miscellany — Foreshadowings of Parliament — George Canning as an Ideal — How the Youth Became a Tory — Death of Canning — Other Political Heroes of the Day — Panegyric on Canning — Development of the Glailslonian Style — General Results of the Youth's Life at Eton — The Religious Bent — Gladstone as a Student under Dr. Turner — Choice of Oxford and Motives of the Choosing — Christchurch College in Particular — .4 Student "on the Foundation" — Larger Field of Scholastic Study Opens — Beginning as an Oxonian — The Debating .Society — Changed and Changing Condi- tions of that Institution — The Young Man as a Champion of Tory Orthodoxy — Epoch of Reform — What the Student Debate .Signifies — Cambridge and Oxford Divide on Shelley and Byron — Memorable Debate on that Sub- ject — Preponderance of Argument on Gladstone's Side in the Combat — He Rises to Distinction in the Union — Question of the Disabilities of the Jews — Resolution against the Earl Grey Ministry — Abolition of Slaveiy in the West Indies — Gladstone on the Wrong Side — Leaders and Progress of Abolitionism — Position of Gl.idstone the Elder — Therefore .Are We Opposed to Abolition — The Debate on the Oxonian Union — Philosophy of Gladstone's Progress — How He was Entangled on the Slavery Question — lie Comes to his Examinations — .\ " Double First " — Afterviews and Retrospect of Oxford — His Address to the Palmer.ston Club, - - 3S-57 I I 12 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. Travel and Entkance into Parliament. Project of Going Abroad — Unfniilfulness of the Eirst Journey to Italy — Better Results Afterward — Tlie Visit to Sicily — Moods of iEtiia and Vesuvius — Gladstone's Description of the Eornier and tlie Surrounding Landscape — His Magniloquent Style — Cdinipses of his Dream — By Way of Catania to the Summit — A Piece of Description — How a Man may Prefer an Hexameter to a Volcano — Gladstone not a Great Traveler — The Political Arena more Attractive than Nature — We will Stand for Parliament — General Sketch of Conditions in 1832 — Transit of George IV and William IV — Question of Reforming the House of Commons — The Rotten Boroughs — The Agita- tion Shakes Great Britain — The Slavery Issue and Disabilities of the Jews — The Disappointing Election of 1S32 — Gladstone Promoted by tlie PJuke of Newcastle — Style of an English Election — Opponents of Mr. Gladstone and Principles of Each — -Appearance of the Neophyte on the Hustings — Contest of the Blue Club with the Red— The Young Tory's First Political Address — His Proclamation of Principles — Labor Should be Remunerated — Slavery Should not be Abolished, but Mitigated— Scriptural Justification of Servitude — Eitness should Precede Emanci- pation — Rally to the Ancient Flag — No Surprise at such a Deliveiy — Gladstone the Favorite — Contest with Sergeant Wilde at the Hustings — A Formal Poll Required — Scenes on Election Day — Gladstone is Successful — Significance of the Election — Bearing of the Young Member from Newark — Question of the Press Tax — The Chorus of Cheers and Hisses — Sayings of Scribblerus Pol it icus— Counter Eruptions of the yoiiriial uniXhe Rcjlector — Argument of the Latter— Suspicion that the Duke did It — No Aspersion of Gladstone's Character, - 58-72 CHAPTER V. First Pa.ssages in the House of Commons. Point of Superiority of the British Method over that of Congress — How Reform Lags in Great Britain — East India Company and Slavery in West Indies the Two Bugbears — Condition of Affairs in Trinidad and Jamaica — John Gladstone's Estate in Demarara — Beginning of Debate on Abolition — Speech of Lord Howick — Gladstone's Alaiden Effort — His Defense of his Father — His .Second Address before the House — His Plea for Gradual Emancipation — He Favors Temporizing — The Planters Must be Protected — Debate Results in Abolition with Compensation — The Borough of Liverpool to be Investigated — Political Value of Ten Pounds Sterling — Liverpool noX. particularly Corrupt — The Church Temporalities Bill — Measure Opposed by (Gladstone — We will Defend the Irish Church — There may be Abuses, but Let Us Correct them Gently — Ought Students to Subscribe to the Thirty-nine -Articles ? — tUadstone Thinks it Should be Done Pro Forma — He Begins to Lead the Tories — Applause in Newark — Fall of the Melbourne Ministry — Peel Calls Gladstone — Parliamentary Method with Ministers Elect — Gladstone's Appeal to Newark — He has Sergeant Wilde for a Colleague — Popularity of the Junior Lord of the Treasury — His Account of his Meeting with Lord Aberdeen — Question of Church and State Arises — Attitude of Gladstone thereto — The Reform Act is Accepted — Sir Robert Appoints Gladstone Under Secretary for the Col- onies — His First Bill — Overthrow of the Peel Ministry — Nature of Action and Reaction in Great Britain — Gladstone's Speech on the Church Question — Adoption of Russell's Resolution — Political Rancor in Melbourne Ministry — Negro -Apprenticeship in the West Indies — The Buxton Resolution — Gladstone Speaks Against It — The Canadian Commotion Reaches the House of Commons — The Question at Issue — Policy of Lord Durham as Governor General— Lord Russell's Scheme — Gladstone Speaks in Support Thereof — The Question of 1837 — How Shall We Manage the Church Estates ?— Opposition of Sir Robert Peel to the Ministerial Measure — Rudiments of The Slate in its Relation with tlie Church — Gladstone's First Great Oration, - . . 73-87 CHAPTER VI. Rising to Leadership. Accession of Victoria to the Throne — The New Parliament — Gladstone again Stands for Newark — Question of Going to Manchester — Gladstone's Communication to the Mercury — The Shibboleth of " Church and State" — A Minority Candidate at the Manchester Poll — The Reception at Bush Inn — Some Political Wit — Beginning of Gladstone's Ascendency — The Voung Queen's Speech — The Canadian Imbroglio again — Gladstone's Speech on Lord Russell's Measure — Brougham Proposes the Abolition of Negro Apprenticeship — Stories of Abuses on the Plantation — Strickland's Resolution in the Commons — Gladstone Speaks in Opposition thereto — His Defense of Apprenticeship — His Father's Honor and his Own Involved — Apprenticeship a Part of the Compensation to the Slaveholders — Gladstone Describes the Situation in the West Indies — He Charges Inconsistency on Strickland — He Strikes a Blow at Negro Slavery in America — He Calls for Justice — Defeat of the Strickland Resolution — Gladstone's Speech Praised by the Times — Rejoicing of the Conservatives — Summaiy of Gladstone's Status in 1838— Paragraph from the British Senate — .\ Question of Subtraction— A Description of Gladstone's Style^His Habit and Person — His Manner in Public Speech — Further Agitation on the Question of Negro -Apprenticeship — Gladstone's Position on the Subject — Seeking for a Better System of Education — .Awakening of Religious Preju- dices — Lord Morpeth's Speech on the Education Bill — Gladstone's Work on the State and Church Becomes a Handbook — Speeches of O'Connell and Ashley — Gladstone's Reply to tlie Former — He Enlarges upon the Sub- CONTENTS. 13 ject before the Commons and Reduces the Governmental Majority — Question of Admitting the Jews to Educa- tional Privileges — Lord Macaulay's Speech — The Chinese Question Obtrudes Itself — What the Question Involved — Gladstone's Passage with Sir James Graham — Narrow Margin for Sir James's Resolution — Decline of the Mel- bourne Ministry — Dissolution of Parliament and Appeal to the Countiy — The Liberals Go to the Wall — Sir Robert Peel Becomes Prime Minister — Gladstone ^'ice President of the Board, ... SS-104 CHAPTER VII. Marriage and First Appearance in Literature. Gladstone Marries Catherine Glynne — The Hawarden Estate — The Glynne Family — Sir James Glynne in Particular — The Castle and the Park — Gladstone Publishes Tht' State in its Relations luith the Church — Preceding Works on the same Subject — Gladstone's Dissatisfaction with the Question as Stated — Macaulay Reviews the Work — His Famous First Paragraph — Fundamental Proposition of Gladstone's Book — The Author's Thesis to Establish the Rightfulness of State Government over Religious Institutions — His Argument to Prove as Much — The Nation Has a Personality — A Personality Should be Religious — Religion Implies a Government — The Gov- erning Control Must be by the Secular Body — Macaulay's Answer to these Propositions — He Employs the Rediictio ad Abstirdum — Further De.struction of the Gladstone Propositions — The Assumptions of the Author Do not Bear the Tests of Logic — The Critic's Citation of the Battle of Blenheim — Men of Different Faiths May Unite in Com- mon Purposes without Governmental Control — Destruction of Gladstone's Argument for the Exclusion of Dis- senters — How the Question Appears in the Prospect — Correspondence of Gladstone with his Critic — ,\dmirable Good Temper Displayed by Both — The Author's Carllon-Gardens Letter — Macaulay's Reply — Pleasure of Oxford at the Work of her Son — Position Taken by the Quarterly Review — What the Present may Learn out of Glad- stone's Book — His Defense of the Irish Church Establishment — Inconsistency of the Argument with his Subse- quent Work and Teaching — The Book Puts Gladstone on the Defensive — How He Parries the Thrust — The Critics Bear Hard upon Him — What He .Says in a Chapter of Autobiography — His ^\.pology — What Modified his Opinions — The Work Increases the Estimate in which He is Held by the Public, • . 105-124 CHAPTER VIII. The Free-trade Transformation. Conditions Present at the Beginning of the Reign of Victoria — Accession of the Melbourne Ministry — Char- acter of Lord Melbourne — The Nation Turns against his Administration — Sir Robert Peel Succeeds Him — The Corn Law Question — History of that Legislation — Successive Stages in its Development — Sir Robert Proposes a New Scale of Duties — The Crisis Precipitated — Lonl Russell's Amendment — Gladstone's Position on the Question — Sir Robert's Misrepresentations — Necessity of Doing Sometliing — An Act to Tax Incomes — The Situation a Counterpart to that of the United States in 1SS6— ^The Long Debate — Gladstone Prolific in Speeches — Public Opinion against the Corn Laws — Tendency to Free Trade — Debate on the Queen's Speech — Gladstone's Plea for Moderation — The Minister Triumphs — Beginning of the Chartist Agitation — Principles of the People's Charter — Reasonableness of the Same — Work of the Agitators — Marriage of the Queen — Character of the Prince Consort — The Royal Family — Gladstone Defends the Sugar Duty— He Favors Free Exportation of Machinery — His Views Begin to Enlarge — His Address before the Collegiate Institution — His Skill in Commercial Questions — His Bill for the Regulation of Railway Fares — The Companies against Him — Question of the Unitarian Properties — Glad- stone's Advocacy of the Unitarian Right to Hold — Question of Voting Money to the College of Maynooth — Char- acter of the Institution — The Maynooth Improvement Bill — Gladstone, between Two Fires, Resigns — His Motives for .Supporting the Maynootli Bill — His Argunjent — He Sets forth the Philosophy of the Situation — His Plea for Justice to the Irish People — Analysis oT the Vote — .Sir James Graham's Bill for Education in Ireland — Gladstone's Debate with Inglis on the Question — Other Great Issues to be Considered — Gladstone's Pamphlet, entitled Remarks, etc. — His Drift on the Free-trade Current — The Crisis of 1S45 — Proposition to Abolish the Corn Laws in toto — Overthrow of the Peel Ministry — .Vccession of Lord Russell — Gladstone as Colonial Sec- retary — He Bids Farewell to Newark — Explanation of his Motives — Consistency Giving Way before Hunger — Sudden Apparition of Disraeli — His Attack on Sir Robert — Great Britain on the Highroad to Free Trade — The Corn Laws are Abolished in toto, .....--.. 125-14S CHAPTER IX. Representative of O.xford University. Downfall of the Peel Ministr)' — Gladstone Goes with It — He Presents Himself to Oxford — His Opponent — Gladstone's Address — He Admits Changes of Opinion — He Discusses the Irish Question — Oxford Hard to Satisfy — Position Taken by Gladstone's Advocates — He is Elected — Question of Enlarging the Rights of the Jews — The Baron Rothschild is Elected to the House of Commons — How Could He Qualify ? — Lord Russell Seeks to Make a Way — If a Catholic, Why Not a Jew? — Gladstone Speaks in Favor of Admission — Points of his Argument — Admission to Citizenship Carries Eligibility — The Dangerous Ground on Which Gladstone Stood — The Chartist Agitation Rises Again — Mass Meetings, Bonfires, and Outbreaks — The Assembly in Kensington Common — The 14 CONTENTS. Maintenance of Authority — Gladstone and Louis Napoleon in the same Role — Lord Russell Confronted with a Deficit — Question of Taxing Incomes — Hot Debate on the Subject — Disraeli's Charge on the Government — Glad- stone Defends his Chief — He Appeals to Statistics — Necessity of Passing tlie Income Tax — Effect of Pacific Utter- ances — ^Distracted Condition in Europe — England Holds on her Way Unmoved — She Will Not Revolutionize — Emergence of Two Cireat Characters — Disraeli and his Fatal Thrust — (Question of the Navigation Laws — Glad- stone Essays the Defense of the Peel Ministry — His Cautious Speech on tile Navigation Bill — Strong Trend to- ward Absolute Free Trade — His Speech on the Lahouchcre Act — Report of the Commission on Customs — Disraeli on tlie Day of Dupes — Gladstone Parries his Rival's Onset — The Navigation Act is Passed, - 149-103 CHAPTER X. • Beginnings ok tiik Church Qi'kstion. The I^eligious Aspect Presents Itself — Cardinal Ferretti Becomes Pius IX — His Consultum — Question of Establishing Diplomatic Relations with Rome — Gladstone Speaks against this Policy — Hint of a Future Purpose — " On the True Faith of a Christian " — The Poor as well as the Rich Should Have Equal Religious Privileges — No Sittings No Rates, Should be the Rule — Alarming Condition in Canada — How to Suppress the Rebellion — Gladstone's Position on the Subject — Question of a General Colonial Reform — Issue between Gladstone and Roebuck — Molesworth's Contention — Hume's Policy — Last Days of the Ancient Ecclesiasticism — Question of Marrying the Deceased Wife's Sister — Wortley's Marriage Bill — Gladstone's Opposition and Arguments — His Conjunction with Disraeli — Principle of Laissfz Faire in England and America — Disraeli Appears as the Living Voice of the Landed Aristocracy — Free Trade as Related to Industrial Distress — Analogy of Gladstone's Position — Both Leaders Seek to Alleviate the Agricultural Distress — Peril of the Ministry — Lord Russell's Measure for the Government of the Australian Colonies — Gladstone's Opposition to a Single House — Passage of the Russell Bill — Suffering of British Producers — The Conservatives Gain an Advantage on the Sugar Question — Shall Sugar be Protected ? — Lord Palmerston's Contention — Question of the Universities Again — Gladstone's Speech on the Subject — What Came of the Burning of Judas Iscariot — The Thrifty Don Pacifico — Palmerston Put on the Defen- sive — Sir Robert Peel's Speech against the Ministry — Gladstone's Argument on Don Pacifico — He Criticises Lord Palmerston — He Points Out the Besetting Sin of Englishmen — An Appeal Lies to the People — View of Interna- tional Comity — The Government is Sustained — Death of Sir Robert Peel — Where Will Gladstone Go? - 164-179 CHAPTER XL First International Episode. Gladstone Begins to be International — Declarations of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies — Insurrections against Him — His Armies Subdue the Revolt — Gladstone, in Naples, Investigates the Prisons — His Two Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen — He Disclaims the Purpose of Interference — Not the Administration of the King, but Cruelties and Outrages under Discussion — How Justice Had been Perverted and the Judiciary Corrupted in Naples — ^" The Negation of God Reduced to a System " — Numbers in the Prisons — Character of the Neapolitan Judiciai-y — Particular Cases of Injustice and Cruelty — A Sensation Produced m England — Lord Aberdeen Appealed to — Character of Gladstone's Charges — Severity of his Arguments — He Answers the Apologists for the Govern- ment of Naples — The Case of liol/a — Citations from Farini and Bernetti — The Administration at Rivarola — Edict of the Duke of Modena — Effect of Gladstone's Philippic — Official Reply of the Neapolitan Government — Glad- stone's Rejoinder — De Lacy Evans's Paper in the Commons — Palmerston's Embarrassment — His Indorsement of Gladstone — Far-reaching Influence of the Discussion — Condon's Rant — Gladstone's Third Publication on the Subject — His Unassailable Position — Closing Words of the Controversy — Attitude of the Government of Naples — Suffering in the Dungeons — England and France Withdraw their Representatives — The Revolution Brings Francis to his Knees — Gladstone's Translation of The Roman Stale — His Criticisms of that Work — The Three Questions Suggested — Gladstone's Answers Thereto — What He Perceived in this Controversy, - iSo-igs CHAPTER XII. DfRiiAM Letter and Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. Gladstone is No Man's Man — Transformation of Pius IX — He Seeks to Enlarge the Roman Hierarchy — His Influence Reaches into England — Russell's Letter to Lord Durham — Agricultural Distress in England — Complaint of the Farmers — Disraeli Discovers his Opportunity — His Speech on the Industrial Depression — The Govern- ment's Defen.se — Retention of the Income Tax — The Budget is Resisted — Russell's Resignation — Aberdeen Fails to Form a Ministry — Russell is Recalled — Gladstone Opposes the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill — Points in his Argu- ment — His Exposition of the Ecclesiastical Question — The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill is Passed — Tile Coup if'Etat in France — Ministry Agrees to Silence — Lord Palmerston Breaks the Compact — He Defeats the Militia Bill — Derby Fails — Death of the Duke of Wellington — Tennyson's Ode — Eulogies in the House of Commons — Disraeli Makes a Break — Sarcasm of the Globe Newspaper — Gladstone's Eulogy — The Queen Expresses her Grief, - 196-205 CONTENTS. 15 CHAPTER XIII. Coup d'Etat and First Budget. The Year 1852 — Conflicting Interests in Great Britain — Disraeli Must Face the Condition — His Plan for Raising a Revenue and Reducing Expenditures — Sir Charles Wood's Contention — Robert Lowe's Speech — Sir James Graham Attacks the Budget — Disraeli's Rejoinder — Gladstone Takes up the Theme — He Discusses the House Tax and Condemns the Budget Generally — The Ministry is Defeated — Aberdeen Forms a Coalition Min- isti7 — Gladstone Chancellor of the Exchequer — Louis Napoleon and the Coup d'Etat — Tour of the Prince-Presi- dent — His Speech at Bordeaux — "The Empire is Peace" — The Republic is Converted into an Empire — Effect of the CoKp in Great Britain — Difficulties of Gladstone's Position — He Studies the Finances — His Plan for the Re- duction of the Public Debt — He Presents his First Budget — His Estimates for the Year— He Proposes an Income Tax — How the Same Should be Laid — Items of Increase and Reduction — A Limit of Time on the Income Rate — How this Tax had Worked in the Past — A Bold Policy Necessary — The Proposed Tax Should be Temporary- Gladstone's Peroration — Disraeli's Criticism of the Budget — His Views on the Income Tax, Land Tax, etc. — The Budget Before the House — It is Approved, .-.-.--- 206-216 CHAPTER XIV. French Alliance and Crimean W.^r. Nature of the Disputes Involved in the Crimean War — The Eastern Question and the Parties Thereto — Great Britain's Interest in the Controversy — Relation of Turkey to the Issue — France's Part in the Dispute — Personal Pique of Louis Napoleon — The Motley Team — The Casus Belli — .Strife of the Greek and Roman Cath- olic Churches in the East — Concessions of Islam to Christianity and Palestine — The Czar and the " Sick Man " — The " Necessary Arrangements " — Great Britain Rejects the Overture — Reason for War Variously Stated — Motive Ascribed by France and England — The Czar's Proclamation — Address of Gladstone at Manchester — His Cautious and Peaceable Disposition — Awkward Position of Great Britain — Nicholas Answers the Challenge of the Porte — The Vienna Note — Allied Fleets in the Black Sea — Destruction of the Turkish Flotilla — Louis Napoleon's Letter to Nicholas — The Czar's Answer — England Loath to Begin Hostilities — Kinglake's Analysis of Gladstone's Views — Necessity of the Latter to Provide the Sinews of War — The Clash of Arms — Commanders and Forces — Siege of Sebastopol — Attacks and Sorties — Contraction of the Allied Lines — Storming of the Redan and Malakofl" — Death of the Czar — Conclusion of the War and Treaty of Paris — Hardships of the Aberdeen Ministry — Antago- nistic Attitude of Gladstone and Disraeli — Question of Taxation versiis Borrowing — Gladstone's Budget of 1S54 — His Theory of Making the War Period Pay its Own Way — Deficit of 1853-54 — The Chancellor Would Meet it by Taxation — Estimates of Income and Expenditure — Disraeli's Mild Protest — Lord Willoughby's Break — Additional Outlays Demanded — Gladstone Resorts to E.xcise Duties — Battle over the Tax on Malt — Gladstone's Policy is Sustained, .--..-.-.... 217-233 CHAPTER XV. Accession of Palmerston and Treaty of Paris. Policy of Those Who Opposed the War — Failure of the Peace Commission — Heart Weakness of Lord Aber- deen — Discordance in the Ministry — .\spirations of Palmerston and Russell — Deplorable Condition of the British Army in Crimea — Transit of the Angel of the Bivouac — The Queen's Letter to Lord Raglan — Excitement in England in Consequence of the Sufferings of the Army — Lord Palmerston and the Cholera — Question of Burying the Dead under Churches — Palmerston Resigns from the Ministry — And is Recalled — Prevalence of Intrigues — Prince Albert's Letter to Baron Stockmar — Hostility of the Ministiy Reaches the Court — Animosity Against the Prince Consort — Imminent Disruption of the Cabinet — Palmerston's Letter to his Brother-in-law — Strictures on the Conduct of the War — Disraeli's Charge on the Government — Russell and Gladstone Parry as They Can — The Four Points of the Vienna Conference — Debate on the Foreign Enlistment Bill — Roebuck's Resolution to Investi- gate the Conduct of the War — Stafford's Speech — His Account of Conditions in the Crimea — The Effect on the Commons— Gladstone's Reply — He Censures Lord Russell — His Pa.ssage of Eloquence — His -Vttitude toward the Investigation — He Defends Newcastle — Disraeli's Speech — Russell's Attempt at Defense — The Government is Overwhelmed — Gladstone Least Affected — The Queen Tries Derby, Lansdowne, and Russell — Palmerston Chosen — Gladstone Continues in Office — Layard Attacks the New Ministry — Palmerston's Rejoinder — Gladstone, Graham, and Herbert Resign — Accession of Alexander H and the Vienna Conference — Attitude of the Powers in that Assembly — Disraeli's Resolution Relative Thereto— His Bitter Speech against Lord Russell — Gladstone Undertakes the Defense of the Four Points — His Plea Excites Aversion— Lord Russell Stands Between — The Vote of Confidence — Gladstone's Relations with the Queen — Side Light from Albert's Correspondence — Lord Lytton's Peroration — His Resolution in the Commons — Russell Goes Out — His Explanation — Palmerston At- tempts 10 Stay his Fall — Disraeli's Thrust — Roebuck Renews his .Vssault — His .\crimonious .Speech — Gladstone's Plea for Peace — Cessation of Hostilities — Assembling of the Ambassadors at Paris — The Eleven Articles of the Treaty — The Four Supplemental Paragraphs — Spread of the Tidings, .... 234-258 l6 CONTEXTS. CHAPTER XVI. Last Half of tiif, .Sixth Decade. Lorct P.ilmcrston's Fame at the Conclusion of the War — The .\cKlress to the Queen — Dubious Rejoicings — Sydney Smith lo L.idy Grey — Unfavorable Period in Gladstone's Career — Bad Reminiscence of the Aberdeen Min- istry — Gladstone Speaks on the Treaty of Peace — " Satisfaction" rather than "Joy" — Mis Horror of Islam and Loyalty to the Church of England — Antipathy to the Turks — His Views on Moldavia, Wallachia, and the Black Sea — He Approves Arbitration — Inquires into the Protocol — Question of a Free Press in Belgium — Agitation Begins for a Reform of the Educational System — Russell's Proposition — Gladstone's Speech against It — His Views on Secular Education — How to Meet the War Debt — Cornewall Lewis Presents his Plan — Working of the Foreign Enlistment Act in America — Gladstone Spe.nks against the Course of the Government — The Crampton Affair — The Speaker Bewails the Chaos — Near Conjunction of Gladstone and Disraeli — What the Occasion Was — Views of the Former on the Income Tax — The Budget for 1S57 — Disraeli's Amendment — Gladstone Holds Strictly to his Own Financial Views — Disraeli's Speech on the Budget — Gladstone's Estimates on the Revenue and Expendi- ture — The Budget is Accepted — GKadslone Speaks to an .Vmendment //; re the Tea Tax — Strength of the Pal- merston Ministry — Gladstone Speaks for the Equality of Women in Matters of Divorce — Origin of the Difficulty with China — Policy of Great Britain with Half-civilized and Barbarous Nations — Character of the Ship Arrow — Injustice of Great Britain — Committee of Inquiry — Cobden Arraigns the Government— Gladstone's Speech Rel- ative to Sir John Bowring — His Modified Defense of China — He Charges Great Britain with Aggression and Wrongdoing — Palmerston's Rejoinder — Disraeli Enters the Lists against Him — The Cobden Resolution is Adopted — Dissolution of Parliament and Indorsement of the Government — Bank Panic of 1S57 — Gladstone's Views as to Causes and Conditions — Outbreak of the Sepoy Rebellion — Spre.id of the British Dominion in India — Beginning of the Mutiny— Massacre at Meerul — The Flame Spreads to Delhi and Lahore— Havelock Undertakes the Relief of Lucknow — The .-Vppeal to the Chief of Bithooi — His Treachery — The Awful Tragedy — Extinction of the Mutiny — Fate of the East India Company — Its Powers Transferred to the Crown — Beginnings of the Indian Empire— Gladstone Opposes the Imperial Tendency — And Seeks to Save the East India Company — Orsini's Attempt on Napoleon — The Conspiracy to Murder Bill — Gibson's .Vmendment — His Attack on the Government — Excerpt from the London Times — Gladstone's Able Speech — He Urges the Un-English Character of the Pending Measure — Palmerston's Defense of the Bill — Defeat of the Proposed Act — Fall of Palmerston and Accession of Lord Derby — Near Approach of Gladstone and Disraeli — The Former is Made Commissioner to the Ionian Islands — Question of Relinquishing the Protectorate — Gladstone Publishes his Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age — Introduction of the Reform Bill of 1859 — Character of the Measure — Lord Russell's .'\mendment — Gladstone Discusses the Question — His Outline of Lord Russell's Policy — .Vdmits the Necessity of Reform — Failure of the Ministerial Bill — Dissolution and Reindorsement of the Government — The Ministry Fails on the Address — Reaccession of Palmerston — Gladstone a Seconil Time Chancellor of the Exchequer, - - 259-2S6 CHAPTER XVII. Minister of Finance under Palmerston. Gladstone is Charged with Becoming a Liberal — The Cn- Reaches Oxford — He is Reelected — His Budget of iSjQ — The Scheme of Receipt and Expenditure — Proposals for Revenue — Disraeli Attacks the GKadstonian Budget — Gladstone Agrees to the Reduction of European Armaments — The Cry of " Free Italy " — France Espouses the Italian Cause — Battles of Novara, Magenta, and .Solferino — The Treaty of Villafranca — The Six Articles of Peace — Great Britain t'eels Herself Disparaged — Lord Elcho's Proposition — Gladstone's Speech Thereon — What He Proposed as British Policy — Beginnings of the Irish Church Question — Gladstone Appears in Fine Form in the Debate — A F'ree-trade Treaty is Concluded with France — Bright, Cobden, and Chevallier Lead — Cobden's Negotiations with Napoleon — His Success in Preparing the Treaty — Great Concessions to the Principle of Free Trade — Gladstone Rises with the Wave — He Brings Forward the Budget of 1S60 — .A Memorable Occasion — Beginning of his Address — His .Vccount of the Revenues and Expenditures — Question of Interest and Annuities — General Increase in the Wealth of the Kingdom — Reduction of the Tax.ition and the Treaty with France — How Far Great Britain vi'ould Go in the Direction of Free Trade— The Chancellor Explains the New Treaty — Proposal to Make Tea Free — The Speaker Praises Cobden — Proposed Reduction in the Customs Duties — .Vrticles on which the Excise might be Abolished — Paper in Particular — Other Important Commodities Considered — Retention of the Income Tax — The Pending Measure a Complete Reform in the Tariff System — The Speaker's Peroration — Marked Ability of the Address — Character of his Oratoi^ — Elements of Opposition to the Budget — Disraeli's Atti- tude and .\rgument — Gladstone's Counter Charge — Du Cane's Resolution — Paper the Danger Point in the Budget — Arguments Pro and Con — The Budget Accepted — Derby's Opposition in the House of Lords — A Critical Sit- uation — Lord Palmerston's Three Resolutions — Gladstone Speaks on the Rights of the Two Houses — Proposition to Reduce the Duty on Foreign Paper — Russell's Proposal for Parliamentary Reform — Gladstone's Partial Support — He Becomes Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh — His Address on the Occasion — He Discusses the Strength and Weakness of Christian Civilization — .-Xlso the Historical Idea of a University — The Uni%'ersity's CONTEXTS. 17 Medialiiig Power in Society — The Speaker Defends Disputation — Question of Educational Endowments — His Address to the Younger Memliers of the University — He Exhort; Them to Cheerful Discipline and Fidelity — The Orator's Peroration, ----.--..-- 2S7-312 CHAPTER XVni. Budget of 1S61 and American Complications. Importance of the Seventh Decade — In What State that Period Found the Nation — What Now Devolved on Gladstone — The Year 1S61 — England Continues her Policy of Neutrality — She Cooperates with France against China — Her Majesty's Address — Disposition to .Abolish the Church Rates — Gladstone's Early Yiews on this Question — Sir John Trelawny's Bill — Reasons for Supporting the Measure — Gladstone's Speech on the Sub- ject — The Division of Sentiment in the Cabinet — A Decision against the Chancellor — Bill to Establish Postal Savings Banks — Outlines of the Proposed System — Success of the Enterprise — The Italian Revolt against Francis II — Pope Hennessy's Bill — Speeches on the Subject — Gladstone's Discussion of the Measure — His Great Passage — Historical Outline of Italian Conditions — The Speaker Justifies the Italian Revolution — Hope that Italy may be Nationalized — Other Speeches Follow — The Budget of 1S61 — Gladstone's Introduction of his Paper — Schedule of Revenue and Expenditures — Question of the French Treaty — Estimates for the Fiscal Year 1S61-62 — What Should be Remitted and What Added — Gladstone's Great Success in Presenting his Budgets — Peroration in this Instance — Strength of the Opposition — Bentick Challenges Gladstone on the Budget — Reply to the Latter — He Yerifies his Estimates^Disraeli on the Tea Tax — The Sugar Tax and the Paper Duly — One Bill for the Whole Budget — Excitement of the Opposition — Robert Cecil's Attack — Nature of his Harangue — Gladstone's Justifica- tion of the Single Bill — Will the House Support the Lords in their Yeto? — The Onus of Defense Rests on Glad- stone — The Bill for the Repeal of the Paper Duly Becomes a Law — Beginning of the American Complication — Crossing of Opinion between Great Britain and the United States — Casuistry of the Former — The Like Yice in America — Every Nation for Itself — The Tieiit ."VfTair — Great Britain Opens her Shipyards to the Confederate Cruisers — She Recognizes the Belligerency of the Confederates — Injury to English Interests by the Civil War — Comments by the London Times on the American Protective System — Seriousness of the Situation — .Aristocratic England against the Union — No Recognition of Independence for the Confederacy — Upper England Desires our Downfall — Gladstone Drifts on the Evil Tide — How the English Revenue Suffered — His Ill-timed Newcastle Speech — Great Offense in the United States — Years Required to Heal the Wound — Liberalism at Last .\loned — Gladstone's Subsequent Yiew of the Matter and Apology — Letter to Cyrus W. Field, - - 313-331 CHAPTER .\I.\. Other Bidgets of the Palmerston Regime. Gladstone's Financial Scheme for 1S62 — Great Losses to be Confronted — How the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer would Meet the Conditions — His \"iew of the Revenues — Question of Reducing Taxes — Relative Sim- plicity of the Budget — Disraeli's Philippic against the Scheme — Character of the Assault on the Chancellor's Measures — Uselessness of the .\ttack — Gladstone's Rejoinder — Passage with Stafford Northcote — The Italian (Question Flares up Again — Folly of Bowyer and Hennessy — Gladstone's Speech on the Conditions in It.aly — His Reference to his own Influence in Italian Affairs — He Explodes Bowyer's History — His Description of the Prog- ress of the Revolution — Success of United Italy — General Popularity of Gladstone — He Speaks on the Occasion of the Testimonial to Kean — The Budget of 1S63 — Question of Taxation Still Predominant — Outline of Glad- stone's .Arguments in Presenting his Measures — Industrial Conditions in England and Ireland — Question of .Applying the Surplus — Details of the Revenue — Certain Duties to be .Abolished — Reduction of the Income Tax — The Chancellor Reviews his Administration — Conclusion of his Address — The Aristocracy Raises a Clamor — Other Causes of Opposition — Question of Taxing Endowments — Gladstone Confronts the Churchmen — His .Ar- gument against Exempting Charitable Bequests — He Describes the Different Kinds of Endowments — He is Obliged to Withdraw ihe Measure — Hubbard's Resolution and Its Rejection — The Dissenters' Burials Bill — The Nature of the Measure — Gladstone's Yiew of the Question — Why England would Oppose the Measure — Intern.a- tional Exposition at South Kensington — Nature of the Project — The Measure Fails — Ascendency of Gladstone in the Cabinet — His Budget of 1S64 — Nature of the Presentation — Surplus Revenue and Expenditure — Question of Reducing the National Debt — Status of Exports and Imports — Gladstone Hard Pressed by Statistics — Shall We .Abolish the Duty on Rags? — How Much Shall Wine be Taxed? — Estimates for the Fiscal Year — Recommenda- tions for Reduction — Question of Fire Insurance— Optimistic Statement of the Financial Condition — Difficult Point of the Paper Duty and the Malt Tax — Ought the Government .Annuities to be Purch.ased? — Winds of Opposition Blow — Great is Diana — Parliament Yibrates with the Wind — Budget of 1S64 is Adopted, - 332-350 CHAPTER XX. Progress toward Liberalism and Rejection by Oxford. Gladstone as a Cause and Effect — He Opens the Dike for Political Revolution — Question of the Disfranchised — Philosophy of Agitation among the Working Classes — .American Yiew of the Question — Gladstone's Mild 1 8 CUNTKNTS. Policy — His Liberalism Extends to ilie Cluiicli — Shall Prussia Occupy Sclileswig-Holstein? — War in Denni.nl; — Disraeli's Resolution of Thanks to the Queen — A Covert Thrust — Debate of the Two Leaders — Gladstone Attacks Disraeli's Resolution — Other Participants in the Discussion — The Genus Peelite — Kinjjiake's Substitute Adopted — Dilhvynd's Resolution against the Irish Church — Gladstone's Signiticant Speech — Position of the Irish People — Importance of Gladstone's Utterance — Other Speakers — Gladstone's Letter to his Trinity Correspondent — liudget of 1865 — Gladstone's Hold on Parliamentary Power — His Summary of Existing Conditions — Character of his Fiscal Orations — Outline of the Pending IJiidgct — Aspect of Trade — Estimate of Expenditure — Beer and \Vine Question — Tea Tax and Income Tax — Fire Insurance — The Duty on Malt — Approaching End of the Parliament — What about Rec-lection? — Will Oxford Indorse Us? — New System of Oxonian Voting — Insurrection of Con- servatism — The Wilberforce Affair — Danger of Defeat — Coleridge's Manifesto — Gladstone is Rejected — Analysis of the Vote — Gladstone Defeated by the Older Fellows — Mingled Sweet and Bitter in the Overthrow — General Opinion in England — Utterance of the Times — Summary of the Situation by the Daily A^cws — Church Organs Approve the Thing Done — Gladstone's Valedictory Address — He Appeals to South Lancashire — Character of his Paper — " 1 Come Among Vou Unmuzzled " — His Speech at the Manchester Reception — His Expressions of Joy on his Emancipation— He Lords the Liberal Parly — And Claims a Share — A Swift and Victorious Campaign — Liverpool and Manchester Indorse the Candidate — He Reviews the Oxford Incident — His Defense of the Palmer- ston Regime — He is Elected — The New Parliament — Death of Palmerston — Sketch of his Career — Gladstone's Eulogy — Richard Cobden Dies — Outline of his Life and Character, Incidents Illustrative of his Purpose — Circum- stances of his Death — Russell Accedes and (jladstone Becomes Leader of liie House, - - 35^-372 CHAPTER XXI. Reform Bill ok 1S66. Question of Reforming Parliament — Gladstone Introduces lire Budget of '66 — His Estimates of Revenues and Expenditures — Commercial Condition — Various Duties Repealed or Reduced — Question of the National Debt — Commercial Prospects — The British Coal Supply — Relation of the Debt Thereto — The Irish Question Obtrudes Itself — Gladstone's Speech on the Irish Amendment — Bright's Appeal to the Rival Leaders — Gladstone's Reply — Proposed Abolition of Church Taxes — llardcastle's Bill — Method of Compromising Such Questions — The Anstio- Prussian War — Gladstone's Views of the Conflict and its Results — The (Queen's Address Promises Reform — Glad- stone Prepares the Reform Bill — He Explains the Features of tlie Measure — Extension of the Suffrage the Bottom Principle — Gladstone Appeals to the House for an Equitable Decision — He Would Welcome the Army of New Voters — Difficulty of Government by Party — Ilorsman and Lowe Revolt — Personality of Mr. Lowe — His Speech against the Reform Bill — Horsmau's Denunciation — John Bright Retorts with Hot Pitch — He Discovers the Cave of Adullam — Eftecliveness of Bright's Manner and Method — He Creates the Adullamites — Passage of Gladstone with Buhver-Lytton — "Gradual Flesh and Blood" — The Opposition is Aggravated — The Easier Recess — Demonstration at Liverpool and Gladstone's Speech — John Bright's Clarion Cry — The People Rise iii Favor of the Bill — Lowe Returns to the Onset — His Speech again.st Reform — He Assails the Liber.nls — His Attack on Russell — He Excoriates Demagogues — He Improves Gladstone's Virgil — His Peroration — Effectiveness of the Speech — Disraeli Appears for the Opposition — Gladstone Rallies in Belialf of the Bill — He Replies to Disraeli — Refers to his Early Publication — Defends the Liberal Party — Predicts a Victorious Outcome — Closeness of the Vote on the Second Reading — Frenzy of the Tories and the Adullamites — Gladstone's Calmness — He Goes Forward with his Scheme — The Redistribution Bill — The Two Measures as One — Dunkellin's Amend- ment is Adopted — Overthrow of the Russell Ministry — Accession of Lord Derby — The New Premier Proceeds Cautiously — Great Demonstrations in Favor of Reform — The Radical Oralore in High Feather — Hyde Park Meeting and Riot — Toryism Experiences a Change of Heart — Disraeli as the Asian Mystery — He Must Face the Situation — He Becomes a Refoimer — P'irst Measures Proposed by Him — The Liberals Rally against his Scheme — A Bill is Proposed and Presented — W^o Anol/icr Bill — The Real Bill is Presented — Astonishing Nature of ihis Business — Disraeli Explains the Toi-y Reform Bill of 1S67 — The Francliise in Counties — Suffrage for all Graduaies — Property as a Limited Basis — Double Voting — Plan of Redistribution — V.'hat Boroughs Gained and What Lost — The Seven-Pound (Qualification — Taking the Wind Out of Liberal Sails — Gladstone's Policy with Respect to the Measure — The Liberal Propo-ition — Gladstone Proposes Amendments — Disraeli's Acceptance and Explanation of Conditions — Chaotic State '■f Affairs — Injustice to Gladstone — British Character Explained by the Situation — Hodgkinson's Amendment to the Bill is Accepted — Disraeli'.s Adaptability — Gain of Seats by Certain Boroughs — The House Goes Forward as It Will — Compliance of Disraeli — Good Logic of the Prime Minister— Bernal Osborne's Attack on the Ministry — Lord Cranbourne Resigns — He Denounces Disraeli's Policy — Passage of the Reform Bill — Action of the Lords — One Modification Effected— Lord Russell's Assault on the Scheme — Robert Lowe again Becomes Clamorous — The Commons Have their Own Way — Toadyism .\ccomplishes What Liber- alism had Failed to Do — Death of Lort the Home Rulers — The Tragedy of Phcenix 2 2 CONTENTS. Paik — A Great Sensation Follows — raniell in llie House of Common — Tlie I'.oar at Bay — Reaction against the Liberal Ascendency — Passage of tlie Crime> Bill anil Arrears of Rent liill — Dillon's Speecli on tlie Condition of Ireland — Gladstone's Argument on the Right of Eviction — Bad Eflects of the Recei.l Legislation — Outrages in Dublin — The Irish National League— Outbreak of the Ei^yptian War — Deportation of Arabi — El Mahdi and tlordon— The Weak Side of Gladstone's Character — He Atlemjits to Cope with the Situation— Question of Re- forming the Franchise— Abolition of the Agricultural Holdings Act — Introduction of the Franchise Bill — (Uad- stone's Address on that Measure — Discriminations in the British Suflrage — I'rejudice against Agricultural Labor — Provisions of the New Bill — The Question in the House of Lords— Shall the Commons be Prorogued ?— Denun- ciations of the Lords — The Bill in the Autumn — Passage of the Measure — The Redistribution Bill— General Re- sults of the Act — Troublesome Aspect Abroad — The Opposition Rides High — Hicks-Beach's Amendment— The Death Duties — The Government is Beaten — The Ministry Resigns — Gladstone's Letter to Albert Victor — Acces- sion of the Marquis of Salisbury — The Redistribution Bill is Passed — Even Results of the Election— Increase of the Home Rtde Contingent— This Party Necessary to Salisbury— Gladstone's Address to Midlothian— He Dis- cusses the Irish Question — Intimations of Political Cooperation — WPl Salisbury Promote Reform ?— Embarrass- ment of Both Parties — Question of Local Self-government for Ireland — Silence — The Queen's Address in lSS6 — Conservatism in the Ascendant — The Debate en the Address — The Issue Hangs Dubious— Government Gives Notice of Intended Legislation — Chamberlain's Declaration— CoUings's Amendment — Gladstone Supports the Proposition — Salisbury Falls and Gladstone Rises — " Three Acres and a Cow '' — The New Cabinet — Labor Tumults in Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park — Assaults on Gladstone and his Policy — He Excogitates a Scheme for Home Rule— .And Introduces the Home Rule Bill— His Famous Address— History of Conditions — Statistics of Crime — Preserving the Empire — Proposed Constitution of Government for Ireland — The Irish Parliament — The Viceroy — Great Interest in the Measure — Defections and Schisms— Introduction of the Land Purchase Bill — Defeat of the Home Rule Measure — Dissolution and Appeal to the Country — Gladstone's Address to Midlothian — Epoch of Gog and Magog— Triumph of the Conservatives— Gladstone Resigns and Salisbury is Recalled — Th^ Conservative Cabinet — Bei;inning of Coercive Measures — Gladstone Makes a Tour and Writes Two Pamphlets — He Analyzes the Recent Vote — Reaction in P'avorof the Liberal Policy — Jubilee of the Queen— The Poet Laureate Becomes a Peer — New Alignment of Parties — The Criminal Law Amendment Bill — Gladstone is Counted with the Home Rulers — Irish Land Bill of 18S7 — Balfour Attacks the National League— Gladstone's Opposition — Persecution of the Irish Leaders — " rarnellism and Crime"— The Forgery in the London Times — Parnell Brings Suit and Obtains a Verdict — Completeness of his Triumph — The O'Shea Divorce and Fall of Parnell— Gladstone's Course from iSSS to iSgi- His Eightieth Milestone— He Becomes the" W'oodchopper of Hawarden " — I'nabated Interest in Public Affairs — The Salisbury Administration — Tiiumph of the Reactionary Policy — Irisli Immigra- tion — Government with Rod and Cord — By-elections Favorable to the Liberals — Parnell's Altitude under Scan- dalous Assaults— Gladstone Assents to the Cant— Parnell's Last Struggle— Division of the Irish Party— Removal of Restrictions on Roman Catholics — The Veteran Statesman in the House — Waiting for a Reaction — Dissolution of Parliament and Triumph of the Liberals — End of the Salisluiry Government — Gladstone again Prime Minister — He Introduces the Second Home Rule Bill — A Great Hour in his Life — The Prime Minister Explains the Pending Measure — How the Irish Parliament Should be Constituted — The Peroration — The Home Rule Bill is Passed — Rejected by the Lords — The Reversal of Victory — Other Measures of the Session — Gladstone Resigns the Piemiership — Rosebery Accedes to the Place — Gladstone's Last Speech and Defiance of the Lords, - 559-^12 CHAPTER XXVII. Retirement .\M) I..\sr Vi;ars. The Going Forth of the Rivals — Scene where Beaconsfield De]iarted— Gladstone Says Nothing — His Physical and Intellectual Condition in 1S94— His Improvement in Health and Spirits — His Avocations and Places of Visi- tation— Gladstone's Home Life — Mrs. Gladstone and her Place in the Drama— Dorothy Mary Drew— The Poem AJ Dorothcam — Gladstone Does Not Forget the World — His Occasional Utterances on Great Subjects — His Address on Armenia— An Extract Illustrative — The Veteran's Last Communication to the House of Commons — He Speaks for the .\rmenians — Tlie Irish Question Revives — Gladstone vVrites a Public Note to the House of Commons— He \isits Kiel and Participates in the Dedication of the Baltic Ship Canal— His Great Influence — .-\t Hawarden He Continues his Attacks on the Ottoman Empire — Collap.se of the Rosebery .Ministry — The Armenian Question in Poetry — Gladstone's .\rticles on the "Future Life" — His Theses on Immortality — He Arranges his Papers and Prepares Material for his Biography — He Pleads for the Greeks against the Turks — His Facial Neuralgia — He Passes the Winter on the Mediterranean — Nature of his Malady — His Decline in the Spring of iScjS — He Faces the Ordeal — Event and Circumstances of his Death — Summary of his Life and Character. .......---.- 613-623 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PACE William Ewart Gladstone. . Frontispiece (iiuup of Illustrious Men Born in 1809. 27 Sir John Gladstone .... House in which Gladstone was Born Eton College and Cricket Cirounds . Cliristchurch College, O.xford Magdalen College, O.xford St. John's College, Oxford . \'ieu" of Mount ^-Etna William IV Scene at the Hustings in the Days of Open Elections .... Blackfriars Bridge, London . George Canning .... LVuiiel O'Connell Addressing his Coun- trymen ...... Queen Victoria, 1843. Coronation of Queen Victoria — .Admin- istration of the Sacrament. Cotton Mills, Manchester . Daniel O'Connell ..... Hawarden Castle .... Lord Macaulay (Photograph by Maull lV- Fox) The Strand and St. Mary's Church, Loniion ...... Sir Robert Peel ..... Corn Law .\gitation .... Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Consort ..... .Maynooth College .... 'riiomas Moore ..... Election Meeting in Ireland Scene during the Potato Famine . Tailpiece. ..... The jiresent Baron Rothschild Muster of the Irish at Mullinahone under Smith O'Brien, 1848 . -154 \\ illiam Smith O'Brien . . . 158 ]!. Disraeli in his Vouth . . .160 Lord Elgin ..... 165 31 33 39 43 47 51 59 ^3 69 72 77 85 88 90 92 lOI 106 121 126 131 '33 •37 142 145 147 148 '5- Spencer Horatio Walpole The Pirajus, Athens .... Lord Henry Brougham. Earl of Aberdeen .... Louis Napoleon Bonaparte , Duke of Wellington (From an original portrait by Salter) .... Funeral of the Duke of Wellington . William E. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer under the Earl of Aberdeen, age forty-two . Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the late Prince Consort .... Field Marshal Lord Raglan (Com- mander in Chief of the British Army in the Crimea) ..... Marshal A. J. J. Pelissier (Commander in Chief of the French Army in the Crimea) ...... Siege of Sebastopol .... The Fall of Sebastopol — Capture of the Malakhoff Tower .... 1. Before Sebastopol. The Redan from the Old AdvancedTrench, Julyi4, 1S55 2. The Battle of the Tchernaya. The Attack upon the Sardinian Picket, September 5, 1S55 .... 3. The ^'alley of Death. Before Sebas- topol, June 3, 1S55. Tailpiece ...... John Bright ..... Miss Nightingale in the Hospital at Scutari ...... Sir Edmund Lyons, G.C. B., Command- ing Squadron in Black Sea ; Sir Charles Xajiier, K.C.B., Commanding Baltic Fleet ; and Allied Naval Commanders The Allied Commanders of the Crimea (King of Sardinia, Lord Raglan. Mar- shal Pelissier, (ieneral Bosquet, Omar Pasha) ...... A G E 172 174 179 181 201 203 205 209 2 19 224 225 226 228 231 231 231 233 235 236 239 242 LIST OF ILLUSTKATIUNS. PAGE Lord Palmerston. .... 244 Lord John Russell. .... 249 Vienna Conference .... 251 The Peace Commemoration, 1S56 — The fireworks, Sketched from the Mall, in St. James Park ..... Sir Colin Campbell .... General Havelock Greeted by tlie Chris- tians whom he Saved Edward Geoffrey Stanley (Karl of Derby) William E. Gladstone, 1S59 (as Chan- cellor of the E.xchequer under Pal- merston) ..... Richard Cobden ..... Members' Lobby, Mouse of Commons Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy Tailpiece ..... Garibaldi Addressing the Italian Parlia ment ...... Gladstone in 1S64 .... John Stuart Mill .... I!al moral Castle ..... Conflict of the .\uthorities with Refoni League Demonstration, July 23, 1S66 Visit of Tithe Proctor in Ireland . The Irish Remedy — Emigration to .\merica ..... Gladstone Addressing the House of Commons. ..... Gladstone (for the first time Prime Min ister, December 4, 1S6S) Dickens, i86i. . . . . . 456 Capture of British Tourists by Greek Brigands ...... Ale.xander II, Emperor of Russia Sir John .\le.\ander .Macdonald, Premier of Canada ..... .\ Critical Question in the House . Prince of Wales ..... Views of Trinity College, Dublin (Col- lege Green, Viceregal Lodge, St. Ste- phen's Cireen, Trinity College, Chief Secretary's Lodge) .... Disraeli Entertaining the House with a Story Incident of Gladstone's Campaigning . Bishop of Canterbury Delivering an .Ad- dress at .Albert Hall .... 261 277 27S 283 290 294 296 .^,18 336 35 2 374 392 396 413 418 421 433 462 465 474 481 483 490 496 Sir William Vernon Harcourt AN'illiam E. Gladstone in his Study at Hawarden ..... William I, Emperor of Germany . Earl of Beaconsfiekl .... .\bdul Hamid-Khan II, Sultan of Tur- key ....... "Peace with Honor" (Return of Bea- consfiekl from the Berlin Conference). Victoria, Empress of India William E. Gladstone in 1S80 (Time of Midlothian Campaign) The Midlothian Campaign Fenian Disorders in Irehuul — .Utack on a Police Van ..... William O'Brien Fight between Land Leaguers and Police The Greenwich Memorial Chair. Distress in Ireland — Eviction of Ten- ants ...... Liberation of Prisoners from Irish Jails Cnionist Demonstration in Belfast. Joseph Chamberlain .... Robert Arthur Cecil, Marquis of Salis- bury. ...... Cireat Labor Parade in Trafalgar Square Introduction of Home Rule Bill — Gladstone's Peroration revision of the House of Commons on the Irish Home Rule Bill. The .-yes, 311. The Noes, 341 . Lord Randolph Churchill . Jubilee of Queen Victoria — Her .Majesty Arriving at Westminster -Arthur James Balfour .... Charles Stewart Parnell "The Woodchopper of Hawarden " Justin McCarthy. .... Election Scene of 1892 .... William E. Gladstone. For the fourth time Prime Minister .... The British Notion of an Irish Parlia- ment ....... .Archibakl Philip Primrose, Earl of Rosebery ...... Mrs. Gladstone (From a late photograph) William E. Gladstone and his Grand- dau.sjhter, Dorothy Drew . '.AGE 522 532 535 537 539 548 554 556 558 560 562 564 565 567 57° 580 q86 589 591 594 596 598 600 602 604 605 607 609 611 614 617 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. CHAPTER I. The Year 1809. N the year 1S09 the paint was still fresh on the only steamboat in the world. Thus far and no farther had proceeded the evolution of human passage by waterways and rivers. The means of destruction were scarcely greater than in the Middle Ages. In January of that year Sir John Moore, at Coruna, won his fatal victory over the French with flintlock muskets. The art of lite was still in its rudimentary stages. In Great Britain it cost fourteen pence to send a letter three hundred miles, and in the United States seven- teen cents for the same service. There was not an iron-barred tramway on the face of the globe. Men hoped to fly through the air, but had no e.xpectation of being propelled by a steam engine. In that year, after his sixty-sixth ascension, died Fran(,'ois Blanchard, hrst aeronaut to cross the English Channel. Perhaps in the farm sheds of the world there was not a single plow with iron or steel moldboard. The harvesters in the wheat fields of all countries, from Poland to the Alleghanies, cut their grain with sickles. The most rapid transit on earth or sea was the sailing vessel ; and that might be surpassed in speed, for short distances, by race horses. On the physical side the old civilization perpetuated itself. The industrial genius of man was displayed only in local enterprises and curious handi- cratts. The age of astounding invention and overwhelming material progress had not yet risen on mankind. Of general knowledge the conditions were in a correlative stage of development. In 1809 William Smith, the father of English geology, was preparing his earth-map of England and Wales — a work which became the foundation of all subsequent inquiry. On January 20 of that year William McClure read in Philadelphia his great paper on the " Geology of the United States," thus la)ing the basis of that science which was to destroy the old superstitious concept of the earth, and to make known to man the true character of the Lrlobe which he inhabits. 26 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTOXE. Our knowledge of the solar system at that date was limited to the orbit of Uranus. Neptune must lie far off for thirty-seven years, awaiting the genius of Adams and Leverrier to make him known. Four asteroids — Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta — had been discovered within the ten preceding years. These were supposed to constitute the whole group of fragmentary worlds between Mars and Jupiter. The scale on which the universe is built was as yet but vaguely conjectured. The constitution of the earth and of our atmospheric envelope was but little understood. .Sir Humphry Davy, just recovering from the long nervous fever with which he was prostrated on his discovery of sodium and potassium, was reaching out rapidly for the bottom elements of the natural world. It was three years before that horrible explosion in the F'elling collier}- led him to the invention of the safety lamp and the preservation thereby of the manufac- turing interests of Great Britain. The greatest telescope in the world was the twenty-foot reflector of the elder Herschel. Young Fraunhofer, at the age of twenty-two, still in the Institute of Munich, was experimenting with his lenses and prisms. Through. them, ten years later, was to come to him the revelation of the significant lines of the spectrum, indicating the fumla- mental unity and common plan of universal nature. The social and domestic condition of mankind was sufhcientlv sivrnihcant. Until within a year the slave trade had been openly practiced under the Constitution by the merchants of the United States. In Great Britain the system of servitude was still protected. In Demerara, Trinidad, and Jamaica the sugar plantations were worked by Negro slaves under the lash of the driver and the banner of St. George. In the home life of England the evolution had proceeded so far that there were those who doubted, and even disputed, the right of husbands to whip their wives as freely as they might whip slaves ; but such scoft'ers at the e.xisting order were few and without great influence ! The divorced wife in England, whatever might have been her own blamelessness or the horrid crimes of the husband that led to the separation, was positively interdicted from visiting or srcnio- her own children ! The remaining shadows of the Middle Ages reached out far into the domestic condition of all the civilized peoples of Europe and America. The civil and political state of the world was sufficiently significant. History had appointed France, and France had appointed Napoleon, to lead a supreme revolutionary campaign against the ancient order in Europe. At this time it appeared that the campaign was to be successful, and that the old rcgiinc was about to be extinguished. The monarchies of Europe were crouching close to the ancient walls, hoping that the storm might pass and that they might again emerge to sit on thrones and hunt in parks and gather beauty of doubtful reputation into courts where fashion reigned and virtue was not even remembered ! OHvcr Wendell Holmes. Kelix Mendelssohn. Abraham Lincoln. William Kwari Gladstone. Charles Robert Darwin. Edgar Allan Poe. Alfred Tennyson. GROUP OF IIJA'STKlol'S MF.N BORN IX I S09. 28 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM K. GLADSTONE. America, becoming automatic, still fluctuated with the disturbances and storms ot the mother continent. Our agitations, however, were like those of the sea on a shore far distant from the center of the storm. The Napo- leonic era was at its height. In that year was made the treaty of Bayonne, in which Napoleon declared the end of the Bourbon rule in the Spanish peninsula. The French ascendency was e.xtended from Gibraltar to the Niemen, and from the Strait of Messina to the Baltic. The Corsican established his brothers and other subordinates, gathered out of law offices and livery stables, in power over a dozen state.s. They were the fiovz hoviines of new Europe, and stood in willing league with the French empire, then five years old. For the time it appeared that the new order reached by revolution in America was confirming itself coincidentally with the e.\tinction of the old order destroyed by a revolution in Europe. On our side of the sea the third Virginian president, following the secontl of the same dynasty, acceded to the chief magistracy of the republic in the spring of 1S09. The counter currents of the British reaction in America and the Gallic sympathies of our people ran together throughout the old Thirteen States, and broke in long lines of foam and political agitation. The brief Federal ascendency in our politics was ended, and the moderate Democracy, impersonated in Madison and his Secretary of State, was the prevailing type of American politics. Jefferson had retired to Monticello. Hamilton was five years dead. John Ouincy Adams was Minister of the United States at St. Petersburg. Henry Clay had descended from the Senate to become the leader of the House of Representatives. The elder Adams was contributing to the Boston Patriot his letters in vindication of the policy of his unpopular administration. Children born at the time ot the funeral of Washington were completing their tenth year. In England Pitt and Fox were three years dead, and the British ministry was striving, by means fair and foul, to revive the continental coalition against the Emperor Napoleon. That conqueror, on the 6th of July in this year, fought his great battle of Wa^rram, and on the i6th of the followincf December divorced Josephine, in order to secure for himself an heir whose mother should be a Hapsburg. This volume is intended to show the life line of a great man drawn through the intricacies of the nineteenth century, beginning wnth the year 1809. The story is at once personal and historical. It is a life and a history. As it is personal, it suggests at the start the consideration of other personalities in relation to the great personality whose career is here de- lineated. The year of the birth of Gladstone was remarkable as the date of the beginning of a great number of personal forces in both Europe and America — forces which have interwoven themselves in a mao-ical manner with the intellectual, moral, and political woof of our era. Perhaps no other THE VEAK 1809. 29 year of this century lias given birth to such a prodig-ious array of human forces. It is well that the attention of English and American readers be directed to the brilliant galaxy of names whose possessors appeared on this earthly scene of action in the year 1809. Early in that year, namely, on the 12th of February, and coincidently on the same da)-, were born Charles Robert Darwin in England and Abra- ham Lincoln in America. The one was destined to emancipate the human mind from its traditional concepts of the natural history of life on our earth and to discover and expound the bottom principles of that magnificent biol- ogy which may almost be called the beginning of human knowledge. The other was destined in another sphere of great and beneficent activity to become, under historical causation, the emancipator of a race of slaves. While the one was to lift the mind of man to an orderly and sublime con- cept of the natural world, the other was to lift the political life of one of the greatest of peoples from the horrid quagmire of slavery and to establish the nation which he was called to rule in the days of trial on a new foundation of justice and equal rights for all. In this j-ear came Alfred Tennvson, the chief singer of the Vic- torian era, and Edgar Allan Poe, destined to leave a tremendous impress on American song. The one was to gather up the expiring light of the age of romantic poetry and to blend it with the refined and careless and sorrow- fringed poetry of the nineteenth century. The other was to look pro- foundly into the gloom of song, to see and describe weird faces in the dusk of hope, and to chant melodies all too few, born of the univen-al s|)irit, and nursed by his own somber and erratic genius. In this )ear came also Mendelssohn the Great, Hebrew b)- birth, and teaching his father to say : " Formerly I was the son of my father, and now I am the father of ni)- son !" 0\-er the confusion of the century his Ora- torios still rise. Though dying at the age of thirt\'-eight, his music reaches out to immortality. We ma}" not here enumerate all or e\en a majorit)" of the great names whose possessors came into the world with the )ear 1809. They were all the products of the revolutionary storms that preceded them. They were the progeny of violence and heroic action. Already, however, there had come to the fathers and mothers of these children of 1809 the beginning of peace and hope. The light of a new era was rising, when the travails of motherhood announced the awakening to life of this remarkable group of personages. One of the most distinguished of these great characters is the subject of this " Life and Times." We shall endeavor to follow with fidelity the lines of his career across the disturbed but hopetul drama of the tremen- dous century to which liu has belonged. 30 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE CHAPTER II. Ancestry and Boyhood. HE Gladstone ianiily is oi Scotch origin. The stock seems to have oriijinated in the country of Clyde. There was an estate '^ belonging to the family in Upper Clydesdale, and another ii> the town of Biggar, also in Lanarkshire. It was out of the Biggar branch that the subject of this memoir took his rise. The name of the family is found as far back as the sixteenth centurx, and more frequently in the old local documents of the seventeenth. The town records of the Clyde district are decked here and there with the transactions of men of this stock. One of the estates was called Arthurshiel ; and this was held by a member of the family named John, and was sold by him in 1680 to one James Brown, of Edmonstoun. The name of the family first occurs as Gledstanes, and afterward as Gladstanes, or Gladstane. Xot until about the middle of the eighteenth century do we find the name in its more recent form of Gladstone, and not until 1S35 did Sir |ohn Gladstone, acting under a royal lice use, yf/^rt//)' drop the terminal j' from the ancestral nomen. The analysis of the nomen shows the lowland Scottish word ^'/eti^, signifying a hawk, and s^a/ics, a dialectical variation for stones. Thus the original sense was the Hawk Stones ; and this doubtlessly embodied some unknown tradition of th'j family. Smith, in his Z//t' 0/ Gladstone, suggests that the name of the family may have reference to some custom connected with land tenure in Scotland in the Middle Ages. This is merely conjectural. The name Gladstanes is an example of the strange disposition shown among nearly all peoples to get their names into the plural form. It has required the force of literature to crystallize the majority of modern proper names and keep them in the singular form. There is, for example, a natural disposition among the folks to call members of the Wood family Woods, or those of the John family Johns, or those of the William family Williams. In the case before us the name was finally fixed in the English spelling of Gladstone, and the pronunciation gldd-sthn, with a strong accent on the first. In the early part of the eighteenth century, the Biggar branch of the family was represented by William Gladstane, who was a manufacturer of malt and a man prosperous in his household. His estate, on his death in 1728, descended to his oldest son John, then thirty-one years of age, who took up his father's business in Lanark. He died in 1756, transmitting a respectable property to his family of eleven children, of whom five were sons. ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD. SIR JOHN CLADSTOXE. From this time the history of the family is better known. John Glad- stane, third son of him who died in 1756, had the estate called Mid Toft- combs. He took in marriage Christian Taverner, and received with her a considerable property. She was of her husband's rank, bein;T of that mid- dle folk who constitute the bone and sinew of England. From this mar- riage we have a fourth son, Thomas Glad- stone (for the name now takes this form), who was born just after our Washington, namely, on the 3rd of June, 1732, and lived to the year 1809. In him the Gladstonian qualities be- gan to express themselves strongly. He was a man of vigorous constitution, preserving his powers to the ripe age of seventy-seven, anil lacking only a k\v months of witnessing the birth of that grandson who was to confer an imperishable luster on the ancestral name for all time to come. Thomas Gladstone also showed the pow- erful commercial instinct which has expressed itself in the thought and purpose of the family for more than a century and a half He also had an adventurous spirit, held in check by that same prudential and rational restraint which ever marked the career of the statesman. Thomas Gladstone left his father's house when he was still a boy, and went to Leith, where he became, on his own responsibility, a grain merchant of distinction. He chose for his wife Helen Neilson, of Springfield, and by her became the father of sixteen children, of whom twelve came to adult years. The familv instinct was strong upon him. The crowd that grew up around his hearth, instead of terrifying, only inspiretl him , and he was able in due time to push out all of his progeny into honorable and useful careers. The eldest son of this big group of hardy, practical Scotch-English children was John Gladstone, father of the subject of this study He was a native of Leith, and was born in 1763. It was the year of that treaty of Paris by which Great Britain obtained from France her vast territorial empire in America, and by which Spain gained, as if in trust for the possible republic of the United States, her almost limitless province of Louisiana. It was the thinl year of George HI, and the fortieth of Louis XV of F" ranee. John Gladstone, more than any of his predecessors, may be said to have created the fortunes of the family. He was a man of boundless but strictly practical activities. He began in business at first with his father at Leith, but was not destined to remain in that limited sphere. The work of a J2 LIFE AND TIMES OV WILLIAM E. (ILADSTOXE, maltster was too simple and small for his ambitions. He remained with his father, however, until he was twenty-one years of age, and was then sent in a tentative way with a shipload of grain to Liverpool. The consignee was a certain Corrie, a grain merchant of that city. Here the world opened to the younger Gladstone in wider vision than ever before. The commer- cial spirit possessed him. On the wharves of the Mersey he saw men as trees walking. The merchant, Corrie, at once discovered in the N'oung man the great qualities which he possessed ; and John Gladstone responded to the overture, and became an assistant in the establishment of Corrie and Company. In the scrapped-out biographies of John Gladstone an account is given of that event by which he first greatly distinguished himself in the commer- cial world. On a certain occasion, when the grain crops of luirope had failed and the supph" in Liverpool was corres[)ondingly short, John Gladstone was sent b\- the firm to the new United .States to purchase there and send back as cheaply as possible twenty-four shiploads of grain. He undertook his mission with confidence ; but on reaching New York and Philadelphia he found that there had been a short crop also on our side of the Atlantic, and that neither the accessible supply nor the price warranted the carrying out of his home instructions. To do so would be still further to involve the house which he represented. It was a case in which r(-sponsibility had to be taken. The twent\-four ships were waiting to receive their cargoes. With remarkably good judg- ment young Gladstone turned about and, by an examination of current prices of produce in America and in Liverpool, purchased and filled his ships with such articles as bore the largest profit, returned to Liverpool, and rescued his employers from impending bankruptc\-. He was thereupon made a member of the firm, under the title of Corrie, Gladstone, and Bradshaw. The business of this house was thrust out in many directions. In the course of sixteen years the gentlemen Corrie and Bradshaw retired, or were bought out by John Gladstone ; and the firm, by the admission of his brother Robert, became John Gladstone and Company. No other commer- cial house in the most commercial city of the world showed greater enter- prise. A trade was established with Russia, through the port of Riga. In the West Indies, and particularly in Demerara, trading stations were established. Gladstone was elected President of the West India Association of Merchants. The remaining five brothers at Leith left the ancestral city and came to Liverpool, where they established themselves in various branches of trade. A\"hcn the monopoly of the East India Company expired, in the year 1S14, a ship of the house of Gladstone was the first private vessel to reach Calcutta. At the close of the eighteenth centurv John Gladstone was thirtv-seven ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD. 34 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. years of age. His first wife died without children. Shortly afterward he took in second marriage Ann Robertson, daughter of Andrew Robertson, of Stornoway, and from this marriage are descended the family of four sons and two daughters, of which William Ewart Gladstone was the fourth and last of the sons. It should be remarked in this connection that the period just preceding the statesman's birth was that in which British commerce passed through the severest trial it has ever known. That commerce was the industrial expression of the naval supremacy of Great Britain. It was to destroy this supremacy that Napoleon did his utmost in establishing his system of Continental blockade. The declared motive of this system was to obliterate the commerce of England and to let her ships lie rotting on the sea. After Trafalgar it was the one great aim of Napoleon to ruin his enemy by shutting her out of the ports of Europe and America. All of this bore hard on such a merchant trader as John Gladstone, but it also tended to bring out the full force of his character. There were times, about the year 1807, when it seemed that the Napoleonic system would prevail. In a single year the commerce of Liverpool fell off by a hundred and forty thousand tons. In such an emergency the merchants besought Parliament to cancel such acts as the so-called Orders in Council, to remove the restrictions on neutral trade, and in particular to open the way for the restoration of commerce with the United -States and the ports of South America. Nor can it be doubted that had the petitions sent up to Parliament from the commercial cities of England been favorably entertained our second war with the mother country might have been obviated. John Gladstone, having become wealthy, became an important factor in the politics of Liverpool. He was a conservative, as are nearly all mer- chants of all countries ; for trade is timid, and money, the vehicle of trade, is more timid still. In the year 18 12, an exciting political contest was held in Liverpool, in which Henry Brougham and the Radical candidate Creevey were defeated by the Conservatives Canning and Gascoyne. The result was attributed in considerable measure to the influence of Gladstone, who was henceforth recognized as one of Canning's powerfr.l sujjporters. In course of time the rich merchant was himself made a member of Parliament, and then a baronet, by Sir Robert Peel, in 1845. He lived to the great age of eighty-eight, and died in the year 1851, living to see the premonitions of his greater son's ascendency in the political history of England. William Ewart Gladstone was born on the 29th of December, 1809. At the present time, all of the brothers and sisters except himself only have passed away. Captain John Neilson Gladstone died in 1863, and Robertson Gladstone in 1875. Sir Thomas Gladstone, Bart., died in 18S9. The ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD. 35 two daughters, Ann McKenzie and Helen Jane, remained unmarried to their death. The statesman exempHfies better than any of his brothers and sisters the great longevity of the family, as well as the extraordinary intel- lectual capacity and hardihood of the race. Wealth is one of the foundations of British society. The poor do not fare well in England. The sons of the poor in our ancestral islands, as well as the sons of the poor on the Continent, find a difficult emergence from the hard environment which poverty, with its consequent obscurity, draws around them. Only in times of revolutionary tumult do the poor emerge in any part of Europe. The Gladstone family by the first quarter of the present century had, by the enterprise and successful adventure of the merchant John Gladstone, become distinguished for wealth. There was no longer any question that the children of the baronet might receive the best education and obtain the best opportunities in life. We may mention here some efforts of the curious to connect the states- man with the nobility, and even the royalty, of England and Scotland. The family was, as we have said, of the middle class of the English. Nor does it appear that the Gladstones have themselves taken pains to find in their veins a strain of blood better than that of the common lot. It is claimed, however, that Andrew Robertson, of Stornoway, maternal grandfather of W^illiam Ewart Gladstone, was a descendant of Henry HI, and also in some complex way of Robert Bruce. The line upward to this great origin in- cludes Lady Jane Beaufort, queen of James I of Scotland, who was in the line of the Bruce. Sir Bernard Burke has made it tolerably clear that the ancestry of Andrew Robertson runs up to this marriage of Lady Jane to King James. Lucy, one of the biographers of the statesman, preserves a note written by William Henry Gladstone in the year iS8i, in which the writer says of his maternal grandmother, who was second daughter of Lord Braybrooke, that she was Mary Neville, through whom William Ewart Gladstone is connected with Lord Chatham, William Pitt, Lord Granville, and other notables of English history. Suffice it that, at the time of the birth of him who was so greatly to distinguish the ancestral name, the family of Gladstone, though of the middle class, had become distinguished some- what by remote and traditional kinship with the great, and much more by the honest acquisition of large wealth sufficient to remove from all the sons and daughters of Sir John Gladstone the necessity of personal exertion other than the stimulus of inborn ambitions, and all care as to the acquisi- tion of additional worldly fortune. Thus, within two days of the end of the year 1809, we contemplate the birth of William Ewart Gladstone, youngest of the four sons of John Glad- stone, Bart. It was the beginning, in the very crisis of the disturbed and chaotic era, of a personal force which was to reach across almost the entire 36 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. expanse of the greatest of the centuries, and to make itself distinguishable somewhat as an energy among the tremendous impulses of general causation. The very earliest impressions, other than the maternal, on the mind of the child Gladstone were those of commerce and politics. He was born in the very heart of the commercial world, at a time when the powerful forces of trade were extending into the political realm and beginning to modify in a large way the policies of States. We may thus discover, coincidently with the first stage of Gladstone's life, the reaction of the environment which sooner or later conduces in large measure to the character and am- bitions of every human being. Gladstone born under other conditions would have been some other than himself While heredity had prepared him, history had prepared his place. The conjunction of the two has given the great personal result which we discover in him who has been, without controversy, the first public man of Great Britain in our age. A few illustrative incidents have been preserved of the first years of this remarkable personage. When he was four years old he was taken by his mother to call on Hannah More. That distinguished woman gave him a little book, and he remembered the act and what she said to him — namely, that he had just come into the world, and she was just going out of it. This must have occurred in 1S13. In the following year the child was taken by his father to Edinburgh at a time when the guns in the castle were fired in jubilation for the capture of Paris by the allies ; it. was the first ab- dication of Napoleon. Gladstone to his old age remembered to have heard the windows shake when the great guns boomed. Other proofs of his precocious memory are related. He has told us himself that when he was still a babe on the floor he took notice of the odd pattern of his nurse's dress, and remembered it always. This may be re- garded as the farthest luminous point discoverable by him by the backward look into the otherwise total oblivion of infancy. In like manner he was able to remember a circumstance which occurred when he was but three years old. This was the uproar and jubilee of the inhabitants of Liverpool on the occasion of the ratification of the election of George Canning to Parliament, in the latter part of 1812. The house of John Gladstone, in Rodney Street, was illuminated on that occasion, and the tumult in the neiehborhood was so ereat as to excite the wondering interest of the child."' The statesman had also a distinct recollection of Waterloo, and was wont * The statesman, on liis seventieth birthday, addressing a delegation of Liveqraol people Who had gone to Hawarden to congratulate him, snid in a reminiscent way : " You have referred to my connection with Liverpool, and it has happened to me singularly enough to have the incidents of my personality, the association of my per- sonality, if I may so speak, curiously divided between the Scotch extraction, which is purely and absolutely Scotch as to every drop of blood in my veins, and, on the other hand, a nativity in Liverpool, which is the scene of my earliest recollections. And veiy early those recollections are ; for I remember, gentlemen, what none of you could possibly recollect : I remember the first election of Mr. Canning in Liverpool." ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD. 2i^ to tell how a Welsh girl who served in the ancestral home in Liverpool used to boast that the Welsh, a mil/ion strong, under Sir Williams Wynn, had gone over to Spain " to fight Boney ! " We may not forget in this con- nection that the boy Gladstone from the wharves of the Mersey might look across to the mountains of Wales, and that he gathered therefrom his first distinct impressions of natural scenery. Besides these few glimpses of the child life of Gladstone, for which we are indebted to his own memory, there is little or nothing to relate of his first years other than that he ate and slept and grew and came to the ao-e when his formal education must be undertaken. This was done when he reached his twelfth year. Already he had received from his mother the rudiments of knowledge. She was a Scotch mother, and the father was a Scotchman. That sufficed to insure strictness and conservatism and moral prudence in the Gladstone home. Those who have considered carefully the characters of the father and mother discover in the statesman a happy union of the best elements of each. Gladstone's robustness, his physical strength, his mental energy, love of affairs, business capacity, willingness to work out a large part of his life over budgets and estimates, and his healthy half-commoner blood came from his father, the merchant, the burgher, the municipal magnate turned prac- tical politician, the member of Parliament, and possible baronet. But the premier's sympathy, susceptibility to impressions, cool enthusiasm, willing- ness to progress, but only from untenable to more tenable ground, and in general his affectional and half-poetic dispositions were derived from the mother ; and to her formative hand and will he also owed his instruction in the rudiments of learning. It is not of record precisely to what point in his primary studies the boy had advanced when the age arrived for sending him away to school. The child was precocious to a degree. We know from absolute demon- stration that his abilities and attainments, even in early boyhood, were quite phenomenal. The broad-minded and discerning John Gladstone perceived the possibilities that were in his son's life and character, and became duly anxious to put in his way the best possible opportunities for education. There was a likelihood, rt:/'7'?<7;'/, that the cautious and deliberative merchant would make a conservative choice in the matter of a school so important to the methodical and successful development of his promising son. 38 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. CHAPTER III. At Eton and Oxford. HE first crisis in vounij- Gladstone's life came in the fall of 1821. After much deliberation the father chose Eton as the place for the first statre in academic traininof. Eton was the oldest and withal the strictest of those public establishments devised in mediaeval England for the scholastic training of boys. The Eton school was, and is, of almost world-wide fame. It was founded by Henry YI in 1441. The first building was erected at that date, and the school was opened in the following year. The little town of Eton is twenty-one miles west-southwest from London, on the bank of the Thames. The place is still, after the lapse of four and a half centuries, only a small town, having scarcely more than three thousand inhabitants. But for the school which has triven name to the locality its place on the map might be neglected. At the first. King Henry provided that his college should be supported with revenues derived from the priories which had been suppressed by his father, Henry V. Such was the beginning of those endowments which, augmented from many sources, have increased until they now greatly exceed a hundred thousand dollars per annum. In Gladstone's day the school of Eton was by no means what it has since become. It was in September of 182 1 that the boy was put there to undergo the discipline of youth. He was a strong, patient, and talented lad, deeply impressed with the importance of doing his best and of submit- ting to authority. He was destined to remain for si.\ years subject to the system of academic education then in vogue and to gain therefrom, in spite of its faults and tyrannies, much more than its logical valuation in results. We may say, once for all, that hardly anything could be further removed from the vital and vitalizing processes of a modern school than were the dry curriculum and disciplinary despotism of Eton at the close of the first quarter of our century. And we may add that few things could be more striking than the superiority in character, intellect, and purpose of the boy Gladstone to the average unambitious, flabby, albuminous youngster of our age about to enter college. It cannot fail of interest to note with some particularity the nature of the collegiate training to which the lad William E. Gladstone was now to be subjected. The subject has an independent value as well as a specific value in relation to him who was to become the leading statesman of Great Britain. The school. does not. make the man. The school is the product of a given age and condition, and that age and condition contribute also the AT ETON AND OXFORD. 39 j'outh without which the school would be naught. The question is, in view of these facts and principles, to determine in what way and in what degree the school influences its pupils, shapes their characters, and directs their growth and ambitions in the formative period of life. The school of Eton has had for several centuries a great name. It has for a lono- time stood at the head of the sub-colleoes of Great Britain. o c> We have noted the circumstances of the foundation. Oxford and Cam- bridge, as is well known, have each a group of colleges locally associated with the mother, and, so to speak, under her outspread wings. Eton differs from such colleges in being displaced and set in a sort of independent relation at a distance. The same is true of the similar schools of Win- chester and Westminster. In general the idea has been at Eton to prepare young men of the favored classes for the universities. At the beginning of this century, and perhaps to the present day, Eton inclines strongly to Oxford. When Gladstone was an Etonian the institution might be regarded as an Oxford feeder. But the ^•outh leavino- Eton, and beino- chosen for university promotion, might go to either university as he would. We fortunately possess a strong and trustworthy sketch of the general character ot the so-called " Royal School of Eton " at a date just subsequent ETON COLLEGE AND CRICKET GROUNDS. 40 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. to Gladstone's promotion therefrom to Oxford. In the Edinburgh Review for April of 1830 may be found an article, written, as we believe, by Macvey Napier, at that time editor of the powerful quarterly, giving a history in outline and a critique of the Eton school. From this we are able in fancy to revisit the institution and to study its curriculum and discipline as they were at the time when the future premier of England, from his twelfth to his eight- eenth year, was a student there. The fundamental and almost the only object in the course of study was to make the boys — who must be at the date of their entrance between eight and sixteen years of age, and have been " born in England of lawfully married parents" — proficient in the Latin and Greek languages. The contemporary reviewer says : " The only subjects which it is professed to teach are the Greek and Latin languages, as much divinity as can be gained from construing the Circck Testament and reading a portion of Tomline on the TJiirty-nine Articles, and a little ancient and modern geography." The school was divided into an upper college and a lower. The upper consisted of four classes, or forms, and the lower of two classes, making six in all. There would be thus a large excess of students in the upper college. \\\ the lower college there would be only the boys of the first two forms; but these forms would be more largely attended than the others — being first. In the year 1829 the upper college had three hundred and nineteen students, and the lower two hundred and ninety-three. The students, viewed as a whole group and without respect to the classes in which they were distributed, were divided into two groups, the first of which was designated as king's scholars, or collegers, and the other as oppidans, or town boys. The collegers had superior advantages, for they were maintained gratui- tously. They were distinguished from the oppidans by a uniform. They had a different residence in the town and school from that assigned to the commoners, and were, indeed, the undergraduate aristocracy of the insti- tution. The text-books in use at Eton were as follows : i. An Introdiiction to tJie Latin Tongtce; for the use of youth. 2. Rudiments of Greek Gram- mar; for use in the Royal School of Eton. 3. Greek Authors; for use in the Royal School of Eton. Being a collection of extracts from the Greek historians, prepared by one of the masters of the school. 4. Roman Authors; for use in the Royal School of Eton. Being a collection from the Latin writers in the same style as the preceding. 5. Greek Poets; for use in the Royal School of Eton. A compilation of extracts. 6. A Cotnparative Atlas of Ancient and Modern Geography; for the use of Eton school, to which there was an index. 7. The Greek Nezo Testameiit; for occasional reading. 8. Bishop George Tomline's Treatise on the Thirty-nine Articles of the Chjirch of England. ETON AND OXFORD. 4 1 Such was the course of study in that institution which, in the year 1830, had the reputation of being the first undercollege in the United Kinedom ! In it all there was not a singrle trace oi natural science. Neither physics nor chemistry is heard of. Neither botany nor astronomy in the most rudimentary and descriptive forms is found even by suggestion. The whole history of mankind and of institutions is virtually omitted ! The readings from the Greek historians were so fragmentary as to give no gen- eral and continuous account of the classical nations. The readings were had for linguistic discipline, and with hardly any respect to history. No account of literature or of any of the politer humanities was to be found in the course. Of mathematics there was not the slightest trace ! There was neither logic nor rhetoric ; neither mental philosophy nor moral ; neither criticism nor modern languages; neither knowledge of man nor study of natural phenomena from the beginning to the end. Even the desultory linguistics were studied out of all relation with human development and progress ! The Edinburgh reviewer mves the followintr account of what was done day by day in Eton school at the time when Gladstone was a student there: " In a common week there Is one whole holiday, on which no school business Is done ; but every boy Is required to go twice to chapel ; one half- holiday on which there are two school-times and one chapel ; and on Satur- day there are three school-times and one chapel. On each of the three other days there are four school-times, three of which last respectively for three quarters of an hour; the other has no fixed length, but probably aver- ages for each boy about a quarter of an hour. The school-times would therefore amount to less than eleven hours in a week. The boys are, how- ever, expected to come prepared into school ; so that some time Is occupied In previous study, and every boy hears the lesson construed at his tutor's house before he appears in school." The writer goes on to estimate that in a week a youth In the fifth form would have to read about seventy lines of the ///ad, the same amount of the y£ne/(/, two or three pages from his book of selections called the Greek Writers, and a like quantity from the Roman Writers, thirty or forty lines from the Greek Poets, and twenty or thirty verses from one of the Gospe/s /n Greek or from the Acts of t/ie Apost/es. All the poetry which was to be construed had to be learned by heart. Once a week there was a lesson from the Greek grammar ; and also a selection from Ovid or Tibullus. There must be one exercise In Latin prose ; a Latin poem of as many as twenty verses, and another lyric of five or six stanzas. It was from such a course as this that the discipline of an Eton boy was to be obtained three quarters of a century ago. The reviewer whom we are here following next takes Into consldera- 42 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIA>t E. GLADSTONE. tion the text-books of Eton, and finds them to be of the poorest quahty. He says that they "are marked by almost every fault under which such treatises can labor. They contain much that is useless and much that is in- accurate ; they exclude much that is highly useful; they are written without a proper arrangement and harmony of parts ; the rules are not precise, the examples are ill chosen ; and a large part of the Latin and the whole of the Greek orammar is written in Latin." The writer eoes on to call attention to the particular errors and. imperfections with which the texts were dis- figured. The book designated as the Greek Poets contained some short extracts from Homer and Hesiod; a few idyls and epigrams ; extracts from Callimachus, Apollonius, and Bion. The selections were not arranged in chronological order or in accordance with any other rational principle ; and the biographical sketches and notes were short and unsatisfactory. The col- lection of Greek prose writings was of about the same compass and charac- ter, as was also the book of selection from writers in Latin prose. The best opportunity furnished anywhere in the course for some glimpses of real human history was furnished in the extracts from Livy. We may note in the next place two of the prevailing customs at Eton in Gladstone's day — customs which were to hold their own against all humanity for many years afterward. These were fagging and flogging. The boys of the first two classes might be fagged by the young fellows of the up- per forms. Indeed, all the boys on entering the institution were put into a fag; that is, into a company of a dozen or more like themselves, who must do the bidding of the upper-class group to which the particular fag or class was assigned. The slavery and shame of the system could hardly be de- scribed. The boy below was the servant of the boy above. The upper- class student might do almost as he would with his servant. The tasks which were assicj-ned to a faof were humiliatingr and severe, and to this was added all manner of abuse and brutality. The wonder remains that any aspiring and proud lad could have been subjected to so degrading a system and yet preserve a show of manly character. Of course the tables were soon turned by those who were the victims of fagging. When they reached the upper forms, they themselves became the tyrants. It was then their opportunity to be avenged by exercising the same sway over the new students that had been wielded over themselves. Human nature is always the same, and the servant makes a hard master. Eton offered no prizes. It offered no stimulus to ambition. It prom- ised nothing unless it was promotion to the University. And such promo- tion was not made on any basis of merit, but simply on seniority. Those who had been longest at Eton might be promoted in certain numbers, and who the favored w^ere was determined by lot. Young fellows might thus remain at the school until they were twenty-two years of age. ETON AND OXFORD. 43 CHRISTCHURCH COLLEGE, OXFORD. But If there was no noble motive before the student, there was enoueh compulsion behind ! The discipline was by hogging. The students were flogged for every kind of offense. It was the common method of punish- ment. In case any boy was derelict he was stripped to his back and flogged with a leather strap. The flogging was done by the head master of Eton, and the amount of exercise which he had in this work made him an expert. It was not only the new beginners and younger boys who were flogged, but all alike were amenable to the punishment. Young fellows who were well along in their teens were publicly stripped and whipped in the prescribed manner. At the time when the boy Gladstone was at Eton there were ap- proximately six hundred lads in attendance, and probably no day went by without the customary flagellations.* It was into this inane and barren realm of study that Gladstone was * Wliipping was the order of the day. John Delaware Lewis is authority for the statement that on one occa. sion an upper-class man, twenty years of age, who was about to take in marriage a young lady of Windsor and was completing his last work at school, came one evening late to the house of his tutor. For being late he was severely flogged by the head master, Goodford. On another occasion eighty boys were at one time barred out for being tardy, and all were soundly whipped, .\mong the number was a lad who entered the militar)- service, rose to distinction, commanded in the Peninsular war, and, slanding under a tree near Mont St. Jean on the iSth of June, 1S15, g.ive the command, " Up, guards ! and at them! " 44 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. introduced four months before completing his twelfth year. It was this course of instruction and discipline that he must undergo. Fortunately he was enabled by his father's influence with the Duke of Newcastle to be- come a colleger, that is, a king's scholar. This gave him some importance, and doubtless exempted him in a degree from the grosser abuse to which the oppidans were subject. The likelihood of his succeeding as a student certainly lay wholly within himself Out of the Etonian curriculum as little might be expected as is indicated in the last article which we shall quote from the Edinburgh reviewer : " The consequence," says he, " of this desul- tory mode of reading desultory books is that when an Etonian goes either to Cambridge or to Oxford and is questioned as to the extent of his studies, he can only answer that besides Horace and part of Virgil and the Iliad he has read nothing. He has not read a single book of Herodotus, or Thucyd- ides, or Xenophon, or Livy, or Polybius, or Tacitus; he has not read a sin- gle Greek tragedy or comedy, he is utterly ignorant of mathematical or phys- ical science, and even of arithmetic ; the very names of logical, moral, or political science are unknown to him. Modern history and modern lan- guages are of course out of the question. Is it creditable to the largest and most celebrated public school of England that such should be the result of five or six years' residence, at an age when childhood is past and the mind is capable of developing its powers .''" It was therefore in the boy Gladstone, and not in his school, that the promise of greatness resided. We should note, however, that there were a few extraneous and incidental conditions at Eton that were favorable alike to strength of body and growth of mental power. In the matter of athletic sports little was left to be desired. There was back of the establishment of Eton a large area of open field where the boys might play in their rough English fashion, and where the struggle for mastery might always be wit- nessed. There on the other side flowed the river. Both the field and the river constantly invited the six or seven hundred young fellows poured out from the confines of their scholastic keep to contest with each other with racket and oar for superiority and fame. More important, however, than the opportunities for physical develop- ment at Eton were certain independent institutions that grew up perhaps amonsf the students themselves. One of these was the Union Debatinsr Society, in which Gladstone would, out of the nature of the case, distinguish himself Another was the Etonian periodicals that were devised from time to time as a possible vent for the literary aspiration of the young fellows at school. One such manuscript journal was called Apis Matina, or the Morning Bee. This was established by Winthrop Mackworth Praed in 1820. The Bee was soon, however, converted into the Eto7iian, the last number of which was issued two months before Gladstone entered the ETON AND OXFORD. 45 school. Then came the Eton Miscellany, in the originating of which the future statesman had a good part. The editor was Bartholomew Bouverie, but young Gladstone wrote much more of the periodical than he. Smith, in his Life of Gladstone, has preserved an extract from the introduction to the Miscellany, which was written by the young man during the latter part of his stay at Eton. The aspirant to journalistic fame says : " In my present undertaking there is one gulf in which I fear to sink, and that gulf is Lethe. There is one stream which I dread my inability to stem, it is the tide of popular opinion. I have ventured, and no doubt rashly ventured — ' Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, To try my fortune in a sea of glory. But far beyond my depth.' At present it is my hope alone that buoys me up ; for more substantial support I must be indebted to my own exertions, well knowing that in this land of literature merit never wants its reward. That such merit is mine I dare not presume to think ; but still there is something within me that bids me hope that I may be able to glide prosperously down the stream of public estimation, or, in the words of Virgil, 'To hasten the journey with a prosperous report.'" It was, doubtless, the opportunity which he found at Eton to write and to speak that led him subsequently, far down the journey of life, to say in a lecture to the Etonian boys : " My attachment to Eton increases with the lapse of years. It is the queen of schools." The Eton Miscellany flourished during the greater part of Gladstone's years at school. He was the most prolific writer in the college paper. Thirteen contributions from him are pointed out in the first volume. He had friends and competitors. One of these was Arthur Henry Hallam, son of the English historian, one day to become the subject of In Mcnioriam. Another was George Augustus Selwyn, born in the same year with himself, afterward Bishop of New Zealand, who was his most intimate companion at school. Of him the statesman has recorded the highest estimate. " In him- self" says he, "he formed a large part of the life of Eton, and Eton formed a large part of his life. To him is due no small share of the beneficial movement in the direction of religious earnestness which marked the Eton of forty years back, and which was not, in my opinion, sensibly affected by any influence extraneous to the place itself. At a moment's notice upon the call of duty he tore up the singularly deep roots which his life had struck into the soil of England." It is at once amusing and highly instructive to note the efforts of these two ambitious friends to make themselves known in the college journal. There was a correspondence column in the paper where the contributors threw a free lance at many things. How hardly, withal, could an)- lance be 46 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. called free that was hurled from the precincts of a college where geometry was not taught, where no one understood F"rench or German, and where biolog)' was unknown even by name ! But free thought, like all things else, is a relative term. The young men at Eton, no doubt, tlioiiglit they had it, and thinking goes far to make things so, even in a question of mental servitude. The correspondence column in the Miscellany was called "The Postman." Young Gladstone's nom de phime was Philophatitastn — a term which, if it signify anything, seems to imply that the youth, according to his own thinking, was pursuing something elusive, as it were an igiiis fatiiiis. His contributions were not lacking in point. His style, however, was always large and open, tor th;it manner is best in politics. The Gladstonian style, even from the boyhood of the statesman, though it was generally perspicuous, lacked in terseness. One of his Philophan- tasm articles recounts an adventure which the writer had with the poet Vergil. When the youth met the antique shade the latter was reciting Latin verses, but they were so different in sound and rhythm and measure from what was heard at Eton that the young visitant could not understand the poet. Vergil, moreover, complained that the Etonians preferred Horace to himself, and sent a request to the authorities that the ^^Eneid might be occasionally quoted by the faculties and students. Not without wit the writer makes Vergil say at the close of the interview, " I know the Eton boys hate me because I am difficult to learn ! " Here, then, was a small vent for youthful genius. Of course English literature was ignored, but the classical was in vogue. Anon we find young Gladstone translating into verse a chorus from Euripides. On another occasion he gives us a " View of Lethe," a sketch in jDrose, displaying but little invention, but revealing one of Gladstone's sentiments which bore strongly in his youth, namely the fear that he himself, coming to naught, would be forgotten. The desire to live in the annals of one's age, if it be intense, is on the whole a more enercretic form of ambition than the huno-er for passing applause or any lust of power. Gladstone was now in the stage of poetical adolescence. Nearly all young men pass through this current of ether as the planet of boyhood fol- lows its prescribed orbit. It is a kind of early spring of sentiment and fancy. Gladstone fixed his attention on the oblivious river of the underworld, and imagined that he contemplated immersion therein with the greatest dread. Such sentiments, though wholly fictitious in themselves, are quite real to the possessors who beguile themselves with the thought that it is a great thing to be remembered or forgotten. In the case of young Gladstone, he views the matter somewhat objec- tively. He sees men and their works about to perish in Lethe, and is able to discover the humorous aspect of the struggle to escape from the stream ETON AND OXFORD. 47 of forgetfulness. " I was surprised," says he, " even to see some works with the names of Shakespeare and Milton on them sharing the common des- tiny; but on examination I found that those of the latter were some polit- ical rhapsodies which richly deserved their fate ; and that the former con- sisted of some editions of his works which had been burdened with notes and mangled with emendations by his merciless commentators. In other places I perceived authors worked up into frenzy by seeing their own compositions descending like the rest. Often did the infuriated scribes extend their hands, and make a plunge to endeavor to save their beloved offspring, but in vain. I pitied the anguish of their disappointment, but with feelings of the same commiseration as that which one feels for a malefactor on beholding his death, being at the same time fully conscious how well he has deserved it." One important inference may be drawn from this extract. It is the cheering fact that Shakespeare and Milton were not wholly unknown at Eton ! We see from what the young man writes that the aspect of the cur- rent world has been reflected by some process into the inclosure, and that the Etonians were not unaware that English literature existed and that even newspapers are a part of the apparatus of human intercourse. We are thus able to read between the lines of the inane linguistics of Eton to better forms of culture than could be discovered in the mere logical examination of the curriculum. The range of things to be imitated at Eton was narrow, and the sum MAGDALEN COLLEGE. OXFGRD. 48 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAiM E. GLADSTONE. of things taught was insignificant; but opportuntiy was there — as every- where. Gladstone produced one poem at this time of two hundred and fifty verses which strongly reflects the passing culture of the school. His sub- ject is Richard Coeur de Lion, but the manner and matter might be re- garded as a boy's effort to render Homer in the style of Pope. The rhym- ing couplets of the youth, however, are pervaded with the spirit of Dryden, rather than the Augustan finish of Pope's method. The whole thing is in the vein of King Cambyses, but is nevertheless fairly well done for a boy. Fixing his eye on the Lion Heart, he says: " Who foremost now the deadly spear to dart, And strike the javelin to the Moslem's heart .' Who foremost now to climb the leaguered wall. The first to triumph, or the first to fall ? Lo, where the Moslems rushing to the fight, Back bear their squadrons in inglorious flight. With plumed helmet, and with glittering lance, 'Tis Richard bids his steel-clad bands advance ; 'Tis Richard stalks along the blood-dyed plain, And views unmoved the slaying and the slain; 'Tis Richard bathes his hands in Moslem blood, And tinges Jordan with the ]nirple flood. Yet where the timbrels ring, the trumpets sound, And tramp of horsemen shakes the solid ground, Though 'mid the deadly charge and rush of fight, No thought be theirs of terror or of flight, Ofttimes a sigh will rise, a tear will flow, And youthful bosoms melt in silent woe; For who of iron frame and harder heart Can bid the mem'ry of his home depart? Tread the dark desert and the thirsty sand, Nor give one thought to England's smiling land.* To scenes of bliss, and days of other years — The Vale of Gladness and the Vale of Tears ; That, passed and vanish'd from their loving sight. This 'neath their view, and wrapped in shades of night.'" With his progress as an Etonian, Gladstone became more and more active and prolific. He was from a boy addicted to composition. We may contemplate his pride on seeing himself in print. In the latter years of his stay at Eton his friends and competitors in a literary way were Hallam and Selwyn. He wrote and published more than either of these rivals. His con- tributions in the second volume of the Eton Rliscellany number seventeen. For the most part he wrote prose ; but occasionally displayed his powers in verse. If Hallam contributed a poem on "The Battle of the Boyne," Gladstone followed with an " Ode to the Shade of Wat Tyler." There is another extant example of his work, called " Guatemozin's Death Song." ETON AND OXFORD. 49 Certainly such compositions were not great poems; probably not poems at all ; but they exhibited a large measure of ability in versification and ver- sified eloquence. Probably his greatest prose contribution at this epoch was entitled " Eloquence." In it we are able to discover the embryonic statesman and leader of Parliament. Of course all aspiring young English- men think of getting into the House of Commons, and the more ambitious look to a possible place in government. Young Gladstone's paper shows that his mind was thoroughly occupied with the hope of public life and leader- ship. He describes the entrance of a young man into the Commons, his trials there, his possible triumphs, his rise to leadership, and his station among the great. The names of the popular leaders of the day are cited in the usual manner of young men, one of whose fallacies it is to be always supposing that if they themselves ever come to leadership it must be in the likeness and by the measure of somebody else ! Amongf those whom Gladstone had in mind was, first of all, Georcje Canning. We have seen how this statesman had impressed himself on the father of our subject on the occasion of the Liverpool election, in 181 2. Canning furnished the Etonian aspirant with one of his models in the essay entitled "Ancient and Modern Genius Compared." It may surprise us to note that in this paper Gladstone espouses the cause of the moderns. We should have expected the other. Fathered and educated as he was up to this point of his career, he could hardly be expected to allow that there was anything superior except in the past. By every consideration a priori the young man was a Tory absolute. Nevertheless he took the side of modern genius, and awarded to it the palm. In this fact we may discover one of the great qualities of his life. That life was a growth out of conservatism, illiberalism, Toryism, reactionism, into progressive, though never audacious, liberalism and progress. That is the summation of the Gladstonian career. Canning died in August of 1827, about the time that Gladstone left Eton. The event produced a deep im- pression on Gladstone's mind, and one of his papers contains a glowing trib- ute to his ideal statesman. Another whom he admired and emulated was Lord Robert Stewart Castlereagh, who had died five years previously. Others were Lord Morpeth and Edward Geoffrey Stanley, who had been in their time members of the debating society of Eton. The usual error of young judgment is seen in the comparison which Gladstone makes between Canning and Pitt — as though those two statesmen had been of approxi- mately the same magnitude and momentum. In the conclusion of the pan- egN'ric on Canning, the young writer says: " Surely if eloquence never excelled and seldom equaled — ^if an expanded mind and judgment whose vigor was paralleled only by its soundness — if brilliant wit — if a glowing imagination — if a warm heart and an unbending 4 50 LIKE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLAUSTUNE. firmness — could have strengthened the frail tenure, and prolonged the mo- mentary duration of human existence, that man Canning had been immor- tal I But nature could endure no longer. Thus had Providence ordained that inasmuch as the intellect is more brilliant, it shall be more short-lived; as its sphere is more expanded, more swiftly is it summoned away. Lest we should give to man the honor due to God — lest we should exalt the object of our admiration into a divinity for our worship — He who calls the weary and the mourner to eternal rest hath been pleased to remove him from our eyes. . . . The decrees of inscrutable wisdom are unknown to us; but if ever there was a man for whose sake it was meet to indulge the kindly though frail feelings of our nature — for whom the tears of sorrow were to us both prompted by affection and dictated by duty — that man was George Canning." One may easily discern in these youthful effusions of Gladstone the evidences of his intellectual manner and development Already in this eulogy of Canning we note the premonitions of that style — rather large and ample, flecked with Latin and turning political-phraseward — which the statesman was destined to employ through so many decades in his writings and discourses to his countrymen. The writer was now well on in his eighteenth year. His course at Eton ended in the latter part of 1827. He had achieved an enviable reputation at Eton school, where the tradition of it remains to this day. His attainments in the curriculum were first-rate. In spite of the poor linguistic apparatus, he had become well versed in the Greek and ^Latin classics. Not that his readings were ample and thorough in the works of the great Greeks and their Roman imitators ; but he had become expert in those parts of classicism which he had been able to reach. On leaving Eton, he was fairly well trained in the lore of the Hellenic and Latin races. His mind was deeply impressed with the myth and tradition of those races. His orthodox training in religion had been strengthened and confirmed while at school. He was a typical Church-of-England young man, doubting not at all the absolute correctness of the great Episcopal establishment and the inerrancy of the doctrines and practices of which it was the conservator and visible expression. Any notion of Gladstone's life taken as a whole which does not include as one of its dominant elements the strong religious conservatism and content of the man is thoroughly in- adequate and incorrect. For about two vears after leaving Eton, William E. Gladstone assigned himself to the care of Dr. Turner, afterward Bishop of Calcutta. The rela- tion was a private one. Turner was a man of erudition, according to the standard of the Church of England. He was precisely the kind of an in- structor to carry forward the education of the graduate Etonian in the pre- scribed line, and to fit him for admission to the universitv. Thither he was ETON AND OXFORD. ST. JOH.N'S COLLEGE .AND BRIDGE, O.KKORD. now tending. We have no exact information respecting the method pur- sued by Turner with his student ; but we know that the instruction now in- cluded mathematics and the evidences of Christianity. For these branches as well as languages and philosophy were required for admission to O.xford. That most ancient of the English universities was now selected by his father and himself for the completion of his academic training. Christ Church College was chosen as the particular establishment. This institution was at the time the heart of the British conservatism. Here the ancients were praised as against the moderns. Here the past was believed in as against the distrusted present and dangerous future. Here the old and mediseval circle of scholasticism was followed around and around with as little deviation as possible. Here Toryism in politics and orthodoxy in re- ligion were inculcated as the very foundations of society. It was j)roper enough that a young man proceeding from the household of a conservative, cautious, slaveholding merchant in Liverpool, assigned for si.x years to the rigid and barren nursery of Eton, drawing from her dry breast whatever of life he could, and placed afterward in tutelage under a scholastic rapidly becoming a bishop of the Church, should now enter Christ Church College to be finishrd in all those elements of character and purposes of life which 52 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. looked to the one supreme end of maintaining the existing order and making it as good as the past. It might be — as it was — the place above all others to make a conservator, an apologist, an upholder of the ancient regime, a defender of the faith and of all the abuses and despotisms of British society as it was in 1829 ; but it was least of all the place to make a reformer and progressive statesman. The intermediary period in young Gladstone's life, reaching from 1827 to 1829 — that is, almost to the completion of his twentieth year — is a little obscure as to facts, but was certainly filled with close application and pro- nounced advancement. In the last-named year he entered Christ Church College, Oxford, and became a student " on the foundation ; " that is, at the charge of the university endowment. Few young men have within our cen- tury or at any time ever taken to the chosen university a sincerer purpose and deeper motive than prevailed with Gladstone. Scarcely had he en- tered the university when he became distinguished for his ability and robust character. He entered freely into the intellectual and moral life of the college, and was soon regarded as a leader. The avenues of inquiry opened in several scholastic directions that had hitherto been closed to Gladstone. He might now engage in metaphysical inquiry. The classical languages no longer absorbed his whole time and energies. There was opportunity for general reading, for rhetoric, for logic, for criticism, for translation, for improvement in composition, and for debate of those questions which were then paramount in England. Up to this time, however, no professorship in modern languages had been established at Oxford — a circumstance attesting in a striking manner the predominance of the old intellectual life of mankind over the new, and the really provincial character of the Oxonian learning. Gladstone's residence at the university covered a period of two years — 1829-31. Considering his age and opportunities, we may allow that he expanded at this period more rapidly than ever before. There was at the institution an organization known as the Debating Society, or Oxford Union. Though intended in the first place for students about to become lawyers or clergymen, it was nevertheless open to all who would avail them- selves of its advantages. The young politician might there, as well as any other, try his powers. The Union was of so large and important a charac- ter as to be second only to the college itself in the advantages which it afforded. In this respect the society had the same value that all like organ- izations have had in connection with universities, from those of the Middle Ages in Italy down to the frontier institutions of America. Within the last quarter of a century, the changed and changing manner has operated to un- dermine the debating unions and open literary societies of the universities in both Europe and the United States, a fact to be deeply deplored by all ETON AND OXFORD. 53 who understand the merits and true purpose of a robust and aggressive col- leoe training. It is hieh time for all lovers of universities to look around and discover the causes of deterioration and decay when the debating society gives way, as it has virtually done in America, to the dilettantism and dapper insipidity of the fraternity hall and smoking club. Gladstone entered fully into the life of Oxford. He adopted without hesitation the Toryism and orthodoxy of the institution. It might be seen from the first that he was there for acquirement, for leadership, for honor. He entered into the Debating Union, penetrated the libraries, made the ac- quaintance of the leading young men of the United Kingdom, heard their talk, and talked and wrote himself His urbanity and application and unim- peachable morals made him a young man of mark. He was a Churchman, a politician, a student, all in one. He started with the assumption that the middle ground is the true place of vantage and virtue in all things. The O vidian maxim, Tutissimus in medio ibis, was adopted by him without ques- tion ; and the force of it to some extent remained with him through life. The time when Gladstone was a student resident at Oxford was an era of political stormcloud and tempest. The great reform movement was on. The division was sharp between the old and the new. The profound ques- tions of reforming Parliament, of abolishing the abuses of the old borough system, and of ending slavery in the colonies of Great Britain were on in full force. While at Cambridge the reformatory impulse was in the ascen- dant, at Oxford conservatism was predominant. The Whig and the Tory, the progressive and the conservative, the defender and the reformer, clashed in every place. Many of the young men afterward distinguished in the political history of England were at this time in the universities. The phrase goes that what college students debate will presently be the issues of society. In the Debating Union of Oxford were gathered the leading spirits from three or four of the colleges. Baliol Avas there, and Oriel, and Christ Church. The meetings were held once a week. Generally the subject of discussion was drawn from the current politics and the conditions of society. Sometimes, however, the subject was literary and critical. On one noted occasion a debate was held between the representatives of the Cambridge Union and that of Oxford. A challenge was sent over to the latter university by the former, proposing to maintain the superior merits of Shelley over Lord Byron. The question rose high. Shelley had been expelled from Oxford ; and now that he was dead in a foreign land, and the British nation could no longer work itself into spasmodic virtue and indignation over the personal life of the poet, his merits came to be acknowledged, and his name a literary shibboleth at Cambridge. This was a red flag to Oxford. The debate was held at the latter university on the 26th of November, very soon after 54 hlVE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM K. GLADSTuNE. Gladstone's admission. One of the j-cpresentatives from Cambridge was Richard INIonckton INIilnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), who was exactly contemporary with Gladstone, having been born in the same year and being of even dates with him in entering and returning from the university. Hou'jhton in an address delivered at Cambridofe thirty-seven years after- ward says, speaking of the Shelley-Byron debate : " At that time we were all full of Mr. Shelley. We had printed his Adoiia/s for the first time in England ; and a friend of ours suggested that as he (Shelley) had been expelled from Oxford and been very badly treated at that university it would be a grand thing for us to defend him there. . . . We accordingly went to Oxford — at that time a long dreary post-chaise journey of ten hours — and were hospitably entertained by a young student of the name of Gladstone; who, by the by, has himself been since expelled." It is a sienificant circumstance that on this occasion Gladstone, who had only been at Christ Church College for about three months, represented his college in the reception of the deputation from Cambridge. His colleague on the committee was Mr. Manning of Oriel. In the debate that ensued the sentiment and arguments were quite overwhelmingly in affirmation of the superiority of Shelley over B\ron. The leading speakers were Francis Doyle, Mr. Manning (afterward the cardinal), Mr. Sunderland, Arthur Henry Hallam, and Monckton Milnes. It was the custom on such occasions to submit the question to a vote. This was done ostensibly on the merits of the argument; but no doubt the merits of the question, subjectively con- sidered, were held in mind by the voters. The vote in this case was for the Cambridge contestants by a majority of ninety to thirty-three. Gladstone himself did not speak. His rank in the Debating Union, ho\ve\er, was at once acknowledged. Within a year he was made secretary of the Society, and soon afterward president. These distinctions show that b}- the time of his majority (De- cember, 1S30), he was in the Oxonian swim, and was already buffeting the waves and tides with which he was to contend during the rest of his career. We note with interest the political questions that were debated at this time in the Union. One was, "Resolved, that the disabilities of the Jews should be removed." Another was, "Resolved, that the administration of the Duke of Wellington is undeservinsf of the confidence of the country." On the latter question Gladstone, then secretary of the Union, spoke with great force and persuasiveness. . He had the gratification of recording an affirma- tive decision, though the vote was only fifty-seven against fifty-six in the negative. In the case of another question proposed in a resolution con- demnatory of the administration of Earl Grey, Gladstone moved out boldly by offering a substitute in which we may discover the method and expres- sion which characterized many of his policies. ETON AND OXFORD. 55 His substitute was: "That the ministry of Earl Grey has unwisely in- troduced and most unscrupulously forwarded a measure which threatens not only to change our form of government, but ultimately to break up the very foundation of social order, as well as materially to forward the views of those who are pursuing this project throughout the civilized world." In this pronunciamento we note not only the merit, but the vices of the young- political leader, a part of whose art always is to persuade his countrymen that the policy of the opposing party is about to break up the foundations of society ! No doubt the debater on such an occasion half believes what he savs ; but the real significance of it is the construction oi 2in aro^umcntiini 211 tcrrorevi for political effect. It appears that Gladstone was able to carry all before him on his chosen propositions, for the vote of the Union was ninety-four in the affirmative to thirty-six in the negative. We note in the next place a still more striking example of the Glad- stonian character at this time. In it we discover too the vice of his educa- tion, and the utterly erroneous course in which he was started at the begin- ning of his career. The next question, and indeed the last, of which we have a record preserved in the minutes of the Oxford Union was that of the proposed abolition of slavery in the West Indies. That issue was then com- ing rapidly to a crisis in Great Britain. It was a part, indeed, of the great reformatory agitation which prevailed at the close of the third decade. The question of slavery and the slave trade had begun to be agitated as far back as I 786. From that time forth Thomas Clarkson did not cease to declaim aeainst the sale and servitude of human beings. He was joined alter a few years by William Wilberforce of great memory. As early as 1790 both Pitt and Fox joined the abolitionists. The House of Commons continued to be agitated by the efforts of the philanthropists ; but the House of Lords, and in general the Tory party, prevailed to stay the movement. In 1823 the society for the mitiga- tion and gradual abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions was organized, and the movement gained an impetus by the advocacy of Thomas Fowell Buxton and Elizabeth Heyrick, the Quakeress, who, by her pam- phlet entitled " Immediate, not Gradual Abolition," wrought nearly as forcefully on the better sentiments of the English people as Harriet Beecher Stowe was destined to do for the opinion of the American people a gener- ation later. At the time when Gladstone was at Christ Church the abolitionists were gathering up all their energies for the final and, as it proved to be, the successful assault. John Gladstone was a slaveholder. His plantations in Demerara were worked by slaves. To disturb the slave system was to disturb him and his revenues. Besides, the Tories and the religious establishment of Great Britain united politically and religiously to uphold slavery. Young 56 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Gladstone was a Tory and a High Churchman. At this period in his career he knew two things : one was the ancient, well-founded political order in Great Britain; and the other was the Church of England. Of these two things Oxford was the Gibraltar. Gladstone was one of the young watchmen sent to the towers on the wall to call the hours and defy the enemy. He went to his place without reluctance and with full convic- tion of truth and duty. The situation, however, was such as to introduce a contradiction in his nature. We may imagine that the slavery debate in the O.xonian Union was the occasion on which the intellectual and moral nature of William E. Glad- stone first knew pain, for then he first sinned. On the 2d of June, 183 1, when his career at Oxford was nearly at an end, a resolution was proposed in the Union for the immediate abolition of slavery in the West Indies. Note the amendment which Gladstone offered, as follows : " That le^isla- tive enactments ought to be made, and if necessary to be enforced, first, for better guarding the personal and civil rights of the Negroes in our West Indian colonies. Second, for establishing compulsory manumission. Third, for securing universally the receiving of a Christian education under the clergy and teachers independent of the planters ; a measure of which total but gradual emancipation will be the natural consequence, as it was of a similar procedure in the first ages of Christianity." Here, then, we perceive the parting of the ways. The light in the young man began to shine, but yet shone only in the darkness. It is a remarkable circumstance that every beginning made by William E. Glad- stone in the days of his youth, with the solitary exception of the beginning of a sound moral character, was made either diametrically in the opposite direction to human rights and progress, or was at most projected at illogical and impossible angles from the beaten high road of error which he was trav- eling. His amendments to the motion for the abolition of slavery show the Tory politician. We perceive that in viewing slavery he was desirous of making that institution as tolerable as possible ; but he was willing that the institution itself should be perpetuated. He had just passed his majority. The shadow of Oxford was strong upon him. The influence of his father's opinions and interests also prevailed. The Tor)- leaders said slavery. The bishops said slavery. The Bible said slavery. The past said slavery. All these are good ; therefore, slavery shall be maintained. True, philanthropy seems to be against it. True, the light within us seems to reveal a hideous countenance on the front of this ancient institution and to make it indeed a criminal monster. But the inner light may be an ignis fahiiis. The rising philanthropy, shining afar, may be only a bale- fire kindled above the rocks. Therefore we will conserve things as they are. But we will modify and temporize a little in the direction of progress. ETON AND OXFORD. 57 We repeat that this struggle of irreconcilable forces in the Gladstonian intellect and purpose casts a wide effulgence over his whole career, in the light of which the man may be best interpreted. We may note that, some years afterward, when Gladstone had entered Parliament, and when slavery had been abolished throughout the British empire, except in India, he was constrained by an uncharitable reference of a Liberal speaker to defend as best he might the character and transactions of his father as a West- Indian slaveholder. Thus, with rapid development and rise to such reputation as a youth may gain at his university, Gladstone passed his two years at Oxford. He came to his examinations in the latter part of 1831 and gained the highest possible honors of the university. He was graduated with the distinction known as " Double First;" that is, he received the first honors under two specifications, which was the highest rank that a student might attain. In after years, with the growth of his reflective powers, Gladstone turned frequently to contemplate Oxford, and in many instances gave critical estimates of the university where the formal education of his youth was completed. He came to see how far from the true beginning of a liberal and progressive statesman's life that ancient institution stood. Forty-seven years after his graduation he made an address to the Palmer- ston Club at Oxford, in the course of which he traversed the principles of the university and criticised her errors. " I trace," said he, " in the education of Oxford of my own time one great defect. Perhaps it was my own fault, but I must admit that I did not learn when at Oxford that which I have learned since, namely, to set a due value on the imperishable and the ines- timable principles of human liberty. The temper which I think too much prevailed in academic circles was that liberty was regarded with jealousy, and that fear could not be wholly dispensed with. ... I think that the principle of the Conservative party is jealousy of liberty and of the people only qualified by fear ; but I think the policj- of the Liberal party is trust in the people only qualified by prudence. I can only assure you, gentlemen, that, now I am in front of extended popular privileges, I have no fear of those enlargements of the constitution that seem to be approaching. On the contrary, I hail them with desire. I am not in the least degree conscious that I have less reverence for antiquity, for the beautiful and good and glorious charges that our ancestors have handed down to us as a patrimony to our race, than I had in other days when I held other political opinions. I have learnt to set the true value upon human liberty, and in whatever I have changed there, and there, only, has been the explanation of the change." Out of this paragraph we may discover the bottom principle in the light of which the political career of William E. Gladstone is to be explained. 58 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. CHAPTER IV. Travel and Entrance into Parliament. LADSTONE never lacked for means or opportunity. Nor did he ever squander the one or lose the other. His lite was pre- iminently a life of seeking and of labor. If great influence and (Treat fame came to him, they came as the results of honest application, rational purpose, and a well-tempered ambition. Havino- completed his course at Oxford and attained his majority, he ne.xt availed himself of the opportunity to travel on the Continent. Hitherto his views of life and manners had been limited to England. His first tour abroad be7 ^^ VIEW OF yETNA. 6o LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. highly interesting position. At Segeste the temple is enthroned in a per- fect mountain solitude, and it is like a beautiful tomb of its religion, so stately, so entire ; while around, but for one solitary house, of the keeper, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to disturb the apparent reign of silence and death. At Selinus the huge fragments on the plain seem to make an eminence themselves; and they listen to the ever-young and unwearied waves which almost wash their base and mock their desolation by the imao^e of perpetual life and motion they present, while the tone of their heavy fall upon the beach well accords with the solemnity of the scene. At Girgenti the ridge visible to the mariner from afar is still crowned by a long line of fabrics, presenting to the eye a considerable mass and regularity of struc- ture, and the town is near and visible ; yet that town is so entirely the mere phantom of its former glory within its now shrunken limits, that instead of disturbing the effect, it rather seems to add a new image and enhance it. The temples enshrine a most pure and salutarj' art, that which connects grandeur of effect with simplicity of detail; and retaining their beauty and their dignity in their decay they represent the great man when fallen, as types of that almost highest of human qualities — silent, yet not sullen, endurance." This style, though rather magniloquent and a little indistinct and drawling, is superior to most of the descriptive writing which English liter- ature displayed sixty years ago. We miss the clear-cut, brilliant, and poeti- cal imagery which the taste of the present day demands. The most signifi- cant paragraph or expression in the extract is the last, in which the silent, unresentful, and sublime ruin of Girgenti is compared to a great man, say, a defeated prime minister (such as we shall be fifty years from now !) fallen from power, but magnificent in overthrow. The Gladstonlan mind was man- ifestly, even at that early day, full of such imagery and thought as that. It is as true as ever that " coming events cast their shadows before." Mr. Gladstone's journal shows the stages of his ascent to the crater of the volcano. He gives us an account of the immense chestnut trees, per- haps the finest in the world, which mark the limit of tree growth on the side of the mountain. The traveler observes with care the aspects of nature, not failing to note the character of the soil and the relative fertility at dif- ferent points. The account is an odd mixture of inchoate poetry and polit- ical economy. It was on the the 30th of October, 1838, that the writer set out from Catania to the summit of /Etna. On reaching Nicolosi the moun- tain began to rumble. There were patches of woods and some mountain pastures in which flocks were browsing. The tropical temperature gave place, first to temperate and then to frigid conditions. The night was passed by the company at Casa degli Inglesi, and on the following morning the travelers beheld a sublime sunrise. Gladstone was greatly impressed with the scene, and gives the following account of what he witnessed: TRAVEL AND ENTRANCE INTO PARLIAMENT, 6 1 "Just before we reached the lip of the crater the guide exultingly pointed out what he declared to be ordinarily the greatest sight of the moun- tain, namely, the shadow of the cone of ^tna drawn with the utmost deli- cacy by the newly risen sun, but of gigantic extent ; its point at this mo- ment rested on the mountains of Palermo, probably a hundred miles off, and the entire figure was visible, the atmosphere over the mountains having become and continuing perfectly and beautifully transparent, although in the hundreds of valleys which were beneath us, from the east to the west of Sicily, and from the mountains of Messina down to Cape Passaro, there were still abundant vapors waiting for a higher sun to disperse them ; but we enjoyed in its perfection this view of the earliest and finest work of the greater light of heaven in the passage of his beams over this portion of the earth's surface. " During the hour we spent on the summit, the vision of the shadow was speedily contracted, and taught us how rapid is the real rise of the sun in the heavens, although its effect is diminished to the eye by a kind of fore- shortening." The travelers next come to the edge of the crater. Within there was a state of active eruption. Certainly the scene was enough to kindle the enthusiasm of the most phlegmatic spirit. It illustrates the whole culture of that age and the temperament of Mr. Gladstone in particular, that this sublime exhibition of the natural world, this heaving bituminous lake of fire and terror swelling as if to vent itself upon the beauty and life of the world, suggested Vergil and what he had said and thought in visiting and describ- ing the same scene. Gladstone, yielding to the past, catches up the imagery of the Alneid, and repeats that, and weighs it and criticizes it as the expression of his own emotions in the presence of the smoking and roaring yEtna! The influence of the scholastic spirit could go no further. The Gladstonian intellect and imagination, strong as they were, and excited as they were by one of the sublimest spectacles to be witnessed on the earth, turns to the fictions of a Roman poet, distant from his own point of obser- vation b}^ more than eighteen hundred years, and criticizes and analyzes his expressions as to their adequacy and correctness considered as linguis- tic pictures of a volcanic mountain in the act of disgorging itself on the world. That method was the natural result of six years of Latin and Greek readings at Eton, followed by the apotheosis of the past at Oxford ! The vision of the future Premier of England, stretching over the hell-throat of yEtna, was obfuscated with his Latin hexameters. It could not be said that Gladstone was ever a great traveler. His absences on the Continent were never frequent, and were in the beaten way. His thoughts were too much occupied with the organic movements of society and the conditions and tendencies of political parties to be 62 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. greatly absorbed with the aspects of the natural world or deeply concerned with the manners and customs of foreign races. He must return as soon as practicable to England, in order to participate in the great action of the age. It was in the year 1832 that Gladstone first stood for Parliament. He appeared in public life as a Tory, under the patronage of the Duke of Newcastle. It was the custom of the times for political leaders to select promising young men whose views were accordant with their own, and to promote their election to the House of Commons. In such cases a boroueh would be selected whose voters were known to be favorable to that party to which the young man belonged, and he would be sent there to contest the election with some rival or rivals of opposing politics. The epoch at which William E. Gladstone first appeared before the public was so extraordinary as to demand some special consideration. It was the very crisis at which the great Reform Bill was forced through Parliament against the opposition of the ministry, the king, and the landed aristocracy of England. Let us note a few of the political conditions which were present in the United Kingdom as late as the year 1830. That was the 3'ear of the revo- lutionary movement on the Continent, in which the roused-up people of France discharged Charles X from further service, and took the citizen king instead. In that year Belgium became independent, and soon after- ward gave the crown to Leopold I. In England there was less audacity. As to royal conditions, George I\" died, and William IV came to the throne. The agitation in England, coincident with that on the Continent, took the form of a movement for the reorganization of the House of Com- mons on a reformed basis. Than this project nothing could be more reasonable, and certainly nothing was ever more bitterly opposed. The House of Commons rested upon a foundation thoroughly corrupt and absurd ; but conservatism upheld the existing system. The population of England had now fluctu- ated from the land side to the great manufacturing cities. Populous com- munities had sprung up where none had existed before. Industry had under- eone orreat changes. The House of Commons no lontjer represented the actual England, but the old England of a mythical past. Tremendous cities now flourished, and because they were of recent growth were unrep- resented in Parliament. Such were Liverpool and Manchester and Leeds, whose teeming thousands of people had no voice in the House of Com- mons. But the ancient boroughs, however depopulated, kept their rights of representation. Nothing could be more preposterous than the system which had supervened. Conservative England continued to declare that her ancient boroughs, such as Gratton and Old Sarum, thotigh kavhig not TRAVEL AND ENTRA^"CE INTO PARLIAMENT. 63 WILLIAM IV. 64 LlIE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTOXE. a single house, must be represented by two members in the Commons ; for it had once been so, and nothing must be changed! The conchtion became so monstrous that intelHgent manufacturers and citizens and Whiof statesmen began to agitate for a reform. The result was a political revolt. The ministry of the Duke of Wellington was overthrown, and a new ministry was formed under Earl Grey in Novem- ber of 1830. This revolution preceded the Reform Bill, so-called, which was not presented until the ist of March, 1S31. The agitation shook Great Britain to the center. The last months of 1830-31 witnessed a crisis more serious than anything which had been known since the revolution of 1688. There were commotions in the cabinet — intrigues and counter-intrigues, and constant battle between the House of Lords and the rising sentiment of the country. Not until the 7th of June, 1832, was the Reform Bill finally passed, and then only when the movement was backed by imminent revolution. Two other liberal tendencies appeared at the same time. One was the project for the abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions, and the other for the removal of the remaining disabilities of the Jews. British conservatism, incorporated in the Tory party, was firmly arrayed against all these tendencies of progress. The radicals came on valiantly to the battle. The Whig party as such was generally with the progressive tide. There was at this period, as at all times, in England a great number of leaders and a larsje following who soufrht to stand on middle ground between the contending elements — to prevent by their influence the effects of a Tory reaction and to constitute a brake on the too rapidly running wheels of reform. It was the influence of this class that led to the surprising results of the English elections of 1832. A new reform Parliament had now to be chosen in accordance with the bill which had just been passed. The passage of the measure seemed to imply that Tory England had gone to the wall. It was confidently expected that the new House of Commons would be overwhelmingly liberal. So thought the radicals, and the discomfited Tories were ready to concede such a result. But both parties were disappointed in the elec- tions. Those who had supported the Reform Bill were not universally and overwhelmingly elected. Many of the leading conservatives were returned to Parliament under the approval of distinct majorities. It was in this election that William E. Gladstone first offered himself as a candidate for the House. He stood for Newark, in which the Duke of Newcastle correctly divined a chance of success against the reform party. It was to enter into the canvass of this borough that Mr. Gladstone, cutting short his first visit to the Continent, returned to England in September of 1832. The Earl of Lincoln, son of the Duke of Newcastle, w^as an intimate TRAVEL AND ENTRANCE INTO PARLIAMENT. 65 friend of the young aspirant, and it was this personal influence perhaps that led the duke to advance and support Gladstone in the Newark contest. The political usage in England varies so much from that with which we are familiar in our own country that American readers have difficulty in understanding the English elections. It is not necessary that the Eng- lish candidate for the House of Commons shall stand for election for the borough in which he resides. He may choose his field. He is not "nomi- nated" in the American manner. There is a large freedom on the part of the candidate in declaring himself As many as compete for the honor of elec- tion go before the people of the borough with public address and printed circulars containing an expression of the alleged principles of the candi- dates ; and when all is done an election is held, at which the voters declare their choice by show of hands or by ballot in the American manner. In the Newark canvass of 1S32, which was the first held after the en- lartjement of the suffrage under the Reform Bill, the other candidates were Mr. \Y. F. Handley and Mr. Serjeant Wilde. The three represented the different opinions of the day. The advanced liberal candidate was Ser- jeant Wilde, who had been already three times a candidate — and once successfully — for parliamentary honors. He had canvassed the borough in 1829, 1830, and 1 83 1, as the representative of the reform party, and in the last-named year had been elected. There was every presumption that after the passage of the Reform Bill, when the benefits of the measure might be expected to accrue to those who had favored it, the liberal candidate would receive an increased majority. It would seem, however, that Serjeant Wilde was not able to contend successfully with the stranger Gladstone. The young man's personal ap- pearance was greatly in his favor. He was well-grown and manly. Cur- rent descriptions represent him as possessing a handsome person and an in- tellectual and striking countenance. Pictures preserved of the future states- man from this time represent him as full-visaged, with large lustrous eyes, long heavy brows, and a peculiarly adult and forceful expression for a young man only twenty-two years of age. He came to Newark also with unusual oratorical powers. He had carefully prepared himself for the emergency which had now arrived. Wilde, his principal opponent, had experience and abilities. He was skilled in the arts of the platform, and had the enthusi- astic support of the so-called Blue Club, or Liberal League of the borough. He was also thought to be the winning candidate. He had the prestige of being already a member of the House, presenting himself for reelection, un- der the very claim which had been approved by the voters in 1830. Gladstone, however, showed himself superior in public argument — a thing never lost on an English constituency. He also developed political skill, and was supported by the Red Club of Newark with as much enthusi- 5 66 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. IILADSTUNE. asm as was Wilde by the Blues. Gladstone was an out-and-out Tory in his principles; but he made his argument with a certain reserve which always characterized his policy and contributed much to his success. The British mind demands that the wheels of progress shall indeed revolve, but it also demands that they shall turn slowly, moderately, safely, sometimes imper- ceptibly. Gladstone seems from the first to have understood the nature of that constituency upon which he must rely for support. On the 9th of October, 1832, the young candidate sent to the electors of Newark his first formal political address. The reader will be interested to see in what manner the neophyte politician aspiring to great things de- livered his cause to his intending constituents. It will be noted that the author of the paper recognized slavery as the leading question at issue. It cannot fail of interest to mark in what manner the young Tory sought to support and defend for a while longer that ancient barbarity of mankind, the svstem of human bondasje : " Having now completed my canvass," says he, " I think it my duty as well to remind you of the principles on which I have solicited your votes, as freely to assure my friends that its result has placed my success beyond a doubt. " I have not requested your favor on the ground of adherence to the opinions of any man or party, further than such adherence can be fairly un- derstood from the conviction I have not hesitated to avow, that we must watch and resist that uninquiring and indiscriminating desire for change amongst us, which threatens to produce, along with i)artial good, a melan- choly preponderance of mischief; which, I am persuaded, would aggravate beyond computation the deep-seated evils of our social state, and the heavy burdens of our industrial classes ; which, by disturbing our peace, destroys confidence, and strikes at the root of prosperity. Thus it has done already; and thus, we must therefore believe, it ivill do. " For the mitigation of those evils, we must, I think, look not only to particular measures, but to the restoration of sounder general principles. I mean especially that principle on wliich alone the incorporation of religion with the State in our Constitution can be defended ; that the duties of gov- ernors are strictly and peculiarly religious ; and that legislatures, like indi- viduals, are bound to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the high truths they have acknowledged. Principles are now arrayed against our in- stitutions ; and not by truckling nor temporizing — not by oppression nor by corruption — but by principles they must be met. " Among their first results should be a sedulous and special attention to the interests of the poor, founded upon the rule that those who are the least able to take care of themselves should be most regarded by others. Par- ticularly it is a duty to endeavor, by every means, that labor may receive TRAVEL AND ExN'TRANCE INTO PARLIAMENT. 67 « adequate rcntuneratioii ; which, unhappily, among several classes of our fellow-countrymen is not now the case. Whatever measures, therefore — whether by correction of the poor laws, allotment of cottage grounds, or otherwise — tend to promote this object, I deem entitled to the warmest sup- port ; with all such as are calculated to secure sound moral conduct in any class of society. " I proceed to the momentous question of slavery, which I have found entertained among you in that candid and temperate spirit which alone befits its nature, or promises to remove its difficulties. If I have not recog- nized the right of an irresponsible society to interpose between me and the electors, it has not been from any disrespect to its members, nor from unwillingness to answer theirs or any other questions on which the electors may desire to know my views. To the esteemed secretary of the society I submitted my reasons for silence ; and I made a point of stating these views to him, in his character of a voter. " As regards the abstract lawfulness of slavery, I acknowledge it simply as importing the right of one man to the labor of another ; and I rest it upon the fact that Scripture, the paramount authority upon such a point, gives directions to persons standing in the relation of master to slave, for their conduct in that relation ; whereas, were the matter absolutely and necessarily siti/ttl, it would not regulate the manner. Assuming sin as the cause of degradation, it strives most effectually to cure the latter by extir- pating the former. We are agreed that both the physical and the moral bondage of the slave are to be abolished. The question is as to the order, and the order only ; now Scripture attacks the moral evil before the tem- poral one, and the temporal through the moral one, and I am content with the order which Scripture has established. " To this end I desire to see immediately set on foot, by impartial and sovereign authority, a universal and efficient system of Christian instruc- tion, not intended to resist designs of individual piety and wisdom for the religious improvement of the Negroes, but to do thoroughly what the)- can only do partially. "As regards immediate emancipation, whether with or without com- pensation, there are several minor reasons against it; but that which weighs with mc is, that it would, I much fear, exchange the evils now affecting the Negro for others which are weightier — for a relapse into deeper debase- ment, if not for bloodshed and internal war. \.fi\. fitness be made a condi- tion for emancipation ; and let us strive to bring him to that fitness by the shortest possible course. Let him enjoy the means of earning his freedom through honest and industrious habits ; thus the same instruments which attain his liberty shall likewise render him competent to use it ; and thus, I earnestly trust, without risk of blood without violation of property, with 68 LIKE AM) TIMES OK WILLIAM K. GLADSTONE. unimpaired benefit to the Negro, and with the utmost speed which prudence will admit, we shall arrive at that exceedingly desirable consummation, the utter extinction of slavery. "And now, gentlemen, as regards the enthusiasm with which you have rallied round your ancient flag, and welcomed the humble representative ot those principles whose emblem it is, 1 trust that neither the lapse of time nor the seductions of prosperity can ever efface it from my memory. To my opponents my acknowledgments are due for the good humor and kind- ness with which they have received me; and while I thank my friends for their zealous and unwearied exertions in my favor, I briefly but emphatic- ally assure them, that if promises be an adequate foundation of confidence, or experience a reasonable ground of calculation, our victory is su7'e. " I have the honor to be, gentlemen, "Your obliged and obedient servant, " W. E. Gladstone." No one in America shall unduly wonder at this speech, delivered in the fall of 1832. No age shall judge the preceding but by the standards that then prevailed. Certainly the' whole speech, so far as the argument is con- cerned, is an incubus quite intolerable to civilization. But it is a speech that would have been regarded as remarkably moderate anywhere in the United States, even in Boston, for twenty years after the date of its delivery! We shall not, therefore, be. surprised that in the England of more than sixty years ago a casuistical argument, buttressed with "Cursed be Canaan," was acceptable to a Tory constituency. We may remember in this connection that as much as eight years after this election in Newark the law of England still gave to a husband the same rights over his wife that he might exercise over his slave ! In such a condition of opinion and usage, we need hardly expect any refinement of conscience or clear recogni- tion of human rights. As the canvass in Newark progressed, it became evident that Glad- stone was the favorite. The influence of the Duke of Newcastle, exercised through the Conservative Club, secured to him in advance about six hun- dred and fifty votes. To these the young orator succeeded in adding before the election nearly two hundred and fifty additional pledges. Notwith- standing his alliance with the past as against the progressive principles represented by Serjeant Wilde, he forged to the front, and on the iith of December was able to come to the hustings with confidence of success. Here again the scene was one unfamiliar to American readers. It was the custom of the English constituencies to come together and to oblige their candidates to appear on the platform in turn, as if to show their parts. Each might say what he would in the way of a speech, and each was sub- TRAVEL AND ENTRANCE INTO PARLIAMENT. 69 jected to a running fire of questions and bullying well calculated to try the nerve of seasoned politicians, to say nothing of young aspirants. The three candidates appeared at the date mentioned, and Gladstone was subjected to not a little injustice and harsh treatment at the hands of the Liberals. Mr. Wilde consumed the time with a long speech, intending to wear out the patience of the Gladstone following; and in this he partly suc- ceeded. Two or three well-informed leaders of the Liberal party plied Gladstone with hard questions, which might well put him at his wits' end to answer. But he came through the ordeal with less hurt and more dig- nity than might have been expected. His opponents had managed the aftair so that Gladstone's address must come at a late hour in the evening. Wilde spoke for about three hours. The young candidate could do no more than say a few words on leading topics before nightfall. The Liberals in the crowd interrupted him with yellings, and when the show of hands was called, it was evident that Wilde and Handley were in the lead. Many of Gladstone's supporters had gone away, and the enemy were in possession of the hustings. Under these circumstances it became necessary that a formal poll be SCENE AT THE HUSTINGS IN THE DAYS OF OPEN ELECTION. •JO LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. held. If the reader has read with attention Carlyle's essay, " An Election to the Long Parliament," he will have a lively impression of the manners and methods of an English constituency such as it was from the middle of the seventeenth to nearly the first quarter of the nineteenth century. We need not here recount the scenes which were constantly witnessed in the old Eno;lish boroughs, or animadvert on the methods by which an election was carried prior to the passage of the Reform Bill. Even after that event the manners of an English election were nearly the same as before ; but turbulence and mere tricks, such as that practiced by Mr. Wilde on the hustings, could not prevail to defeat the capable and proper young Tory, who had been defrauded of the fruits of his popularity at the public meet- ing. Indeed, the unfair scheme to rob him of his rights turned somewhat in his favor, and when the poll was held, instead of being the last, he was the first of the candidates. The tally showed for Gladstone, 882 votes ; for Handley, 793; and for W'ikle, 719. Though Mr. Gladstone was in the plurality, he was very far from receiving a majority of the suffrages. This, however, sufficed ; and the successful candidate became member of Parliament for the first time, being as yet within his twenty-third year. The election was significant in this — that it showed the temper of the English voters in declaring for reform and then choosing men of Conservative dispositions to hold the reform in check. The like spirit was manifested throughout Enoland, though the gains for the Tories were insufficient to restore them to their lost ascendency. The attention of Conservative leaders was immediately turned to the young member-elect from Newark. Mr. Gladstone seems to have borne himself with remarkable propriety, and to have been in no great measure inflated by his success. He pressed on, however, to make addresses at different places, notably before the Constitutional Club at Nottingham and at Newark, on both of which occasions he delivered eloquent and able speeches, conceived and uttered in the manner of the Tory statesman. A writer has pointed out the significant circumstance that the orator, in addi- tion to repeating what now appear to be his inane arguments about slavery, opposed in his Newark speech a proposition then pending for the abolition of certain taxes and restrictions on the public press. In doing so he made an argument to show that the press tax was essential to the maintenance of the revenue, and, secondly, that the tax in question had a wholesome influence in preventing the dissemination of false and corrupt matter by means of newspapers. It was equivalent to saying that an editor would not pay a tax for the privilege of circulating lies — a proposition clearly disproved by the journalistic history of all civilized countries! In the Life 0/ Gladsiojic, by George Burnett .Smith, we have preserved from the newspapers of the day some extracts out of the chorus of cheers TRAVEL AND ENTRANCE INTO PARLIAMENT. "Jl and hisses that arose on the occasion of the young man's first election to Parliament. The Nottingham Jonj'nal, highly pleased with the result, speaking of the opinion that the election had a ministerial significance, said : " The delusion has now vanished and made room for sober reason and reflection. . . . The return of Mr. Gladstone — to the discomfiture of the learned Serjeant and his friends — has restored the town of Newark to that high rank which it formerly held in the estimation of friends of order and good governnient. We venture to predict that the losing candidate [Wilde] in this contest has suffered so severely that he will never more show his face at Newark on a similar occasion." The extract shows that the genus sci'ibblerus politicits is the same in all generations. Here we have the town of Newark " saved and restored " by the election of a young man twenty-two years oi age, chosen by pluralitv, with nearly two thirds of the vote against him ! We also have the usual and well-known prophecy that the defeated candidate is utterly ruined and done for world without end ! The Reflector, another newspaper of Newark, liberal in politics, said : " Mr. Gladstone is the son of Gladstone of Liverpool, a person who (we are speaking of the father) had amassed a large fortune by West India dealings. In other words, a great part of his gold has sprung from the blood of black slaves. Respecting the youth himself — a person fresh from the college, and whose mind is as much like a sheet of white foolscap as possible — he was utterly unknown. He came recommended by no claim in the world except the will of the duke. The duke nodded unto Newark, and Newark sent back the man, or rather the boy, of his choice. What ! is this to be, now that the Reform Bill has done its work } Are sixteen hundred men still to bow down to a wooden-headed lord, as the people of Egypt used to do to their beasts, to their reptiles, and their ropes of onions } There must be something wrong — something imperfect. What is it } What is wanting 1 Why, the ballot ! If there be a doubt of this (and we believe there is a doubt even among intelligent men) the tale of Newark must set the question at rest. Serjeant Wilde was met on his entry into the town by almost the whole population. He was greeted everywhere, cheered everywhere. He was received with delight by his friends and with good and earnest wishes for his success by his nominal foe.s. The voters for Gladstone w^ent up to that candidate's booth (the slave driver as they called him) with Wilde's colors. People who had before voted for Wilde on being asked to give their suffrage said : ' We cannot, we dare not. We have lost half our business, and shall lose the rest if we go against the duke. We would do anything in our power for Serjeant Wilde and for the cause, but we cannot starve ! ' Now what say ye, our merry men, touching the ballot ? " Such were the two opinions that vented themselves in respect to Glad- stone's election. No doul)t the statesman himself, in the afterpart of his 72 LIIL AND TIMES Ul- WILLIAM L. GLADSTONE. career, would have cheerfully coincided with what was said by the Reflector aoainst himself and the manner of his first election to the House of Com- mons. It can hardly be doubted that the organized power of Toryism was turned by the Duke of Newcastle upon the constituency of Newark to secure the election of his son's friend and his own supporter to Parliament. It will be noted that the number of votes secured for Gladstone was just fairly sufficient to make his election unambiguous. Certainly the carping of the Liberal opposition did not go so far as to asperse the character and talents of the young man who had come home from his travels in Italy to begin one of the longest and most conspicuous public careers known in history. BLACRFRIAKS BRIDGE, LOKDUN. FIRST PASSAGES IN" HOUSE OF COMMONS. ']'i, CHAPTER V. First Passages in House of Commons. N connection with Mr. Gladstone's entrance into Parliament we note a circumstance showintj the great superiority of one part of the British system over the corresponding part of American method. In our American Congressional system the usage has taken such form under the Constitution as to postpone the entrance of the new members into the House ot Representatives for much more than a year after the time when they are elected, and for about a year and a half from the date of their canvass before the people. Meanwhile the old Congress, probably out of accord with public opinion and perhaps discredited at the late election, goes on occupying its place and performing what political mummery soever the exigency of the defeated party seems to require. In England the members of the new Parliament come in fresh from their constituencies. No more than a brief interval elapses after the election until the new House is constituted. In Mr. Gladstone's case his election occurred on the nth and 12th of December, 1832, and the new House of Commons of which he was a member was convened on the 29th of the January following. The king's speech from the throne was delivered in the usual style on the 5th of February. William I\" was in the third year of his reign. As we have said, the constitution and temper of the first Reform Parliament were much more conservative than might have been expected. After reforming the basis of the House of Commons, England, like a cautious farmer who has broken his fields by a new method but chooses to plant the seed and till the crop in the accustomed manner, paused in the course toward radicalism, and the new House, though of different materials, was much the same in spirit as its predecessor. Two great measures, however, were on that must, in the nature of the case, be now definitely adjusted. One was the final withdrawal of the immense trade monopoly which had been enjoyed by the British East India Company, and the other was the proposition to abolish slaver)- in the West Indies. The islands most concerned in the latter proposition were Trinidad and Jamaica; also Demerara. There had been in these islands, since the establishment of the British ascendency, a sort of modified Creole servitude which the linglish planters had used in the culti- vation of their estates. It had been found, however, that native Africans couhl Ijctter endure the heat of tropical sugar fields than could the West Indian natives or the hybrids that aboundeil in the islands. .African slavery thus became a deeply fixed institution, and its abolition was opposed with all the usual arguments born of interest, expediency, and superstition. 74 LIKE AM) riMES OF WILLIAM E. (ILADSTU.NE. It chanced that this question of abolishing West Indian slavery fur- nished the first occasion for Mr. Gladstone to address the House ot Com- mons. The opportunity was not sought, but was rather forced on the young parliamentarian. We have referred, in a former chapter, to the fact that John Gladstone of Liverpool owned large plantations in Demerara. His estate there was known as Vreeden Hoop. It was cultivated by African slaves, under the immediate direction of a kinsman of the Gladstones named Maclean. The sugar industry in the islands had increased at the expense of that of cotton and coffee. It was alleged that the slaves on the sugar plantations had been greatly overworked, maltreated, and poorly fed, and that the result w-as a large fallincr off in the number of slaves, with the con- sequent necessity of further importations from Africa. In May of 1833 a proposition was brought forward for the emancipa- tion of the blacks of the West Indies. The subject brought on a long and excited debate. Public opinion had in the meanwhile advanced to the extent of putting the defenders and apologists of slavery at a disadvantage, and their defense was not delivered with the accustomed spirit of their party. On the contrary, it took the form of a mild appeal for going slow in the work of emancipation, of making it gradual, of postponing, of getting as much as possible in compensation, and of holding back from finality a measure which could not be longer stayed. While this proposition was under discussion, one of the speakers. Lord Howick, who had been Undersecretary for the Colonies, made a liberal speech, in which he animadverted w^ith some bitterness upon the condition of the slave-worked estates in Demerara. He showed that on the planta- tion owned by John Gladstone and operated by his kinsman there had been a decrease of seventy-one slaves, and that this was due to the severity of the treatment to wliicli they had been subjected in the sugar fields. The speech was near to being an attack upon the character of the elder Glad- stone, and a charge of inhumanity for greed in the operation of the sugar plantation. The occasion thus suddenly presented itself for the member from Newark to make his maiden speech. On the 17th of May, 1833, he first addressed the House. He warded as well as he could the charges made by Lord Howick. He attempted to show that the decrease in the population of the Demerara estate was not attributable directly to the production of sugar or the severity of the treatment to which the slaves were subjected, but to a shifting in the character of the population at large. He conceded that the production of sugar demanded a greater severity of labor than was required in the production of cotton or coffee; but he argued that this hardship was inseparable from the nature of human employments. It was so in Great Britain, in the home islands, that some kinds of labor were more FIRST PASSAGES IN HOUSE OF COMMONS. 75 severe than others. Some employments shortened Hfe. The worker in the lead mines did so at the constant risk of his health and with the certainty of curtailing the period of his existence. They who painted in shops in- haled fumes from paint pots, and were injured thereby. Of a like neces- sarily severe and somewhat dangerous character was the labor of producinp- sugar cane. The speaker denied the imputations against the character of his father and his lieutenant in Demerara. The latter was a humane man, and the speaker read letters recently received from him to attest the amicable relations between the superintendent and the well-contented slaves. On the whole, the speech was well delivered, was well received by the Conserv- atives, and heard with as much patience as might be expected by the Liberals. The debate went on with the usual variations until the 3rd of June, when Gladstone spoke again on the same subject. In the half-month that intervened he had diligently prepared himself, and was now better able to show the untruth of the charges which had been made against his father and his method of management. In the first part of his second speech the young parliamentarian confined himself to what Lord Howick had said about the elder Gladstone's estate, as illustrating the evil genius of slavery. Having disposed of this part, the speaker went on to discuss the general question before the House. He spoke of the slave system as it existed in the West Indies. He conceded the abuses of the system, but refused to admit the evil of the thing itself Seeing that the Parliament, backed by public opinion, was determined to make an end of slaver\-, he pleaded for mod- eration. He would temporize with the existing condition ; would mitigate it ; would cure it by degrees; would apply the religious salve to the wounds of both slave and master; would admit that human servitude was a thing repugnant to the British Constitution ; but that it could not be extirpated in a day or a year. There must be gradual emancipation — if any. Property rights must be guarded. Englishmen had honestly acquired their human property, and this could not be taken away without just antl ample compensation. At the same time many humane principles ought to be introduced in the relations of slaves and master. Elevation of the Negroes must precede emancipation. All should be educated and Christianized. Moreover, the legislatures of the insular colonies must be invoked in joint action with the House before emancipation could be legally reached. Vio- lent interference with slavery would prove to be not only a great injustice, but a practical disturbance of the industries and the whole social condition of the West Indies. The House did not possess the requisite information, the unquestioned basis of fact necessary for the consideration of so serious a proposition as abolition. It would be of the most doubtful expediency, anyhow, to emancipate ignorant and wicked blacks. No doubt many of the 76 LIFE AND TIMES UF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. planters would themselves desire to be free from the burden of responsibif- ity which was put upon them by the existing system. Such men, as well as all others, should be reearded. Government should not think itself able to abolish slavery by a violent and arbitrary act. Such a measure would bring confusion and ruin to the colonies of Great Britain, and conduce to the downfall of the empire. In the last clause we may discover the usual alarmist propliecy with which the neophyte statesman is always prone to terrorize his countrymen into the support of his party and his measure. The reader is aware of the result of this great debate in which Glad- stone for the first time showed his powers in parliamentary speech. The House of Commons went forward to the legitimate result of such a discus- sion. Colonial slavery was abolished, with compensation to the slaveholders. The sum of twenty millions sterling was voted in payment for the slaves emancipated from the ownership of their masters. Thus, in the years 1833- 34, in the outlying parts of the British empire, as well as in the home kingdom, slavery, or involuntary servitude, except for the commission of crime, ceased to exist. The next question that provoked an effort on Gladstone's part was one relating to alleged corruption in the politics of Liverpool. A committee of investigation had been appointed to look into the circumstances of the elec- tion of 1S30. Liverpool had been the constituency of George Canning dur- ing the period of his greatness. The custom of the time permitted, if it did not sanction, the use of money and other corrupt motives in carrying elec- tions. Some of the boroughs had gained a bad reputation on the score of bribery. Nearly all the towns in the kingdom were more or less infected with this form of political vice. On several occasions men in Liverpool were openlj' bribed to support this polic)' or that. This condition of affairs was a moral element in the debates that led to the adoption of the Reform Bill. On one occasion Lord Cochrane openly declared in the House of Commons that he himself had sent the towncrier through the town of Honiton, calling the voters who had supported him to go to the town banker and receive ten pounds ten shillings each as their share in good government. Liverpool bad vigorously applied her commer- cial system in her elections, and had become notorious as one among the most corrupt constituencies in the United Kingdom. In the debate on this question, Gladstone spoke for the third time, pal- liating as much as he could the condition of affairs in his native city. He showed in a conservative way that direct briber)' had not been known in Liverpool, at least not systematically practiced, before the year 1830. This was much ! The speaker also urged that in 1830 the election had not been particularly corrupt, that only a few instances of bribery had been actually shown, that a good deal of what was said was merely political scandal, and FIRST PASSAGES IN HOUSE OF COMMONS. n 78 LIFE AXU TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. that the House did not possess the requisite information upon which to vote a continuance of the inquiry. The result of the discussion showed Mr. Gladstone to be greatly in the minority ; for the proposition to prosecute the investigation was carried by a vote of nearly two to one. Several other measures were presented at this session of Parliament on which an ambitious young Tory might well have opinions. Among these was a scheme embodied in what was known as the Church Temporal- ities Bill. The question related to the Established Church in Ireland. Al- ready there was a beginning of that agitation which was to continue for a quarter of a century, and to end only with disestablishment. The pending proposition was made by Lord Althorp. The measure contemplated the reduction of episcopal livings in Ireland, and some rectification of the ta.xes which were laid with so much injustice upon the Catholic Irish for the sup- port of the foreign establishment. Such a bill, however just and expedient, must needs encounter the opposition of the Conservatives. Mr. Gladstone, even in his first term of serv- ice, aspired to leadership of the younger Tory contingent in the House. On the 8th of July, 1833, he made a speech on the Althorp Bill, opposing it, and setting forth in good form the reasons of his opposition. He began by saying that he could not content himself with mere silence and a negative vote on such a momentous occasion. To the young statesman, all occasions of this kind are momentous ! He thrives on things momentous, and secures his leadership by some argunicntiiui ad rem niiraciilam. Gladstone said that he would defend the Irish Church. There migrht be abuses in that establishment ; he was not prepared to deny the existence of such abuses; but the injury of the Church by a parliamentary act could not be justified on the score ot abuse. If there were abuse, then former Parliaments were to blame for it. No doubt the Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland had not flourished; but the low condition of the Church in that part of the empire could not be improved by an act calculated to work still greater inefficiency. With the passage of such a measure the Irish Church would be placed at still greater disadvantage. Let none think to strengthen an institution by weakening its resources. The number of episcopal districts should by no means be reduced. The Irish Church, as well as the English Church, was a national establishment. The govern- ment was in honor and all good policy obliged to maintain the episcopal organization in Ireland as well as in England. The paternity of the State must be recognized. To reduce the resources of the Irish clergy, when that body was already at so low an ebb of force, must cripple and disorganize the religious establishment in an important part of the United Kingdom. Per- haps the government would succeed in forcing the bill through ; but it would be against the best interests of the Irish people, hurtful to the Estab- FIRST PASSAGES IN HOUSE OF COMMONS. 79 lished Church in particular, and inimical to the spirit of the British Consti- tution. Such was the tenor of Gladstone's speech, which of course could not avail against the large majority of the Liberals. Another measure which called out the young statesman was a Non- conformist Bill, proposed by Mr. Hume, declaring it no longer necessary for intending students at the University of O.xford to subscribe to the Thirty- nine Articles of Religion. Against this proposition Gladstone made his fifth speech in the House. He attacked the proposed measure on the ground that it contained the dangerous principle of religious liberty. Religion, he thought, was an affair of the State. It was made so in the Constitution of Great Britain. The Protestant Episcopal Church was the legal and consti- tutional establishment of the realm. The subscription of the Thirty-nine Ar- ticles at Oxford was pro forma anyhow. Oxford was a public institution of Great Britain. The subscription of the articles was as little as could be expected. The passage of the Nonconformist measure would bring con- fusion not only to the university, but everywhere. Those directly respon- sible tor the management of the university would hardly remain in charge of an institution the gates of which were thrown open to the admission of an irrelitrious and un-Engrlish thronsf oriven over to a condition of moral anarch)-. All this was excellent Toryism ; but it could not avail against the purpose of the Liberals who passed Hume's Admission Bill by a major- ity of more than two to one. On the whole, Gladstone's early work in Parliament, though inspired with reactionary principles and wholly discordant with his subsequent career, was highly successful. He became a leader almost from the first. The Tories began to look to him as a young man of great promise. It should be remarked that the Liberals also respected him, however much they may have abhorred his politics. The constituency of Newark was pleased to note the prominence attained by the young man whom the town had sent as its representative in the House of Commons. The Duke of Newcastle was highly pleased with his lieutenant. Meanwhile the ministry of Lord Melbourne began to fall to pieces. The student of parliamentary history is ever and anon surprised at the unaccountable decay of governments. A political triumph, however over- whelming, argues nothing as to the perpetuity of an administration based thereon. In the present case Lord .^Ithorp, one of the most conciliatory and amiable members of the ministry, was transferred to the House of Lords. Lord Melbourne tried to patch the breach in the dike, but the king objected to the reconstruction of the Liberal cabinet. Confusion came in, and at the suggestion of the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel was called home from the Continent to form a new ministry ab ovo. The half-conservative temper of Sir Robert Peel was well known, and 8o LIFE AND TIMES UF WILLIAM L. GLADSTONE. even Toryism had reason to hope for something; at his hands. What should the new premier do in December of 1834 but call William E. Gladstone to attach himself to the government as Junior Lord of the Treasury.? Here was a sudden rise, indeed; for Mr. Gladstone when summoned still lacked five days of the completion of his twent\ -fifth )ear. The precocity in the case was by no means equal to that of William Pitt ; but it sufficed. The sudden elevation to place and influence made it necessary for Mr. Gladstone, in accordance with the Constitution, to submit himself to his constituency for approval. Very salutary is that check which the people of Great Britain in their capacity as electors have over that powerful ministry upon which the whole administration of the empire depends. In the first place, the minister-elect must be a member of Parliament. They who are in counsel to form a new government may not go outside of the House of Commons to gather the ministerial elements of it. Moreover, the member chosen must return to his constituents and be reelected before he can participate in the government. Thus did Mr. Gladstone in 1835. He appealed to his constituents in Newark, issuing to them an address, in which he reviewed the course of events, and showed the circumstances of the political transformation which had swept over the country. He now took the ground that the friends of the Melbourne ministry had fallen away because of their fear that the Liberal party would rush forward into the untried experimentation of radi- calism. The writer stated his belief that it was the duty of all patriots, without distinction of party, to uphold the crown and to defenci as invio- lable the time-honored principles and methods of the British Constitution. Under that policy the country had flourished and grown to greatness. The proper method now to be pursued was temperately and dispassionately to reform the abuses of both Church and State. This policy had become the duty of every true Conservative. New conditions had entered in, and some things had been changed. For the rest, the whole pursuit of the statesman should be reformatory and corrective. The address exhibited greater talent and more of the coming Gladstonian elements of political sagacity than any of his former papers. At the election of 1832 Mr. Gladstone had been returned from Newark along with Mr. Handley, who was also a moderate Conservative. The latter appears to have been a member of no marked abilities. After two years of service he retired from the House, and in the election of 1835 Sergeant Wilde, that able Liberal, who, according to the Nottingham Journal, was " never more to show his face at Newark on a similar occasion," was chosen to serve, with Gladstone for his colleague. The latter came to Newark for reelection in full feather. The Duke of Newcastle proudly attended him. There was a great ball at Newark in honor of the occasion. Enthusiasm FIRST PASSAGES IN HOUSE OF COMMON& 8 1 ran high. After the foregone election ratifying the popular representative's appointment as Junior Lord of the Treasury there was an ovation in New- ark, in which Gladstone was taken up in an elegant chair and borne away on a carriage drawn by six caparisoned horses, from Clinton Arms Inn to the committee rooms of the city, where the young orator made a great speech to a crowd constituting the major part of the population. The event may be regarded as the beginning of a chorus destined to reverberate, with rise and tall, through England for full}- sixty years. Thus William E. Gladstone became an undermember in the ministry of Sir Robert Peel. He has himself o;iven an interestingf account of his entrance into ministerial life and of his first meeting with Lord Aberdeen. In a preface to the Life of the Earl of Aberdeen, Mr. Gladstone says: "On an evening in the month of January, 1835, I was sent for by Sir Robert Peel, and received from him the offer, which I accepted, of the Undersecretaryship of the Colonies. From him I went on to Lord Aber- deen, who was thus to be, in official home-talk, my master. I may confess that I went in fear and trembling. I knew Lord Aberdeen only by public rumor. Distinction of itself, naturally and properly, rather alarms the young. I had heard of his high character; but I had also heard of him as a man of cold manners, close and even haughty reserve. It was dusk when I entered his room — the one on the first fioor, with the bow window look- ing to the park — so that I saw his figure rather than his countenance. I do not recollect the matter of the conversation ; but I well remember that, before I had been three minutes with him, all my apprehensions had melted away like snow in the sun. I came away from that interview, conscious indeed — as who could fail to be conscious } — of his dignity, but of a dignity so tempered by a peculiar purity and gentleness, and so associated with impressions of his kindness and even friendship, that I believe I ielt more about the wonder of his being at that time so misunderstood by the outer world than about the new duties and responsibilities of my new office." We should note before passing from this stage of the Gladstonian career the beginning of one of the great questions which were to occupy the statesman's future time and inirpose. It was the question of the Church and the State ; of the relations of the one to the other. Two out of the five principal speeches which he made during his first terms of parliamen- tary service were on this theme. We may discover in his speech on the Irish Temporalities Bill, and also in his remarks against the removal of the religious test for the admission of students at Oxford, the germs of Mr. Gladstone's first book. We may regard that work as having begun with the proposition to curtail the Episcopal establishment in Ireland. It was about four years from this date until the appearance of the book 6 b2 LIFP: and times of WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. entitled, TAe State in its Relations luit/t the Church, h\ W. E. Glad- stone, Esq., late student of Christchurch and M. P. tor Newark. In the interim, no doubt, his mind was much occupied with thinking and com- posing on the theme which first carried him into literature. His Oxford education, and, indeed, his whole antecedence and environment, constrained him to be a Church-of-England man par excellence ; and it was natural that he should soon make the attempt to justify to himself the union oi that Church with the established political and civil order ; that is, with the State. The appointment to be Junior Lord of the Treasury was soon followed with a more distinct and unequivocal recognition. The Peel ministry adopted the maxim that the Reform Act was a finality ; that it was not to be undone ; that the measure had become a part of the British Constitution ; that under the new methods it was the business of government to eo forward moderately, conservatively, with the reform of those abuses the existence of which had become notorious with the Liberal agitation. This theory of political expediency Gladstone adopted from his chief It appears that Sir Robert was highly pleased with the Junior Lord of the Treasury, for just after the meeting of the House, in February of 1835, William E. Gladstone was promoted to be Undersecretary for the Colonies. He had shown interest in the colonial question not only in Parliament, but in outside discussion, and had pretty thoroughly informed himself respecting the insular administrations of the empire. His appointment to be under- secretary was, therefore, fit to be made. It is worthy of note that within a month from receiving his portfolio he brought in a bill, conceived in a large and liberal spirit, for regulating the passenger traffic in merchant vessels to the West Indies and the main coast of the Americas. The introduction of the measure produced a very favorable impression in the House, tending to confirm the good opinion which that body already held of the young Conservative leader. While this, the first ministerial measure prepared by Gladstone, was pending an unexpected political swirl came on, which" led to the resignation ol the Peel government and the return of Lord Melbourne to power. The British nation quickly tires of its own methods. It is, without doubt, the most stubborn and opinionated people in the world. First passing a Reform Bill, England put the administration of it in the hands of those who had opposed it ! Presentlv the absurdity of that method began to declare itself, and the ministry of Sir Robert Peel ^i&^an, pari passu, to be weakened. The Liberal elements were able, at the very opening of Parlia- ment, to defeat the ministerial candidate for Speaker. This was a blow, to begin with. Then came Lord John Russell with a resolution taking up again the subject of the temporalities of the Irish Church. Lord John's FIRST PASSAGES IN HOUSE OF COMMONS. 83 motion, however, was defeated after a hot debate, in the course of which Mr. Gladstone took a leading part. In this speech he followed the same line of argument which he had pursued at the former session. The Church existed under protection of the State, and in alliance with it. It was the business of the State to support the Church, and not to invade her e.xisting rights or reduce her properties. The proposition of Lord John Russell was covertly aimed against the Church establishment itself It signified ultimately the complete divorce of Church and State. That disastrous scheme would be promoted by the present agitation. The element of religion ought to enter into every British administration. The views and wishes of visionaries and theorists should not be allowed to prevail over the long-established policy of Great Britain. England would sink away from the high rank she had reached if the foun- dations of her greatness were thus disturbed. For himself, the speaker strongly hoped never to live to see the day when a measure such as that proposed could be ratified by a British Parliament to the undoing of the realm. The debate evoked all of the Liberalism of the House. Lord John Russell's motion was adopted by a majority of thirty-three. The action was a ministerial defeat on a vital question, and this was followed with a like result when the Russell motion was debated in committee. Thus it was that -Sir Robert Peel was forced from office, and Lord Melbourne was recalled to organize a new ministry. Mr. Gladstone had remained in office as Undersecretary for the Colonies for less than three months. He went out with his chief, having had no opportunity to show his parts except in the preparation of his bill for the carriage of passengers by merchant ships from England to America. The organization of the second Melbourne ministry was the signal for an extraordinary outbreak of political rancor. The debates in the House of Commons degenerated into mere denunciations, quarrels, and personali- ties. To his credit, Gladstone took no part in these unprincipled encounters. By holding off from the passing fray, however, he gained in respect more than he lost in the current applause of political nothings. The wreck of the Peel ministry had left him in opposition to the government of Melbourne, though it might be remarked that his Toryism became more and more moderated with each stage in his career. He had not yet abandoned his idols, but it was evident that he had less confidence in them than when he first entered public life. On one question Mr. Gladstone ver\- naturally continued in a sensitive frame of mind. Slavery had now been abolished, and the restoration of that dreadful system was henceforth unthinkable — except by them daft. The changes of human society, however, are much less sudden and abrupt than 84 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. is generally supposed. West Indian slavery had ceased to exist under the tlag of England ; but a system of Negro apprenticeship, to extend from 1834 to 1840, had taken its place. It was not long until Liberal rumors were circulated that the apprentices in the British islands were as much aljused as the slaves had been before. Such reports were well calculated to stir up radical indignation. On the 22d of March, 1836, a resolution was offered in the House of Commons by Powell Buxton, to inquire into the system of apprenticeship which had sprung up, and to this the ministry agreed. In the course of the discussion, Daniel O'Connell, of great fame, made an attack on the indus- trial conditions in the West Indies, declaring that the apprenticed Negroes there were in many instances worse off than they had been when slaves. Apprenticeship, indeed, was only another name for slavery. The abuses of the one were even as the crimes of the other. To this Gladstone spoke in reply. He would have the honorable member to understand that many, no doubt a majority, of the British West Indian planters were men of high and humane characters. No doubt the system of apprenticeship had its evils; but these had been exaggerated by radicals and agitators for political effect. Apprenticeship had its advantages as well as its drawbacks. The condition of the emancipated Negroes of the West Indies was steadily improving. The condition would continue to improve, unless the ill-advised agitation in the House of Commons should check or wholly defeat the good results of the Act of Emancipation. The attacks which honorable members had made upon the evils of apprenticeship were gratuitous and, for the most part, without foundation in truth. The probabilities are that in this controversy Mr. Gladstone had the advantage in the argument; but the government, by aid of the party whip, was able to pass the Buxton resolution by a large majority. It was at this juncture, when Mr. Gladstone was in his twenty-eighth year, that the civil commotions in Canada, borne by report and exag- gerated by rumor to the House of Commons, added another wave to the public commotion. It is necessary to glance for a moment at the conditions which had wrought this result. In the year 1791 Upper Canada had been divided from Lower. A separate government was given to each. Lower Canada was French ; Upper Canada was English. No sooner had the division been effected than the British subjects of Upper Canada began to discover strong sympathies with the government of the United States. At the same time serious breaks occurred between the legislative assembly of the Lower province and the crown officers of that country. The crown officers as a rule stood stoutly to the interests of the mother country ; but the popular party sought to promote the local interests of the province. A revolutionary tendency appeared. Sir Francis Head, Gov- FIRST PASSAGES IN HOUSE OF COMMONS. DANIEL OCOXXELL ADDRESSING HIS COUNTKVMFX. 86 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. ernor of Upper Canada, instead of calling out his regular forces, sent those forces to assist the officers ol the lower province, and summoned the local militia to put down the insurgents in his own government. He was success- ful in restoring order, but it was found that the insurrection had realh" been moved by the hope of gaining admission into the American union. Sir Francis, therefore, had run a narrow risk of losing his province alto- gether. He was succeeded by Lord Durham, who began his administra- tion with projects to reform the pree.xisting methods. The home government was alarmed, or at least the Tories were alarmed with the intelligence that Lord Durham was about to become a greater revolutionist in Canada than the rebels themselves, insomuch that he was designated by the London Thnes as the " Lord High Seditioner." An agi- tation followed, which was hardly calmed before the year 1840. Lord Dur- ham was himself o\"erthrown ; but the reformative measures which he advo- cated gradually gained ground in both Canada and Great Britain, until they became the virtual foundation of the Constitution of the modern Dominion. The noise and rumor of all this stirred the House of Commons pro- foundly. Lord John Russell offered a series of resolutions whereby it was hoped to calm the turbulence in Canada and to heal the schism between the upper province and Quebec. The question debated was virtually the right of the Canadians to conduct their own affairs. Lord Russell's measure was a ministerial scheme, and though Mr. Gladstone was now in the opposition, he supported the principles propounded, and made a speech in support of the governmental policv. In the course of this speech, the dread w-hich the speaker then entertained of popular government was strongly mani- fested. He made the point that it was the business of every patriot under such circumstances to rally to the support of the government, as if only anarchy and political ruin lay in the opposite policy. The prerogatives of the crown must be upheld in Canada as well as elsewhere. The Canadian House of Assembly must yield, even by force, to the exigencies of public order. This opinion prevailed, and the House was treated to the spectacle of a moderate though undoubted Tory sustaining the Liberal ministry against the Liberals of the Canadian provinces! Such are the unaccountable con- tradictions and absurdities of government b)' party. The question of the prerogatives and revenues of the Church again came up at the session of 1837. A plan of reform quite revolutionary in its compass and methods was proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was Mr. Spring Rice. The measure contemplated the organization of a commission, into whose hands the general properties of the Church should be transferred, and by whom the benefits to the bishops, deans, and chapters of the Church should be paid. It was argued that by the better manage- ment of the Church estates in the hands of the commission, a larger FIRST PASSAGES IN HOUSE OF COMMONS. 87 aggregate of profits would be derived, to the extent that the measure pro- posed by Lord Althorp for reforming the Church in Ireland might be passed without loss to the sum total of the revenues. This ministerial measure was attacked by Sir Robert Peel and by Mr. Gladstone. The latter threw himself with more than wonted energy into the debate. He laid it down as a postulate that religion — organized religion — is the basis of the State. This it is that gives stability to the constitu- tional structure of a civilized people. It was so in Rome. Rome was mistress of the world not because of her armies and her navies, not because of her Senate and her consuls, not because of her wealth and territorial extent, but because of a certain solidarity in Roman society that had the religious order as its basis and ultimate reason. So also was it in Great Britain. The people of England had a religion. Being Christian, it was a much more important safeguard and anchor than could have been the pagan system of Rome. To give up the established religious order or — ■which was the same thing — to weaken it by adverse legislation would be an act of suicidal folly and wickedness, for the support of which a British min- istry would be held sternly to account by the judgment and conscience of the age and by posterity. This appeal, however, made with full force by Gladstone, could not pre- vail. The measure of Mr. Rice was carried, though the majority in favor of the same was not decisive. The speech made by Gladstone was the longest and the most impassioned of any which he had thus far delivered in the Commons. In it we may note wMth distinctness the rudimentary evolu- tion of the book which he was presently to publish, The State in its Rela- tions zvith the Chnreh. The address made against the Rice Bill was pub- lished in Luke Hansard's Jortrnal of the House of Commons, and occupied a space of thirteen pages. It may also be regarded as the first of the Gladstonian orations. 88 LIKE A.XU TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. QUEEN VICTORIA, 1 843. RISING TO LEADERSHIP. 89 CHAPTER VI. Rising to Leadership. T was reserved for the year 1837 to witness the transfer of the British crown to the head of her who still wears it. William IV was gathered to his ancestors in the vaults of Windsor. His- tory had seen with astonishment the imminent extinction of the erstwhile populous house of Hanover-Brunswick. The great family of George III had virtually sunk into the earth. To him nine sons had been born ; two of them had worn his crown. And yet in June of 1S37, when William IV went down into the valley of the shadow, not a single male child of the legitimate blood of the English Guelphs survived to wear the crown! Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George HI, had died in 1825. To his surviving family, by the established laws of English descent, the monarchy must now look for a sovereign ; and that sovereign was found in the person of the Duke of Kent's daughter, Alexandrina Victoria, to whom the scepter went without the shadow of dispute. She ascended the throne as the thirty-fifth in order of succession from William the Conqueror. One of the circumstances of the transfer of the crown was the holding of a new parliamentary election. Gladstone had now attracted the atten- tion of the Conservative party throughout the kingdom. The Tories recognized him as a probable leader of the future. His moderate temper they could not well endure ; but the man political is not particular, if he can have a leader who will conduct him to success. More than one constitu- ency would now have been glad to have the member from Newark stand as a candidate. He was, however, prudential, not to say faithful to those who had first elected him to office. He accordingly offered himself to New- ark for the third time. The Tories of Manchester were anxious to secure the popular young leader for themselves. Manchester was a Liberal stronghold. For the Tories, the way to success there was steep-up, if not unscalable. They appointed a committee to call on Gladstone with arguments in favor of his representing Manchester. He heard what was to be said, but declined the offer. The modest certainty of Newark was better, according to his cau- tious judgment, than the glittering hypothesis of Manchester. A report, how- ever, got abroad that the young statesman was not only coquetting with the anxious city, but had signified his purpose to accept a candidacy for the larger place. There appears to have been no foundation for such a rumor other than the call of the Manchester committee ; but Mr. Gladstone, on the 2 2d of July, 1837, a month after the accession of \'ictoria, found 90 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. RISING TO LEADERSHIP. 9I occasion to publish in the Newark newspaper a formal contradiction of the report. We may note in what he says the prudent, strongly political, and astute temper of the man. " My attention," says he, " has just been called to a paragraph in the Nottingham and Newark Mercury of this morning, which announces on the authority of some person unknown that I have consented to be put in nomination for Manchester, and have promised if elected to sit in Parliament as its representative. I have to inform you that these state- ments are wholly without foundation. I was honored on Wednesday with a deputation from Manchester, empowered to request that I would become a candidate for the borough. I felt the honor, but I answered unequivoc- ally and at once that I must absolutely decline the invitation ; and I am much at a loss to conceive how 'a most respectable correspondent' could have cited language which I never used from a letter which I never wrote. Lastly, I beg to state in terms as explicit as I can command that 1 hold myself bound in honor to the electors of Newark, that I adhere in every particular to the tenor of my late address, and that I place my humble services during the ensuing Parliament entirely and unconditionally at their disposal." One would think that this clear and frank declination of the Manchester proposition would have settled the case ; but not so. Surprising as it may seem, the Tory electors of that city persisted in nominating Mr. Gladstone and voting for him. It is probable that they felt that his was a name to conjure with, and that in a hopeless political contest they could keep the Conservative forces too-ether with the shibboleth of " Church and State," and the name of Gladstone as the defender of the established order. A story got abroad, moreover, that he was a subscriber to the extent of five hundred pounds to the Tory election fund of Manchester, on condition that he be returned ! We do not know whether this report was or was not well founded. The probabilities are that Gladstone subscribed to the Conserv- ative fund, but that he did not stipulate his election as a condition. How- ever this may be, his name was put in nomination and formally seconded by the Tory politicians of Manchester. Mr. Denison, one of their number, made a strong speech in Gladstone's favor, setting him forth as the able and unambiguous supporter of the union of Church and .State. The Conservatives of the city knew themselves to be in a hopeless minority, but they rallied and cast 2,294 votes for William E. (Gladstone. The Hon. C. Poulett Thomson received 4,155 votes, and Mr. Mark Phillips, 3,760. The result showed an astonishing strength for the Tory candidate. He had declined a nomination. He was nonresi- dent. The manufacturing city was overwhelmingly Liberal. The candi- date (if such he were) never once appeared in the borough, or gave the 92 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. COTTON MILLS, -MANCHESTER. slightest countenance to what was going on ; and yet his vote was so large as to be a menace to the competitor just above him. Such was the surpris- ing strength of the Gladstone vote that the Tories were jubilant, and sent for their man to be the guest at a political dinner which they gave in his honor. The reception was held at the Bush Inn. In Gladstone's speech at the dinner he became witty. The circumstances had brought him to full feather. He was among his friends. In the political manner he congratu- lated his admirers that they had polled so great a vote under the banner of so poor a leader. He deprecated the abuse to which he had been subject, when he had in no wise offended the Liberals of Manchester, even by his presence during the canvass. Then he came to some excellent satire. " I have been told," said he, " that certain parties in Manchester were pleased to send over to Newark a Radical candidate to oppose me in the late elec- tion. I believe Manchester receives annually from Newark a great deal of useful commodities in the shape of malt and flour; and I suppose it was upon the principle of a balatice of trade that this Radical candidate was sent ! If instead of sending back this Radical candidate, they had sent back one of their sacks of flour, they would have sent back what was nearly as intelligent, and much more useful ! " RISING TO LEADERSHIl'. 93 The beginnings of the ascendency of William E. Gladstone in the affairs of Great Britain were virtually coincident with the commencement of the Victorian era. The career of the statesman and the career of the queen whose government he so largely influenced, but with whom he was never a popular or even acceptable agent, lie parallel throughout nearly the w^hole extent of this century. Under the auspices of Melbourne and Wellington, the young queen, modest, quite womanly, conservative, came to the throne in the summer of 1837. On the twentieth of the following October she, for the first time, attended Parliament, and opened the session in person. Her speech had, of course, been prepared by the minister. On the whole the beginning of the reign was auspicious. The young sovereign was greatly praised by the Tories, and even the Radicals found some cause of congratulation and hope. Legislation, however, was for the moment at a standstill. After a short session. Parliament was prorogued for nearly three months. In the mean- time the Canadian imbroglio had continued to vex the provinces and to alarm the home government. When, in January of 1S38, Parliament was reconvened, Lord John Russell brought forward a measure proposing to suspend for a season the constitution of Lower Canada, and pledging the support of the country to the government in the restoration of order in the Canadian provinces. Meanwhile, the Assembly of Quebec had sent Mr. Roebuck as its representative to the House of Commons to present the cause of Canada before that tribunal. In attempting to discharge his duty, he was met with a protest by Mr. Gladstone, who objected to receiving anyone as a representative of a provincial Assembly. The spirit with which the protestant resisted the recognition of popular rights seems strangely inconsistent with a proper respect for human liberty, as the same is now understood in English- speaking countries, and equally inharmonious with the statesman's future policies. An attempt was made by the opponents of Lord John Russell's meas- ure to have it rejected; and on this issue Gladstone spoke at length. His attitude showed that he might already be regarded as a Conservative leader in the House of Commons. He urged retrospectively that the act of Parlia- ment passed in 1831, putting the Canadian revenues into the hands of the provincial Assembly, was responsible for the present assumptions and pre- sumptions of that body. To repeal the act referred to would be to undo the evil. The administration of the colonial office had recently been marked with folly and double dealing. The correspondence of Lord Gosford, Secretary for the Colonies, showed impolicy, tergiversation, misrepresenta- tion of fact. The colonial department was characterized as thoroughly' incapable. The attack made by Gladstone on the ministry in this particular was severe, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Rice, felt called upon 94 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. to speak in answer. Nor does it appear that his effort to refute the argument and denunciation of Gladstone was very successtul. Sir Robert Peel spoke ironically of the inconsequential speech of the chancellor, and mocked at his effort as a failure. The ministerial majority, however, was sufficient to carry through the motion propounded b)' Lord Russell. The next wave of excitement in Parliament was the result of a measure proposed by Lord Henry Brougham for the abolition of the system of Negro ap|)renticeship in the West Indies. T9 this system we have already referred. In the retrospect, it seems hardly justifiable that Lord Brougham should have brought up the distressing subject when the question was so near a solution of itself The system of apprenticeship of the late slaves only e.xtended from the year 1834, when the Act of Emancipation was passed, to the year 1840. Within eighteen months of the time of which we are speak- ing apprenticeship would cease to exist. Nevertheless, the rising humanity of the age surged strongh- through the breasts of radical and progressive statesmen, and they could illy brook the continuance of the virtual slavery of the British Islands with the abuses to which the system was reported to give rise. Lord Brougham was not a man to bear patiently what he con- ceived to be a great wrong. Perhaps he was not unwilling to annoy and taunt those statesmen who had been in the attitude of upholding the ancient order. Stories of gross abuses and shocking cruelties done in the West Indies had been recently published in Great Britain. They were of common report. It was constantly alleged and repeated that the apprenticeship of the Negroes in the six-year interim was as vile in its abuse and injustice as the system of actual slavery. Lord Brougham, supported by Dr. Stephen Lushington and other Radical members of Parliament, pressed his motion for the immediate abolition of apprenticeship. This was done strangely enough in the House of Lords; but the echo of the movement was imme- diately heard in the Commons, where, on the 29th of March, 1838, .Sir George Strickland offered a resolution virtually concurrent with that.of Lord Brougham. On this question Gladstone made the longest and perhaps the strongest speech which he had ever yet delivered. It was longest as matter of tact, and strongest in the ability displayed to array the somewhat shattered logis- tics of the past in the support of conservatism. Clearh" the speaker was sensitive from personal considerations on the subject of the slave system and apprentice system in the West Indies. The fine estate of his father, who was now approaching the end of his life, had been built up by means of slave labor in the West Indian plantations — not wholly so, but in large measure. It was easy, therefore, to taunt the distinguished son with the intimation that his own properties and worldly fortunes, both actual and in KISINd TO LEADEKSHII', 95 expectancy, were poisoned throughout with the injustice and cruelties of human servitude. It must be acknowledged that William E. Gladstone was always a man of honor. This is said aside from those political turnings and expedients with which his long public career was marked. It was therefore to him a burning matter to have the insinuation of dishonesty and inhumanity applied to those methods by which his wealth had been acquired. He spoke power- fully against the motion of Sir George Strickland for immediate emancipa- tion He referred to the generosity which the West Indian slaveholders had shown when the Act of Emancipation was passed. They, as well as the Liberals and agitators, had assented to the humane measure by which slavery was done away. The slaveholders had themselves acknowledged and contributed to rectify the abuse and wrong of human servitude. They, the slaveholders, were glad that the system of enforced Negro labor had ceased to exist. They had accepted for their losses the compensation which was tendered by government as a compromise. It should be con- ceded that if the slaveholders had sought to perpetuate slavery under a false guise, then they should be denounced, pilloried by public opinion, handed over to future ignominy. But this was not so. The greater number of the ex-slaveholders had not desired covertly to perpetuate the system of servitude. Apprenticeship was only an intermediary expedient, which must soon pass away by its own limitation. The stories in circulation upon which honorable members were basing their present attack were slanders and not truths. These slanders affected the character of a reputable and highly honorable class of Englishmen. The speaker then broke out in what was for him a passionate appeal. His outburst was personal and almost angry. " (), sir," said he, " with what depth of desire have I longed for this day ! Sore and wearied and irritated, perhaps, with the grossly exaggerated misrepresentations and with the utter calumnies that have been in circulation without the means of reply, how do I rejoice to meet them in free discussion before the face of the British Parliament ! And I earnestly wish that I may be enabled to avoid all language and sentiments similar to those I have reprobated in others. The character of the planters is at stake in this controversy. They have been attacked on both moral and pecuniary grounds. Apprenticeship — as Lord Stanley has distinctly stated when introducing the measure before the House — was a part of the compensation. Negro labor had a marketable value, and it would be unjust to those who had a right in it to deprive them of it. The House has recognized and assented to this right as far as the year 1840, and is thus morally bound to fulfill its compact. The committee presided over by Mr. Buxton has investigated the system of apprenticeship, and has reported against the necessity for the proposed change." 96 LIFE AND TI.MKS OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. The speaker proceeded once more to canvass at great length the indus- trial condition in the West Indies. He showed that the relations between the planters and the Negroes who had been their slaves were amicable and, on the whole, satisfactory. Whatever cruelties may have existed they were in process ot extinction. The system of apprenticeship was not slavery, and was not marked with the abuses that had characterized human bondaee. o The stories which had been circulated and printed in Great Britain were exaggerations drawn from individual instances of hardship and abuse. The evils attendant upon apprenticeship were not general, but only local and peculiar. Statistics did not warrant the allegations of the gentlemen who support, Sir George Strickland's motion. If the lash had been used by West Indian overseers, that was a cruelty which was rapidly passing away. The history of British Guiana showed that the whipping of slaves had virtually ceased, and would cease of itself In a population of fully seven thousand there had only been, in that country, eleven cases of whipping in the five preceding months. Even these cases of the use of the lash were justified, or at least excused, on the ground that the punishment was for theft, for crime, and was not the real slave-whipping that had existed formerly. Besides, the advocates of the measure before the House were involved in the grossest inconsistency. They who were supporting the proposed measure of Sir George Strickland could not wait for two years until the system of apprenticeship would expire by its own limitation, but they could patronize without compunction the horrid system of African slavery in America. For that system the responsibility rested on British statesman- ship. In America there were three millions of slaves, and Great Britain, by the purchase of American cotton for use in the industrial cities, was patron- izing and supporting a slavery that had no alleviation. It was grossly inconsistent in Radical leaders thus to shore up human bondage in America, and to turn about and attack the mild and humane system of apprentice- ship in the West Indies. In America, the speaker continued, there was no hint of abolition. Slavery in that country was unmitigated. It had become a part of the domestic condition in a large portion of the American States. It bade fair to be an everlasting institution. In 1837 the British dealers, represented by agitators in Parliament, hail consumed forty-five million pounds of cotton produced by free labor, and three hundred antl eighteen million pounds produced by slave labor ! This, too, at a time when India afforded a field for the production of cotton with free labor at cheaper rates than could be had in America. " If, sir," the speaker continued, "the complaints against the general bodv of the West Indies had been substantiated, I should have deemed it an unworthy artifice to attempt diverting the attention of the RISING TO LEADERSHIP. 97 House from the question immediately at issue by merely proving that other delinquencies existed in other quarters ; but, feeling as I do that those charges have been overthrown in debate, I think myself entitled and bound to show how capricious are honorable gentlemen in the distribution of their sympathies among those different objects which call for their application." In this case the speaker claimed to urge only justice. The House of Commons could not be indifferent to the call for justice. Notwithstanding the fact that the speaker was in opposition, notwithstanding the fact that he appeared as an apologist only, proposing nothing in the way of progress, such was the vigor of his address and the dilemma in which he placed the patrons of American slavery illogically attacking the system of apprentice- ship, certainly a lesser evil, that the resolution of Strickland was beaten on an open division of the House. The London Times, then as ever the organ of the government, found ©ccasion to speak in high compliment of the speech of Gladstone from both a political and an oratorical point of view. The address was published in full in Hansard's Journal of the House of Commons, occupying thirty-three columns of that publication. It was also quoted with delight by the Conservative papers and summarized with little condemnation by the Liberal journals of the time. Certainly the speech did not go to the root of the matter. It did not look down into the ultimate character of all slavery and all semislavery whatsoever ; but, taking — as Gladstone was ever disposed to take — the existing condition as the point of departure, he argued out of that most strongly and successfully against the proposals of Lord Brougham and Sir George Strickland, gaining for himself and for his successful effort a well-deserved increment of repu- tation as a parliamentarian and rising statesman ; this, too, in the face of the fact that the abuses complained of in the islands of Demerara, Trini- dad, and Jamaica were, on the whole, founded in fact. The great point was that the government had promised the slaveholders a period of six years of that apprenticeship of the Negroes which stood in the place of the former slavery. To this they were entitled, as well as to the twenty millions sterling which had been given them in compensation for their human chattels. We might make the episode just recited, happening in the spring of 1838, the date of the national reputation and rising influence of W. E. Gladstone in the House of Commons. It was now manifest that an able, cautious, and withal patriotic, though strongly conservative, young parliamentary leader had appeared, from whom much might be expected for the future. Barnett Smith, in his Life of Gladstone, has repeated from a book called the British Senate in 1838, a paragraph in which the able author of that work, though often erroneous in statements of fact, happily sketches the character and position of the member from Newark at the period indicated. 7 ^8 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. " Mr. Gladstone," says he, " is one of the most rising young men on the Tory side of the House. His party expect great things from him; and cer- tainly, when it is remembered that his age is only thirty-five [!] the success of the parliamentary eftorts he has already made justifies their expectations. He is well informed on most of the subjects which usually occupy the attention of the Legislature ; and he is happy in turning his information to good account. He is ready on all occasions which he deems fitting ones with a speech in favor of the policy advocated by the party with whom he acts. His extempore resources are ample. Few men in the House can improvise better. It does not appear to cost him an effort to speak. He is a man of very considerable talent, but has nothing approaching to genius. His abilities are much more the result of an excellent education and of mature study than of any prodigality of nature in the distribution of her mental gifts. I have no idea that he will ever acquire the reputation of a great statesman. His views are not sufficiently profound or enlarged for that; his celebrity in the House of Commons will chiefly depend on his readiness and dexterity as a debater, in conjunction with the excellence of his elocu- tion and the gracefulness of his manner when speaking." Such contemporaneous criticisms as that just cited are always interest- ing in the retrospect — and frequently amusing. We may well wonder how the author of the same could make a gentleman to be "only thirty-five" in the year 1838, who was born in December of 1809 ! To the average arith- metician, skilled only in the vulgar subtraction of numbers, it would appear that Mr. Gladstone at this time was not yet thirty, or even quite twenty- nine years of age. And withal, five years at this period of a man's life are worth counting ! As to the prophetical part, that Gladstone could never acquire the reputation of statesman, and that he was more dependent on excellence of elocution than on any enlarged or profound views of state policy, that is fairly good ! The same author from whom we have quoted is more to the point in speaking of Gladstone's style, and of his abilitj- in ars celare artem. " His style," says he, " is polished, but has no appearance of the effect of previous preparation. He displays considerable acuteness in replying to an oppo- nent ; he is quick in his perception of anything vulnerable in the speech to which he replies, and happy in laying the weak point bare to the gaze of the House. He now and then indulges in sarcasm, which is in most cases very felicitous. He is plausible even when most in error. When it suits himself or his party, he can apply himself with the strictest closeness to the real point at issue ; when to evade the point is deemed most politic, no man can wander from it more widely." And the critic might have added more gracefully or classically ! In the next place the author of The Bi-itish Senaic hi 1838 goes on to RISING TO LEADERSHIP. 99 speak of the person and habit of the man. " Mr. Gladstone's appearance," says he, " and manners are much in his favor. He is a fine-looking man. He is about the usual height and of good figure. His countenance is mild and pleasant, and has a highly intellectual expression. His eyes are clear and quick. His eyebrows are dark and rather prominent. There Is not a dandy in the House but envies what Truefit would call his 'fine head of jet- black hair.' It is always carefully parted from the crown downward to his brow, where it was tastefully shaded. His features are small and regu- lar \mirabilc dictii !\ and his complexion must be a very unworthy witness if he does not possess an abundant stock of health. " Mr. Gladstone's gesture is varied but not violent. When he rises he generally puts both his hands behind his back ; and having there suffered them to embrace each other for a short time he unclasps them, and allows them to drop on either side. They are not permitted to remain long in that locality before you see them again closed together and hanging down before him. Their reunion Is not suffered to last for any length of time. Again a separation takes place, and now the right hand is seen moving up and down before him. Having thus exercised it a little, he thrusts it Into the pocket of his coat, and then orders the left hand to follow its example. Having granted them a momentary repose there, they are again put Into gentle motion ; and In a few seconds they are seen reposing vis a vis on his breast. He moves his face and body from one direction to another, not for- getting to bestow a liberal share of his attention on his own party. He Is always listened to with much attention by the House, and appears to be highly respected by men of all parties. He is a man of good business habits ; ot this he furnished abundant proof when Undersecretary for the Colonies, during the short-lived administration of Sir Robert Peel." We may now notice the remaining parliamentary history of Mr. Glad- stone during the years 1839-40. Notwithstanding the fact that with the last-named year the remaining vestiges of Negro slavery in the West Indies would cease, the agitation in the House of Commons relative to the indus- trial condition in those islands still continued. The animosity rose so high that at one time Sir Stephen Lushlngton introduced a bill from the side of the government for the suspension of the Jamaican Constitution. The measure was sufficiently radical and severe. As might be expected, Glad- stone opposed it with all his might. He went again through the same argu- ments that he had now traversed more than once with respect to the rela- tions to the ex-slaves and ex-masters of the British West Indies. More par- ticularlv, he urtred that the Lushlnoton Bill was in violation of faith. It would undo those conditions upon which a settlement in Jamaica had been effected. It was like a proposition to violate a contract after the fact. The passage of such a bill would be a notice to the colonial subjects of Great 1CX3 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Britain that they could not an)- longer depend on the good faith of the House of Commons. At this time began the agitation in England for a better system of public education. A proposition was made to constitute an Educational Board for the United Kingdom in connection with the privy council. The measure had the support of George William Frederick Howard (Vis- count Morpeth), at that time Chief Secretary for Ireland. It was opposed by Lord Stanley, who on the 14th of June, 1839, spoke long and almost angrily against the so-called National Education Bill. He insisted in a motion that her majesty be requested to rescind that Order in Council by which the Educational Board was to be constituted. Every proposition of the kind now before the House was calculated to awaken the deep-seated religious prejudices of Great Britain. The interests of the Established Church and the interest of Irish Catholicism could hardly be made to consist. The larger interest of secular society — inde- pendent alike of the one and of the other — was sacrificed once and again to the powerful prejudices of religion. Nearly every speaker approached the question from the angle of his own establishment. It seemed impos- sible to please everybody with anything. Lord Morpeth spoke in favor of the proposed bill. He made the argument that the government of Great Britain was in the habit of employing for national purposes, such as war, all classes of subjects, without respect to religious qualifications. Government did not hesitate to lay its hand on Roman Catholics and Nonconformists, as well as on adherents of the Church of England. Government did not forbear to take in taxation the property of all alike. Therefore all should be treated alike in the matter of public education. If the government made soldiers out of young Roman Catholics and took the gold of Nonconform- ists without asking leave of religious prejudice, then the government could hardly refuse the advantages of education to all subjects without partiality or prejudice. It is probable, indeed certain, that the trend of the debate was in part determined by the postulates and arguments of Mr. Gladstone's recent book on The State in its Relations with the Church ; for that work had now been published, and was matter of comment in religious circles and in the high places of statesmanship. In course of the debate, some of the speak- ers, such as Daniel O'Connell and Lord Ashley, referred to Mr. Gladstone's work, criticising favorably or adversely the tenets of that treatise. This was precisely to the author's hand and mind. It gave opportunity to him to reply to the defenders of the ministerial project. His speech was lev- eled in particular against Lord John Russell and Lord Morpeth. The speaker did not hesitate to avow and defend the doctrines of his book. He would support that thesis in both theory and practice. The principles RISING TO LEADERSHIP. lOI of his work on Church and State might well be compared with the prin- ciples of Lord John Russell, particularly in the results that flowed naturally therefrom. The principles which he had espoused might well be judged from an examination of the institutions of the three parts of the home empire of Great Britain. The establishment of England would show prac- tically the value of his doctrine. Scotland and Ireland would also furnish DANIEL O'CONNELL. a lesson. He animadverted upon the statistics which O'Connell had intro- duced into his speech, remarking wittily that that orator reminded him of a remark made by George Canning, to the effect that he had a great aver- sion to hearing a fact in debate, but a still greater repugnance to figures! Gladstone insisted that O'Connell was inaccurate in his alleged statis- tics. He then turned to Lord Morpeth's contention that the State ought 102 LIFE AXU TIMES OF WILLIA.M E. GLADSTOXE. to provide education for the Nonconformists because "it fingered their gold." In reply to this the speaker said that if the State of England had no other function than that of expressing the will of the people on religious doctrines, he might admit the truth of Morpeth's saying. On the other hand, if the State should be regarded as an entity and moral person having duties to perform, a conscience to obey, and by consequence a system of religion to uphold, then indeed the case was different. Certainly it was not the business of a representative in the House to revile any form of religion; but Christianity, expressed in the episcopal establishment, was the religion of the State. The measure proposed was sweeping in its provisions. It took in every mongrel variety of human thought and doctrine. If the bill should become a law, then the Jews would have a right to public education. How could this thing be.? A recent petition sent to the House had expressed to the queen the profound gratitude of the nation along with the wish that the youth of the country should be religiously trained, and the rights of conscience be respected for all. The petitioners expressed the hope that both Jew and Christian might be educated "with a due regard to the Holy Scriptures." How could the Jew, who rejected the New Testa- ment, be educated at public charge "with due regard to the Hol\- Scrip- tures?" If the Jews were to be educated at public charge as well as Christians, then the children of the Jews would have to be indoctrinated with the reading of the New Testament — a thing intolerable to the Hebrew understanding and conscience. The measure was therefore contradictory and absurd. The speaker would not require any child of England to be indoctrinated with principles contrary to the religion of his fathers. But this forbade the education of such children at the expense of the State. The whole speech was an excellent example of the conflict of the Aristo- telian logic, with all its bloodless and inhuman bones, against that humane and civilizing fact called history. Mr. Gladstone succeeded by his debate in reducing the governmental majority on the Education Bill, which was nevertheless passed over the Conservative protest. This was the age in British politics when many of the humane ques- tions that have filled up so large a part of the annals of the empire in this century were beginning to take form. The question of the Jews as possible participants in the benefits of the new statute of education widened into an agitation for removing from the long-oppressed race the legal discrimina- tions to which they had been subjected. Late in the session of 1839 a bill was brought into the House for the removal of the civil disabilities of the jews. The Liberals — including the residue of Whig statesmen — and the Radicals of the House were fovorable to the proposed measure. The Conservatives, however, were strongly agitated against it. Mr. Gladstone RISING TO LEADERSHIP. IO3 was among the number who deprecated the revocation of the anti-Jewish statutes. He spoke against the Removal Bill, and in so doing was con- fronted and worsted not a little by the brilliant Thomas Babington Macaulay, whose speech on the occasion was as humane and logical as it was eloquent and ornate. It could hardly be doubted that at this time Macaulay was the greatest debater in the Commons. His speech, when inspired with the passionate sense of justice and human right, moved like a storm through the forest; nothing could withstand it. He was nine years the senior of Gladstone, and had the advantage ot a pr'ofounder scholarship, extending into every field of the humanities, a more vivid imagination, less prudence, and greater audacity. The bill tor the removal of Jewish disabilities was passed through the House of Commons, but rejected by the Lords. It was much that Mr. Gladstone, who had not yet completed his thirtieth year, should be matched in any measure of honorable competition with the most brilliant speaker and writer of the times. In the followincr session Parliament was agitated with the Chinese question. Great Britain had begun her nefarious commerce in opium with the merchants of the Chinese ports. The authorities of the celestial empire were striving in a weak and desultory way to inhibit the wicked and corrupting trade. There was an interruption of intercourse between Great Britain and China, and afterward some overt acts of hostility. In the ses- sion of 1840 Sir James Graham introduced a declarative resolution that the difficulties with the Orient were referable to the mismanagement of the min- istry respecting the relations of Great Britain with China, and in particular to the fact that the superintendent of British interests at Canton had not been furnished with adequate instructions relative to the then contraband trade in opium. It was a measure of the opposition intended to weaken the influence of the government. The purpose of the supporters of the proposition was to show that Great Britain had been to blame in the antecedents of the difficulty, and would be still more to blame in making war on the Chinese. This was the position taken by Gladstone. In his speech he reverted to what Macaulay had said against the resolution of Sir James Graham. It shows us the degree of his courage that he was not unwilling to measure swords with so great an antagonist. " The right honorable gentleman opposite," said Mr. Gladstone, " spoke last night in eloquent terms of the British flag waving in glory at Canton, and of the animating effects produced on the minds of our sailors by the knowledge that in no country under heaven was it per- mitted to be insulted. But how comes it to pass that the sight of that flag always raises the spirit of Englishmen 7 It is because it has always been associated with the cause of justice, with opposition to oppression, with 104 LIKE AND TIMES OF WILLI A.M E. GLADSTONE. respect to national rights, with honorable commercial enterprise ; but now under the auspices of the noble Lord that flag is hoisted to protect an infamous contraband traffic, and if it were never to be hoisted except as it is now hoisted on the coast of China we should recoil from its sight with horror, and should never again feel our hearts thrill as they now thrill with emotion when it floats proudly and magnificently on the breeze." This was an instance in which Gladstone, though a Conservative, was favored by the elements in the question under debate. We think we per- ceive in his oratorical outburst an enthusiasm wliich had been impossible if the speaker had not discerned the degrading use to which the British flag was put in protecting the contraband trade in opium. The fire of the address hints at the great conflagration that may hereafter arise when national injus- tice shall furnish to the statesman, under inverted political conditions, a true theme of oratory and denunciation. The vote for Sir 1. Graham's antiministerial resolution was so strong" as almost to prevail over the government. Only five votes were wanting to such a result. Meanwhile the Melbourne ministry became more and more unpopular. The Nonconformists in England were dissatisfied with it, and still more were the Irish Catholics. The sentiment increased in 1840-41, and with the next session of Parliament it was manifest that the ministry would be overthrown. In the interim a deficit of two and a half millions sterling had appeared in the revenue. The Conservatives grew more and more aggressive. On the 27th of May, Sir Robert Peel, leader of the oppo- sition,. offered a resolution in the Commons of a want of confidence in the ministry. A long and heated debate ensued, at the end of which the gov- ernment was beaten on a full House, by a majority of one vote. Lord John Russell, speaking for the ministry, announced the dissolu- tion of Parliament and an appeal to the country. On the 22d of June the session ended in great confusion, and the parties threw themselves into the political canvass. In the elections that ensued the Conservatives made a net gain of forty seats in the House. Manv of the most able Liberals were beaten for reelection. Gladstone came back from Newark with a greater vote than ever. The Liberals went to the wall. When the House con- vened, in August of 1 841, the government was beaten on the address by a majority of ninety-one. Lord Melbourne went out, and Sir Robert Peel was summoned to construct a new ministry. In the formation of this Mr. Gladstone was remembered. He received the appointment of Vice President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint. His constituenc}' of Newark readily approved his appointment, and he became a prominent member in the second ministry of Sir Robert Peel. MARRIAGE AND FIRST APPEARANCE IN LITERATURE. IO5 CHAPTER VII. Marriage and First Appearance in Literature. N the second chapter of this work we traced to a certain extent Mr. Gladstone's ancestry and family development. In the present connection we revert again to personal history, and in particular present a notice of his marriage, the establish- ment of his own family, and the status of that family in the last years of the statesman's life. In 1830 Mr. Gladstone took in marriage Miss Catherine Glynne, daughter of Sir Stephen Richard Glynne. With her came the now cele- brated Hawarden Castle, in Flintshire. Here the statesman virtually spent his life with his growing family, but occupied during the greater part w^ith his public duties at London. The home of the Gladstones became famous as the head of it rose to distinction and world-wide reputation. The Hawarden estate has a history which, as events have determined, the English-speaking race is not likely to let die. The traditional accounts of Hawarden go back to the times of the Commonwealth, and then by another stage to the middle of the fifteenth century. It seems first to have belonged, in the reign of Henry VI, to Sir Thomas Stanley, one of the officers of the crown. Then it passed to the Derbys, with whom it remained until James, Earl of Derby, was beheaded lor royalism in 1651. With this event the estate went to Sergeant Glynne, to whom it was sold as a sequestered prop- erty. Nine years afterward, with the restoration of the House of Stuart, the heir of the Derbys was about to reclaim Hawarden; but Sergeant Glynne purchased whatever rights Charles, Earl of Derby, may have had, and the estate remained to the Glynnes, Sir William Glynne obtaining it in 1665. During the wars of the Commonwealth, the Royalists and the Republicans had the place by turns; but the Derbys never reoccupied Hawarden after the revolution. As to the Glynne family, that came out of Wales. The name seems to be taken from Glyii Llyvon, in Carnarvonshire. The father of Sergeant Glynne, who obtained Hawarden in 1651, was a knight, who became a chief justice. One of his sons was a parliamentarian and a baronet. In 1727 Sir Stephen Glynne, second baronet of the name, built a house at Hawarden. Afterward .Sir John Glynne, who married a daughter of the family of Ravenscroft, added to the estate the property called Broadlane. The Broad- lane House became the nucleus of Hawarden castle. The property was greatly improved by Sir John, who made the boundaries of the estate about what they are at the present time. More than seven thousand acres are included in the property, of which the park comprises about two hundred io6 LIFP: AM) TIMES OF WILLIAM K. (ILADSTONE. MARRIAGE AND FIRST APPEARANXE IN LITERATURE. IO7 acres and the other improved grounds about five hundred acres additional. By a coincidence, the present Hawarden house was built in the year of the birth of Mr. Gladstone — as if to prepare a way for the future. Sir Stephen, father of Mrs. Gladstone, added many improvements in his time ; and still greater changes and rectifications were made by Mr. Gladstone himself, in 1S64. The marriage of the statesman, when he had nearly completed his thirtieth year, was in every respect auspicious. The young wife was a lady of many accomplishments, noble character, fine native talents and a happy sympathy with the ambition of her husband. The union of the two proved to be prosperous and congenial in the highest measure. The Gladstone family as a whole came into public notice, and rose with the reputation of the statesman, until it became of world-wide note and most enviable reputation. The marriage of Mr. Gladstone and the foundation of his own house was coincident in time with his first formal appearance in the world of letters. It was in 1837-38 that he wrote and in the latter year that he published his first book. It appeared in two volumes, under the title of The Stale in its Relations zvith the Clinrch. Alread)' in Parliament the powerful beginnings had been seen of the movement the logical end of which was the disestablishment of that great religious organization which since the Reformation had been so closely interwoven with the structure and spirit of civil society. The movement in question had spread alarm throughout conservative England. Every Tory must in the nature of the case declaim against it. Every upholder of the established order must lift up his voice in warning. In Mr. Gladstone's case he was not at all satisfied with academic and parliamentary declamation. On the contrary-, at the very time when he was mounting to distinction and falling in love, he sat down deliberately to consider and set forth the bottom principles in the existing ecclesiastical system. That system included the union of Church and State. It included the powerful patronage and support of the Church by the State. It virtually made the State and the Church to be parts or organs of a common entity. Mr. Gladstone was not willing that this should simply be so, but he must dig down and discover the principles upon which the system was founded, and the justification of it in right reason and good policy. He had studied all that former philosophers had written on the subject. He knew Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity and Warburton's Alliance of Church and State as if by heart. He was familiar with the writings of Locke, had carefully considered Filmer's Patriarchical Theory of Government, and Black- stone's dissertations on secular and sacred law. In like manner he had weio-hed whatever Paley and Bolingbroke and Dr. Chalmers had said on the 108 LIFE AND TIMES 01" WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. great question of the relations of the State to the reHgious estabHshment in Great Britain. He had looked at the works of the authors referred to with a critical eye, and had discovered their insufficiency. None of the argu- ments seemed to satisfy his incjuiring and honest mind. Therefore must he consider the whole question ab ovo, and find for himself the real foundation upon which the combined structure of linglisli .State and English Church rested. Thereforfc must he formulate new arguments, gathered more substantially out of the nature of things, out of right reason, and out of the particular conditions acknowledged in British society. Thus arose the book on Church and .State — a work much debated about in its own time, and regarded with curiosity to the present day. The author defined himself in the title as " W. E. Gladstone, Esq., Student of Christchurch, and M. P. for Newark." The first edition of the book went to tile public in 183S; but the standard edition (the second) appeared in the beginning of 1839. The publication produced a distinct impression on the public mind. It was made the subject of Macaulay's memorable essay in the April number of the Ediiibju-gh Rcviciu of that year. This essay appears in all the standard editions of Macaulay, and has thus been disseminated wher- ever English speech is heard. The fact is that a good portion of the repu- tation of Gladstone's first book has depended, at least for perpetuity, on the splendid criticism which the master of that art gave to the work on the appearance of the second edition. We shall for this reason, in what we have to say about the first formal work published by Mr. Gladstone, refer quite fully to Macaulay's critique. It should be borne in mind that the author of the book became himself a noted reviewer. His articles soon found their way into the Quarterly Review, which publication, by the way, was another of those remarkable facts which date their origin to the great year 1809. Macaulay quickly recognized the fact that a new personal force had appeared in British society. He himself and that new personal force were diametrically opposed in nearly every particular of theory and life. Macaulay was at this time the great light of the Edinburgh coterie. He was a Whig of the Whigs, though it could hardly be said that Gladstone, Conservative as he was, was a Tory of Tories. His book, however, was conceived wholly from the Tory point of view. It was written as if from Oxford. It was virtually an Oxford production. Not that Mr. Gladstone did not himself produce it and stamp his genius on it, chapter by chapter, and line by line; but he himself was still, /(zr excellence, an Oxford man, and he would fain furnish Oxford with a better philosophical foundation than she had ever yet pos- sessed for one of her favorite tenets, namely, the union of Church and State. This condition must be borne in mind in estimating the force of Macau- lay's criticism. It was Whig against Tory. If the reviewer had not had a FIRST APPEARANCE IN LITERATURE. IO9 profound respect for the young man Gladstone, he would have treated him as he treated the poet Montgomery or the political adventurer Barere ; but there is nothing of this kind in the great critic's review of Gladstone's book. On the contrary, Macaulay does himself proudly, and the author of the book respectfully, from beginning to end. "The author of this vol- ume," says he, " is a young man of unblemished character, and of distin- guished parliamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories, who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader whose experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor. It would not be at all strange if Mr. Glad- stone were one of the most unpopular men in England. But we believe that we do him no more than justice when we say, that his al)ilities and his demeanor have obtained for him the respect and good will of all parties. His first appearance in the character of an author is therefore an interest- ing event ; and it is natural that the gentle wishes of the public should go with him to his trial." This paragraph has often been cited by the curious in political history as a striking example of the unforeseen that comes to pass in the affairs of men. Here we have him who was to become the greatest Liberal leader in the annals of England described — and truly described — as "the rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories, who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader whose experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor." The critic adds that Gladstone at that time might be regarded as one of the most unpopular men in England. This implies that he had no popularity or place with the Liberals of the day; certainly he had none with the Radi- cals. It also implies that while he was necessary to the young Tories in and out of Parliament, they really abhorred his moderate opinions. How great the change that was to ensue in the next three decades — a change by which all the existing relations in 1839 were to be utterly reversed! Macaulay has stated the theory of Mr. Gladstone in his work on Church and State as resting on a single "great fundamental proposition — that the propagation of religious truth is one of the principal ends of gov- ernment, as government." The reviewer adds that if Mr. Gladstone does not prove this proposition, his whole argument vanishes away. This is correctly stated. Gladstone's book does attempt to support the proposition that the propagation of religious truth is one of the great ends, if not the greatest end, of human government, and that therefore the established reli- gious order in England is, so to speak, one of the functions of the British government, to be administered with as much care as if it were the army, or the polls, or the system of coast defenses, or the police, or the post, or the colonial administration of the empire. no LII-E AND TIMi:S OF WILLIAM E. GLAUSTONIi. We will append two or three critical quotations from the book in which Mr. Gladstone expresses in his own loft\' and at times somewhat vague manner the bottom doctrines which he would defend and make permanent in the polity of Great Britain. One of his arguments is to show that only communicants of the Church of England ought to be selected for office, and LORD MACAULAY. (Phologra/th by M.iull ir' Fox!) that all others may be rightfully excluded. On this hypothesis he builds up the following argument : " We may state the same proposition in a more general form, in which it surely must command universal assent. Wherever there is power in the universe, that power is the property of God, the King of that universe — his property of right, however for a time withholden or abused. Now this property is, as it were, realized, is used according to the will of the owner, FIRST APPEARANCE IN LITERATURE. Ill when it is used for the purposes he has ordained, and in the temper of mercy, justice, truth, and faith, which he has taught us. But those principles never can be truly, never can be permanently entertained in the human breast, except by a continual reference to their source, and the supply of the divine grace. The powers, therefore, that dwell in individuals acting as a government, as well as those that dwell in individuals actincr for themselves, can only be secured for right uses by applying to them a religion." Further on, and in pursuance of the same line of argument which the author perceived he must make secure against all attack, he continues: " Why, then, we come now to ask, should the governing body in a State profess a religion.? First, because it is composed of individual men; and they, being appointed to act in a definite moral capacity, must sanctify their acts done in that capacity by the offices of religion, inasmuch as the acts cannot otherwise be acceptable to God, or anything but sinful and punish- able in themselves. And whenever we turn our face away from God in our conduct, we are living atheistically. . . . In fulfillment, then, of his obli- gations as an individual, the statesman must be a worshiping man. But his acts are public — the powers and instruments with which he works are public — acting under and by the authority of the law, he moves at his word ten thousand subject arms. And because such energies are thus essentially public, and wholly out of the range of mere individual agency, they must be sanctified not only by the private personal prayers and piety of those who fill public situations, but also by public acts of the men composing the public body. They must offer prayer and praise in their public and collec- tive character — in that character wherein they constitute the organ of the nation, and wield its collected force. Wherever there is a reasoning agency, there is a moral duty and responsibility involved in it. The governors are reasoning agents for the nation, in their conjoint acts as such. And there- fore there must be attached to this agency, as that without which none of our responsibilities can be met, a religion. And this religion must be that of the conscience of the governor, or none." Still again, the author, holding persistently to the fundamental doc- trines of his thesis, says : " National will and agency are indisputably one, binding either a dis- sentient minority, or the subject body, in a manner that nothing but the recognition of the doctrine of national personality can justify. National honor and good faith are words in everyone's mouth. How do they less imply a personality in nations than the duty toward God, for which we now contend? They are strictly and essentially distinct from the honor and good faith of the individuals composing the nation. France is a person to us, and we to her. A willful injury done to her is a moral act, and a moral 112 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. act quite distinct from the acts of all the individuals composing the nation. Upon broad facts like these we may rest, without resorting to the more technical proof which the laws afford in their manner of dealing with cor- porations. If, then, a nation have unity of will, have pervading sympathies, have the capability of reward and suffering contingent upon its acts, shall we deny its responsibility; its need of a religion to meet that responsibility.'' . . . A nation, then, having a personality, lies under the obligation, like the individuals composing its governing bodj-, of sanctifying the acts of that personality by the offices of religion, and thus we have a new and impera- tive eround for the existence of a State reli^rion." These extracts sufficiently elucidate the bottom grounds on which Mr. Gladstone built up with so much pains and cogency his system of Church and State. The argument was new. It was invented out of the philosophy of conditions existing in England, and existing still more widely in the abstract consideration of the nature and functions of human government. Macaulay must attack this argument, if at all, in its fundamental assump- tions ; and that he does in the review which we have before us — a review as famous as the book to which it is directed. The critic, like the author, went down to the bottom principle of the controversy. That principle involved, on the one hand, the assumption that government has for one of its leading functions the propagation of religious truth, and, on the other hand, the assumption that government is strictly a secular affair limited to the office of protecting the persons and estates of citizens from injury. This question, w^e may remark, has now been virtually solved by the logic and process of events. History within this century has demonstrated that human government is a secular, and not a religious affair. True, there is a large class of well-meaning people, diffused in varying numbers and varying zeal through all the civilized nations, who still claim that religion is a subject about which government should be constantly concerning itself. Such persons go through life in a ferment of excitement, the end and aim of which is to get the government to interfere more and more with the reli- gious and moral questions of men. But the class referred to are no longer potent as they once were. It has become a disorganized class, whose office is annoying, but hardly any longer disturbing to the course and manner of secular administration. A half a century ago, however, the case was different. Then it was still necessary to insist stoutly that government should be restricted to its normal and necessary functions, and that these functions had respect only to the secular conditions of society. This ground was boldly assumed by Mr. Macaulay in his review of Gladstone's book. Speaking of the two theories, the two possible objects of government, the one being the propagation of FIRST APPEARANCE IN LITERATURE. II3 religious truth, and the other the protection of the persons and estates of citizens from injury, the critic says: " No two objects more entirely distinct can well be imagined. The one object belongs wholly to the visible and tangible world in which we live ; the other belongs to that higher world beyond the reach of our senses. The one belongs to this life ; the other, to that which is to come." Macaulay goes on, by parity of reasoning, to show what the Gladstonian principle would lead to if applied to society and Its organized forces in gen- eral. He reaches the reductio ad absurdiini as follows: " Take any combination at random — the London and Birmingham Rail- way Company, for example — and observe to what consequences Mr. Glad- stone's arguments inevitably lead. Thus : ' Why should the directors of the railway company in their collective capacity profess a religion } First, because the collection is composed of individual men appointed to act in a definite moral capacity — bound to look carefully to the property, the limbs, and the lives of their fellow-creatures — bound to act diligently for their con- stituents — bound to govern their servants with humanity and justice — bound to fulfill with fidelity many important contracts. They must therefore sanc- tify their acts by the offices of religion, or these acts will be sinful and punishable in themselves. In fulfillment, then, of his obligations as an indi- vidual, the Director of the London and Birmingham Railway Company must be a worshiping man. But his acts are public. He acts for a body. He moves at his word ten thousand subject arms. And because these energies are out of the range of his mere individual agency they must be sanctified by public acts of devotion. The railway directors must offer prayer and praise in their public and collective character — in that character wherewith they constitute the organ of the company and wield Its collected power. Wherever there Is reasoning agency, there is moral responsibility. The directors are reasoning agents for the company. And therefore there must be attached to this agency, as that without which none of our responsibili- ties can be met, a religion. And this religion must be that of the con- science of the director himself, or none. There must be public worship and a test. No Jew, no Socinian,no Presbyterian, no Catholic, no Quaker, must be permitted to be the organ of the company and to wield its collected force.' Would Mr. Gladstone really defend this proposition } We are sure that he would not; but we are sure that to this proposition and to innumer- able similar propositions his reasoning Inevitably leads." The brilliant and profound reviewer ne.xt proceeds as follows : " Is It not perfectly clear that Mr. Gladstone's argument applies with exactly as much force to every combination of human beings for a common purpose, as to governments 1 Is there any such combination In the world, whether technically a corporation or not, which has not this collective 114 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. personality from which Mr. Gladstone deduces such extraordinary conse- quences ? Look at banks, insurance offices, dock companies, canal com- panies, gas companies, hospitals, dispensaries, associations for the relief of the poor, associations for apprehending malefactors, associations of medical pupils for procuring subjects, associations of country gentlemen for keeping foxhounds, book societies, benefit societies, clubs of all ranks, from those which have lined Pall Mall and St. James' Street with their palaces, down to the ' free and easy ' which meets in the shabby parlor of a village inn. Is there a single one of these combinations to which Mr. Gladstone's argfu- ment will not apply as well as to the State.? In all these combinations — in the Bank of England, for example, or in the Athenaeum Club — the will and agency of the society are one, and bind the dissentient minority. The bank and the Athenaeum have a good faith and a justice different from the good faith and the justice of the individual members. The bank is a person to those who deposit bullion with it. The Athenaeum is a person to the butcher and the wine merchant. If the Athenaeum keeps money at the bank, the two societies are as much persons to each other as England and France. Either society may increase in prosperity ; either may fall into difficulties. If, then, they have this unity of will ; if they are capable of doing and suffering good and evil, can we, to use Mr. Gladstone's words, 'deny their responsibility, or their need of a religion to meet that responsi- bility.?' Joint-stock banks, therefore, and clubs 'having a personality lie under the necessity of sanctifying that personality by the offices of religion ;' and thus we have ' a new and imperative ground ' for requiring all the directors and clerks of joint-stock banks, and all the officers of clubs to qualify by taking the sacrament." From these paragraphs the reader may discover Macaulay's astuteness and logical fence in answering and undoing the bottom assumptions of Mr. Gladstone's book. Further on the critic says : "It is perfectly true that it would be a very good thing if all the mem- bers of all the associations in the world were men of sound religfious views. We have no doubt that a good Christian will be under the guidance of Christian principles in his conduct as director of a canal company or stew- ard of a charity dinner. If he were, to refer to a case M^hich we before put, a member of a stage coach company he would, in that capacity, remember that ' a righteous man reeardeth the life of his beast.' But it does not follow that every association of men must therefore, as such association, profess a religion. It is evident that many great and useful objects can be attained in this world only by cooperation. It is equally evident that there cannot be efficient cooperation if men proceed on the principle that they must not cooperate for one object unless they agree about other objects. Nothing seems to us more beautiful or admirable in our social system than FIRST APPEARANCE IN LITERATURE. II5 the facility with which thousands of people, who perhaps agree only on a single point, combine their energies for the purpose of carrying that single point. We see daily instances of this. Two men, one of them obstinately prejudiced against missions, the other president of a missionary society, sit together at the board of an hospital and heartily concur in measures for the health and comfort of the patients. Two men, one of whom is a zealous supporter and the other a zealous opponent of the system pursued in Lan- caster's schools, meet at the Mendicity Society, and act together with the utmost cordiality. The general rule we take to be undoubtedly this, that it is lawful and expedient for men to unite in an association for the promo- tion of a good object, though they may differ with respect to other objects of still higher importance." Further on in his argument against the principles of Gladstone Macau- lay continues : " It is impossible to name any collection of human beings to which Mr. Gladstone's reasonings would apply more strongly than to an army. Where shall we find more complete unity of action than in an army? Where else do so many human beings implicitly obey one ruling mind ? What other mass is there which moves so much like one man ? Where is such tremen- dous power intrusted to those who command ? Where is so awful a respon- sibility laid upon them ? If Mr. Gladstone has made out, as he conceives, an imperative necessity for a State religion, much more has he made it out to be imperatively necessary that every army should, in its collective capacity, profess a religion. Is he prepared to adopt this consequence ? " On the morning of the 13th of August, in the year 1704, two great captains, equal in authority, united by close private and public ties, but of different creeds, prepared for a battle, on the event of which were staked the liberties of Europe. Marlborough had passed a part of the night in prayer, and before daybreak received the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. He then hastened to join Eugene, who had probably just confessed himself to a popish priest. The generals consulted together, formed their plan in concert, and repaired each to his own post. Marl- borough gave orders for public prayers. The English chaplains read the service at the head of the English regiments. The Calvinistic chaplains of the Dutch army, with heads on which hand of bishop had never been laid, poured forth their supplication in front of their countrymen. In the mean- time the Danes might listen to their Lutheran ministers, and Capuchins might encourage the Austrian squadrons, and pray to the Virgin for a blessing on the arms of the holy Roman empire. The battle commences, and these men of various religions all act like members of one body. The Catholic and the Protestant generals exert themselves to assist and to surpass each other. Before sunset the empire is saved. France has lost in Il6 LIKE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. (ILADSTONE. a day the fruits of eighty years of intrigue and of victory. And the aUies, after conquering together, return thanks to God separately, each after his own form of worship. Now, is this practical atheism ? Would any man in his senses say that, because the allied army had unity of action and a common interest, and because a heavy responsibility lay on its chiefs, it was, therefore, imperatively necessary that the army should, as an army, have one established religion, that Eugene should be deprived of his com- mand for being a Catholic, that all the Dutch and Austrian colonels should be broken for not subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles ? Certainly not. The most ig-norant trrenadier on the field of battle would have seen the absurdity of such a proposition. ' I know,' he would have said, ' that the Prince of Savoy goes to mass and that our Corporal John cannot abide it, but what has the mass to do with the taking of the village of Blenheim ? The prince wants to beat the French, and so does Corporal John. If we stand by each other we shall most likely beat them. If we send all the papists and Dutch away Tallard will have every man of us.' Mr. Glad- stone himself, we imagine, would admit that our honest grenadier had the best of the argument ; and if so, what follows } Even this : that all Mr. Gladstone's general principles about power and responsibility and person- ality and conjoint action must be given up, and that, if his theory is to stand at all, it must stand on some other foundation. " We have now, we conceive, shown that it may be proper to form men into combinations for important purposes, which combinations shall have unity and common interests, and shall be under the direction of rulers intrusted with great power and lying under solemn responsibility, and yet that it may be highly improper that these combinations should, as such, profess any one system of religious belief, or perform any joint act of reli- gious worship. How, then, is it proved that this may not be the case with some of those great combinations which we call States 7 We firmly believe that it is the case with some States. We firmly believe that there are communities in which it would be as absurd to mix up theology with gov- ernment as it would have been in the right wing of the allied army at Blenheim to commence a controversy with the left wing, in the middle of the battle, about purgatory and the worship of images." In the further course of this remarkable criticism Macaulay takes up Gladstone's particular argument for the exclusion of Dissenters from public office. On this subject the debate waxes hot. The critic charges home upon the author the justification of doctrines which would lead to the repe- tition of all the religious barbarities of the Middle Ages. He succeeds in making appear in their true absurdity the humane exceptions and restraints which Mr. Gladstone would fain put on the naked barbarity of the legiti- mate results and deductions of his thesis. FIRST APPEARANCE IN LITERATURE. 11/ We may not here pursue with any considerable fullness the lengthy review which Macaulay presents of the vicious elements in Gladstone's book. He does not hesitate to say that on the whole it is one of the worst books ever written ; that it is false, and that the doctrines are so pernicious that they would lead, if carried into practical operation, to the dissolution of societ)'. At the same time he loses no opportunity to comment favor- ably on the high talents and character of the author, and of his possible and jarobable usefulness in the intellectual and public life of Great Britain. The severity of the strictures is everywhere tempered with respect to the source from which the book proceeded. It is evident in the present reconsideration of the subject, after the lapse of more than a half a century — after allowing for the current prejudices of both the author and the critic, and for the disparity in the then literary experience and fame of the two men — that Macaulay succeeded in demol- ishing and makine of no effect the elaborate structure which Gladstone had built up with so great pains, and, indeed, with so much learning. The author was in the wrong, and the critic mainl\- in the right. The present age would be much less patient with a book advocating the propagation of religious truth as one of the legitimate and necessary functions of government than was the age of which we are speaking — of the age when it was still doubttul whether Alfred Tennyson could write a good poem, and when the bones of Napoleon were still resting under the slab in Slane's valley. We shall not pass, however, from the interesting topic of Gladstone's first appearance and defeat in the field of literature without noting with admiration the correspondence to which the episode gave rise between the author of The State in its Relations -with the Church and the brilliant scholar before whose trenchant blade he went to the wall. Much later in life, namely, in 1868, Mr. Gladstone published his Chapter- of Autobiography, in which he reviewed at some length the circumstances of the issuance of his first book, gave what justification he could in the retrospect, and renounced the rest, but in particular gave publicity to the two letters which were exchanged between himself and Macaulay on the occasion of the pub- lication by the latter of his celebrated article on " Church and State." These letters are here incorporated, not only for their own intrinsic interest, but for the lesson which they teach, and ought to teach, relative to the narrow-minded rancor and puny enmities which sometimes prevail among public and literary men in the United States. After fiity-six years it is still a matter of inspiration and good cheer to read these two letters of rising Tory and famous Whig, of young author and veteran critic, of political aspirant trying to bolster up the past, and experienced publicist advancing into the future and setting up the gonfalon of liberal- ism far out beyond the outposts. The first letter is from Mr. Gladstone, Il8 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. written coincidently with the appearance of Macaulay's criticism, and is as follows : "6 Carlton Gardens, ^/rz7 lo, 1839. "Dear Sir: I have been favored with a forthcoming number of the Edinburgh Review, and I perhaps too much presume upon the bare acquaintance with you, of which alone I can boast, in thus unceremoniously assuming you to be the author of the article entitled ' Church and State,' and in offering you my very warm and cordial thanks for the manner in which you have treated both the work and the author on whom you deigned to bestow your attention. In whatever you write you can hardly hope for the privilege of most anonymous productions, a real concealment ; but if it had been possible not to recognize you I should have ques- tioned your authorship in this particular case, because the candor and single- mindedness which it exhibits are, in one who has long been connected in the most distinguished manner with political party, so rare as to be almost incredible. " I hope to derive material benefit, at some more tranquil season, from a consideration of your argument throughout. I am painfully sensible, whenever I have occasion to reopen the book, of its shortcomings, not only of the subject, but even of my own conceptions ; and I am led to suspect that, under the influence of most kindly feelings, you have omitted to criti- cise many things besides the argument, which might fairly have come within your animadversion. " In the meantime I hope you will allow me to apprise you that on one material point, especially, I am not so far removed from you as you sup- pose. I am not conscious that I have said either that the Test Act should be repealed or that it should not have been passed ; and though on such subjects language has many bearings which escape the view of the writer at the moment when the pen is in his hand, yet I think that I can hardly have put forth either of these propositions, because I have never entertained the corresponding sentiments. Undoubtedly I should speak of the pure abstract idea of Church and State as implying that they are coextensive; and I should regard the present composition of the United Kingdom as a devia- tion from that pure idea, but only in the same sense as all differences of religious opinion in the Church are a deviation from its pure idea, while I not only allow that they are permitted, but believe that (within limits) they were intended to be permitted. There are some of these deflections from abstract theory which appear to me allowable ; and that of the admission of persons not holding the national creed into civil office is one which, in my view, must be determined by times and circumstances. At the same time I do not recede from any protest which I have made against the prin- ciple that religious differences are irrelevant to the question of competency FIRST APPEARANCE IN LITERATURE. II9 for civil office ; but I would take my stand between the opposite extremes — ■ the one, that no such differences are to be taken into view ; the other, that all such differences are to constitute disqualifications. " I need hardly say the question I raise is not whether you have mis- represented me; for, were I disposed to anything so weak, the whole internal evidence and clear intention of your article would confute me ; indeed, I feel I ought to apologize for even supposing that you may have been mistaken in the apprehension of my meaning, and I freely admit, on the other hand, the possibility that, totally without my own knowledge, my language may have led to such an interpretation. " In these lacerating times one clings to anything of personal kindness in the past, to husband it for the future, and if you will allow me I shall earnestly desire to carry with me such a recollection of your mode of deal- ing with the subject ; inasmuch as the attainment of truth, we shall agree, so materially depends upon the temper in which the search for it is insti- tuted and conducted. " I did not mean to have troubled you at so much length, and I have only to add that I am, with much respect, dear sir, " Very truly yours, " T. B. Macaulav, Esq. W. E. Gladstone." The reply of Macaulay to this letter of the man whose book he had brought, not only to the bar, but to the rack also, is equally interesting and honorable. He says on the very next day : "3 Clarges Street, April ii, 1839. " Mv Dear Sir: I have very seldom been more gratified than by the very kind note which I have just received from you. Your book itself and everything that I heard about you, though almost all my informa- tion came — to the honor, I must say, of our troubled times — from people very strongly opposed to you in politics, led me to regard you with respect and good will, and I am truly glad that I have succeeded in marking those feelings. I was half afraid, when I read myself over again in print, that the button, as is too common in controversial fencing, even between friends, had once or twice come off the foil. " I am very glad to find that we do not differ so widely as I had appre- hended about the Test Act. I can easily explain the way in which I was misled. Your general principle is that religious nonconformity ought to be a disqualification for civil office. In page 238 you say that the true and authentic mode of ascertaining conformity is the Act of Communion. I thought, therefore, that your theory pointed directly to a renewal of the Test Act. And I do not recollect that you have ever used any expression 120 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. importing that your theory ought in practice to be modified by any consid- erations of civil prudence. All the exceptions that you mention are, as far as I remember, founded on positive contract — not one on expediency, even in cases where the expediency is so strong and so obvious that most states- men would call it necessity. If I had understood that you meant your rules to be followed out in practice only so far as might be consistent with the peace and good government of society I should certainly have expressed myself verj' differently in several parts of my article. " Accept my warm thanks for your kindness, and believe me, with every good wish, my dear sir, " Ver)' trul)' j'ours, " W. E. Gladstone, Esq., M. P. T. B. Macaulav." Mr. Gladstone's work, TIic State in its Relations zvitli the Clnirch, in so far as it had any ulterior motive, was intended to please and inspire the conservative scholars and thinkers of Great Britain. The author had Oxford particularly in mind. To that institution the book was dedicated in these words: "Inscribed to the University of Oxford; tried and not found wanting throucrh the vicissitudes of a thousand years ; in the belief that she is providentially designed to be a fountain of blessings spiritual, social, and intellectual, to this and to other countries, to the present and future times ; and in the hope that the temper of these pages may be found not alien to her own." Certainly the temper of the book and its fundamental assumptions were not alien to those of Oxford. The men of that university received the work almost as a finality on the great theme which the author discussed. The better thinkers, however, of Toryism, as well as of the Liberal ranks, hesitated or drew back from the defense of principles the results of which must be as Macaulay had shown. The Oitarterly Review took up the book as the j6"rt'/«- hirgJi had done, but from the conservative point of view. But the Quarterly, though praising much the work of the young author, did not ratify his arguments as such. The reviewer asserted that a popular government could not maintain a State religion against the wishes of the people. If the English nation as such should choose to renounce the Established Church, then the king, the lords and the Commons, singly or in union of effort, would be impotent to uphold the Church, and must indeed abandon it to its fate. The writer did not fail to observe that Gladstone had gone beyond his predecessors in seeking the bottom principles and sources of his areument. " He has," said the reviewer, " seen through the weakness and fallacy of the line of reasoning pursued by Warburton and Paley. And he has most wisely abandoned the argument from expediency, which offers little more than an easy weapon to fence with, while no real danger is appre- FIRST APPEARANCE IX LITERATURE. 121 THE SIkAXI) AND ST. MARY'S CHURCH, LONDON. hended ; and has insisted chiefly on the claims of duty and truth — the only consideration which can animate and support men in a real struggle against false principles." The writer then proceeded, in the manner of Gladstone himself, to show that morality in government cannot be maintained without religion. This was a supposedly unassailable proposition with the conserva- tive writers of the last quarter of the eighteenth, and the first half of the nine- teenth centur)-. If the truth of this proposition be granted, then it should follow that the maintenance of religion is a proper function of government, and the support of the Church, in union with the State, the necessary method of enforcing the State's morality. Mr. Gladstone's first book still furnishes not a few remarkable studies for the student of political history. Among these no part is more interesting than those paragraphs in which the author sets forth his views respecting the duties of the State of Great Britain to uphold the Irish Church. Little did the writer foresee the great change which his own mind would undergo before he could become the champion of disestablishment. In the opening chapter of the second volume of The State in its Relations with the Church tlie author, speaking of the Irish Establishment, makes the following argu- ment for the maintenance of the existing order : " The Protestant Legislature of the British empire maintains in the 122 • LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. (ILADSTONE. possession of the Church property of Ireland the ministers of a creed professed, accordino- to the parHamentary enumeration of 1835, by one ninth of its population, regarded with partial favor by scarcely another ninth, and disowned by the remaining seven. And not only does this anomaly meet us in full view, but we have also to consider and digest the fact that the maintenance of this Church for near three centuries in Ireland has been contemporaneous with a system of partial and abusive government varying in degree of culpability, but rareh, until of later years when we have been forced to look at the subject and to feel it, to be exempted in common fairness from the reproach of gross inattention (to say the very least) to the interests of a noble but neglected people. " But however formidable at first sight these admissions, which I have no desire to narrow or to qualify, may appear, they in no way shake the foreeoine argfuments. Thev do not change the nature ot truth and her capability and destiny to benefit mankind. They do not relieve government of its responsibility, if they show that that responsibility was once unfelt and unsatisfied. They place the Legislature of this country in the condition, as it were, of one called to do penance for past offenses ; but duty remains unaltered and imperative, and abates nothing of her demand on our services. It is undoubtedly competent, in a constitutional view, to the government of this country to continue the present disposition of Church property in Ireland. It appears not too much to assume that our imperial Legislature has been qualified to take, and has taken in point of fact, a sounder view of religious truth than the majority of the people of Ireland in their desti- tute and uninstructed state. We believe, accordingly, that that which we place before them is, whether they know it or not, calculated to be beneficial to them, and that, if they know it not now, they will know it when it is presented to them fairly. Shall we, then, purchase their applause at the expense of their substantial, nay, their spiritual interests ? " It does, indeed, so happen that there are also powerful motives on the other side concurring with that which has here been presented as paramount. In the first instance we are not called upon to establish a creed, but only to maintain an existing legal settlement, where our constitutional right is undoubted. In the second, political considerations tend strongly to recom- mend that maintenance. A common form of faith binds the Irish Protes- tants to ourselves, while they, upon the other hand, are fast linked to Ireland; and thus they supply the most natural bond of connection between the countries. But if England, by overthrowing their Church, should weaken their moral position they would be no longer able, perhaps no longer willing, to counteract the desires of the majority tending, under the direc- tion of their leaders (however, by a wise policy, revocable from that fatal course), to what is termed national independence. Pride and fear, on the FIRST APPEARANCE IN LITERATURE. 1 23 one hand, are, therefore, bearing up against more immediate apprehension and difficulty, on the other. And with some men these may be the funda- mental considerations ; but it may be doubted whether such men will not flinch in some stage of the contest should its aspect at any moment become unfavorable." His book on Church and State put Mr. Gladstone on the defensive during his life. He was constrained ever afterward to appear at intervals in the role of apologist for the doctrines set forth in his first work. He was obliged to ware right and ware left in defending as much as was at all defensible in his book. In course of time he openly disavowed much of it. Sometimes, when hard pressed, he would put forth an argument aptly conceived and well calculated to conciliate hostile criticism. His enemies urged that his doctrine ol a conscience in the State led directly to the exclusion from all participation in public affairs those who had consciences of different scope and timber from that of the governing power. It led even, said they, to persecution for opinion's sake and the revival of the horrid vices of the Middle Ages. To this Mr. Gladstone replied with not a little skill : " What political or relative doctrine is there which does not become an absurdity when pushed to its extreme ? The taxing powers of the State, the prerogatives of the crown to dissolve Parliaments and to create peers, the right of the House of Commons to withhold supplies, the right of the subject, not to civil franchises only, but even to security of person and property — all these, the plain, uncontested rules of our Constitution, become severally monstrous and intolerable when they are regarded in a partial and exclusive aspect." This argument was, indeed, adroit and powerful, but the antagonist was not satisfied. He returned to the onset, and showed that Mr. Gladstone's case of logical parity and reduction to the absurd would not hold ; for in the case of taxation, that, under the British Constitution, rests not on some men, but on ail alike ; whereas Mr. Gladstone's doctrine, if pressed to its extreme, would exclude the Jew and the Quaker from office, and, therefore, would be a hardship to some only — not to all. This view of the case was certainly correct, and again the statesman's argument was undone. We have already quoted from a Chapter of Autobiography, published by Mr. Gladstone in 1868. By that time he had become the successful leader in the movement for disestablishing the Irish Church. His position at the time was so utterly contrarious to the grounds which he had occupied aforetime that he felt constrained to publish what may be regarded as an amende lionorabic to the British public and all mankind. He had passed over to a position wholly opposed to that which he had formerly held, and must defend the change as well as he might. This he does in his Ciiapter 124 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. of Autobiography. The work is essentially an explanation of the processes by which British society and British polity had been transformed, and how he had been transformed also. The introduction to his treatise is suffi- ciently explanatory : "At a time," says he, " when the Established Church of Ireland is on her trial it is not unfair that her assailants should be placed upon their trial too ; most of all if they have at one time been her sanguine defenders. But if not the matter of the indictment against them, at any rate that of their defense should be kept apart, as far as they are concerned, from the public controversy, that it may not darken or perplex the greater issue. It is in the character of the author of a book called The State in its Relatiotis with the Church that I ofter these pages to those who may feel a disposi- tion to examine them. They were written at the date attached to them, but their publication has been delayed until after the stress of the general election." The writer then goes on to admit the great and crlaring chancre which had taken place in himself with respect to the Established Church in Ireland. He urged that this change must be accounted for, explained, and understood as not attributable to eccentricity or perversity on his own part, but to the slow-moving and irresistible changes by which British society, and, indeed, all modern history, had been translated into another mood and temper. Moreover, Mr. Gladstone was not willing that the public question then on in England for the disestablishment of the Irish Church should suffer in its progress and solution by any of his own inconsistencies. The reader will bear in mind that we are here speaking of what Mr. Gladstone wrote thirty years after the date of his first book. We have thus sufficiently pursued the story of the statesman's first appearance in literature, of the nature of the book which he published, of the reception which it, met, of the pains which the author must afterward be at to apologize for it or explain it away. The publication of the book raised Mr. Gladstone in the estimation of all parties. His abilities were recognized in the intellectual world, and if his arguments were condemned by the best thinkers, they were condemned as much because they were the product of the past, of Toryism, and of Oxford University, as because they were the utterance of a rising statesman. With him as a person, as an author, as an aspiring politician, nearly all the intellectual folk of Great Britain sympathized, notwithstanding the abhorrence in which many held his doctrines. We may thus, at the beginning of the year 1840, contemplate William E. Gladstone as well advanced on that public career which he was destined to follow so long and so well, and see him establishing himself more and more in the good opinion of his countrymen. THE FREE-TRADE TRANSFORMATION. 125 CHAPTER VIII. The Free-trade Transformation. HE political condition of Great Britain during the first three or four years of the reign of Victoria might well furnish oppor- tunity to a scholarly young statesman to express his opinions and policies by means of literature. A quiet had fallen on England, and the debates in Parliament were, for the most part, factitious and irrelevant. The Reform Bill, and the results of that measure, had been accepted as parts of the British Constitution. Conservatism, from having bitterly opposed the reformatory legislation which was effected at the beginning of the decade, passed over in the usual manner and encamped in the abandoned bivouac of Liberalism. Meanwhile, ministerial changes had been going forward. Earl Grey, after having had the distinguished, almost immortal, honor of leading the ministry when the struggle was on for parliamentary reform, for the abolition of slavery throughout the British empire, and the enactment of the Poor Law amendment, finally went out of ofiice in July of 1834. William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne, then became prime minister until the following November, to be returned to the same position in April of 1835. The Melbourne administration lasted for six years and four months, ending in August of 1841. The period of this ministry was almost wholly uneventful from a legislative point of view. Great Britain was engaged in quietly adjusting herself to the reformed conditions, and was very willing that the administration should remain in the hands of a statesman more noted for negations than for anything else; more indebted for his reputation to his successful induction of Queen Victoria into her duties as sovereign than for any popularity derived from his policy as a statesman. His talents were by no means brilliant. His oratory was weak and often pointless. Personally he was popular and acceptable. His skill in statecraft lay in his ability to manage the subordinates of his party and to interest them with his wit and other attractive personal qualities. It was during this rather colorless period of the Melbourne ministry, just after the accession of Victoria and just before his own marriage, that Mr. Gladstone found opportunity to indulge his passion for letters, and to promote his future interests in politics by advocating the doctrines discussed in the foregoing chapter relativ(; to the union of Church and State. The time now came, however, for a change in the tide. Great Britain wearied of the Melbourne ministry, and in August of 1841 that administration went to pieces. It was the signal for the beginning of a new epoch in parlia- 126 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. mentary history ; and of this liistory Wilham E. Gladstone liad now become a not inconsiderable part. Lord Melbourne was succeeded by Sir Robert Peel, who had been out of office since 1835. During this interval Mr. Gladstone had followed in the wake of him who now became Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury. At the first it could not be known what changes in the policy of the empire Sir Robert was disposed to promote. Possibly he did not SIR ROBERT PEEL. himself see clearly the course of events. At any rate, he moved cautiously on coming into power, examining tentatively the ground he was to occupy; and in this policy he was supported by Mr. Gladstone. In September of 1841 a lengthy debate occurred in Parliament on a motion to constitute a Committee of Supply. On this proposition Mr. Fielden moved to amend by appointing a committee to investigate the causes of the existing distress before attempting to relieve it. The debate THE P'KEE-TKADE TKANSFOKMATIUN. 12/ showed a strong disposition on the part of Parliament to ascertain its own whereabouts with relation to that past from which the House had emerged, and to that future which seemed altogether obscure. We are now able to see historically, as by the immutable laws of cause and effect, how great industrial and social questions must follow hard after the Reform Bill of 1832. Among such questions none was of greater impor- tance than that of the Corn Laws. Those laws touched the history of Great Britain in many places, and extended over several centuries of time. They existed as a part of the system which the empire had long maintained in favor of the agricultural classes. The general effect of the Reform Bill had been to reduce somewhat the overwhelming influence of the landed aristocracy, and correspondingly to enhance the influence of the commercial and manufacturing classes. The Corn Laws were involved in this change ; and the question of amending or abolishing them could hardly long be post- poned. Besides, certain conditions of distress, industrial and social, had now appeared in British society. It were hard to say whether such distress had long existed and had only now found a voice, or whether the accumulation of populations in the manufacturing centers and the pressure of the whole people on the means of subsistence had led to the suffering which at length cried out for relief We need not here enter elaborately into the history of the Corn Laws of Great Britain. That would carry us far back, at least to the early part of the fifteenth century. The laws in question related fundamentally to the export and import of wheat, rye, barley, and the immediate products of some of these grains. Duties Avere imposed on the exportation and trade in these cereals, all of which were included under the general term corn. Statute after statute had been passed through a period of about three hundred years, regulating the corn trade and determining prices, the theory being that the home j^roduct of Great Britain was necessary in toto for the well-being of the people. The act of the year 1S15 had been intended to fix the price of wheat in the British markets at about eighty shillings the quarter. In the ensuing twenty years the laws were many times modified in the hope of maintaining the price of the bread materials at a high point, in spite of natural conditions. In 1827 George Canning secured the pas- sage of a new schedule in the House of Commons, lowering the duties and expressing the tendency of legislation toward their final extinction. Two years previously an act had been passed permitting the importation of wheat from North America at a duty of five shillings per quarter, without respect to the home price of wheat in Great Britain. The law of Canning had been one shilling the quarter on wheat, when the home price was above seventy shillings, and an increased duty of two shillings 128 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. for every point that the price should fall below sixty-nine shillings the quarter. These rules of trade were difficult of application, and frequently of little effect. The laws became more and more unsatisfactory, and the reformed Conservative government undertook, in 1 841, to revise the schedule. On the 9th of Feliruar)' in that year Sir Robert Peel proposed a new sliding scale of duties on corn, beijinninLr with a dutv of twentv shillings, to be levied when the home price of wheat was fifty-one shillings the quarter, with a re- duction to one shilling when the home price should rise to seventy-three shillings the quarter. The theory was that by the sliding scale the price of the various grains to which the law referred might be maintained at a high point and with comparatively little fluctuation therefrom. It was with this important economic proposition that the stormy legis- lative history of the decade was introduced. It was the intention of Sir Robert Peel to precipitate a discussion of the Corn Laws as such. He declared in so many words that he regarded the crisis as not unfavorable for the consideration of the bottom principles of the laws. He spoke of the conditions present in the country, saying that the foreign crops in sight had not been such as to alarm the farming interest of England. There had been quiet in the country during the period of the recess. Legislation might be resumed with no apprehension of popular violence ; for there was none. The House might proceed with calmness and moderation to con- sider any measure which had for its end the solution of the problem involved in the duties on corn. The event showed, however, that Sir Robert had drawn on his imagi- nation rather than on the facts in the forefroine statements. The echo of his speech had hardly died away before the popular young queen had been hooted at one of the London theaters. That was a signal that the ministry was imperiled. The countr}' came into a condition of feverish excitement. Five days after Sir Robert Peel had introduced his j^roposition Lord John Russell, taking advantage of a parliamentary opportunity, thrust before the House of Commons an amendment, which was really a substitute, in these terms: "That this House, considering the evils which have been caused by the present Corn Laws, and especially by the fluctuation of the graduated, or sliding scale, is not prepared to adopt the measure of her majesty's government, which is founded on the same principles, and is likely to be attended by similar results." If this substitute should prevail it would amount to the overthrow of the ministry. Indeed, Lord John Russell had that end in view. The Con- servative leaders, however, planted themselves with the panoply of party contrivance around them in the way of the movement. Gladstone took up the cause of the premier, and spoke with great plausibility in lavor of the THE FREE-TRADE TRANSFORMATION. 1 29 ministerial proposition. He denied that Sir Robert Peel's measure was identical with tiiat of Lord John Russell, or even like it. The speaker was more careful than his master in regard to the existing distress, which he admitted, but laid to the charge of nature. For, he said, the crops had failed, and no rate of import duties could prevail against such a disaster. For four years successively there had been a comparative failure in the production of wheat, barley, and rye. The high prices of food under such circumstances could not be wholly obviated under any contrivance of man. The proposition of the government was in nearly all respects different from that of Lord Russell, and markedly superior thereto. The measure pro- posed by the premier was temperate, rational, conservative. The country might safely, under such a measure, expect an equalization in prices and a betterment of social and domestic conditions. The debate waxed hot ; but when it came to a vote the government was sustained by a large majority. Lord Russell's substitute was vigorously rejected. Nevertheless, public discontent was everywhere. Sir Robert Peel, in his optimistic misrepresentation of the industrial condition of England, incurred much ridicule and sarcasm. The animosity against him broke out here and there in tumults, denunciations, and burnings in effigy. The ministry, however, w^as strong and unyielding. Only ten days after the Russell episode Mr. Villiers, a free trader pure and simple, offered a resolu- tion in the House for the absolute repeal of the existing Corn Laws. This struck down to the heart of the question. Since it was a measure of disturb- ance, a thing always frightful to a British Parliament, it was rejected by a majority of more than two thirds. Something, however, had to be done ; for there was a deficit of nearly three million pounds, and the existing system of tariff duties on articles of consumption was already strained to the point of breaking. It is in the nature of such situations that they suggest an income tax. Property, in the day of final resort, is summoned to give back a part of what it has taken away. Sir Robert Peel espoused the principle of a tax on incomes. He presented a scheme for raising three million seven hundred thousand pounds, at the same time indicating his purpose, should his method be adopted, of reducine the duties of the existing schedule to a much lower figure. The main feature of the scheme was the levying of a sevenpence rate on all incomes over a hundred and fifty pounds for a period of three years. The Whigs, under the lead of Lord John Russell, entered the arena against the ministerial plan, but could not prevail. As soon as the Income Tax Bill was passed government went forward to carr)' out its pledge of reducing and abolishing duties. The idea was to relieve the manufacturing industries of Great Britain, and to popularize the government with them, by reducing, minimizing, or wholly removing those 9 130 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. duties by which the agricultural interest had so long been favored. Nor will the American reader fail to observe in this situation, partibus reversis, the exact counterpart of the tariff legislation in the United States in the decade following the first accession of Cleveland to the presidency. An examination of the ministerial schedule, which Mr. Gladstone is said to have prepared and to have put into Sir Robert Peel's hands for introduction into the Commons, showed that a large number of the articles hitherto under duty were to be changed to the free list, and that the duties on a still greater number had been heavily reduced. The measure was virtually the proto- type of the American Wilson Bill of 1893-94. The free traders in Parlia- ment shouted with derisive laughter to see, as they said, the ministry of Great Britain driven over by public opinion to the position held by the Radicals. A long debate ensued, marked with stormy passages, in the course of which Mr. Gladstone stood as the champion of what was virtually his own measure. The debates reported in Hansard and the Anmtal Register for this period show that the statesman (for we may now call him such) spoke at greater length or less no fewer than a hundred and twenty-nine times during the session of 1841-42, and by far the greater number of his efforts were directed to the question of tariff reform as expressed in the pending ministerial bill. We shall here for the moment neglect the general political and domes- tic conditions in England, and go forward to the end of the contest over the Corn Laws. The fate of those long-standing interferences with the natural conditions of trade was at hand. The debate over the tariff schedules was ever and anon deflected to that which was the bottom ques- tion, namel)', the advisabilitj' of abolishing utterly the restrictions on the commerce in the cereals grown in England. The manufactures of the realm were seriously impaired. It was a periodical epoch of distress. Everything seemed to go to the advantage of those who sought to make Great Britain an absolutely free-trade country. Mr. Gladstone at this time, having become virtually the ablest speaker among the ministerial benches, had devolved on him the onerous duty of explaining away the suffering and discontent of the country. He was much more concessive than his leader. Sir Robert Peel, in admitting the hard conditions of the times. The session of 1842 expired, and that of 1843 began. The queen's speech, devised to meet the exigencies of the existing ministry, spoke thankfully of the labors of her Parliament, optimistically of the condition of her people, and quite hopefully of the future. The address from the throne called forth serious opposition. There was a proposition to consider the speech of her majesty in committee of the whole. Should such a motion prevail it would imply a want of confi- THE FKEE-TKADE TRANSFORMATION. I.^I dence in the government. A debate ensued, in the course ot which Mr. Gladstone defended the poHcy of the ministry, but at the same time held out the lure that the differences between the two parties in Parliament — parties which had recently combined to the number of more than three hundred \otes against the proposition to abolish the Corn Laws — were not so great but that all conservative lovers of their country might join in relaxing, as much as might be expedient, the prevalent system of duties. The speaker made a politic and rather tentative address, warning the House not to take such action as should give a great shock to the commercial industries of England, such as would manifestly be produced by the total abolition of the Corn Laws. The speech, as a whole, was a moderate plea for such limited protection as still held its place in the industrial and commercial relations of Great Britain, and as had not yet been exterminated from the current theory of political economy. Finally, he charged the opposition with inconsistency in this, that the Whig party, whether in power or out of power, had as much as the Conservatives neglected — until obliged by the recent distress of the country — to propose or promote any salutary meas- ures of trade reform. The result of these debates was another triumph for the ministry. CUK\-1,AW A(,l I A HON. 132 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE, Later in the session the jjroject of abolisliing the Corn Laws was once and again renewed ; and it might be observed with alarm by the dominant party tliat the ministerial majorit)- wa\ered from time to time, was reduced at intervals on the votes, and became sensitive to the distress of the country and the outside agitation. Still the ministry of Sir Robert Peel held on. It was supported by the fully represented and powerfully organized landed aristocrac)- of England, while the ojiposition to the current policy came up from the clamorous but rather chaotic manufacturing centers, where opinion had not yet become consolidated in favor of free trade. We shall here return to consider the outside social reasons for the political disturbances of these times. We have now entered fully upon the great Epoch of Chartism, a crisis in which modern English democracy discovered its power and forged its way to the front. The career of William E. Gladstone cannot be well estimated and interpreted without noting the oncoming conditions which prevailed coincidently with his rise to influ- ence in Parliament and to national and international reputation. It was in the year 1838 that the Chartists first paraded what they called the People's Charter. It is believed that the brief code of principles so denominated was prepared by Daniel O'Connell. There was an enumeration of six fundamental thinK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. place, the writer, being a member of the Conservative party in England (observe that in 185 1 Gladstone still called himself a Conservative), must unconsciously sympathize with the established governments of Europe, rather than with those who assailed those governments ; and for this reason he must do what he could do to prevent the overthrow of the European governments by revolts against them on account of their abusive characters. Mr. Gladstone declared that he was not passing judgment on the administration of the king's government as to its imperfections and occa- sional or incidental corruptions and cruelties ; but he attacked it because of its constitutional, systematic, and persistent outrages of all law and humanity. He impeached the government of Ferdinand because it was in contempt of the opinions of mankind and indifferent to all the humanities. He declared that the violence done by the king and his minions was car- ried on for the purpose of breaking "every other law, unwritten and eternal, human and divine ; it is," said he, " the wholesale persecution of virtue, when united with intelligence, operating upon such a scale that entire classes may with truth be said to be its object, so that the government is in bitter and cruel, as well as utterly illegal, hostility to whatever in the nation really lives and moves and forms the mainspring of practical progress and improvement; it is the awful profanation of public religion, by its notorious alliance in the governing powers with the violation of every moral rule under the stimulus of fear and vengeance ; it is the perfect prostitution of the judicial office which has made it, under veils only too threadbare and transparent, the degraded recipient of the vilest and clumsiest forgeries, got up willfully and deliberately, by the immediate advisers of the crown, for the purpose of destroying the peace, the freedom, aye, and even, if not by capi- tal sentences, the life of men among the most virtuous, upright, intelligent, distinguished, and refined of the whole community ; it is the savage and cowardly system of moral, as well as in a lower degree of physical, torture, through which the sentences obtained from the debased courts of justice are carried into effect. "The effect of all this is a total inversion of all the moral and social ideas. Law, instead of being respected, is odious. Force, and not affection, is the foundation of government. There is no association, but a violent antagonism, between the idea of freedom and that of order. The ofoverninor power, which teaches of itself that it is the image of God upon earth, is clothed in the view of the overwhelming majority of the thinking public with all the vices for its attributes. I have seen and heard the strong and too true expression used, ' This is the negation of God erected into a system of government.' " We may not here enter into the discussion of the total accuracy of the charges which Gladstone made against the administration of the Two P'IRST INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 1 83 Sicilies. It could not well be known how many, or even exactly who, had been seized, imprisoned, or driven into exile. Certain it was in a general way that a majority of the National party in the Chamber of Deputies, hun- dreds of leading patriots, and thousands of their followers had been either banished or imprisoned. Nor would the government permit anyone to ascertain the extent of the outrage. In course of time it was ascertained that the numbers given by Mr. Gladstone, after his own investigations in Naples, were somewhat above the mark ; but on the other hand the horrors of the prisons, the methods of punishment adopted, the cruelty of the police, and the relentless indifference of the king and all his underofficers, were found to exceed not only Gladstone's account of the matter, but the very limits of human belief Some of the things proved with respect to the prison discipline could hardly be accepted as possible this side of the age of the Inquisition. It was established as a fact that the dungeon-holes in which most of the prisoners were confined were so loathsome and pestilential that the physi- cians sent thither at intervals could not enter them. An arrangement was made that the sick or dying should be brought forth to apartments that were less stinking and infectious than those in which they were confined. There, at the risk of their lives, the doctors might administer to those whom the government really desired to die as quickly as possible. In some cases it was proved that the patriots were tortured. The superior criminal court of Naples at first, as the story ran, was divided about evenly on the question of trying justly those that were brought to that tribunal. But some of the judges were the willing tools of the king and the ministry. They, assuming authority, gave significant hints to their fellow judges that if the decisions were not in accord with the prevailing authority they who rendered such judgments might be in the same category with the prisoners. Those arrested were chained two and two, and were not allowed to take off their manacles in prison. In one case a patriot was tortured by having a pointed instrument thrust repeatedly under his nails. In other cases the chains were so heavy that the enfeebled prisoners could not stand up. The patriot Carlo Poerio was one of the most eminent victims of these indescribable outrages. Another was called Settembrini. Another was Signor Pironte, who had himself been a judge of the court. A fourth was the Baron Porcari. It was manifest that it was the policy of the govern- ment to extinguish the patriots by the method of horrid imprisonment, enforced with starvation and disease. The belief prevailed that the ministers and sovereign had not the courage to execute even those who were con- demned to death, but chose rather by processes cowardly and inhuman to put them into a condition in which they must perish as in a chamber of horrors. 1 84 LITE AND TI.MKS ol' WILLIAM E. GLAnSTONE. The first of Mr. Gladstone's letters was published in April of ICS51, and produced a great sensation in Enj^rland. This he followed up with the second letter in July of the same year. We shall here present a few extracts from the latter communication as an example of the severity of the arraignment which he made of the Neapolitan authorities. The epistle was written in a tone as elevated as it was severe. The writer, addressing the Earl of Aberdeen, says : " I have felt it my bounden duty to remit my statements by publication to the bar of general opinion — of that opinion which circulates throughout Europe with a facility and force increasing from year to year, and which, however in some things it may fall short or in others exceed is so far, at least, impregnated with the spirit of the Gospel that its accents are ever favorable to the diminution of human suffering. " To have looked for any modification whatever of the reactionary policy of a government, in connection with a moving cause so trivial as any sentiments or experience of mine, may be thought presumptuous or chimeri- cal. What claim, it may be asked, had I, one among thousands of mere travelers, upon the Neapolitan government.' The deliberations which fix the policy of States, especially of absolute States, must be presumed to have been laborious and solid in some proportion to their immense, their terrific power over the practical destinies of mankind; and they ought not to be unsettled at a moment's notice in deference to the wishes or the impressions of insignificant, or adversely prejDOssessed, or at best irre- sponsible individuals. "My answer is short. On the government of Naples I had no claim whatever; but as a man I felt and knew it to be my duty to testify to what I had credibly heard, or personally seen, of the needless and acute suffer- ings of men. Yet, aware that such testimony, when once launched, is liable to be used for purposes neither intended nor desired by those who bear it, and that in times of irritability and misgiving, such as these are on the continent of Europe, slight causes may occasionally produce, or may tend and aid to produce, effects less inconsiderable, I willingly postponed any public appeal until the case should have been seen in private by those whose conduct it principally touched. It has been so seen. They have made their option ; and while I reluctantly accept the consequences, their failing to meet it by any practical improvement will never be urged by me as constituting an aggravation of their previous responsibilities. . . . " My assurance of the general truth of my representations has been heightened, my fears of any material error in detail have been diminished, since the date of my first letter, by the negative but powerful evidence of the manner in which they have been met. Writing in July, I have as yet no qualification worth naming to append to the allegations which I first put FIRST INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 185 into shape in April. I am indeed aware that my opinion with respect to the number of pohtical prisoners in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies has been met by an assertion purporting to be founded on returns that instead of twenty thousand they are about two thousand. Even this number has not always been admitted ; for I recollect that in November last they were stated to me, by an Englishman of high honor and in close communication with the court, to be less than one thousand. I have carefully pointed out that my statement is one founded on opinion ; on reasonable opinion as I think, but opinion still. Let the Neapolitan government have the full benefit of the contradiction I have mentioned. To me it would be a great relief if I could honestly say it had at once commanded my credence. The readers of my letters will not be surprised at my hesitation to admit it. But this I would add : the mere number of political prisoners is in my view, like the state of the prisons, in itself, a secondary feature of the case. If they are fairly and legally arrested, fairly and legally treated before trial, fairly and legally tried, that is the main matter. Where fairness and legality preside over the proceedings we need have no great fear about an undue number of prisoners. But my main charges goto show that there is gross illegality and gross unfairness in the proceedings; and it is only in connec- tion with the proof of this that the number of prisoners and the state of the prisons come to be matters of such importance. . . . " I do not intend to add to the statements of fact contained in my last letter, though they are but a portion, and not always the most striking portion of those which I might have produced. One reason of this is that they are, as I think, sufficient for their purpose ; and another, that by a different course I should probably put in jeopardy, not indeed the persons who made them to me, but those whom the agents of the police might sup- pose, or might find it convenient to pretend that they supposed, to have so made them. . . . "That my statements should be received in the first instance with incredulity can cause me no dissatisfaction. Nay, more ; I think that, for the honor of human nature, statements of such a kind ought to be so received. Men ought to be slow to believe that such things can happen, and happen in a Christian country, the seat of almost the oldest European civilization. They ought to be disposed rather to set down my assertions to fanaticism or folly on my part than to believe them as an overtrue tale of the actual pro- ceedings of a settled government. But though they ought to be thus dis- posed at the outset, they will not, I trust, bar their minds to the entrance of the light, however painful be the objects it may disclose. I have myself felt that incredulity, and wish I could have felt it still ; but it has yielded to conviction step by step, and with fresh pain at every fresh access of evi- dence. I proceed accordingly to bring the reader's mind, so far as I am 1 86 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. able, under the process through which my own has passed, and to state some characteristic facts, which may convey more faithfully than abstract description an idea of the political atmosphere of Italy. . . . " There was lately a well-known officer of police in Milan named Bolza. In the time of the Revolution of 184S the private notes of the government on the character of its agents were discovered. Bolza is there described as a person harsh, insincere, anything but respectable, venal, a fanatical Napoleonist until 18 15, then an Austrian partisan of equal heat, ' and to-morrow a Turk, were Soliman to enter upon these States ; ' capa- ble of anything for money's sake against either friend or foe. Still, as the memorandum continues, ' he understands his business, and is right good at it. Nothing is known of his morals or of his religion.' But a work pub- lished at Lugano contains his last will, and this curious document testifies to the acute sense which even such a man retained of his own degradation. ' I absolutely forbid my heirs,' he says, ' to allow any mark, of whatever kind, to be placed over the spot where 1 shall be interred ; much more any inscription or epitaph. I recommend my dearly beloved wife to impress upon my children the maxim that, when they shall be in a condition to solicit an employment from the generosity of the government, they are to ask for it elsewhere than in the department of the executive police ; and not, unless under extraordinary circumstances, to give her consent to the marriage of any of my daughters with a member of that service.' ^ " I shall next name two facts which are related by Farini, the recent " and esteemed writer of a history of the States of the Church since 18 15: ' There exists a confidential circular of Cardinal Bernetti, in which he orders the judges, in the case of Liberals charged with ordinary offenses or crimes, M invariably to inflict the highest degree of punishment.' ^ " Bernetti was not an Austrian partisan ; it is alleged that he was supplanted (early in the reign of Gregory XVI) through Austrian influence. His favorite idea was the entire independence of the pontifical State, and, therefore, the circular to which I have referred is purely Italian. " This was under Gregory XVI. Under Leo XII Cardinal Rivarola went as a legate a latere into Romagna. On the 31st of August, 1825, he pronounced sentence on five hundred and eighty persons. Seven of these were to suffer death ; forty-nine were to undergo hard labor for terms varying between ten years and life ; fifty-two were to be imprisoned for similar terms. These sentences were pronounced privately, at the simple will of the cardinal, upon mere presumptions that the parties belonged to the liberal sects, and, what is to the ear of an Englishman the most astound- ing fact of all, after a process simply analogous to that of a grand jury (I compare the process, not the person), and without any opportunity given to the accused for defense ! FIRST INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 187 " I may add a reference to an edict published by the Duke of Modena on the 1 8th of April, 1832. This edict ordains that political prisoners may be sentenced to any punishment materially less than that provided b)' law upon proof of the offense without any trial or form of proceeding whatever, in cases where it has been agreed not to disclose the names of the witnesses or not to make known the purport of their evidence. With these reduced punishments exile was to be ordinarily combined, and fines as well as other appendages might be added at discretion ! The edict may .be seen in the notorious newspaper called La Voce dclla Vcrila, No. iio." These blows of the Englishman went home, and a sentiment was created against the Neapolitan government as difficult to resist as though ; there had been a threatened invasion. Such was the effect that the authori- ' ties of Naples must needs reply ; but their attempt to refute Gladstone ! and justify themselves was a miserable failure. The pamphlet which embodied the official defense of Ferdinand II was sent to London, to the ' government, with the request that copies be forwarded to all the European courts to which Mr. Gladstone's letter had gone. Such was the character, however, of the Neapolitan communication — so inconsequential was the argument and false the spirit of the reply — that Lord Palmerston declined to send it anywhere, saying that he would not be " accessory to the circu- lation of a pamphlet which in my [his] opinion does no credit to its writer or the government which he defends or to the political party of which he professes to be the champion." In a less official manner he told Prince Castelcicala, minister of the Neapolitan government, that he (Lord Palmer- ston) had become convinced of the truthfulness of Mr. Gladstone's revela- tions, and that he hoped the government which the prince represented, laying the matter to heart, would hasten to reform the abuses which were a scandal to civilization. Since the reply of the Neapolitan government to Gladstone's open letters entered denial of his charges he published, in the beginning of 1852, A?i Examination of the Official Reply. He began with this significant quotation from " Richard III : " Clarence. — Relent and save your souls. First Murderer. — Relent ! 'tis cowardly, and womanish. Clarence. — Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish. This headpiece was significant of the severity with which Gladstone handled the document which the government of Naples had thundered against him. He said in the beginning that he did not expect to be encountered by a responsible antagonist. The answer to his first two let- ters had come from Naples under the title of " A Review of the Errors and Misrepresentations Published by Mr. Gladstone in Two Letters Directed to the Earl of Aberdeen ; " but if the object of a title, said he, be to give a 1 88 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. correct description, the Neapolitan paper ought to have been denominated " A Tacit Admission of the Accuracy of Nine Tenth Parts of the State- ments Contained in the Two Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen." The author of the denial had set up as a headline the Latin aphorism, " To err, to know nothing, to deceive, we consider both wicked and base." Gladstone declared that this motto was conspicuously appropriate ! The author of the denial, instead of arguing the truth or falsity of Gladstone's contention, charged him with levity, with ignorance, with consorting with anarchists and criminals. To this Gladstone replied : " But, indeed, all these charges of levity, of ignorance, of herding with republicans and malefactors, and the rest, are not worth discussing ; for the whole matter comes to one single issue — are the allegations true, or are they false .i* If they are false I shall not be the man to quarrel with any severity of reproach that may be directed against me ; but if they are true, then I am quite sure the Neapolitan government will take no benefit by insinuating doubts whether sentiments like mine, even it well founded, ought to be made known, or by taking any trivial and irrelevant objection to my personal conduct or qualifications." We shall not here pursue the argumentation and refutation of Glad- stone in support of his former letters, and to the confusion of his adver- saries. In the meantime the matter had broken out in Parliament. At the session of 1 851, soon after the appearance of Cxladstone's first letter. Sir De Lacy Evans offered a paper in the House of Commons to the following effect : " From a publication entitled to the highest consideration it appears that there are at present above twenty thousand persons confined in the prisons of Naples for alleged political offenses ; that these prisoners have, with extremely few exceptions, been thus immured in violation of the existing laws of the country, and without the slightest legal trial or public inquiry into their respective cases ; that they include a late prime minister and a majority of the late Neapolitan Parliament, as well as a large propor- tion of the most respectable and intelligent classes of society; that these prisoners are chained two and two together; that these chains are never undone, day or night, for any purpose whatever, and that they are suffering refinements of cruelty and barbarity unknown in any other civilized country. It is consequently asked if the British minister at the court of Naples has been instructed to employ his good offices in the cause of humanity for the diminution of these lamentable severities, and with what result .•' " It is one of the rights and methods of the British Parliament to put questions of this kind, prefaced with explanatory statements, to the minis- ters of the crown. Government must answer the interrogatories as a rule, or, refusing to answer, subject themselves to further criticism. To interro- FIRST INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. 189 gate is a method of the opposition. The question put in this case to Lord Palmerston was embarrassing ; for the long-standing policy of Great Britain has been one of noninterference with the political affairs of other States. Great Britain under her constitution has no right to interfere. Interna- tional law, however, in cases of extreme cruelty, inhumanity, barbarity, con- cedes the right of a civilized and humane government to interfere. ! In the case under consideration, moreover, the sentiment of the English ■■ nation was overwhelmingly against the Neapolitans. Lord Palmerston I could only answer that government had heard with pain the confirmation - of the statements published by several persons in a position to know. Such ' statements had been mutually established by indubitable testimony. ! Government had learned with regret the calamitous condition of affairs at I Naples. It was not the part of government to interfere formally with that I of Naples. The question, he regretted to say, was one of internal adminis- ; tration, which Naples might determine for herself. Speaking of Mr. Glad- ' stone, he added, "At the same time Mr. Gladstone — whom I may freely '. name, though not in his capacity as a member of Parliament — has done him- self, I think, very great honor by the course he pursued at Naples, and by the course he has followed since ; for I think that when you see an English gentleman, who goes to pass a winter at Naples, instead of confining him- self to those amusements that abound in that city, instead of diving into volcanoes and exploring excavated cities — when we see him going to courts of justice, visiting prisons, descending into dungeons, and examining great numbers of the cases of unfortunate victims of illegality and injustice, with a view afterward to enlist public opinion in the endeavor to remedy those abuses — I think that is a course that does honor to the person who pur- sues it ; and concurring in feeling with him that the influence of public opinion in Europe might have some useful effect in setting such matters right, I have thought it my duty to send copies of his pamphlet to our ministers at the various courts of Europe, directing them to give to each government copies of the pamphlet, in the hope that, by affording them an opportunity of reading it, they might be led to use their influence in pro- moting what is the object of my honorable and gallant friend — a remedy for the evils to which he has referred." This was the highest possible testi- mony to the value and efficacy of the revelations which Mr. Gladstone had made. The reference in Lord Palmerston's reply to sending copies of Glad- stone's pamphlet to the various courts of Europe suggests the importance of the subject and the far-reaching influence which the rising English states- man was now able to exercise, not only in his own country, but also abroad. His communications to the Earl of Aberdeen produced animosity with a certain class of publicists in several parts of Europe. Alleged answers to IQO LIFE AXD TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. his charges appeared in several capitals. Even in London there was an in- significant — and scurrilous — reply. In Paris, M. Jules Gondon, editor of r (/nh'crs, a.ttempted to defend the government of Ferdinand II. He would have that monarch to be "the most dignified and the best of kings." In the article of Gondon there was an abundance of vituperation, bigotry, mere outcry and rant, but hardly any attempt to discuss the facts. Of like charac- ter was another pamphlet published in Paris by Alphonse Valleydier. In this production there was much personal abuse. The writer seemed to think that by denouncing Gladstone he could disprove his charges — this being indeed the universal and invariable method of the flippant politician in whatever part of the world. Like papers appeared in Turin and Naples; but there was not one of them of sufficient dignity to require an answer, or even permit it, with the exception of the official paper issued by the Neapol- itan orovernment. Gladstone, in his third publication, that is, in .-J n Examination of tJic Official Reply, courageously and severely placed side by side his own allegations and the admissions, either expressed or implied, of the Neapolitan critic, and showed that his own charges had not been refuted at all. He found only five points in the whole contention in which he had been in errcjr. He had made a mistake relative to Settembrini's being tortured. He had also erred in saying that that prisoner had been put into double irons for life. He had made an overstatement in regard to the number of patriot judges who, at Reggio, had been driven from office for acquitting some innocent political prisoners ; of the judges so dismissed there were only three instead of six, as he had stated. He admitted a fourth error respecting seventeen sick prisoners, who were said to have been murdered in the jail of Procida. Finally, he had erred in saying that certain prisoners Avere 'fetill confined in dungeons, though they had been openly acquitted of the crimes for which they had been arrested. These prisoners had been liberated a short time after their acquittal. Beyond these admissions of mistake Gladstone actually made good all that he had published in his first letters, and then proceeded to intensify his charges with additional proofs, and added instances of barbarity which in our times would be sufficient to drive even the Turk from his throne. The Gladstonian publications could not really be answered at all. The government at Naples was put under the necessity of apologizing for its apology rather than attempting further to confute what the English states- man had written. His appeal had been made simply to the public opinion of Europe. Though there had been attempted replies, the sentiment of every enlightened government was against that of King Ferdinand to the extent that he must either reform or suffer universal reprobation. Conclud- JIRST INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. I9I ing his review of all the facts and his special answer to the Neapolitan official reply, Mr. Gladstone said : " And now I have done ; have uttered, as I hope, my closing word. These pages have been written without any of those opportunities of per- sonal communication with Neapolitans which, twelve months ago, I might have enjoyed. They have been written in the hope that, by thus making through the press, rather than in another mode, that rejoinder to the Nea- politan reply which was doubtless due from me, I might still, as far as depended on me, keep the question on its true ground, as one not of politics, but of morality, and not of England, but of Christendom and of mankind. Again 1 express the hope that it may not become a hard necessity to keep this controversy alive until it reaches its one only possible issue, which no power of man can permanently intercept. I express the hope that while there is time, while there is quiet, while dignity may yet be saved in show- ing mercy, and in the blessed work of restoring Justice to her seat, the gov- ernment of Naples may set its hand in earnest to the work of real and searching, however quiet and unostentatious, reform ; that it may not become unavoidable to reiterate these appeals from the hand of power to the one common heart of mankind ; to produce those painful documents, those harrowing descriptions, which might be supplied in rank abundance, (if which I have scarcely given the faintest idea or sketch, and which, if tliey were laid from time to time before the world, would bear down like a deluge every effort at apology or palliation, and would cause all that has 'recently been made known to be forgotten and eclipsed in deeper horrors yet; lest the strength of offended and indignant humanit}- should rise up as a giant refreshed with wine, and, while sweeping away these abominations from the eye of heaven, should sweep awa)- along with them things pure and honest, ancient, venerable, salutary to mankind, crowned with the glories of the past, and still capable of bearing future fruit." The controversy thus begun and thus ended, so far as Gladstone was concerned, diffused itself through England and a large part of the Conti- nent. The publications which were made against the government of Naples were able and based on facts ; those in defense of that government were simpl)- denunciatory, and were based on vague assertions. The only ques- tion remaining to be considered was whether Ferdinand and his ministry would reform or whether they would defy the civilized sentiment of the world. For the time being they chose to defy. They coupled their unsup- ported denials with persistency in the wrong and a covert defense of their policy. There was no immediate relaxation of the barbarism which had prevailed in the kingdom of Naples. For several years things went on as before, and the cries of the imprisoned patriots were swallowed up in silence. 192 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the incarcerated died in dungeons. Many- distinguished men thus perished. In some cases banishment was substi- tuted for death. One sliipload of convicts, who should have graced the Chamber of Deputies, was sent to America; but the vessel was landed at Cork instead. The greater part of the sixth decade went by, and the day of the regeneration of Italy under Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavour, and Victor Emmanuel dawned before the wretched victims of political persecution reached the end of their fate. The doctrine of noninterference which Eng- land had so long professed would hardly permit her to take up the cause of the Neapolitan patriots ; and by the same reason other governments were also restrained. This condition dragged itself along until 1856, when both England and France, becoming wearied at last of holding diplomatical intercourse with such a government as that of Francis II (who had now succeeded his father Ferdinand on the throne of the Two Sicilies), withdrew their repre- sentatives from the court of Naples, leaving the king and his effete despot- ism to the sharpening sword of Garibaldi. With the beginning of the revolution of i860 the Italian patriots came on as an army with banners. Vainly did King Francis make believe that he would now reform ; that he would grant a new constitution ; that he would keep faith and behave affectionately toward his beloved subjects. He could not appease their anger with overtures and sophistical pledges. They knew him too well — him and his antecedents. "The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be!" He was treated accordingly. His kingdom was absorbed into United Italy. William E. Gladstone had combined his energies and indignation with the purposes of Count Cavour and the audacious patriotism of Garibaldi to make all Italy free, from the Alps to Sicily. The reader of this work must be surprised at the ceaseless activities which marked the career of Gladstone at every stage of his progress. He was stronor and industrious. In constitution he was as robust as an oak. Idleness with him was impossible. Lord Palmerston very significantly referred to the fact that Mr. Gladstone, instead of devoting himself to those Neapolitan amusements qiice ad aninnmi effcinina7idu7n pertinent, gave his whole energies while residing at Naples to the good of his country and the welfare of mankind. It was while living at that ancient city in the winter of 1850-51 that he undertook and completed the translation of the first two volumes of Luigi Carlo Farini's history, entitled The Roman State frotn 1 81 5 to 1850. This work came into his hands while he was making an examination of the progress of Italian events in the first half of our century. Gladstone was a student. He found in Farini an excellent account of the ecclesiastical and civil chaos which remained to the nineteenth century URST IXTERXATIONAL EPISODE. Ig3 from ancient Rome and the mediaeval papacy. Farini, moreover, was one of those patriotic men who must needs be in sympathy with all the friends of progress. He knew and admired Gladstone and corresponded with him, and to him dedicated the concluding volume of his history of the Roman State. He supported the English statesman in his attack on the abuses and despotism of the Neapolitan government. He added his own authority to that of Gladstone in his contention with the apologists for Ferdinand H, saying in one of his communications relative to the condition of affairs in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies : " The scandalous trials for high treason still continue at Naples ; accusers, examiners, judges, false witnesses, all are l)ought ; the prisons, those tombs of the living, are full ; two thousand citi- zens, of all ranks and conditions, are already condemned to the dungeons, as manv to confinement, double that number to e.xile — the majority guilty of no crime but that of having believed in the oaths made by Ferdi- nand II." It is thus that history with a burning pen writes everlasting contempt on the brazen forehead of every tyranny in the world. Mr. Gladstone did excellent work in his translation of The RoinaJi State. He not only translated the work, but reviewed it elaborately in the Edin- burgh Rcvieiu for April, 1852. In the course of this critique the writer considers the reforming period in the life of Pius IX ; the diplomacy of the court of Rome ; the powerless condition of the pope in temporal matters ; the relations of the civil and spiritual power ; the seeming impossibilities of making the Roman State constitutional ; ecclesiastical caste and influ- ence in Italy ; the moderation of the Roman people ; the Italian insurrec- tions and the Roman debt ; the allocution of the holy father, of 1848 ; the Constitution of the same year ; the papacy in the Middle Ages ; a compari- son of Rome in the years 1S09 and 1849 ; the temporal sovereignty of the pope ; the difficulty of replacing it with secular authority ; the extension of the Italian question into Europe, etc. In the course of the article he touched upon nearly all of the leading issues that were then becoming uppermost in Europe, and showed his ability to handle the largest interests in a states- manlike manner. In one paragraph he proceeds thus : " I. Can the temporal government of the popes accommodate itself to constitutional forms .'' " 2. If not, can it or ought it to endure 1 " 3. If not, then in what manner should the political void be filled and the see of Rome provided for with a view to the interests of the Roman subjects, the disappointment of tlu; nxolutionary speculations in Italy or elsewhere, and the just claims of the see itself as the ecclesiastical center of the largest among Christian communions.-'" The reader need not be told of the overwhelming importance of such questions as those here presented. At the middle of the century they were 194 '-'FE AND TIMES OV WILLIAM K. GLADSTONE. paramount to almost every other question whatsoever. How far-reachinij were his views might be seen in the paragraph touching the proposition tliat tile affairs of Italy were national rather than international — that they related to herself and not to other .States. On this subject he says : " Let us now examine the assertion that the settlement of Roman affairs is the concern solely of the Roman Catholic powers. In 1849 the meaning of this doctrine was that the decision should lie with I'rance and Austria, Spain and Naples. Now it should be considered who are excluded and who are included by this principle. It excludes at a stroke three of the five great powers of Europe — England, Russia, and Prussia; of those powers by whom, and liy whom alone, European questions, properly so called, have of late years usually been weighed. It includes, on the other hand, Spain and Naples, neither of which can without qualification be called even independent powers ; the latter of them vibrating, not only to every shock, but to every rumor, to every whisper of change, in whatever part of Europe, at the beck of Austrian and Russian influence even for the pur- poses of internal government, and depending on their armed strength in the last resort for the maintenance of what must be called, however abusively, her institutions. England, Russia, Prussia shut out ; Spain and Naples taken in : the first is foolish, the latter ludicrous. States never dreamt of in the settlement of ordinary European questions have but a feeble claim, indeed, to intermeddle with that which is the most delicate and difficult of them all, requiring at once the finest finger and the strongest arm. But if Naples and Spain are thus to interfere, where are Belgium and Sardinia ? Do not, at any rate, allow the Roman question to become the game of those whose only title, as compared with others, to a share in it must be the wish to intermeddle, to intrigue, to promote covert purposes, under the mask of such as can more easily be avowed. If Belgium and Sardinia be inferior in population to .Spain and Naples they are not so much inferior in strength, as they are certainly superior in intelligence and independence." Mr. Gladstone was himself aware of the breadth and outreaching antennce of the questions which he was considering. He saw clearly enough that on the civil as well as the ecclesiastical side the general disturbance in Italy might be felt with more or less distinctness to the outposts of the civilized world. In the conclusion of his article in the Edinburgh Review he says : " We have thus endeavored, witli great rapidity, to traverse or skim an almost boundless field. Many of its tracks which we have barely touched, such as the details of the Plan reforms, the policy of France in 1849, ^h^- actual condition of the Roman States, and the enormous difficulties in which the friends of the popular cause in Italy entangle themselves by their views of the question of national independence, demand and w'ould FIRST INTERNATIONAL EPISODE. I95 well repa)- the pains of a separate discussion. But we must close with a recommendation to the reader to avail himself of the lights thrown upon Italian history and politics by the recent literature of the country. We do not refer only to well-known names, such as those of Balbo, Gioberti, and D'Azeglio, but to some yet more recent works. Gualterio is of the Consti- tutional part}-, like Farini ; his work abounds in valuable documents, and is, we believe, trustworthy, but it is too bulky for our common literature. Farini is admirable, both for general ability and moral tone and for the indulgent fairness with which he states the case of the popedom and the pope. In other matters, especially, for instance, when he deals with the more advanced shades of liberalism, he can lay about him with considerable vigor ; but, upon the whole, we believe that his history has quite enough of the judicial tone to secure to it the place of a high permanent authority in Italian questions. The Memorie StoricJie of Torre are the production of a writer about halfway between Farini and Mazzini in opinion. They are written with a lively clearness and with every appearance of sincere inten- tion ; they likewise contain important military details. Ricciardi's Histoire dc la Revolution (f Italic cii 1848 is the production of an intelligent, straight- forward, and thoroughgoing Republican, and may be consulted with advan- tage in order to obtain the prospect of the whole subject from his point of view. As a Neapolitan he deals most copiously with that portion of the case which is well handled, in the constitutional sense, by Massari, in the Casi di Napoli. As to the literature of the late struggle on the reactionary side we know not where to look for it. The Ultimi 69 Gioj-ni dclla Rcpitblica in Roniana has absolutely nothing but extravagant party spirit to recommend it. But all genuine historical memoirs of Roman affairs well deserve a peculiar attention from English readers, for their importance extends far beyond the range of mere local interest ; the)- belong to a chapter of human history only now beginning to be opened, but full of results of deep and as )-et uncertain moment to every country in Chris- tendom." Here, then, at the conclusion of what may well be denominated the first international episode in the career of Gladstone, we make a pause in following this aspect of his activity and purpose, and return to the consid- eration of his parliamentary life in England. 196 LIKE AND TIMES UK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. CI I APT KR XII. Durham Letter and Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. Y the iniddle of the century William E. Gladstone had become, politically speaking, no man's man. For this there were sev- eral reasons. Some of these were found in himself; others, in his conditions. His progress was reaching from conservatism to liberalism — and had almost arrived. The intermediate stages might be defined, first, as liberal conservatism, and then as conserva- tive liberalism. He had been lately a sincere and thoroughgoing Peelite. After the death of Sir Robert, parliamentarians of this following wot not for a season what to do with themselves. Meanwhile, the whole landscape of British politics Avas suffering transformation. We will follow here at least one of the lines of change. Pius IX, from being the most liberal, had become one of the most con- servative, as well as one of the most ambitious, of the popes. He aimed at nothing less than the extension and restoration of the ecclesiastical suprem- acy of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world, and the reestab- lishment of the temporal dominion of the see of Rome in all Christian nations. More and more he avowed this policy, set it forth in his public papers, and enforced it practically as far as he could. In doing so he must needs encounter the greatest obstacles. Such obstacles would be found in the most powerful Protestant nation — and that was England. One specification in the pope's policy was the making of favor for Rome by enlarging the hierarchy in every country where he might. This he did in Great Britain. In the fifth decade the Roman priesthood in Eng- land was greatly honored, elevated, and confirmed. ^^ hig statesmanship, strongly devoted to the Church of England, awoke to find itself actually endangered by the aggressions of Rome. More and more the ancient hierarchy arose, and more and more the ritual and usages of the Catholic Church prevailed. These influences extended into the Episcopal Establish- ment ; for the ceremonial of Rome is more glorious than that of the Church of England. At length there was a reaction against the Romanizing process. In 1850, just about the time that Gladstone went abroad for temporary resi- dence in Naples, Lord John Russell, Premier of England, wrote a letter to the Bishop of Durham, deprecating, and indeed strongly denouncing, the recent honors conferred by Rome on her hierarchy in England and Wales. The conimunication was a Church of England letter through and through, radical, aggressive, pointed. Its publication produced a deep impression, and led immediately to heated controversy. The document passed into DURHAM LETTER AXn ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. I97 history under the name of " The Durham Letter." It was followed with political consequences of the greatest significance. By the time of Gladstone's return from Italy, and before the completion of his contention about the Neapolitan prisons, the ministry of Lord John Russell staggered and fell across the battered ramparts. His ascendency as premier and first lord of the treasury extended from 1846 to 1852. The trouble in Parliament which nearly preceded his overthrow related almost wholly to his effort in opposing the aggressive policy of Rome in England. Parliament and the English nation had become alarmed over the o-reat gains and threatened ascendency of the Mother Church. Lord Russell, at the session of 1 85 1, introduced into the House of Com- mons a bill to counteract the influence and manifest purposes of the papacy. The bill was the essence, so to speak, and logical deduction of the Durham letter. The measure proposed struck a popular chord ; only a few members of Parliament dared to vote against it. ¥or the moment it seemed that the Russell ministry was riding the highest wave. But while government seemed in its ecclesiastical policy to have all England at its back, in the secular concern it suddenly lost favor and began to disintegrate. Unfortunately for the Whigs, they were held responsible for the agri- cultural distress which continued in a large part of the kingdom. The old Tory aristocracy was reinforced by the hardships which had fallen on the farmers. They claimed that the distress of the country outside of the man- ufacturing and commercial centers was increasing to the extent that the hardy yeomanry of England was threatened with pauperism. The govern- ment was able to defend itself in part against these assertions. Statistics were adduced to show that since the adoption of free trade pauperism had diminished. Even in Ireland the poor — the starving poor — were not so numerous as they had been before the abolition of the Corn Laws. It was also shown that the revenues had increased. The shipping and commercial interest had been built up. Manufactures flourished. Never- theless, the sore spot was only filmed over with these plausibilities. At bottom the fact remained that the farmers were suffering and impoverished. As has been recently the case in America, the agricultural interest was dis- tanced in the race for sufficiency and content. Perhaps the farmers were not much worse off than they had been before, but relatively they were greatly disparaged. The situation afforded opportunit)- in Parliament for an attack by the opposition. Who should lead the assault but the brilliant and spectacular Disraeli ? No man was readier than he to discover an opportunity. He rose to greatness in the political history of England and of Europe by dis- covering opportunities that were about to be undiscovered by others. Here was a case in which the landed interests of Great Britain had suffered for igS I.IKE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. the promotion of manufactures. The prevaiUng system of taxation was cor- respondingly unequal. The resolution which Mr. Disraeli offered was to the effect that the government should at once bring forward a bill to relieve the distresses of the English nation. In his speech he alleged that such distresses were increasing from day to day, and that pauperism was impending over the English peasantry. The government could hardly make an issue with him on the first proposition, namely, the prevalent distress ; but on all other points the ministers w-ere able to reply with at least a show of plausibility. They denied that the hardships of the agricultural classes were greater than hitherto. They pointed to the fact that the revenues of Great Britain had risen to seventy millions annually. They were able to show that British commerce was never before at so high a stage of development. They were also able to assume the aggressive, and to show that Disraeli's motion, stripped of all disguises, meant a renunciation of the free-trade policy of 1846, and a return to the abandoned system of the age of the Georges. This defense by the government was sufficiently plausible ; but the country had already grown restless of the Russell ministry. Disraeli's motion was voted down by a very small majority in a full House. A few days afterward a ministerial motion to conform the franchise of the counties to that of the boroughs was actually lost, though this was not decisive. In the ne.xt place, on the introduction of the budget for 1852, the House and the country were alarmed and angered to note the retention of the income ta.x. That expedient, when it was adopted, had been accepted as temporary. Now government asked that it be continued for another period of three years. As if to alleviate this unwholesome feature it was proposed to remit in part the tax on windows. There were also incorporated some features calculated to please and benefit the farmers. So hardly was the ministry now pressed that the budget could not be carried. It was modified in many particulars, and another finally proposed instead. In the latter the aid promised to the farmers was omitted and the tax on windows retained. The income tax was also included for three years longer. Even in this modified form the chancellor of the exchequer had the greatest difficulty in securing the adoption of his scheme. Time and again in the course of the debates he was met with adverse votes on exceptionable features of the budget. The pressure became so extreme that Lord John Russell was obliged to resign. Lord Stanley was summoned by the queen, and that statesman made an attempt to organize a new government, but failed. Then the Earl of Aberdeen was called ; but he had offended the faction of Sir Robert Peel. The followers of Sir Robert were known for their friendliness to the Roman Catholics. They could hardly be charged with DURHAM LETTER AND ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. 1 99 prejudice in favor of Catholicism itself; but they were more tolerant of the Catholics than any other party. The Earl of Aberdeen was a strenuous Protestant, and quite uncompromising in his hostility to the Romanists. For this reason the Peelites would not support him, and he was obliged to give up his unsuccessful effort to form a ministry. Indeed, he saw the impos- sibility of doing so, and declined the queen's call. These movements were favorable to Lord John Russell, and he reoccupied his place as premier. He at once resumed the suspended measures of his late ministry. One of these was the bill forbidding the granting by foreign authority of ecclesiastical titles in England. It was found impracticable to carry out the measure in such form as had been foreshadowed in the Durham letter. Many amend- ments were offered and adopted, until the bill became so particolored and inane that it was almost as repugnant to one party as the other. Many of the ablest men in the British Parliament set themselves against the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill in sternest opposition. In general, the Peelites, or Independent party, opposed the measure in toto. Mr. Gladstone was of this number. Speaking in the debate on the second reading, he made a long and able and liberal speech. In beginning he struck down to the root of all such questions with the allegation that the Constitution of England and the whole frame of her civilization were so firmly established and thorough in development as to throw off and reject whatever was hostile thereto. No foreign power or interruption of the kind complained of in the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill could successfully enter in and confuse the institutions of England. The whole question, he further said, looked to the regulation of spirit- ualities by law. It was the true province of law to deal with temporalities. An act of Parliament made in defense of the Church of England — an act such as that proposed — must necessarily end in failure and confusion. No doubt the .See of Rome had interfered with the affairs of England; but they were not her temporal affairs. It was the religious affairs of England that had been disturbed by the aggressive policy of the papacy. If the Catholic power had attempted to touch the secular concerns of Great Britain, there could be and would be but one voice among Englishmen as to the remedv- In such a case Parliament ought to act speedily and decisively against the interference. Considering the nature of the thing done by Rome in Eng- land, there was really no right of an action against her. The speaker readily agreed that the tone and .sentiments of the late utterances of the Vatican directed to the Catholic leaders in England were arrogant, mediseval, and impudent ; but these utterances and pronuncia- mentos had not sprung from the Roman Catholic citizens of Great Britain. Such citizens could not be held responsible for the misjudgment and insult- ing spirit of the papacy. The pope must be acknowledged as the spiritual head of Catholic Christendom ; but his ecclesiastical subjects in various coun- 200 LIFE A\I> TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. tries could not be logically luinished for the sins of the \'atican. It must be shown that there was temporal interference as well as spiritual before the Parliament would be called to act in the manner indicated in the pending; measure. Moreover, there was a line of policy, as well as a line of principle, that ought to be followed in this question. There were parties in the Roman communion. There was a moderate party of Catholics, including the greater number of the secular clergy. The laity must be considered. This mod- erate party had been contending for a long time that diocesan bishops should be appointed. Against this the high party of the Vatican, including the cardinals, had argued and thundered. If Parliament should pass the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill then the moderate Catholics, the secular clergy, and the laity at large would be forced out of accord with a principle which was not repugnant to the Church of England in her methods of appointment. All such moderates would be driven to covert under the eaves of Rome. He was aware that the principle which he advocated and the practice which he proposed were unpopular for the time ; but the cause for which he con- tended was a true cause, and would ultimately prevail. The event showed that Mr. Gladstone rightly estimated the popular prejudice. It was in vain at that time to try to stem the overwhelming sen- timent against the impudence and pretensions of the Roman see. The Peel- ites, following Gladstone and Sir James Graham in the debate, were able to muster only ninety-five votes in a full House. They might console them- selves with numbering on their side some of the ablest and most liberal men in England; but the popular prejudice, like a vast sheet of plastering over- head, loosed itself and fell upon them with noise and dust and smothering confusion sufficient to break down and bury any but the strongest. In such cataclysms, however, the strongest allow the falling mass to break itself over their heads and shoulders; but they stand sublimely up. Lord John Russell might succeed with his Ecclesiastical Titles Bill ; for he had three centuries of overwhelming prejudice at his back. But on all other questions. he waned and receded. Already, near the close of the year before. Lord Palmerston, whose will and personality were so strong as to forbid his accord with those who were not his equals, was driven from his office of secretary of foreign affairs. As a matter of fact the ministry was justified in proceeding against him. He would not obey the wishes of the government of which he constituted so great a part. The reader will bear in mind that just at this juncture the great coup dctat of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was preparing itself silently but powerfully in Paris. Great Britain was on record with a pledge never to acknowledge any Bonaparte on the throne of Europe. The whole family was under her official and recorded ban. But circumstances had changed DURHAM LETTER AND ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. 20 1 greatly since 1815. True, the Duke of Wellington yet lived; but he was in the last year of his life. The British cabinet met on the occasion of the coitp d'etat and jaassed a reso- lution to refrain for the present from all comments respecting the thing done in France. The government of Great Britain would not express either ap- proval or disapproval of the event. It was wise to wait and see. Therefore the ministers resolved to remain silent — at least until the thing done in Paris by revolution should further declare itself But not so Lord Palmer- ston. Not only in private con- versations, but in his foreign correspondence as well, he spoke with approval of Prince Louis Napoleon and of the methods which he was employ- ing to confirm his government in France. This business was quite intoler- able to the ministry, and Lord Palmerston was dismissed. In a few months, however, he made all things even by defeating the government on an amendment of his own offered to the Militia Bill of 1852. Ministers chose to regard this defeat as decisive, and Lord John Russell resigned. The queen hereupon summoned Lord Derby to form a new ministry. That statesman proceeded to do so, and offered an important place to Mr. Gladstone ; but the latter would not accept. The failure of the Peelites to go heartily with Lord Derby soon left him in a minority, and the govern- ment was again dissolved. Only unimportant measures could be passed during the spring and summer session of 1852. The historians of this year are justified in not passing over to the re- newal of parliamentary disputes at the ensuing session without noting the death of the greatest remaining hero of Great Britain. The Duke of Wellington, revered and beloved by the British nation, passed away on the 14th of September, 1852. That nation carried him with loud outcry and show of grief to his last resting place by the side of Lord Nelson, under the dome of St. Paul's. It was the greatest pageant thus far witnessed in the whole history of British sepulture. The hero was about three months older than Napoleon, the date of his birth not being precisely known. But the LOUIS NAPOLEON. 202 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. events of his life will be known forever. England might well bury with loudest acclaim of sorrow that resolute and iron form that had withstood the tempests of the Peninsular War and had remained upright and glorious on the heights of Mont St. Jean, looking tranquilly toward Hougoment and La Haie Sainte through the uproar and cataclysm of Europe. Well might the laureate celebrate his final passage from the activities of life : " Bury the great duke With an empire's lamentation, Let us bury the great duke To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, Mourning when their leaders fall, Warriors carry the warrior's jiall, And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. "Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore? Here, in streaming London's central roar. Let the sound of those he wrought for .\nd the feet of those he fought for Eclio round his bones for evermore. "Lead out the pageant : sad and slow, As fits an universal woe. Let the long, long procession go. And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, And let the mournful martial music blow ; The last great Englishman is low." Among the parliamentary eulogists on this great occasion Gladstone held a conspicuous place. Before his address, however, his present and future competitor, Disraeli, had spoken on the duke's death, and had made perhaps the most unfortunate break in his whole public career. It chanced that some years previously, namely, in 1829, on the occasion of the funeral of Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, M. Adolphe Thiers, destined to be President of the Third Republic, had delivered an oration of striking character. On the 1st of July, 1848, the Morm'jig Chronicle newspaper of London, in an article, incidentally quoted a considerable section from Thiers's eulogy. It was sub- sequently shown that Disraeli had himself called the attention of the editor of the Chronicle to the eloquent paragraph in French. In the course of his oration he had the unhappiness, either intentionally or unintentionally, of falling into the exact language of the oration of Thiers, and of following it so far as to constitute a flagrant plagiarism. The public was astounded, and claimed to be scandalized that the leader of the House of Commons should do a thing so much beneath the dignity of manhood, to say nothing of statesmanship and literary honor. The Globe newspaper said of it, with burning sarcasm : " The Duke of DURHAM LETTER AND ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES HILL. 20^ Wellington has experienced the vicissitudes of either fortune, and his calam- ities were occasionally less conspicuous than the homage which he ulti- mately secured. He was pelted by a mob. He braved the dagger of Cantillon. The wretched Capefigue even accused him of peculation. But surely it was the last refinement of insult that his funeral oration, pro- nounced by the official chief of the English Parliament, should be stolen DUKE OF WELLINGTON. (From an original portrait by Salter.) word for word from a trashy panegyric on a second-rate French marshal." To this arraignment the spectacular stoic who was most concerned deigned no word of explanation. The eulogy of Gladstone was one of the last to be delivered in Parlia- ment. His address was broad and general in its tone. Without descend- ing to particulars he adduced the abstract and heroic quality of the duke's life and character. " It may never be given," said he, "to another subject of the British crown to perform services so brilliant as he performed ; it may never be given to another man to liold the sword which was to gain 204 • LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTi)NE. the independence of Europe, to rally the nations around it, and while England saved herself by her constancy, to save Europe by her example ; it may never be given to another man, after having attained such eminence, after such an unexampled series of victories, to show equal moderation in peace as he has shown greatness in war, and to devote the remainder of his life to the cause of internal and external peace for that country which he has so served; it may never be given to another man to have equal authority both with the sovereign he served and the senate of which he was to the end a venerated member ; it may never be given to another man after such a career to preserve even to the last the full possession of those great faculties with which he Avas endowed, and to carry on the services of one of the most important departments of the State with unexampled regu- larity and success even to the latest day of his life." The Duke of Wellington had held a unique position in the public life of Great Britain. He could not be said to belong to any party ; neverthe- less his inlluence to the day of his death was far greater than that of any other Briton. He had been a father to Victoria when she was a maiden queen. He had always held toward her a sentiment of chivalric devotion which amounted almost to worship ; and the queen for her part repaid the hero with undisguised admiration and affection. Her majesty was at the date of the duke's death (September 14, 1852) at Balmoral. There the sad news was borne to her by express and telegram. Her grief broke out in these words : " We got off our ponies at the Dhu Loch, and I had just sat down to sketch when Mackenzie returned, saying my watch was safe at home, and bringing letters ; amongst them there was one from Lord Derby, which I tore open, and alas ! it contained the confirmation of the fatal news — that England's, or rather Britain's pride, her glory, her hero, the greatest man she ever produced, was no more! Sad day! Great and irreparable loss ! Lord Derby inclosed a few lines from Lord Charles Wellesley say- ing that his dear, great father had died on Tuesday at three o'clock, after a few hours' illness and no suffering. God's will be done ! The day must have come. The duke was eighty-three. It is well for him that he has been taken when still in the possession of his great mind, and without a long illness ; but what a loss ! One cannot think of this country without 'the duke' — an immortal hero! In him centered almost every earthly honor a subject could possess. His position was the highest a subject ever had. Above party, looked up to by all, revered by the whole nation, the friend of the sovereign ; and how simply he carried these honors ! With what singleness of purpose, what straightforwardness, what courage were all his actions guided! The crown never found, and I fear never will, so devoted, loyal, and faithful a subject or stanch a supporter." DURHAM LETTER AND ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. 205 206 LIFE AXI) TIMKS OF WILLIAM K. (ILAUSTONE. CHAPTER XIII. Coup d'Etat and First Budget. HOMAS ARCHER has remarked that the year 1852 was bar- ren and suggestive ; that is, it was not fruitful in immediate results, but promised much in the hints that it afforded of com- ing changes. The opening of Parliament, in November of that year, found Disraeli chancellor of the exchequer. When he accepted the office he demanded time to study financial conditions before venturing to prepare a budget. Such was the state of affairs that the task imposed on him was almost impossible of performance. The changes which had supervened in the industries of Great Britain within the past six years had rendered it well-nigh hopeless to propose anything in the way of a financial scheme that would satisfy the country. The country was torn with conllicting interests. The shipping interest was one. The agricul- tural interest was another. The landed gentry was another, and the farmers and their interests were a fourth. The commercial interest was a fifth, and so to the end of classes and factions. This condition Disraeli had to face. At length he came forward with his budget. He proposed to leave the count}' taxes as they had been ; also the taxes for the support of the poor — in English parlance, the poor rates — were passed over without change. As to the general system of taxation, the chancellor launched out by proposing to reduce b\' one half the tax on malt, and to abolish the discrimination against the malt of .Scotland. He proposed a reduction of one shilling four and a half pence per pound in the existing tea ta.x. The next recommendation was the extension of the income tax to the funded properties and salaries in Ireland. In laying this impost he drew a distinction between permanent and precarious incomes. All indus- trial incomes were to be exempt to the limit of a hundred pounds a year, and all incomes on property to the limit of fifty pounds a year. As to the general reduction in the revenues, the chancellor thought he must add a proposition for large expenditures on the defenses of the country. For the following year he urged that the expenditure must be increased by as much as six hundred thousand pounds. Any deficit that might arise he proposed to provide for by doubling and extending the house tax, so that all houses rated at ten pounds and upward (instead of twenty pounds, as hitherto) should be taxed, and the rate should be increased from ninepence to eighteen pence on the pound. Shops, instead of paying sixpence, should pay a shilling a pound. The chancellor thought that the ensuing fiscal year would bring him, as against extra expenditures, about two million five hundred thousand pounds. By the following year COUP DETAT AND FIRST BUDGET. 207 he reckoned that the sum would be three and a half million pounds. For more than four hours Disraeli occupied the attention of the House with explanations of the provisions of his budget and arguments in its favor. Hereupon a lengthy and acrimonious debate ensued. Every faction by its spokesman must be heard. Sir Charles Wood opposed the budget on the score of the extension of the income tax to poor people and "of the house rate to the houses of humble farmers. Cobden declared that the measures proposed would cause to break out again the dormant feud of town and country. Mr. Robert Lowe denounced the proposition to reduce the malt tax, showing that the sole result of it would be a reduction in revenue, without other salutary effects. Mr. Hume held that producers and not consumers would be benefited by reducing the tax on malt. Instead of this circuitous method of doubtful expediency he would have a system of direct taxation reaching all property. As to the house rate, that was simply a tax on the domestic life of poor people. Sir James Graham, member for Carlisle, spoke at length, analyzing the scheme and pointing out its weaknesses in a manner so spirited as to make Disraeli wince. The chancellor, however, rallied to the defense of his scheme, and spoke with great vehemence and audacit)'. He handled the question with as much abilit}' as bravado, being assured, no doubt, that in any event the House would reject his measure. In his reply to Sir James Graham, Disraeli said : " We had last night from the member for Carlisle a most piteous appeal to the House upon the hardship of taxing poor clerks of between one hundred pounds and a hundred and fifty pounds a year. He stated that a hundred and fifty pounds is exactly the point where skilled labor ends. You can recall the effective manner in which the right honorable gentleman said that : — an unrivaled artist, in my opinion, when he tells us that this is the point where the fustian jacket ceases to be worn and the broadcloth becomes the ordinary attire. Such, sir, was the representation of that eminent personage, for whom I have a great regard — I don't so much respect him, but I greatly regard him!" This manner and matter were not of the kind to carr)' a budget through Parliament. It was "supposed that the debate would end with the chancel- lor's reply to his assailants; but not so. No sooner had Disraeli taken his seat than Gladstone rose to answer. It had been noted by some of the members that, when the chancellor was presenting the budget to the House, Gladstone listened with profound attention and made notes. It was not less the argument, however, than the attack on his friends, the Peelites, that brought him to the challenge. In the first place, he made what was for him a pointed and personal delivery on some parts of Mr. Disraeli's method. "The right honoralile gentleman," said he, "must permit me to tell him that he is not entitled to charge with insolence men of as high position and of as 2o8 LH'E AXD TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. hieh character in this I louse as himself. I must tell him that he is not entitled to say to my right honorable friend, the member for Carlisle, that he does not respect him ; and I must tell him that whatever else he may have learned, he has not learned to keep within those limits, in discussion, of moderation and forbearance that ouidit to restrain the conduct and lanfruatje of every member of this House ; the disregard of which, while it is an offense in the meanest amongst us, is an offense of tenfold weight when committed by the leader of the House of Commons." The speaker then took up the discussion of the question, and consid- ered first the house-tax feature of the budget. He made the point that householders of small means, inchuling many clergymen, would be gathered in the chancellor's net. It was a bad policy to compensate the revenue by imposing a house tax in place of the reduction of one half of the tax on malt. He thought that the price of beer to the consumer would not be per- ceptibly affected. The brewers would gain the whole advantage. The policy of substituting one tax for another was a dangerous expedient. The income tax proposed was equally objectionable. The measure indi- cated in the budget was rather an abstraction than a practical scheme, and England was not founded on abstractions. The chancellor had jjroposedto use four humlred thousand pounds taken from the loan timcl, and to count this as a surplus. The chancellor had no right to charge his oj^ponents with collusion against him. On the whole, he believed that the scheme set forth by Disraeli was in its tendency, and would prove to be in its results, " the most perverted budget " of which he had any knowledge. If the House shoidd approve such a scheme the da)' would come when it woidd rue its rashness and folly. We may mark this sharp encounter of Gladstone and Disraeli as the beginning, not indeed of their rivalr), hut of their historical antagonism; for both had now become historical characters. From this date, November of 1852, to the death of Lord Bcaconsfield, was a period of twenty-eight years and six months; and during the whole of this time, nearly an average life- time, there was no day in which the two men were not the leading competi- tors for the primacy of England, and therefore pronounced rivals in the highest regions of statesmanship. For the nonce Gladstone was victorious. When the House was called to division on the question of the budget there was a majority of nineteen against the ministry. The resignation of that body followed as a matter of course.* The queen called the Earl of Aberdeen to conduct the govern- *It was on this occasion that Disraeli produced one of his most celebrated mots. On the morrung of his set- ting out from Westminster Hall, to put his resignation into the queen's hands, the weather %\-as cold and wet. Getting into the coach with some friends, he glanced out at the window and said, with entire nonchalance, " It will be an unpleasant day for going to Osborne I" COUP D ETAT AND FIRST BUDGET. 209 ment, and that nobleman found himself under the necessity of creating a ministry by coalition. The factions had to be united, and several of them were represented in the new cab- inet. Gladstone was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer ; Lord Cranworth, Lord Chancellor; Earl Granville, Lord President of the Council; Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty ; the Duke of Argyle, Lord Privy Seal ; Sir Charles Wood, President of the Board of Control; Sir William jMolesworth, First Commissioner of Public Works ; Edward Cardwell, President of the Board of Trade ; Sir Alexander Cockburn, Attorney General; Richard Bethell, Solicitor General ; and Lord Lansdowne, member without office. To the cabinet proper we may add the sec- retaries, as follows : Duke of New- castle in the Colonial Office ; Lord John Russell for Foreign Affairs ; Lord Palmerston in the Home Office; Sidney Herbert, Secretary of War. Thus on a foundation of conflicting interests was established the coalition government of 1852. Just at this time, namely, in December of the year last named, was com- pleted in France the counter-revolution which, expressing itself in many forms, at last wafted Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to the imperial throne. We have already referred to the coup cTctat oi December 2, 185 1. By that event the President of the Republic of i84Sgot himself to be the Prince President of a republic of his own. The system at the head t)f which he was placed, we must say by the almost unanimous choice of his countrymen, was no more than a stepping-stone from one estate to another. It was known to be so, not only in France, but throughout the world. After the coup d'etat the rest followed as a matter of course. In September and October of 1852 the prince president made a tour through the provinces of the south of France. As he went from place to place his progress became an ovation. It was intended to be such. How much of it was spontaneous and how much factitious cannot be well known; but the French are facile in such matters, and the spontaneity came on like a wave 14 WILLIAM K. ULAUSIONE AS CHANCELLOR UK THE EXCHEQUER UNDER THE EARL OF ABERDEEN, AGE FORTV-TWO. 2IO LIFE AXn TIMES OF WII.I.IAM E. GLADSTONE. of the sea. The prince president went to Avignon and Marseilles and Toulon and Aix. Along the route the tide rose higher and higher. At Sevres his mission was declared to be divine, and "Dieic le Vi'?{^," the cry of the old crusaders, was strangely heard in the streets as the modern Godfrey passed along. At Bordeaux a great banquet was given by the Chamber of Commerce, and there the imperial scheme was openly revealed. The prince president made a speech, most able and conciliatory, but with unhesitating avowal of the will of France respecting himself, and acceptance on his part of tlie trust. His address showed the diplomatist, the manager, the imperial adventurer at his best estate. "At present," said he, "the nation surrounds me with its sympathies because I do not belong to the family of ideologists. To promote the welfare of the country it is not necessary to apply new systems, but the chief point, above all, is to produce confidence in the pres- ent and security for the future." " For these reasons, it seems, France desires a return to the empire. There is one objection to which I must reply. Certain minds seem to entertain a dread of war ; certain persons say the empire is only war. But I say the empire is peace \l' empire c'esl la paix — a phrase that became the motto of the Second Empire,] for France desires it, and when France is satisfied the world is tranquil. Glory descends by inheritance, but not war. Did the princes who justly felt pride that they were the grandchildren of Louis XIV recommence his wars .'' War is not made for pleasure, but through necessity ; and at this epoch of transition, where by the side of so many elements of prosperity spring so many causes of death, we may truly say. Woe be to him who gives the first signal to a collision, the conse- quences of which would be incalculable ! I confess, however, that, like the Emperor, I have many conquests to make. I wish, like him, to conquer by conciliation all hostile parties, and to bring into the grand popular current those hostile streams which now lose themselves without profit to anyone. I wish to restore to religion, morality, and opulence that still numerous part of the population which, though in the bosom of the most fertile coun- try in the world, can scarcely obtain the common necessaries of life. We have immense waste territories to cultivate, roads to open, ports to dig rivers to render navigable, a system of railroads to complete ; we have oppo- site to Marseilles a vast kingdom which we must assimilate to France ; we have to bring all our great western ports into connection with the American continent by a rapidity of communication which we still want ; lastly, we have ruins to restore, false gods to overthrow, and truths to be made triumphant. This is the sense which I attach to the empire, if the empire is to be restored. Such are the conquests which I contemplate ; and all you who surround me, and who, like me, desire your country's welfare — you are mv soldiers." COUP DETAT AND FIRST BUDGET. 211 After the Bordeaux banquet everything went on in a blaze of glory. It is not our part here to recount the rapid and brilliant stages in the prog- ress by which the Prince President was converted into the Emperor Napo- leon III. It was on the 2d of December of 1852, a year to a day from the coup d'i'tai, that the empire was proclaimed. The vote of the people had been announced on the first of the month, and was as follows : " For the imperial rdgime, 7,864,189 ; in the negative, 263,145 ; votes of the indifferent and the like, 63,326. The Church rallied, and in every cathedral was heard the chant, " Save, O Lord, our Emperor Napoleon." This great and withal peaceable revolution in France had a marked effect throughout Europe. It was in the nature of a sensation on a vast scale. In England there was a conflict of political and social emotions. England knew well the adventurous character of the Bonaparte who had been raised by the voice of millions to the imperial throne. As to the empire itself the governing powers in England might well sympathize with that, for it seemed to terminate that continental republic which could but be a menace to the existing political order so long as it should abide. But Great Britain was solemnly on record never to recognize any Bonaparte on a European throne. This record had been made at a time when there was good reason on the part of the Hanoverian monarchy and the English people to have a dread of Bonapartism in all its forms. After thirty-seven years, however, a new state and a new sentiment and interest had super- vened, and there was less cause to dread such title as Napoleon III. His- tory had prepared a condition which must soon lead not only to a recon- ciliation, but to the alliance of the two powers, insular and peninsular, in a common cause against Slavic aggression in the east of Europe. The beginning of the year 1853 found Gladstone chancellor of the exchequer in the ministry of Aberdeen. As such the very duties and diffi- culties before which the preceding ministry had broken to pieces were devolved on him. He must now take up the very work in attempting which Disraeli, by the judgment of the country, had failed. The first two months of the year were spent by him in perhaps the hardest study of his life. In addition to his own business instincts, inherited from his father's line, and in addition to all that he had learned of the finances of his coun- try after his entrance into public life, he had now, under the immense weight of public responsibility, to review the tremendous question before him and to plant himself on a solid foundation under peril of speedily following his predecessor into the limbo of failures. The ordeal was by much the greatest of all that he had thus far encountered ; but his strong purpose, rising steadily from a calm and equable mind, enabled him not only to mas- ter the situation, but to emerge from the trial with a chorus of applauses. It was on the 8th of April, 1853, two months after the opening of the 212 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. CILAD.STONE. nnw Parliament, tliat Gladstone made his first public utterance on the great questions with which he had to deal. On that night he presented his plan for the reduction of the public debt. He prepared and submitted fifteen resolutions, covering nearly all the elements of the debt, and proposing the means whereby the same might be reduced. This he deemed expedient before presenting his first budget. Some of his resolutions looked to the liquidation of the South Sea stocks and of certain bank annuities, some of which had existed for a hundred and twent\-three years. He found that there was a total of the minor stocks carried along in the business of Great Rritain amounting to nine and a half million pounds. To cover this com- plicated mass of indebtedness he proposed the issuance of a new fund on which the interest would be reiluced by a quarter of one per cent, and that the new fund should be subject to pa\ment, involving its total extinction. In the second place, the chancellor boldly proposed that the exchequer bonds of the government should be refunded with a reduction of one per cent. The third part of the plan contemplated the refunding of the three per cent consols at a lower rate. The funds included under this part of the scheme amounted to about two and a half billions of dollars in our account- ing. The ultimate motif o{ the whole scheme was the unification of the national debt of Great Britain in a permanent fund at two and a half per cent, the e.xistence of which was to be accepted in theory as perpetual. Ten days after the presentation of the project relative to the national debt Mr. Cxladstone brought forward his first budget. The reading of the same and the e.xplanation of it — the proposition of successive measures and th edemonstration of their advisability — occupied fully five hours. It was noticed that from the beginning of the presentation the House gave the profoundest attention. The interest rose as the speaker proceeded. Applause broke out at this point and that. It was evident that a master had appeared on the scene. It is doubtful whether any form of public appearance was ever more consistent with the Gladstonian manner and method than was the delivery of his budget, and it may be safely alleged that no other of his budgets ever exhibited more cogency or was inter- spersed with a greater number of paragraphs worthy to be classed as par- liamentary oratory than was this first, of April i8, 1853. The budget seemed to be evolved from the principle known as "elasticity of revenue." The basis of the budget was Gladstone's estimate of the revenue required for the ensuing fiscal year. This he set at ^52,990,000. His estimate of the expenditures were less by ^807,000. Part of the surplus thus arising, however, the speaker would not consider, since not all of the surplus was derived from permanent sources. As to the principle of taxation, he accepted, first of all, the income rates, and would retain them — this for the reason that by the resources thus provided the government COUP D ETAT AND FIRST BUDflET. 213 might in case of war be prepared at any time for a great increase in the armies and navies ot the kingdom. He proposed, however, a sliding scale in the income tax, by which the same should run (or two years at seven- pence the pound, then for two years at sixpence the pound, and then for three' years at fivepence the pound, at the end of which time, namely, in April of i860, the tax should expire altogether. In order to compensate the revenue for certain reductions in other parts of the schedule of taxation, the speaker proposed that the income tax should reach down and include all those whose incomes amounted to a hun- dred and fifty pounds per annum, and that below this all whose incomes amounted to a hundred pounds per annum should be taxed thereon at the rate of fivepence the pound. In the case of Ireland, that country, which had profited so much by late reductions in taxation, should be subject to a part of the burden sufficient to produce a revenue of _;^46o,ooo a year. The chancellor then took up the question of taxing legacies, and proposed a rate thereon which should yield for the ensuing fiscal year about five hun- dred thousand pounds, and for the following year about four times that sum ; and it was suggested that the principle of taxing legacies should become permanent as the means of replenishing the public revenues. In the next place, the speaker took up the special laws relating to the taxation of spirits in Scotland and Ireland. Under this head he proposed to relieve the Irish people of a burden of about four and a half million jjounds. If the first part of the Gladstonian scheme included several items of increase in the burdens of the people the other part embraced a larger num- ber of items in the way of reduction. He agreed that the soap tax should be remitted to the extent of more than a million pounds. The tax on life assurances should be reduced by two shillings in the pound. He would also reduce the cost of the receipt stamps, so as to make them uniformly of the value of a penny each. The tax of apprenticeship was reduced from a pound to two shillings sixpence on each indenture. In like manner the taxes on certificates, on coaches, on post-horses and dogs were reduced. The tea tax was lessened by more than one half. On the whole the reductions amounted by estimate t(j more than five and a quarter million pounds, covering one hundred and thirty-three items in the list of abatements. The one point in the whole scheme about which the chancellor had greatest anxiety was the tax on incomes. He aimed to ameliorate -the feature of income taxes by placing a limit of time upon them. He showed that according to his scheme they were to expire in i860. He aimed to fortify his position with arguments, establishing the justice and expediency of resorting to the income tax in times of necessity. He showed that he could not — indeed, that no government could — enter into a measure for exactly equalizing the income rates among all whom the law might touch. 2 14 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. He proved out of history the necessity of such an expedient to meet the emergencies that from time to time afflicted the pubHc life of nations. He appealed to such instances in the history of Great Britain, selecting his sub- ject-matter from such events as would be likely to touch the patriotism of his countrymen. " It was," said he, " in the crisis of revolutionary war that when Mr. Pitt found the resources of taxation were failing under him his mind fell back upon the conception of the income tax; and when he pro- posed it to Parliament that great man, possessed with his great idea, raised his eloquence to an unusual height and power." The chancellor showed that in the whole period between the rupture of the Treaty of Amiens and the downfall of Napoleon the income tax had liftetl the revenues of Great Britain from about twenty million pounds to more than three times that sum, and that the deficiency in the period referred to was reduced by the same expedient from a figure that would have been ruinous to a minimum of about two million pounds annually. Against such benefits the alleged inequality of the tax could not stand. Besides, the hardship, whatever it was, was temporary, and would soon pass away. No man of patriotic temper and moderate in his opinions could rightly adduce the supposed inequalities of the income ta.x in bar of a method which produced so great benefits. Besides, to relinquish the tax was to throw the government back upon chimerical schemes which might please the visionary, but which could only end in disaster. He admitted the undesirability of retaining the income tax as a part of the permanent scheme of government finances. He admitted that it was impossible in preparing a public budget to reach results that should be satisfactory to all. In such a question, moreover, the spirit of indecision would never do. There must be a bold, rational, and temperate method of finance, as well as a just, considerate, and prudent method. "Whatever you do," said the chancellor of the exchequer, "in regard to the income tax, you must be bold, you must be intelligible, you must be decisive. You must not palter with it. If you do I have striven at least to point out, as well as my feeble powers will permit, the almost desecration, I would say, certainly the gross breach of duty to your country, of which )ou will be found guilty, in thus jeopardizing one of the most valuable among all its material resources. I believe it to be of vital importance, whether you keep this ta.x or whether you part with it, that you should either keep it or leave it in a state in which it would be fit for service in an emergency, and that it will be impos- sible to do if you break up the basis of your Income tax. " If the committee have followed me, they will understand that we stand on the principle that the income tax ought to be marked as a temporary measure ; that the public feeling that relief should be given to intelligence and skill as compared with property ought to be met, and may be met ; COUP DETAT AND FIRST BUDGET. 215 that the income tax in its operation ouglit to be mitigated by every rational means compatible with its integrity, and, above all, that it should be asso- ciated in the last term of its existence, as it was in the first, with those re- missions of indirect taxation which have so greatly redounded to the profit of this country, and have set so admirable an example — an example that has already in some quarters proved contagious to other nations of the earth. " These are the principles on which we stand, and the figures. I have shown you that if you grant us the taxes which we ask, the moderate amount of two and a half million pounds in the whole, and much less than that sum for the present year, you, or the Parliament which may be in ex- istence in i860, will be in the condition, if you so think fit, to part with the income tax. " These are the proposals of the government. They may be approved or they may be condemned, but I have this full confidence, that it will be admitted that we have not sought to evade the difficulties of the position ; that we have not concealed those difficulties either from ourselves or from others ; that we have not attempted to counteract them by narrow or flimsy expedients ; that we have prepared plans which, if you will adopt them, will go some way to close up many vexed financial questions, which, if not now settled, may be attended with public inconvenience, and even with public danger in future years and under less favorable circumstances ; that we have endeavored, in the plans we have nOw submitted to you, to make the path of our succesors in future years not more arduous, but more easy ; and I may be permitted to add that, while we have sought to do justice to the great labor community of England by furthering their relief from indirect taxation, we have not been guided by any desire to put one class against another. We have felt we should best maintain our own honor, that we should best meet the views of Parliament, and best promote the interests of the country, by declining to draw any invidious distinction between class and class by adopting it to ourselves as a sacred aim to diffuse and dis- tribute the burdens with equal and impartial hand ; and we have the con- solation of believing that by proposals such as these we contribute, as far as in us lies, not only to develop the material resources ot the country, but to knit the various parts of this great nation yet more closely than ever to that throne and to those institutions under which it is our happiness to live." Notwithstanding the length of the address the speaker held the sympa- thetic attention of the House to the close, and was greatly applauded. It is doubtful whether there had ever been so masterful an exhibition of finan- cial talentsby any chancellor of the exchequer in Great Britain. The applause with which the address — and that meant the budget — was received indicated clearly its acceptance by Parliament. It signified the acceptance of the scheme without modification. The formality of the House, however, required 2l6 LIFE AND TIMES OY WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. debate. It is the proper thin;4 under such circumstances that the leader of the opposition shall have his say. Custom has even indicated the general tenor of what he shall urge upon the attention of the House. This duty, or formality, as the case may be, was devolved on Disraeli, who rose in reply and expressed in general terms his approval of the scheme which the chancellor of the exchequer had presented. He claimed that the princi- ples on which the budget was founded were virtually the same as underlay the scheme which he had the honor twice to present to the House of Commons. He claimed, however, that the particular evolution of the budget touching this question and the other was not in accord with sound policy, and could not be accepted by her majesty's opposition. Hereupon he entered into an arraignment of several clauses of the budget, particularly that clause which related to the income tax. The income tax, the speaker claimed, was repugnant to the British Constitution, and should be eliminated from the scheme of taxation just as soon as possible. If the tax should be continued at all for the present it ought to be reduced in rate and strictly limited in the time to run. All surplus in the treasury ought to be applied to the reduction and extinction of a s)stem of taxation which no minister could control and which no people could long endure. Mr. Disraeli then proceeded to the question ot the land taxes and the taxes on legacies, as indicated in the Gladstonian scheme. He claimed that the general tendency of the budget was against the landed properties of the kingdom and in favor of the commercial interests. Taxation ought not to lie heavily on real property. Government, instead of relieving the farmers of Great Britain, was proposing to put them under still heavier burdens. He pointed out inconsistencies in the course of several statesmen who were now supporting the ministerial scheme. He attacked Lord John Russell for having denounced the income tax in Sir Robert Peel's day, while now he was in the attitude of supporting the same measure. He claimed with some reason that the favor which he had aimed to extend to Ireland was omitted from the budget, and that the Irish people were afflicted thereby. The Gladstonian report was before Parliament for two months and nine days. During that period the questions involved were discussed from time to time, and many motions were made for amendment and substitu- tion ; but all to no avail. On the 27th of June, 1853, the matter came to a vote. At one time a motion made by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton to recon- sider the part of Mr. Gladstone's scheme relating to the income tax on farmers was near meeting the approval of the House, but even that proposi- tion was defeated by a majority of twenty-one. The budget as a whole, and without modification, was accepted by a large majority. The vote signified the approval of the principles and methods of the chancellor and the ulterior purpose to prepare in advance for war, which was even now at the door. FRENCH ALLIAN'CE AND CRIMEAN WAR. 21 7 CHAPTER XIV. French Alliance and Crimean War. N the remote horizon of the present age, hidden from the scenes that now are by the far-off smoke clouds of the civil war in America and the similar darkness of the Franco-Prussian con- flict in Europe, lies the drama of the Crimean War. The ante- cedents of that struggle were as peculiar as those of any other contention among the nations of modern times. The causes of the war were so complicated and reached so far as to involve, sooner or later, the larger part of modern history. The disputes, indeed, out of which the Crimean War followed as a result reached down into the religious condi- tions of Europe and along the lines of those conditions backward to the age of Constantine, if not to the age of Augustus. The so-called Eastern Ques- tion has so many aspects that a biographical history extending through the period cannot be expected to set them forth with anything like completeness. The principal parties to the controversy were Great Britain, France, Turkey, and Russia; but all the powers of Europe were more or less con- cerned. As to Great Britain, she had adopted the policy of upholding the status hi cjuo in Europe. She had her own motives, not a few, for wishing that the Ottoman power, though an Islamite dominion, should hold its own as a kind of barrier against the 2!:rowinor ambitions of Russia. Commercial reasons and political reasons alike prevailed with her to desire the indirect control of the eastern outlets of the Mediterranean into the Black Sea. This involved the desire on the part of Great Britain that the power of Russia should tiot be established and confirmed on the Black Sea; for that would involve an early forcing of the way by that power through the straits and into the Mediterranean. As to religious prejudices. Great Britain does not allow these to stand in the wind of her commercial interests and politi- cal ambitions ; albeit she makes great capital before the world of her claim to be the defender of the Protestant faith. As to Turkey, that power was in its decadence. She had in her prov- inces, notably in Greece, a large population of professing Christians. Between these and the prevailing Moslemite dominion there was no accord of sympathy and but little common interest. The Christians in Turkey belonged for the most part to the Eastern Church, so that Russia might :laim to be their champion and protector. These conditions were highly avorable to edge on the rising conflict. As to France, though the "empire was peace," according to the dec- iration of the new emperor, he himself needed participation, and if possible ladership, in the coming war. He needed it in order to manifest his 2l8 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Strength and capacities. He needed it in order to confirm his throne. He needed it as one of those daz-^Hng circumstances in which the French nation so much delights. He needed it to show that he was a true Napoleon. He had obtained recognition from all the crowned heads of Kurc)[)e, with the exception of Czar Nicholas. That potentate had deigned to designate Napoleon as ctnisiJ!, but not as brother — a circumstance that rankled more^ we doubt not, in the breast of the empress than in the heart of Napoleon. So the emperor set about to make an alliance with England. Great Britain, having declareil that she would never assent, assented ; and with the growth of the war portent in the East Napoleon HI found himself side by side with \'ictoria and the sultan. Though royal enough, it was one of the most motley teams that ever went to war ! The particular grievance that led to the rupture was the dispute between the Latin and Greek Churches over the claim to precedence in the guardian- ship of the holy places in Palestine. The age will come when the absurdity of such a contention will strike the reader as verging closely to the impos- sible. But as late as the middle of our century such questions were still very real, and in their decision the great nations of Europe drew the sword. By his elevation to the imperial throne Napoleon HI became the politi- cal head of the Roman Catholic, or Latin, Church in Europe. By like rela- tion Czar Nicholas was the head of the Greek Catholic, or Eastern, Church. Any dispute between the two great divisions of Christendom would place the French emperor and Russian czar in diametrical antagonism. The arrangements made in Palestine between the Christians and the Mussulmans conceded to the former the possession of certain holy places ; but the Christians disputed among themselves as to which faction should be the guardians par exce//ence. There was a church in Bethlehem, and through this the Latin nionks must pass to reach the Sacred Grotto. There was a principal door to the church and a door to the manger, and these doors were locked. Should a Latin monk carry the key, or should a Greek priest have it .i* Should the Latin monks have the right to place in the sanctuary of the nativity a silver star bearing the arms of France, or should those Western symbols be excluded .'* The French minister at Constantinople, in Decem- ber of 1852, secured from the sultan permission to place the silver star in the sanctuary of Bethlehem, and to have the keys of both church and manger This concession was resented by the Russian ambassador, and the cza- declared that the change contemplated in the management of the holy place was unjust and would be resisted. The thing conceded by Islam to Rom was hateful to the Greek cross. Meanwhile the czar had in a conversation with Sir Hamilton Seymoi declared that "we [meaning England and Russia] have on our hands a sr man — a very sick man ; it will be a great misfortune if one of these days * FRENCH ALLIANXE AND CRI.MEAX WAR. 219 should slip away from us before the necessary arrangcvtents have been made." The "necessary arrangements" to which Nicholas referred hinted at what England and Russia ought to do in a friendly way on the occasion of the funeral ! It was thus that Turkey, in the parlance of the day, and even to the present, came by the czar's wit to be called the Sick Man of the East. ALBERT, OF SAXE-COBLRG AiVD GOXHA, IHK LAIE PKINCE CONSORT. But the overtures of Nicholas to Great Britain were not acceptable; the alliance of France was chosen instead, and the czar sent an army corps into the Danubian provinces as a precautionar\- measure, demanding at the same time of Austria that the Turkish troops should be required to withdraw from Montenegro. At this juncture it was believed that both Austria and Prussia would join the alliance in support of Turkey against the aggressions of Nicholas. But the central German powers decided to remain neutral, at the 220 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. same time declarin^r against the policy ot the czar. Tiie alliance contented itself with receivinij Sardinia as a member of the league. This made the combination fourfold — English, French, Sardinian, Turkish — against Russia, single and alone. There were futile efforts at negotiation, but these came to naught, and the Eastern Question was left to the arbitrament of the sword. The precise reason for going to war was differently stated by the dif- ferent parties to it. Some said that it was to maintain the traditional policy of upholding the Ottoman empire, to which England in particular had sub- scribed. Albert, the prince consort, said in a semiofficial way that Great Britain went to war with Russia because that power menaced the Otto- man empire, and at the same time sought to convert the various prov- inces on the Black Sea into Russian dependencies. This, the prince claimed, would be in violation of that system of balance of power to which all Europe was agreed. Mr. Gladstone held this view, namely, that the public law of Europe was defied and violated by the course of the czar, and that such violation must be punished, not so mucli by England alone as by the united powers of Europe. As for France, that nation went to war for religious sentiment and human glory. It is inconceivable that the claim of the Greek Church to pos- sess and control certain places in and about Jerusalem should provoke a great people to the pitch of war. That, however, was assigned as the reason — a reason that did not greatly prevail in England. Lord John Russell declared in a public paper, in January of 1853, that the Church quarrel was in the bot- tom of the difficulty; but Lord John contended that so far as this quarrel extended Rit-ssia zc>as in the right ! So there was a period of negotiation. Prince Menshikoff demanded of the Sublime Porte a guarantee that the Greek Church should not be impeded in the exercise of her prerogatives about the holy places. This demand the sultan would not grant, where- upon the Russian ambassador went away and the czar sent an ultimatum. It was in the beginning of July that a Russian army, crossing the Pruth, entered Moldavia and Wallachia. The czar issued a proclamation justify- ing his course as necessary to secure from the porte a recognition and guarantee of Ru.ssian rights. He disclaimed the intention of going to war. For several months Great Britain sought in a desultory way to prevent the conflict; but on the 4th of October, 1853, Turkey declared war against Russia. The news produced great excitement throughout England. There were many public meetings. The English nation demanded to know the attitude of the government. Just at this juncture, namely, on the 12th ot October, Mr. Gladstone was invited to Manchester to deliver an address on the occasion of the dedication of a statue to the memory of Sir Robert Peel. He must, in the nature of the case, at least refer to the subject that was uppermost in all minds. FRENCH ALLIANCE AND CRIMEAN WAR. 221 In doing so the chancellor of the exchequer spoke of the ambitions and aggressions of Russia, which threatened to break the peace of the whole world. In the nature of the case the czar's policy must first strike and undo the Ottoman empire. It was best to resist Russia at the start. Great Britain would set herself to uphold Turkey as a bulwark against Slavic ambition. Great Britain did not desire war, and for that reason was willing to negotiate. War was a horror not to be rashly provoked. Negotiation might result in nothing. " Negotiation," said the speaker, " is beset with delay, intrigue, and chicane ; but these are not so horrible as war, if negotia- tion can be made to result in saving this country from a calamity which deprives the nation of subsistence and arrests the operations of industry. To attain that result if possible — still to attain it, if still possible, which is even yet their hope — her majesty's ministers have persevered in exercising that self-command and that self-restraint which impatience may mistake for indifference, feebleness, or cowardice, but which are truly the crowning great- ness of a great people, and which do not evince the want of readiness to vindicate, when the time comes, the honor of this country." In this expression the reader may discover the cautious spirit of Glad- stone, resolute enough to undertake even war, but always disposed to con- sider well before saying, and to say in such terms and phrases as to signify much, but heat little. The temper of the British nation at this very time was highly offended at the policy of Russia, and the public voice was crying out for decisive action and war. Great Britain in going to war with Russia put herself into a remark- able relation. Czar Nicholas was not unpopular in western Europe — unless in France. He had married the Princess Charlotte of Prussia, eldest daugh- ter of Frederick William III. Nicholas was a temperate and frugal auto- crat, working from fourteen to sixteen hours daily. He was a Christian czar, and in this respect was at least as near to the sympathies of Great Britain as was Napoleon III. Moreover, in going to war with Russia, Eng- land had to ally herself with the Sultan Abdul-Medjid, of whom it might be said there was nothincr in him to be desired. His crovernment was one of the most corrupt and wicked imaginable. He was at the head of the Mus- sulman faith, and was the front of that offending in both Europe and Asia. The existence of such a power and such a ruler in Europe required — as it has ever since required — both apology and explanation. That Great Britain could be in alliance with a creature such as the porte seemed incred- iljle enough ; but the Eastern Question required just such bedfellows. Eng- land was in the attitude of supporting the cause of a thing without support- ing the thing of the cause ! For a while, however, there was no further declaration of war than that of Turkey. It was a little more than a year, namely, on the ist of Novem- 222 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM K. GLADSTONE. ber, 1853, that Nicholas answered with a manifesto the challenge of the porte. He declared in a paper to his people that the blindness and the obstinacy of the Ottoman empire obliged him to take up arms. Just after- ward a paper called "The Vienna Note" was prepared by the powers and sent to both Russia and Turkey as a proposed basis of settlement. It was accepted by the former country, but rejected by the latter. Hereupon another note was prepared, which in its turn was rejected by the czar. This furnished the final offense, and on the 28th of March, 1854, England declared war. Matters had gone so far and the public mind was so greatly inflamed that only a few voices were lifted against the declaration. Already the allied fleets had entered the Black Sea. On that water had occurred, on the 30th of November previously, the battle of Sinope between the Turks and the Russians. A Russian fleet hovering about Sinope provoked the Turks, who sailed out to the trial and were over- whelmed. Their squadron was annihilated. About four thousand of the Turks were reduced by slaughter to as manv hundreds, and it was said that not a single Ottoman of those engaged escaped without a wound. The Russians after their victory on the water proceeded to bombard and destroy Sinope. The news of this fight was carried to western Europe, and pro- duced a fever of excitement. The reports of the conflict were exaggerated by the correspondents and messengers into the phrase " Massacre of Sinope," by which the battle was ever afterward designated. It cannot be denied that at this juncture Napoleon III made a praise- worthy effort to verify his motto, " the empire is peace." On the 29th of January, 1854, he wrote a dignified and conciliatory letter to Czar Nicholas, as follows : " Your majesty has given so many proofs of your solicitude for the tranquillity of Europe, and by your beneficent influence has so power- fully arrested the spirit of disorder, that I cannot doubt as to the course you will take in the alternative which presents itself to your choice. Should your majesty be as desirous as myself of a pacific conclusion, what would be more simple than to declare that an armistice shall now be signed, that all hostilities shall cease, and that the belligerent forces shall retire from the places to which motives of war have led them .•' Thus the Russian troops would abandon the principalities, and our squadrons the Black Sea. Your majesty, preferring to treat directly with Turkey, might appoint an ambassa- dor who could negotiate with the plenipotentiary of the sultan a convention which might be submitted to a conference of the four powers. Let your majesty adopt this plan, upon which the Queen of England and myself are perfectly agreed, and tranquillity will be reestablished and the world satis- fied. There is nothing in the plan which is unworthy of your majesty, nothing which can wound your honor; but if, from motives difficult to under- stand, your majesty should refuse this proposal, then France as well as FRENCH ALLIANCE AND CRIMEAN WAR. 223 England will be compelled to leave to the fate of arms and the chance of war that which might now be decided by reason and justice." To this the czar replied ten days afterward that he had done as much for the maintenance of peace as was compatible with his honor ; that he was the guardian of the Greek Christians in Turkey ; that the porte had been overborne by evil influences; that his confidence was in God and the right. Then he added, " Russia, as I can guarantee, will prove herself in 1854 what she was in 18 12." The response, as a whole, was not calculated to mend matters in the least, and the phrase about 18 12 was manifestly a defi, if not an insult. The French so regarded it, and the war craze in France became as feverish as it was already in Great Britain. The French ambassador at St. Petersburg left that capital and sent to his master this dispatch : " I return with refusal." In England the Aberdeen ministry was loath in the extreme to go to war. Lord Aberdeen was himself of a conservative and peaceable disposi- tion. He was in sympathy with the Peace Society of the kingdom. That society sent a committee to St. Petersburg, in the hope of stemming the tide and preventing hostilities. Mr. Gladstone was almost as anxious as was the premier to avoid war. He, too, was by nature strongly inclined to peace. As chancellor of the exchequer and a man of business by the whole course of his life, he must needs contemplate with aversion the horrible expenditure as well as the havoc of war. He saw in such an event a great increase in the burdens which must be borne by the people of Great Britain. He saw the probable ruin of the financial scheme which he had proposed two years before, and which had been adopted as the policy of the kingdom. That scheme was intended for peace. Or, if it looked to war at all, it merely provided for the remote contingency of it. Kinglake, the historian of the Crimean war, has fully described the Gladstonian sentiment and character at this time : " If he [Gladstone] was famous for the splendor of his eloquence, for his unaffected piety, and for his blameless life, he was celebrated far and wide for a more than common liveliness of conscience. He had once imagined it to be his duty to quit a government and to burst through strong ties of friendship and gratitude by reason of a thin shade of difference on the subject of white or brown sugar. It was believed that if he were to commit even a little sin, or to imagine an evil thought, he would instantly arraign himself before the dread tribunal which awaited him within his own bosom ; and that, his intellect being subtle and microscopic, and delighting in casuistry and exaggeration, he would be likely to give his soul a very harsh trial and treat himself as a great criminal for faults too minute to be visible to the naked eyes of laymen. His friends lived in dread of his virtues as tending to make him whimsical and unstable, and LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. CI.ADSTONE. the practical politicians, perceivinj^r that he was not to be depended upon for party purposes, and was bent upon none but lofty objects, used to look upon him as dangerous — used to call him behind his back a good man, a ofood man in the worst sense of the term." In any event, it remained for Gladstone to provide for the financial affairs of Great Britain at the outbreak of the Crimean War and during a considerable section of that conflict. His duties were onerous. The statesman and financier justified himself in supporting the government, in defending the war, in doing his best to furnish the means requisite for its prosecution, on the ground that it was a defensive war, undertaken by Eng- land in the interest of universal peace, atrainst the as/eressions of Russia. How- ever much he ma)' have deplored the fact of war, he nevertheless accepted it as necessar)' to the honor of his countr)'. The principal events in the progress of that struggle may here be briefly summarized : The allied powers sent with all expedition an army of sixty-five thousand men, with five thousand horse and eighty pieces of artillery, to the Black Sea. The expedition reached its destination on the 14th of September, 1854. In a short time the allies — English, French, Turks — concentrated at Varna, from which place a descent on the Russians in the Crimean peninsula was contemplated. Already the Turks in Europe had made considerable headway against the enemy. It was at this juncture that Omar Pasha appeared as the leader and hero of the Ottoman forces. The Russians were under command of Prince IMenshikoff, the PInglish under Lord Raglan, and the French under Marshal Pelissier. On the 20th of September, 1854, a bloody battle was fought on the river Alma. Here the Russians were defeated, and were compelled to fall back in the direction of their strong fortress, Sebastopol, at the southeastern extremity of the peninsula. Here the war was focused. The Russians were strongly rein- forced late in the autumn, and Menshikoff united his divisions behind the works of Sebastopol. On the 25th of September the heights of Balaklava, south of the Russian position, were seized by the British under Lord Raglan, and on the 9th of October the siege of Sebastopol was begun. For nearly eleven months the allies held that strong fortress in their grip. They succeeded before winter in bringing their batteries to bear on FIELD .MARSHAL LORD RAGLAN. (Commander in Chief of the British Army ia the Crimea.) FRENCH ALLIANCE AND CRIMEAN WAR. 225 the town ; but the Russians for their part succeeded in blockading with sunken vessels and other obstructions the entrance to the harbor. The sieee that ensued was one of the most remarkable in history. The Russians made two tremendous sallies, the first on the night of the 25th of October, at Balaklava. This place was held by a combined force of Turks and English. The former gave way from four redoubts, which were carried by the assailants; but at the crisis of the battle the British Highlanders came MARSHAL PELlSblJi-U. (Commandtfr in Chief of the French Army in the Crimea.) into action, and the Russians were driven back. It was here that the charge of the Light Brigade occurred, memorable in song and story. The other sortie of the Russians was against the village of Inkerman, at the head of the harbor. This occurred on the 5th of November, 1854. A strong- force of Russians descended from the high grounds which they occupied, and were confronted by the allies on the slope opposite, near the ruins of an ancient town mentioned by .Strabo. Here the Russian attack fell with great violence on the English and iMx-nch ; but the latter were 220 LIFE AND TIMK'^ OK WII.I.IAM E. GLADSTONE. 1 ^ FRENCH ALLIANCE AND CRIMEAN WAR. 227 victorious. Many like movements of a minor character occurred in the IjeL'-inniny- of winter, and then the ri^or of the season fell on the combatants. In the month of January came such cruel privations and sufferings as have rarely been borne by soldiers in modern times. Hunger, disease, and cold did their worst on the allied camps. The genius of Elizabeth Butler has seized upon the morning " Roll Call " in the Crimean snows to depict the excess of human suffering and devotion to duty. Before the winter was passed the al.ied lines around Sebastopol were considerably contracted. On the 23d of February the French assailed with great valor the stronghold called the Malakhoff, but were repulsed. On the 1 8th of the following June, being the fortieth anniversary of Waterloo, the assault was desperately renewed, but without success. On the i5th of August was fought the bloody battle of Tchernaya, being the last effort of the Russians to raise the siege. With a force of fifty-six thousand men they threw themselves against the allied position, but could not break through. All the while the trenches of the allies were drawn nearer and nearer to the Russian defenses. On the 5th of Sej^tember a terrible cannonade was opened, and when this had lasted three days both English and French sprang from their intrenchments and carried, the one the Redan and the other the Malakhoff, by storm. The losses of the combatants were immense. The Russians blew up their fortifications on the south side of the harbor and retreated across the bay. The victors destroyed the docks, arsenals, and shipyards of Sebastopol, going as far as they could toward making impossible the future occupancy of the place by the Russians as a seat of commerce and war. By this great success of the allies a permanent check was given to the ambition of Czar Nicholas. The Russian empire was reined back on its haunches by the hands of France and England out of the West. On the 2d of March, 1855, the czar died, as was believed, of disappointment and a broken heart. The allies went on to capture Kertch, at the entrance to the Sea of Azov, which they effected on the 25th of Ma)-. Soon after- ward hostilities ceased and the epoch of negotiation followed. Commis- sioners met at Paris, and on the 30th of March, 1856, a treaty was concluded, called the Treaty of Paris, to which Russia was obliged to give her reluctant consent. The greater part of these events were accomplished, so far as England was concerned, under the auspices of the Aberdeen ministry. However reluctantlv that o-overnment had gone into the war it nevertheless rallied in the English manner to prosecute the confiict to a successful termination. There was in the kingdom a remaining sentiment against the war, and ever favorable to its cessation. It is in evidence that the chancellor of the 228 LIFE AND TIMES C)F WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. exchequer was hard pressed in his feelings between the conflict of duty and sentiment. To him remained the painful part of abandoning the tax scheme which he had prepared with so much care on entering upon his office and oi preparing another to meet the exigencies of war. He was obliged to extend his rates to incomes and sjjirits and malt. He was also obliged to consume the more than million pounds of surplus which he had provided. It had been his intention to grant release from taxation, and instead of this he must greatly increase it. This would necessarily be THE FALL OK SECASTOPOL — CAPTURE OF THE MALAKHOFK TOWER. followed with popular discontent and complainings. He had expected to remit the duty on sugar ; but this pleasing measure had to be abandoned. At this juncture Gladstone and Disraeli were again brought into con- flict. The former conceived the plan of providing the extraordinary e.xpenses of the war from the current revenues of the kingdom. He thought this might be done by increasing the tax rates so as to secure ten millions sterling above the usual expenditure. This he boldly proposed. The measure was approved by Prince .Albert, and the people at large responded favorably to the plan. In opposition to this Mr. Disraeli pro- posed to boi-roiu, and to increase the national debt by as much as might be required. FRENCH ALLIANCE AND CRIMEAN WAR. 229 The issue was sharply drawn. The public opinion was so strongly with the chancellor that he went forward to propose on the plan indicated his war budget of 1854. He was able to report a surplus of more than a million pounds from the previous year. In addition to this he could show that the expenditures were by more than another million less than had been estimated. This gave the chancellor over two million pounds to begin with. He accordingly, on the 6th of March, 1854, brought forward the budget, in which he proposed a vote of a million and a quarter pounds for the extraordinary military expenditures of the year. He strongly defended the policy of paying as fast as expenditure was necessary. He opposed with all his might the increase of the national debt, holding that future generations should not be mortgaged to the present. It was the present that made war in the interest of England and of civilization ; let the present, therefore, demonstrate its patriotism by paying as it went the nec- essary expense of the conflict. Nor may we pass from this episode in the career of Gladstone without emphasizing it as the most important feature of all the financial policies that he ever proposed. The theory of making the w'ar period pay its own way is one of universal application. No nation is ready to engage in war or ought to engage in it, except in extreme cases, unless it is ready also to pay. The Gladstonian policy dominated the financial management of Great Britain durincf the Crimean War, and to that circumstance the kingdom was indebted for the inconsiderable increase in the national indebtedness on the score of the expensive and distressing contest which she was obliged to wage with a powerful enemy in Asia. Gladstone had to face a deficit for the current year (1853-54) "^ nearly three million pounds — this in addition to the surplus which had accumulated. To meet this large demand and to provide for the ensuing year he placed himself stubbornly on the ground of raising the revenue b)' a sum equivalent to that demanded, and to do it within the year. He would not resort to a loan. He boldly declared that England, more than any other country, had resorted to the dangerous expedient ol laying mortgages on the industries and enterprises of future generations. He declared with equal boldness that a nation ready to go to war ought to be ready to make the sacrifices necessary to support it. He held that this policy, if rigorously adhered to, would bridle the spirit of war and reduce that monster's devastations to a minimum. He called attention of Parliament to the fact that England had entered on the great struggle under favorable circumstances. He praised the House for the noble efforts already made in support of the treasury. He called attention to the fact that the military establishment had been increased by forty thousand men, and urged this circumstance as a proof that the government 230 LIFE AND IIMKS OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. was prosecuting the war against Russia with decision in council and vigor in the field. The sentiment of Europe — all Europe — was, said the speaker, with England in this emergency. Everything seemed to indicate a prosperous conclusion of the war at an early date. It was the duty of the House of Commons to adhere strictly to the rule of making each year raise its own supplies. Finally the chancellor laid before Parliament his actual estimates for 1S54-55, placing the income at a little more and the expenditure at a little less than fifty-six and a half million pounds. To all this he added a recommendation relative to the equal taxation of domestic and foreign bills of exchange. The discussions which followed the presentation of the budget were nearly all favorable thereto. It was noted that Mr. Disraeli's opposition at the outset on the motion to consider, and his proposal to borrow funds and increase the national debt, had been ma.de />j-o /orma rather than with inten- tion seriously to obstruct the ministrj-. That statesman, after Gladstone had concluded, addressed the House, stating that her majesty's opposition was bound, notwithstanding any divergence of views from those upon which the budget was founded, to support the measure as a whole, since it was necessary to prosecute the war. He entered a protest, however, that in case the war should be long continued it could not be conceded that the requisite supplies should be raised year by year by taxation. So on the 20th of March, 1854, the budget came to a vote and was carried without a division of the House. This included the proposition to double the income tax for the ensuing year. Hereupon Lord Willoughby offered an amendment suspending the increased rate for the first half of the year following. The debate broke out anew, and Disraeli made a spirited and effective speech, marked with his usual wit, sarcasm, and casuistry. He concludetl with the assertion that the ministry was not a unit, and had not been a unit, either in declaring the war or in prosecuting it. The ministry was rightly designated as a coalition ministry, and the war was therefore a coalition ivar! This spirited sally, however, did not avail. Gladstone replied with great vigor and success. He challenged the opposition to propose a vote of want of confidence. The sentiment of the House was so strongly with the chancellor that the Wil- loughby amendment was rejected by a large majority, and on the 30th of March the bill as a whole was passed. This highly successful and radical expedient of the chancellor of the exchequer met the expectation of its projector, but the enlarging proportions of the war soon demanded additional outlays. Already before the adoption of the budget an army of twenty-five thousand men had been sent forward by the Duke of Newcastle to the Crimea, and this was followed by other FRENCH ALLIANCE AND CRIMEAN WAR. 2;i V~ r f .r T X /^ \ :^nN ^ 1. Before Sebastopol. The Redan, from the Old Advanced Trench, July 14, 1855. 2. The Battle of the Tchernaya. The Attack upon the Sardinian Picket, September 5, 1855. 3. The Valley of Death. Before Sebastopol, June 3, 1855. 232 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM F. GLADSTONE. divisions to the same fickl. The war was uiulcrtal'cen in dead earnest. Mr. Gladstone on the 8th of May found himself under necessity of presenting a supplemental budget, wherein he proposed to raise an addition of nearly seven million pounds to meet the e.xtraortlinary expenses of the war. He went at the question boldh-, but with his usual circumspection and ])rudence. He declared himself vuiwilling to increase the income taxes turthcr, ami also unwilling to altt:r the postal system with a \'iew to increas- ing revenue. It had become necessary, so the speaker urged, to lay duties on articles of consumption and manufacture. The articles on which he would recommentl additional taxation were spirits, sugar, and malt. He proposed as the principal item in the increase a duty o.f four shillings the bushel On malt. He estimated the consumption of that commodity at forty million bushels, which under his proposal would yield nearly two and a half millions. He would increase the duties on Scotch and Irish spirits, in the former country by one shilling and in the latter by eightpence the gallon. From this source he would derive four hundred and fifty thousand pounds. P'rom the increase of the sugar duties lie thought that seven hundred thousand pounds might be derived. He urged that there should be no delay in granting the additional levies. The fact of his asking for them could not be adduced as evidence of a want of foresight relative to the expenses of the war. He defended his propositions each and several, and stood strongly to his position against borrowing and increasing the national debt. He quoted from Pitt the warning which that statesman had uttered on the score of national loans. If Great Britain would stand stoutly to the principle of making the annual revenues equal to the expenditures, then the vigor of the English race in commerce, manufac- tures, and productive industries would be sufficient to meet even the enor- mous outlays of a war in Asia. The event showed that Parliament was not expecting so bold and withal so radical a measure of financial policy. The debates were spirited. There was an effort to defer the second reading of the bill. Several dis- tinguished parliamentarians strongly opposed the chancellor's measures. The cautious Disraeli, affirming all the while that he was in favor of a vig- orous prosecution of the war, nevertheless opposed the tax on malt as a thinsf ruinous to one of the leadins: industries of Great Britain. It was a measure, said he, directed against agriculture, and could not be borne. Nev- ertheless the House supported the proposition of the chancellor by a majority of more than a hundred votes. After this the principal debate of the session was on a proposition to make a temporary loan of si.x million pounds. It was necessary for the gov- ernment to have an abundance of ready funds in advance of the revenues which had iust been provided. It was already in July before this question FRENCH ALLIANCE AND CRIMEAN WAR, O -t -7 -06 came to a vote in the House. There was much acrimonious discussion, in which Disraeli participated with his wonted brilliancy of attack. Lord John Russell strongly supported the government, but the principal defense of the ministerial policy was left to Gladstone himself In a perfectly equable temper he took up the charges against the management of the war and the objections against the war itself, and showed the falsity of the one and the hollowness of the other. The event demonstrated the strong hold which the chancellor of a coalition ministry might have on the nation at large. Again his policy was approved by a majority of more than a hundred, and on the 1 2th of August, 1S54, Parliament was prorogued. 234 Llfl^ '^^^ TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. CHAPTER XV. Accession of Palmerston and Treaty of Paris. E have already seen and marked the course of events in the East, thus forerunning somewhat that part of the drama in Great Britain in which Mr. Gladstone was one of the principal actors. We should here remark that the peace party in Eng- land, though only a small minority, prosecuted its views with "•reat activity, lohn Bright was at the head of those who were willincr to avoid war, or to cause the cessation of war at almost any hazard. Nor may we deny that there was a certain cogency in the argument of the peace advocates. They were able to point out the monstrous character of an alliance between Great Britain and Turkey; between progress and inertia ; between enlightenment and darkness ; between Protestantism and Islam. They were also able to show that Russia, in addition to being a Christian nation, was a nation tending strongly to progress and enlighten- ment. How, therefore, could Great Britain prefer the Ottoman to the Mus- covite .-' How could she join the former in making war on the latter ? These arguments, however, could not avail. The peace commission that went to St. Petersburg had found there an angry and irreconcilable czar. The hostile elements were loose, and a petition for peace could not be heard until the powers had e.xpended their animosity in violence and blood. We are here to note the decadence and final disruption of the Aber- deen ministry. That ministry, as the reader knows, was a coalition of many elements. It was such a combination of forces as might Avell endure the trials and controversies of peace, but could hardly bear the strain of war. All alone Lord Aberdeen was accused of lukewarmness in England's cause against Russia. None could doubt his loyalty and devotion, but he was at heart a man of peaceable disposition, and that did not well accord with the temper of England militant. The opponents of the ministry were able to mark the discordant parts of the ministerial body and to emphasize and exaggerate its disagreements. There, for instance, were the Peelites, of whom Gladstone was one, who were accused of being in the government for expedienc)-, and of having no actual sympath)- with their colleagues. Besides, there were at least two members of the ministry who aspired almost openly to the leadership which was held by the moderate Aberdeen. These two were Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. These bold and aggressive spirits had a strong following, both in the cabinet and out of it. The temper of Lord Palmer- ston in particular was almost the exact expression of the belligerent temper of Great Britain. When he spoke England spoke more truly than in the ACCESSION OF PALMERSTOX AND TREATY OF PARIS. -^■■^. JClHxN DKKSHl'. Private enterprise was sum- utterance oi any other. These disagreements did not proceed as tar as downright quarreling and dissensions in the government, but they were a weakness and source of anxiety to all typ- ical Englishmen, from the queen to the Cornish miner. ^ To this was added a circumstance or two of popular discontent having a deep foundation in fact. The condition of the British army in the Crimea after the bat- tles of Balaklava and Inkerman was de- plorable. Authentic information of the state of the troops, of their suffering in camp and hospital, was borne back to the mother country, and produced a furor of sympathies and not a little denunciation of the military authorities. In this denun- ciation General Fitzroy Somerset, com- mander in chief, better known by his title of Lord Raglan, came in for a large share, moned to provide for the men in the field. It was at this juncture that Florence Nightingale, Angel of the Bivouac and Hospital, with thirty-seven assistants, set out for the Crimea, where they fortunately arrived in time to minister to the sick and wounded after Bala- klava. Another contingent of fifty nurses was sent soon afterward, and private subscriptions of many thousands of pounds were made to back up the humane work of the heroic British women. Queen Victoria found occasion to write in mingled grief and reproof to Lord Raglan, saying: " The sad privations of the army, the bad weather, and the constant sickness are causes of the deepest concern to the queen and prince. The braver our noble troops are, the more patiently and heroically they bear all their trials and sufferinors, the more miserable we feel at their long continuance. The queen trusts that Lord Raglan will be very strict in seeing that no unneces- sary privations are incurred by any negligence of those whose duty it is to watch over their wants. The queen earnestly trusts that the large amount of warm clothing sent out has not only reached Balaklava, but has been dis- tributed, and that Lord Raglan has been successful in procuring means of huttine for the men. Lord Raelan cannot think how much we suffer for the army, and how painfully anxious we are to know that their privations are decreasing." This condition of affairs produced great excitement and much bitter- ness in Parliament and throughout the country. An attack was made on the pfovernment of Lord Aberdeen all along the line. Denunciations were 236 LIKE AM) TIMES UK \VILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. heard in both the Commons and the House of Lords. Lord Palmerston, the home secretary, could not and would not restrain himself. It became evident to all that he more truly represented the sentiment of England than any other personage in the cabinet, from the premier to the last secretary. Day by day he grew in popular favor. True, he had just at this time offended with his radicalism the staid and commonplace orthodoxy of the realm by insisting that natural means, extending all the way from ordinary cleanliness to the highest applications of science, are better preservatives of the public health than fastings and prayers. He had made the greatest ecclesiastics and the greatest cities dance to his sanitary music in a way to MISS NIGHTINGALE IN THE HOSPirAL AT' SCUTARI make the heads of the fearful swim. He had said to the Presbytery of Edin- burgh, asking that a day of fasting and humiliation be appointed to stay the approach of cholera : " Lord Palmerston would therefore suggest that the best course which the people of this country can pursue, to deserve that the further progress of the cholera should be stayed, will be to employ the interval that will elapse between the present time and the beginning of next spring in planning and executing measures by which those portions of their town and which are inhabited by the poorest classes, and which, from the nature of things, most need purification and improvement, may be freed from those causes and sources of contagion which, if allowed to remain, will ACCESSION OF PALMERSTON AND TREATY OF PARIS. 237 infallibly breed pestilence and be fruitful in death in spite of all the prayers and fastings of a united but inactive nation. When man has done his utmost for his own safety then is the time to invoke the blessing of Heaven to eive effect to his exertion." To the people of London Lord Palmerston said : " The practice of burying dead bodies under buildings in which living people assemble in large numbers is a barbarous one, and ought to be at once and forever put an end to. . . . And why, pray, should archbishops and bishops and deans and canons be buried under churches, if other people are not to be so } What special connection is there between church dignities and the privilege of being decomposed under the feet of survivors.''" This way of braving public odium and of saying what all men knew ought to be said, but what all other men were afraid to say, was precisely the method of catching the confidence of the British nation. Palmerston proceeded w'ith his lecture thus: " England is, I believe, the only country in which in these days people accumulate putrefying dead bodies amid the dwellings of the living; and as to burying bodies under thronged churches, you might as well put them under libraries, drawing-rooms, and dining rooms." This w'as an open defiance to the prejudices of the English race ; but the English race likes to be defied. Meanwhile news came and came again from the Crimea that was oil to the bonfire in England. Lord Palmerston urged the cabinet to press the war with all possible vigor. When that body did not move forward with the decision which he dernanded he resigned his office. For the time his reasons were dissembled or concealed ; but the country came to understand that he had gone out because he could not sufficiently impress his views on the ministry. Public opinion was so overwhelmingly for the policy which Palmerston represented that he was at once recalled to office, where he became for the greater part of the year a bull in the ministerial china shop of Great Britain. To all this must be added the usual intrigues of British politics. Partyism, in the midst of the public commotion, was as busy as ever. The prince consort, writing to his friend. Baron Stockmar, of the evil reputation which had recently come to him, said : "One main element is the hostility and settled bitterness of the old High Tory or Protectionist party against me on account of my friendship with the late Sir Robert Peel, and of my success with the e.xhibition. . . . Their fury knew no bounds when by Palmerston's return to the ministry that party (which is now at variance with Disraeli) lost the chance of securing a leader in the lower House, who would have overthrown the ministry with the cry for English honor and independence, and against parliamentary reform, which is by no means popular. Hatred of the Peelites is stronger in the old party than ever, and 23S LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Aberdeen is regarded as his representative. To discredit him would liave this further advantage, that, if he could be upset, the keystone of the arch of coalition would be smashed, and it must fall to pieces ; then Palmerston and John Russell would have to separate, and the former would take the place he has long coveted of leader to the Conservatives and Radicals. For the same reason, however, it must be our interest to support Aberdeen, in order to keep the structure standing. I'resh reason for the animosity toward us. So the old game was renewed which was played against Melbourne after the queen's attacking the court, so as to make it clear, both to it and to the public, that a continuance of Aberdeen in office must endanger the popularity of the crown." Whatever may have been the merits of the imbroglio prevailing in England in the after part of 1854, it is certain that hostility to the existing ministry reached as high as the prince consort and the queen herself. It is noteworthy that the animosities of the day found but feeble expression against the chancellor of the exchequer. We here recite so much of the history of the times as will make the line of his personal and official life distinct through the obscurities and confusion of the stormy paragraph. As for the ministry, the year 1854 closed, and 1855 opened darkly. On the reassembling of Parliament the queen went in person to present her address. She was accompanied by Prince Albert. The latter was almost at the nadir of popular esteem. He was greatly calumniated as being more European than English. He had been denounced as the chief agent of "the Austro-Belgian-Coburg-Orleans clique, the avowed enemies of England and the subservient tools of Russia." It was proclaimed that he was in the habit of being present at the interviews of the queen and her ministers, and of influencing the policy of the kingdom against its best interests. It was considered necessary that Lord Aberdeen and his fellow-ministers should reassure her majesty in someway, even before the House of Commons, with an effectual denial of the slanders which had been promulgated against her husband and herself The premier declared in a letter to the queen that the conduct of the prince had been invariably devoted to the public good, and his life perfectly unattackable. Lord Aberdeen declared that there was no ground to apprehend serious consequences from the contemptible exhibitions of malevolence and factional feeling toward the prince consort. Nevertheless the ministry of the Earl of Aberdeen fell rapidly into disruption. Of those who supported that government only Lord John Russell and I\Ir. Gladstone retained a measure of public confidence. Against the latter not much could be urged in any form ; for his abilities in financial management were as great as his patriotism, and neither could be gainsaid. Lord Palmerston went back into the ministry. The explanations of his break with his colleagues were lame and Inconsequential. It was ACCESSION OF PALMERSTOX AND TREATY OF PARIS. said officially that the reason for his goini^ out was his failure to agree to a scheme of parliamentary reform proposed by Lord John Russell. He himself declared that he could not take up a bill which contained material things against his judgment and conscience. In a letter to his brother-in- law he added this postscript : " The Times says there has been no difference in the cabinet about Eastern affairs. This is an untruth, but I felt it would have been silly to have gone out because I could not have my own way about Turkish affairs, seeing that my presence in the cabinet did good ^tr Kdmund Lyuii Sir Charles Napier. SIR EDMUND LYONS, G.C.B., COMMANDING SQUADRON IN BLACK SEA; SIR CHARLES NAPIER, K.C.B., COMMANDING BALTIC FLEET; AND ALLIED NAVAL COMMANDERS. by modifying the views of those whose policy I thought bad." A little later, in another letter to the same person, Lord Palmerston said of the members of the government : " Their earnest representations and the knowledge that the cabinet had on Thursday taken a decision on Turkish affairs in entire accordance with opinions which I hail long unsuccessfully pressed upon them, decided me to withdraw my resignation, which I did yesterday. Of course, what I say to you about the cabinet decision on Turkish affairs is entirely for yourself, and not to be mentioned to anybody. But it is very important, and will give the allied squadrons the command of the Black Sea." 240 LIFE AND Tl.Mi;s OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. With the opcMiiiiij of Parliament many severe strictures were made in both Houses on the conduct of the war. The Earl of Dcrb)- addressed the Lords in criticism and condemnation of the military manag^ement in the Crimea. The Duke of Newcastle spoke in reply. In the House of Com- mons Disraeli renewed his attacks on the ministerial methods and results. His assault was sharp and bitter. " I believe," said he, " that this cabinet of coalition flattered themselves, and were credulous in their flattery, that the tremendous issues which they have had to encounter and which must make their days and nights an.xious, which have been part of their lives, would not have occurred. They could never dream, for instance, that it would be the termination of the career of a noljle lord to carry on war with Russia, of which that noble lord had been the cherished and spoiled child. [This sally was made at Lord Aberdeen, who had been a favorite at St. Peters- burg.] It has been clearly shown that two of you are never of the same opinion. You were candid enough to declare this, and it is probable that no three of you ever supposed the result would be what it has been found to be. . . . No Austrian alliance; no Four Points;* no secret articles — but let France and England together solve this great question and establish and secure a tranquilization of Europe." Against these assaults members of the cfovernment defended them- selves as best they could. Thus did Lord John Russell, in direct reply to Disraeli. \\^hen the Queen's Address was before the House, Mr. Gladstone entered into a general discussion of the military management. He gave a summary of the British forces in the East, and warded off the allegations of the opposition. He said that the government were not impeccable, but the errors which they had committed were not those which had been laid to their charge. He admitted that an army of fifty thousand British soldiers in Asia was not able to cope with the Russian empire ; but that force was only the advance division which had been sent forward from Varna to the Crimea. Besides, there were the allies. The French already had at the seat of war more than ninety thousand men. It was unjust, in view of such facts, to allege that the government had not been sufficiently active in send- ing forces to the East. *The " Four Points" referred to by Disraeli were those under contention at the Vienna Conference, and were as follows : " I. Russian protectorate over the principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Servia to cease ; the privileges granted by the sultan to these provinces to be placed under a collective guarantee of the powers. " 2. Navigation of the Danube at its mouth to be freed from all obstacles and submitted to the application of the principles established by the Congress of Vienna. ' " 3. The treaty of the 13th of July, 1841, to be revived in concert by all the high contracting parties in the interest of the balance of ]iower in Europe, and so as to put an end to the preponderance of Russia in the lilack Sea. "4. Russia to give up her claim to an official protectorate over the subjects of the Sublime Porte to whatever rite they m.iy belong ; and France, Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia to assist mutually in obtaining from the Ottoman government the confirmation and the observance of the religious privileges of the different Christian communities, and to turn to account, in the common interests of their coreligionists, the generous inten- tions manifested by the sultan, at the same time avoiding any aggression on his dignity and the independence of his crown." ACCESSION OF PALMERSTOX AND TREATY UF PARIS. 24I In the next place, an acrimonious debate ensued over what was known as the Foreign Enlistment Bill. The opposition rallied in both the Commons and the Lords. The premier, in defending the proposed measure, urged that the foreign recruits contemplated by the bill were not to be con- sidered as substitutes for English volunteers. Neither were they to be used in Great Britain. The pressure, however, was so great that the gov- ernment agreed to reduce the number of foreign enlistments to ten thou- sand men. The situation gave Mr. Disraeli another opportunity to speak against the ministry and to portray in strong colors the horrible situation of the British army in the East. John Bright also spoke, and budged not from his well-known advocacy of peace. In the course of his speech he declared that Great Britain in alliance with Turkey was fighting for a hope- less cause and w^ith a worthless ally. The Foreign Enlistment Bill, however, was passed, though the ministerial majority was reduced from more than a hundred, at which figure it had stood during the previous session, to only thirty-eight. After this measure Parliament adjourned for the holidays, and on reas- sembling the temper of hostility to the government was still more strongly manifested. So powerful had the pressure become that the opposition went forward to move an inquiry into the condition of military affairs in the Crimea, and at this the government weakened before its adversaries. The resolution w-as offered by the Honorable John Arthur Roebuck of .Sheffield. Lord John Russell suddenly resigned his office as president of the council. Hereupon the Duke of Newcastle, minister of the war department, offered himself as a sacrifice ; for it was believed that the animosity of the country was most of all directed against the duke, and that his retirement would suffice. A wreck of the whole ministry seemed imminent, but the members of the cabinet were for the time dissuaded from their purpose, and with the exception of Lord John Russell remained in office. That statesman with- drew, and was followed by the anathemas of the opposition, charging him with cowardice in thus saving himself at the expense of his colleagues. The question now came whether the resolution of inquiry into the man- agement of the war would pass. The Honorable Sidney Herbert, speaking for the government, denied that the condition of the British army in the East was so terrible as had been portrayed. Moreover, if the resolution of inquiry should pass, the effect of it would be not to stimulate, but rather to paralyze the military management. To this Mr. Stafford replied in a power- ful, if not unanswerable, speech. He himself had been recently at the seat of war, and was able to speak from personal observation. He declared that the hospitals at Scutari and Abydos had been established in unhealthy places, and that their management was as defective as the situation was dan- gerous. In such a situation her majesty's soldiers, wounded or sick, had 16 24: LIFE AND TIMK.S OF WILLIAM K. CLADSTONE. 1 < U as 1 > — u r* b. * o i as j: Q a < /^ ^. ■ J n a ACCESSION OF PALMERSTON AND TREATY OF PARIS. 243 small chance of recovery. The hospitals referred to, however, were better than that at Balaklava. The latter was as bad as could well be imagined. The bedclothins was not washed when the sick or dead were removed. New sufferers coming into the place of the old caught the diseases with which the miserable berths were infected. The fevers and other contagions of the camp were transmitted from one patient to another, until all chance of recovery was ended. The accommodations were not sufficient. The sick and dying were crowded together. In one room he had seen fourteen suf- ferers, and in another nine prostrate British soldiers on the floor — this, too, when there were bedsteads standing in the passageways, the putting up of which would scarcely have occupied three minutes' time of an attendant. Mr. Stafford said that he had witnessed special cases of neglect amount- ing to cruelty. He had seen three hundred sick in a hospital without sup- plies. Not even wine could be had. He had seen the soldiers begging for their own knapsacks, in the hope of finding therein the remnants of their former supplies. He had seen men sick or wounded almost to death lying uncared for on naked floors. The speaker then narrated the remark made to him in bitter sarcasm by a French officer, who was with him a fellow-wit- ness of the scenes described in the Crimean bivouacs. " You see, sir," said he, " you carry on war according to the system of the Middle Ages; and our resfret for our own backwardness is increased because we see the noble lives you are losing." Against all this horror the speaker contrasted the ministra- tions of Florence Nightingale and her assistants. He also spoke of the devo- tion and loyalty of the soldiers ami of the magic effect of the queen's letter of sympathy which was read to them. The effect of such a speech as that of Stafford in the House of Com- mons may well be imagined. The tone and manner of it W'ere precisely of a kind to overthrow any ministry that could be shown to be blameworthy in the matters referred to. It devolved upon Mr. Gladstone to make the best rally he could in defense of the government. He very rarely appeared to a better advantage than in the reply which he made on the question of Roebuck's resolution. In beginning his remarks he animadverted severely upon the conduct of Lord John Russell, not, indeed, in the administration of his office, but in resigning from the ministry in a time ot trial and under the fire of the opposition. A short time before this Lord Russell had pronounced a eulogium on Gladstone, not undeserved. This fact did not deter the speaker, however, from strongly censuring his lordship for his conduct. He showed that as late as the preceding November there had been no formal complaints against the Duke of Newcastle in the administration of his office as war minister. Lord John Russell had himself approved of that administration, declarino; his conxiction that the war office had been as well administered as 244 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. might be by anyone under the circumstances. Besides this, Lord Russell had hardly acted with good faith toward the Earl of Aberdeen ; for as late as the middle of December he had assured him that he would not ur^e any changes in the department of war. It had thus happened that Lord John Russell's colleagues in the ministry had not known of his intentions LOKl) PALMEKSTON. to press his purpose of a change, or of his alternative of resignation from the cabinet. Under such conditions to resign from the government without first attempting or advising a reorganization was to treat that government with injustice and contempt. Mr. Gladstone then broke into a passage of extraordinary eloquence. What he said in conclusion was perhaps as powerful as any of his utter- ances. Speaking for the ministry he said that " he felt it was not for them cither to attempt to make terms with the House by a reorganization or to ACCESSION OF PALMERSTOK AXD TREATY OF PARIS. 245 shrink from a judgment of the House upon their past acts. If they should shrink what sort of epitapli would be written over their remains ? He himself would write it thus : ' Here lie the dishonored ashes of the ministry which found England at peace and left it in war, which was content to enjoy the emoluments of office and to wield the scepter of power so long as no man had the courage to question their existence. They saw the storm gathering over the country ; they heard the agonizing accounts which were almost daily received of the state of the sick and wounded in the East. These things did not move them. But so soon as the honorable member for Sheffield raised his hand to point the thunderbolt they became conscience-stricken with a sense of guilt, and, hoping to escape punishment, they ran away from duty.' " This courageous rally stayed the torrent of invective and gained a hearing for the ministry. It is seldom that a keener thrust had been made by one parliamentarian at another than that which Gladstone delivered to Lord John Russell ; but the speaker by no means paused after delivering his philippic against his late colleague. He went on to declare that he would not resist the resolution of inquiry if he believed that the same would be beneficial to the army and the country ; but he did not so believe. He was assured that the evils complained of would be aggravated by the adoption of the motion before the House. If an investigation had been needed at any time it was now needed no longer. It was manifest to all that the condition of the army in the East had been bettered of late. The supplies sent out had been received. If the huts for the soldiers had not already been set up they were in process of construction. The clothing had actually been distributed. Within three weeks the railway would be completed. An arrangement had been made between the British and French officers by which a relay of sixteen hundred French soldiers should relieve a like number of British soldiers in the trenches. Besides all, continued the speaker, the allegations about the strength and condition of the British army in the Crimea were untrue. There were before Sebastopol more than thirty thousand men. Members of the House had made unfavorable comparisons between the military management of Great Britain and that of her ally, France. He believed that such compar- ison would, on the whole, be favorable to Great Britain ; but he thought such questions ought not to be discussed relative to the merits of allies in war. The department of war- had improved in its methods, and was not deserving of censure. The Duke of Newcastle ought to be praised rather than denounced for his conduct of the military affairs of the kingdom. This defense of what remained of the Aberdeen ministry might have sufficed, and doubtless would have sufficed if the question had been only an issue of peace ; but neither Parliament nor the British public was in a 246 LIFE AND TIMES UF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. humor to allow such a matter as allct;ed abuses in the management of a 15ritish army in Asia to go by without satisfying itself as to the facts and merits of the controversy. It became manifest that the resolution of inquiry would prevail in some form or other. Mr. Disraeli made the point that the ministry admitted itself to be in need of reorganization. Then he remarked sarcastically that the House was expected to pass a vote of confidence in an administration with the personnel of which it was not acquainted ! Employing his own peculiar manner, he rather defended the Duke of New- castle, urging the assertion that the duke was only a member of a cabinet whose policy, as a whole, was reprehensible. Neither might the military sj-stem of Great Britain be assailed ; for that system, in the hands of com- petent men, was not only unassailable, but victorious. The speaker attacked Lord John Russell with extreme violence, and finally characterized his policy as a profligate intrigue. He asserted that the strifes and quarrels of the English cabinet had disgraced the nation in the eyes of Europe. Under the auspices of the coalition ministry England was no longer the leading power. Onl\- two years previously she had been such a power, but now she held that proud position no longer. Lord John Russell attempted to defend himself but not very happily. In the course of his speech he averred that if he should reveal the actual intercourse between himself Lord Aberdeen, and the minister of war, then Parliament would hardly hold toward himself the attitude of censure. This admission, however, and implication of secret difficulties, though it might e.xplain, could hardly e.xcuse. The tide rose higher and higher against the government, and when the House came to vote on the resolution to inves- tisrate the conduct of the war the <''overnnient was overwhelmed with a majority of a hundred and fifty-seven ! The victory of the opposition was so complete as to astonish and almost terrify those who had achieved it. The government of the Earl of Aberdeen went down with a crash, burying its several parts in the ruins. Of those who were overwhelmed Mr. Gladstone was least of all affected. It could hardly be said that he was humiliated by the result. He had foreseen the inevitable, and was prepared for it. His speech on the occasion of the secession of Lord John Russedl showed that he clearly foresaw the inevitable dissolution of the existing order. Gladstone was himself the greatest of the so-called Peelite faction in the government. The remainder was mostly Whig. It was really the Whig portion of the structure that collapsed. The Peelite abutment was hardly moved from its place. On the 1st of P"ebruary, 1855, the ministry of Lord Aberdeen resigned from office. When the announcement was made in the House of Commons the Duke of Newcastle told that body that it had been his purpose for ACCESSION OF PALMERSTON AND TREATY OF PARIS. 247 some time to resign the office of secretary of war. He had not been driven to this step so much by the passa£-e of the Roebuck resolution as by the offering of such a resolution. He had been prevented from resigna- tion by the wishes of his colleagues in the ministry. After Aberdeen, whom ? Her majesty must have a ministry, and the political conditions were chaotic. She first sent for the Earl of Derby. That nobleman, on being summoned, expressed his willingness to accept Lord Palmerston as minister of war ; but he told the queen that he could not construct a government without the aid of the Peelites. To these he appealed — but in vain. The party of Gladstone and Sidney Herbert offered indeed to enter the ministry of the Earl of Derby, but must do so as independents. With this Lord Derby could not be satisfied. Indeed, the story goes that he told her majesty that to his mind an " independent " in the British cabinet signified a member who could 7iot be depended on — a mot not wantins: in wit. The queen in the next place called Lord Lansdowne ; but that statesman directed her majesty to Lord John Russell. To him the queen made the next appeal, suggesting to Lord Russell that Lord Palmerston should be included as a member of the cabinet. The latter seemed to be a necessity of the situation. It was also reckoned essential that Lord Clarendon should be included, but the latter was irreconcilable with Lord Russell, on the ground that Lord Russell, while a member of the Aberdeen ministry, had refused to support that ministry. The effort of Lord John Russell to form a new government thus came to nothing. Everything drifted powerfully in the direction of Palmerston. That able and eccentric leader was accordingly called, and by retaining Gladstone and a few of his friends was enabled to construct a cabinet of great abilities. At the first Mr. Gladstone declined to be a member of the new government, on the ground that his fortunes as well as his sympathies were involved with the Earl of Aberdeen and the Duke of Newcastle. These scruples, however, were overcome, and he resumed his duties as chan- cellor of the exchequer. The ministry was constituted as follows : First Lord of the Treasury, Viscount Palmerston ; Lord Chancellor, Lord Cranworth ; President of the Council, Earl Granville; Privy Seal, Duke of Argyle ; Foreign Secretary, Earl of Clarendon ; Colonial Secretary, the Right Honorable Sidney Herbert; Home Secretary, Sir George Gray; Secretary for War, Lord Panmure ; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone ; First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham ; Public Works, Sir William Molesworth. In the cabinet, but without office, the Marquis of Lansdowne ; President of the Board of Control, Sir Charles Wood. The House of Commons, after the manner of that body, looked around 248 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. to scan the new cabinet and measure its capacities. At the first the judgment was favorable to that body, but the discovery was soon made that the government was, after all, too much like that which had been recently discarded. It was not long until challenges were openly made by leaders in the House, demanding that the new ministry should justify its existence. On the 19th of February, 1S55, Mr. Layard spoke on the condition of the country, asserting that Great Britain was standing on the brink of ruin. He declared that the nation had fallen into the abyss of disgrace, and had become a laughing stock in Europe. He ended by interrogating the government on the following points: Whether Lord Palmerston was willing to accept peace on any terms .' Whether the country was going to engage in prolonged hostilities.-* Whether it was proposed to engage on our (Great Britain's) behalf oppressed nationalities ? Whether the Circassians would be assisted or not.' And, in general, what was going to be the foreign policy of the government } The speaker continued by instituting a comparison between the management of Great Britain and that of the French Convention of 1792. That body watched the military proceedings of the republic w'ith the greatest vigilance, and sent out their own members to different parts of the field, to accompany the generals, and to report to the convention the progress of events, and in particular any failure on the part of commanders to meet the expectations of the country. In Great Britain no such measure as this, or indeed any efficient measure, had been adopted wdiereby Parlia- ment might be well informed of the actual state of affairs in the East. Hereupon Lord Palmerston — who from beginning to end of his administration showed himself a master of fence — suggested that it would be the pleasure of Parliament to send ]\Ir. Layard himself to the seat of war in Asia, and to retain him there until the end of the conflict! The premier, continuing, expressed his own profound sympathy and that of the House for the British army that hail suffered so many hardships, and also his regrets for any errors and mismanagement that might have occurred. The present government, however, had been called in a time of emergency, and had accepted the trust from a sense of duty, which he did not doubt the country would understand and appreciate. The Honorable John Arthur Roebuck would not by any means allow his resolution to investigate the military management to go by default. He presently reported his committee of inquiry, and his purpose was approved by the House. Mr. Gladstone strongly opposed the revival of this measure, and when he could not stem the adverse tide of public opinion he resigned from the ministry. With him w-ent Sir James Graham and Sidney Herbert. It would appear, however, that the retirement of this, the Peelite wing of the government, only awaited an occasion, the cause being already operative ACCESSION OF PALMERSTON AND TREATY OF PARIS. 249 out of the past. At any rate the chancellor of the exchequer, the first lord of the admiralty, and the colonial secretary retired and were succeeded, the first by Sir G. C. Lewis, the second by Sir Charles Wood, and the third by Lord John Russell. The breach in the cabinet was thus closed up ; the committee of inquiry was constituted ; but before it could enter upon its duties Great Britain, and indeed all Europe, were startled by the report tliat the Emperor Nicholas, struck with mortal chagrin by the events at Sebastopol, had fallen dead of apoplexy. The imperial crown was trans- ferred immediately to the head of his son, Alexander IL For the moment there was universal expectation relative to the purpose of the new autocrat in pursuing the war or ceasing from its prosecution. He seemingly did both. His proclamation on taking the throne was in the same tone and manner as the mani- festoes of his father. At the same time, however, he expressed his willingness to send an ambassador to participate in the Vienna Conference. That highly diplo- matical body had not yet convened, but was soon to do so. England, for her part, just after the reorganization of the cabinet, appointed Lord John Russell to represent the British view at the Vienna meeting. The Conference entered on its work on the 15th of March, 1855. It was not long until the position of Russia was thoroughly understood. She refused to accept the third of the four points,* hitherto e.x- plained. That clause of the proposals made by the allies related to the revision of the treaty of the 13th of July, 1841, so that it should become an acknowledged principle of the balance of power in Europe that the pre- ponderance of Russia in the Black Sea should end. But Russia was by no means willing that her preponderance on that sea should either end or be limited. As to the other three points, there was not so much disagreement as seriously to impede the negotiations. Prince Gortchakof, representing the czar, stubbornly refused to yield the point of limiting the power of his master on the coveted coast. Speaking for Russia, he submitted proposals which were unacceptable to England and France. A proposition was made by the representative of Austria, which for the moment promised a basis of settlement ; but this also was not satisfactory to England and France. For the time, however. LORD JOHN RUSSELL. ■ See page 240. 250 LIFE AM) TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. the Austrian measure was favored by the French and EngHsh ambassadors, but they ijained thereby only loss of prestige in their respective countries, with the necessity of resigning their posts. The \'ienna Conference virtually came to naught. The effect of the movement was still further to fan the animosity of the opposition in Parlia- ment and to increase the agitation of the country. It appeared that a peace which was regarded as dishonorable had been well-nigh brought about through the weakness of Lord John Russell. This fact was well calculated to rouse English sentiment to the highest pitch. The queen and the country were at one in the opinion that the failure of the Vienna Conference was a narrow escape from humiliation. It was an emergency of this kind that always brought forth the strongest elements and profoundest resources in the character of Benjamin Disraeli. On the 24th of May, 1855, he brought before the House of Commons the following resolution : " That this House cannot adjourn for the recess without expressing its dissatisfaction with the ambiguous language and uncertain conduct of her majesty's government in reference to the great question of peace or war; and that under these circumstances this House feels it a duty to declare that it will continue to give every support to her majesty in the prosecution of the war, until her majesty shall, in conjunction with her allies, obtain for this country a safe and honorable peace." This resolution the leader of the opposition supported with one of his characteristic speeches. He assailed Lord John Russell with mingled ars-rument and invective. He showed that that statesman had denounced Russia and her policy in as strong terms as any other member of the House. Now, when it came to the responsibilities of an ambassador, representing her majesty's government abroad in the all-important negotia- tions pending at \'ienna, he had shown himself weak and incompetent. Lord Russell had come nearly concluding a peace tliat was impossible. The dishonor to England of the proposal made by Austria, of which Lord John had approved, had extended into the House of Commons, and a member in that body had offered a resolution to the effect that the proposi- tions of Russia, being reasonable, ought not to have been refused by the government. Here we have, continued the speaker, the spectacle of diplomacy and war existing at the same time, and neither the one nor the other prosecuted in a way to reflect anything but distress and shame on Great Britain. We here reach a passage in the life of \V. E. Gladstone which has never been approved or justified by a considerable number of his country- men. It would appear to an American author that the statesman at this juncture was led by the method and manner of his opponent, Disraeli, to ACCESSION OF PALMERSTON AND TREATY OF PARIS. 2=,I take a position of wliicli his better judgment, not so influenced by the personal equation, could not have approved. Besides, the challenge of Disraeli was necessarily retrospective, reaching back to the administration of Lord Aberdeen and censuring that administration by implication even more strongly than that of Palmerston. In any event, Mr. Gladstone in his reply put himself into the attitude of favoring, not only the first, second, and fourth of the four points of the Vienna agreement, but into the attitude of defending the position of Russia relative to the third point. He said that he had been in favor of laying a restriction on the power of Russia in M. dc Titoff. Earl of Westmoreland. Baron Meysenburg. M. Von Hammer, Turkish Interpreter. Riza Bey. Prince Gortchakof. Arif Effendi. VIENNA CONFERENCE. Drouyn de Lhuys. Lord John Russell. Count Buol. Baron Prokesch-Osten, the Black Sea, but that in the light of a revised judgment and of existing facts he now thought that the third point, if gained by the allies, would be a great indignity to Russia. He had thought, moreover, that the proposal made by Russia to give to the porte the power of opening and shuttinof the straits was one that might be used as a basis of settlement. In the existing situation of affairs he was not able to recall an instance out of history in which one of the parties to a war had more fully gained the political objects of the war than had the allies in the present contest with Russia; that is, he had known no instance of a war that had accomplished 25:2 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. its political purposes any more completely without the absolute prostration of the other party thereto. Here, then, was an opportunitj- of returning to the happiness of peace, of concluding the bloody drama of war, and he should be derelict in his duty if he did not incline to the opportunity of peace rather than to the continuance of war. A great nation might not battle for mere military success. The House, looking at this question witli the dispassion of reason, would perceive that war for military success only is immoral, inhuman, and unchristian. Should the war be continued in order to reap military glory the British nation would tempt the justice of God, in whose hands was the fate of armies. This pacific and not unworthy plea moved the House of Commons more to aversion than to sympathy. The speaker had struck a chord which would not vibrate while the winds of war were blowing througfh the British harp. The world knows well the English ire when it is once pro- voked to battle. Whatever vices may exist in the English race — and they are many — cowardice and easiness of temper under real or imaginary insult and provocation are not among them. Let not man think that the Briton will not fight. The history of the House of Commons might well be interpreted into a history of human nature more exact than may be found in the metaphys- ics of Sir William Hamilton. The incident we have just described brought out a reply also from Lord John Russell, 'who put himself, as it were, between Gladstone and Disraeli. To the former he answered that it had now become necessary, under the system of balance of power in Europe, to restrict both the political and military ambition of Russia. As to the indignity to Russia implied in insisting on the third of the four points, namely, a revision of the treaty of 1841, that indignity could not be greater now than it was during the administration of Mr. Gladstone, when he had urged the very same measure ! Great Britain, after expending so much, could not be expected to accept less than she had insisted upon in going to war. Granted that the third point might be waived by the allies, and Russia have her way, then there would be no guarantee for the Ottoman power in the first place, or for any European power afterward. So the question came to an issue on the adoption of Disraeli's resolution, and the vote showed that the orovernment of Palmerston had the confidence of the House by a majority of a hundred votes. W'e may here note a matter of considerable importance to a right understanding of Gladstone's life. It is well known, wherever political information is abundant, that Mr. Gladstone was rarely, if ever, a favorite with the Queen of England and her immediate supporters. On the con- trary, he was nearly always under her majesty's disfavor. In the times of his greatest ascendency, when as the head of the government he must be ACCESSION OF PALMERSTON AND TREATY OF PARIS. 253 deferred to and honored, the deference and the honor were both coldly conferred, and only according to the measure of royal etiquette. This con- dition of personal relationship must be traced, we think, to the mistake and weakness of Mr. Gladstone's speech in the Commons in May of 1855. A great deal of side light is thrown upon the question in hand by the private correspondence of Prince Albert. That royal gentleman was a perfect mirror of the sentiments of the queen. She confided in him implicitly, and he was discreet ; but his private letters now reveal to us many things that then to know would have set the world to talking. In a letter which the prince addressed at this juncture to Lord Aberdeen he declared : " Any such declaration as Mr. Gladstone has made upon Mr. Dis- raeli's motion must not only weaken us abroad in public estimation and give a wrong opinion as to the determination of the nation to support the queen in the war in which she has been involved, but render all chance of obtain- ing an honorable j^eace without great fresh sacrifices of blood and treasure impossible, by giving new hopes and spirit to the enemy." What is here said was certainly the sentiment of the crown, and the opinion of her maj- esty relative to the weak and un-English spirit of her late chancellor of the exchequer was doubtlessly never revised. Other speakers in the course of the debates pressed Mr. Gladstone hardly. Among these one of the ablest and least merciful was Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, whose peroration and attack on Gladstone created a furore in the House. " When," said Sir Edward, " Mr. Gladstone was dwelling in a Christian spirit that moved us all on the gallant blood shed by England and her allies and by her foemen in that quarrel, did it never occur to him that all the while he was speaking this one question was forcing itself upon the minds of his English audience, ' And shall all this blood have been shed m vam .■' The next parliamentary passage of importance also arose from the dis- satisfied opposition. It was on the loth of July, 1855, that Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton brought before the Commons the following resolution : " That the conduct of our ministry in the recent negotiations at Vienna has, in the opinion of this House, shaken the confidence of this country in those to whom its affairs are intrusted." Here was a challenge indeed ! The Lytton resolution was equivalent to a direct motion of want of confi- dence. Perhaps Lord Lytton did not intend to condemn the ministry as a whole. His shaft was leveled at Lord John Russell, late ambassador of Great Britain, with full power, in the Vienna Conference. Lord John was, as it were, singled out, and he could not stand fire. Unwilling to face the impending debate, he resigned from the cabinet, and when the Lytton reso- lution was called up the resignation was announced in Parliament. Lord Russell, in retiring, explained that he had not given away the 254 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. cause of his country at Vienna by supporting or promising to support the Austrian propositions. Those propositions had been rejected by the Brit- ish cabinet. He submitted to the decision of his government, and any favor that he had shown to the Austrian method of settlement was only such as he had given in fulfillment of a promise made to Count Buol. In conclud- ing his address he turned the argument which had been so mercilessly used against himself against his professed friends, whom he accused, whenever there was a ru!) in his fortunes, of flowing from liim like water. Such sup- porters were calculated only to sink him whom they supported, and for such he had nothing to offer but contempt. Whatever may have been the merit of the controversy, the act of Lord Russell in resienine robbed Lvtton's thundercloud of its liirhtnine. That statesman was obliged to content himself with withdrawintr his resolution, which he did with certain intimations about the existence of a remnant of the peace party in the ministry which might bear watching. Of course Mr. Disraeli could not allow such an opportunity to go by unimproved. When Lord Palmerston announced to the House that Lord Russell's resignation had been in his hands and declined before the offering of the Lytton reso- lution, and that he (^Palmerston) was willing to stand with his colleague or fall with him, then Mr. Disraeli could not forbear. He intimated that no doubt Lord Palmerston was very devoted to Lord John Russell, but that he had managed, notwithstanding, to get him out of office ! Of Lord Russell himself Mr. Disraeli said : " The noble lord, with the reputation of a quarter of a century — a man who for all that time had given a tone and a color to the policy of this country, who had met the giants of other times in debate, who had measured rapiers with Canning and divided the public admiration with Sir Robert Peel — had mysteriously disappeared, and did not dare to face this motion ; while as to the noble lord now at the head of the cabinet, he had addressed the House that night in a tone and with accents which showed that if the honor and interests of this country were much longer intrusted to him the first would be tarnished and the last would be betrayed." One of the fighters of this inflamed and inflammatory epoch was the Honorable John Arthur Roebuck, whom the reader will recall as the author of the successful resolution for a committee of inquiry on the conduct of the war. That committee at length brought forward its report, and the report was so inculpatory as to warrant Mr. Roebuck in renewing his assault upon the defunct ministr\' of the Earl of Aberdeen. The committee found that the then e.xisting government was answerable for the hardships, exposures, and sufferings of the army during the horrible winter of 1854-55. Mr. Roebuck offered a vote of censure of such character as to include all the members of the Aberdeen cabinet. The author of the motion made an inflam- ACCESSION OF PAI.MERSTON AND TREATY OF PARIS. 255 matory speech. "It is said," he declared, " that we have got rid of all the elements of the administration that were mischievous. That I am very far from believing. It is also said, 'Are not Aberdeen and Newcastle and Her- bert and Gladstone out .'' And what more can you expect or do you want ? Do you want to see everybody punished?' I say yes; everyone who has been proved guilty." The result, howe\er, showed that Parliament was not in accord with Mr. Roebuck, whose motion was decisively defeated. On the 3d of August, 1855, Mr. Gladstone again appeared in the arena and made a really powerful speech in favor of peace. The bottom principle of his argument was that the further prosecution of the war must be merely for glory, or at best to cover the recollection of the diasters of the previous winter. He showed that the proposition of Austria might well be accepted as a basis for permanent settlement. That was the judgment of a disinter- ested power. It was not safe to reject as unjust a measure proposed by a neutral State, such as Austria. Finally he urged that it would be outside of the historical possibilities for the powers of western Europe permanently to curtail the power of Russia in the East. He declared in his peroration that his utterances were inspired by patriotism as it regarded his country, and loyalty as it regarded his queen. A few days after this address of Mr. Gladstone Parliament was pro- rogued. Meanwhile the war went forward to its own conclusion. The cam- paign against Kertch was measurably successful. At the Tchernaya the French and Sardinians gained a great victory a week after the prorogation of Parliament. Two months previously Lord Raglan had died, and was suc- ceeded in the command of the British army by General Simpson. All inter- est centered in the Crimea, and on the 8th of September, Sebastopol, as already recounted, was taken and its defenses were destroyed. The success of the allies was sufficient to warrant the reopening of negotiations. The loss of Sebastopol broke the purpose of the czar to hold out longer against the inevitable. At this juncture, we do not doubt, the real obstacle to peace was the feeling in Great Britain that her prestige, so much impaired by the disasters which had attended her arms in the East, had not been fully restored by victory. Nevertheless the negotiations for a settlement were renewed with great earnestness. The representatives of Great Britain at the Congress of Paris were Lord Clarendon and Lord Cowley. Count Buol, the Austrian plenipotentiary, again led the negotiations, but the Congress was really held under the auspices of Napoleon III. The French emperor had by this time gained greatly in the good opinion of Europe. The French military man- agement in the Crimea was contrasted with the mismanagement of British affairs. Many things combined to suggest Paris as the seat of the Interna- tional Congress, and there, on the 16th of January, 1856, the sittings were 256 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. begun. The reascendency of the Bonapartes was illustrated in the fact that the president of the Congress was the French minister of foreign affairs, the Count Alexandre Walewski, the natural son of Napoleon the Great. The first result of the neofotiations was the airreement for an armistice, to continue until the 31st of March. It was stipulated that unto this date the fleets of the powers at war should hold their respective situations with- out aggression or menace on either side. As a matter of fact the treaty of peace was not concluded until the day before the expiration of the armistice, and the ratifications of the same were not exchanged until the 27th of April. The terms of the agreement were substantially these : 1. All territories conquered or occupied by either party during the war to be reciprocally evacuated. 2. The town and citadel of Kars and any other parts of Turkish terri- tory or defenses, of which the Russian forces were possessed, to be restored to the Ottoman empire. 3. The four allied powers to restore to Russia the towns and ports of Sebastopol, Balaklava, Kamiesch, Eupatoria, Kertch, Yenikale, and Kin- burn, as well as all other territories occupied by the forces of the allies. 4. The allied powers, the Czar of Russia, and the Emperor of Austria to declare the Sublime Porte admitted to partake in the advantages of the pub- lic law and system of Europe. The same six powers also to engage, each on his part, to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Otto- man empire; to guarantee in common the strict observance of that engage- ment, and to consider any act tending to its violation as a question of gen- eral interest. 5. In case of misunderstanding between the Sublime Porte and one or other of the signatory powers, such as might endanger the maintenance of their relations, the porte and each of such powers, before having recourse to arms, to afford the other contracting parties an opportunity of mediating between them. 6. The sultan, having already issued a firman for the welfare of his subjects without distinction of religion or race, and recording his generous intentions toward the Christian population of his empire, to communicate to the contracting parties the said firman emanating spontaneously from his sovereign will. The contracting parties, while recognizing the value of this communication, clearly to understand that it does not give them the right, either collectively or separately, to interfere between the sultan and his sub- jects, or in the internal administration of his empire. As to the ancient rule of the Ottoman empire relative to the closing of the straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, it is agreed that the rule shall continue in force ; that no ships of war belonging to foreign powers shall enter the straits of the Dardanelles or Bosporus ; that so long as the porte is at peace the sultan ACCESSION OF PALMERSTON AND TREATY OF PARIS. 257 shall admit no foreign ships of war to enter the said straits ; and, on the other hand, the powers engage to respect this determination of the sultan, and to conform themselves to the principle therein declared. The sultan reserves to himself the right to deliver firmans of passage for light vessels under flag of war which shall be employed, as is usual, in the service of the missions of foreign powers. The same exception shall apply to the light vessels under flag of war which each of the contracting powers is author- ized to station at the mouths of the Danube in order to secure the execu- tion of the regulations relative to the freedom of that river, the number of which vessels is not to exceed two for each power. 7. It is agreed in separate convention, as between Russia and Turkey, tliat each of these two powers may maintain in the Black Sea six steam vessels of eight hundred tons burden each, and lour light steam or sailing vessels of not more than two hundred tons burden each. The Aland Islands shall not be fortified, and no military or naval establishment shall be maintained or created in those islands. 8. The Black Sea is neutralized, and its waters and ports are open to the merchant marine of every nation ; the powers possessing its coast are inter- dicted from the use of the flag of war upon it, with such exceptions as Russia and Turkey may fix by separate convention. The commerce in the ports and waters of the Black Seals subjected only to regulations of health, customs, and police ; and to secure such commerce consuls may be admitted into the ports on the coast, according to the principles of international law. 9. No toll shall be levied upon the navigation of the Danube, or duty on goods carried by vessels on that river. No obstacle shall be opposed to the free navigation of the river except regulations of police and quarantine. 10. The czar, as compensating for the above concessions, consents to the rectification of his frontier in Bessarabia. Said frontier shall begin from the Black Sea one kilometer to the east of Lake Bourna Sola, running perpendicularly to the Akerman road, following that road to the Val de Trajan, passing to the south of Bolgrad, ascending the Yalpuk to the height of Saratsicka, and terminating at Katamosi, on the Pruth. 11. The territory ceded by Russia to be annexed to Moldavia. The inhabitants of Moldavia shall enjoy the rights and privileges secured to the people of the other principalities ; during the space of three years they shall be permitted freely to dispose of their property and to transfer their domiciles elsewhere. Moldavia and Wallachia are to continue, without interference of foreign powers, under the suzerainty of the porte. The porte engages to preserve for said principalities an independent national administration and full liberty of worship, of legislation, of trade, and of navigation. Servia shall be admitted to the same rights and liberties granted Moldavia and Wallachia. 17 25b Lll-E ANU TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. To these important conditions of peace certain other actions relating to the law of nations were taken by the Congress of Paris, the effect of which was far-reaching and salutary among the powers of western Europe. Our own countr\- was asked to accept these supplementary rules, but re- fused to do so, perhaps unwisely. The articles referred to were as follows : 1. Privateering is and remains abolished. 2. The neutral flag covers the enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war. 3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under an enemy's flag. 4. Blockades in order to be binding must be effective ; that is, they must be maintained by an actual force sufficient to prevent access to the coast of the enemy. Such was the treaty of 1856. The news of the armistice reached the Crimea on the last day ot February. Hostilities ceased on the following day, and the soldiers of the contending armies began to fraternize. On the 2d of April the news arrived of the treaty of peace, and the tidings were received with a joyful announcement of a hundred and one guns. On the 1 2th of the following July Sebastopol and Balaklava, both in ruins, were surrendered to the Russians, and the country was speedily evacuated by the allies. The Crimean War was thus concluded with at least a temporary reconfirmation of the Ottoman empire and a like temporary check to the ambitious projects of the czars. LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 259 CHAPTER XVI. Last Half of the Sixth Decade. HATEVER governmental glory shone on England in bringing to a moderately successful conclusion the Crimean War was focused on Lord Palmerston. That statesman on the 31st of March, 1856, while questions of prosecuting the war were still under hot discussion in the Commons, had the honor to announce to the House that a treaty of peace had been concluded at Paris. In making the announcement he expressed his great gratification that the terms were such as to be approved by every loyal Englishman. He informed the House that the treaty included the integrity and independence of the Otto- man empire ; that all the signatory powers were honored by the terms of settlement ; that the conditions of peace, he believed, were permanent ; that the British ambassadors. Lord Clarendon and Lord Cowley, had upheld the honor, the interests, and the dignity of their country, and that they had also, by their diplomatical conduct and statesmanlike abilities, won the profound esteem of their colleagues in the Congress. It is the custom in the British Parliament on such occasions to vote an address to the queen, expressive of the sentiments of the House and the nation's approval of the ministerial policy. The address is subject to dis- cussion and amendment. In the present instance there was a lively debate, but on the whole a sentiment of satisfaction with the terms of the treaty was prevalent. It could not be said, however, that the opinion in favor of the thing done was stroncr or enthusiastic. The most Enelishof the Enelish doubted whether the British army in Asia had been permitted by victory to recover its lost prestige. It was believed that another campaign would bring back the wonted glory to the banner of St. George. Most of the speeches on the address to the queen were those of appro- bation and applause, but the enthusiasm did not run high. Several of the speakers put themselves in the attitude of saying. This is all very well, but we are glad it is over! and we are opposed to any other such war. This voice found its best utterance in a speech by Milner Gibson, who quoted a witty and ironical letter of Sidney Smith to Lady Grey. The humorist, speaking sarcastically of the merits of foreign interference in the affairs of nations, said to his correspondent :' " For God's sake do not drag me into another war. I am worn down and worn out with crusading and defending Europe and protecting mankind ; I must think a little of myself I am sorry for the Spaniards; I am sorry for the Greeks; I deplore the fate of the Jews; the people of the Sandwich Islands are groaning under the most detestable tyranu)'; Bagdad is oppressed; I do not like the present state of 26o LII-1-: AM) TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. the Delta; Thibet is not comfortable. Am I to fiyht for all these people.? No war, dear Lacl\- Gre)- ! I beseech you secure Lord Grey's sword and pistols, as the housekeeper did Don Quixote's armor. If there is another war life will not be worth having. . . . May the vengeance of Heaven over- take all the legitimates of \'erona ! but, in the present state of rent and ta.xes, they must be left to the vengeance of Heaven. I allow fighting in such a cause to be a luxury ; but the business of a prudent, sensible man is to guard against luxury !" As for Mr. Gladstone, we may allow that the three preceding years of his life had been unfavorable to his fame. On the whole, his genius was never warlike. Rather was it businesslike, statesmanlike. We may see in the retrospect that his great mind while he was occupied with his duties as chancellor of the exchequer dwelt upon the disadvantages and mortal hurt of war to the prosperity of the British nation. War is waste, destruction alike of life and property. Dwelling on this view of the case, it is likely that in the ministr\- of Lord Aberdeen he did not press the military man- agement to the limit ot efficiency. There were halfway measures and measures of expediency, neither of which can be brooked by the genius of war. Perhaps the statesman himself felt this defect (or shall we call it merit.'') of his own character and method. In any e\ent he }jresentl\' found himself on the defensive. He made one ill-timed and costly speech when replying to Disraeli on his resolution of May 25, 1855. Later in the year he spoke again to better advantage on Roebuck's inflammator)- measure, and with still greater success on the address proj^osed to her majesty on the occasion" of the treat)- of peace. Mr. Gladstone in this speech found opportunity to traverse nearly the whole of his own relations to the Crimean War, and to illustrate his views thereon. He had been blamed much for his place and part in the Aberdeen ministr\'. He proclaimed himself an independent member of the House of Commons. He said that the question on which he was speaking, namely, a proposed amendment to substitute the word "satisfaction" for the word "joy" in the address to her majesty was not a great question. He consid- ered the treaty of Paris an honorable settlement. The ends had been reached for which the war was undertaken. He dwelt in particular on the allegation that the signatory powers had agreed to maintain in its integrity the Ottoman empire. He wished to inquire whether the agreement signi- fied only that the powers were pledged to support the political government of the sultan, or did it mean that they were bound to uphold Turkey as a Mohammedan State .-* At the latter suggestion all of Mr. Gladstone's sentiments rebelled. He was a man of the Church of England. " If I thought, sir," said he, " that this treaty of peace is to be an instrument which binds this country and our LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 261 > n r. c 262 LIl-K AND TIMES OF WILMAM E. GLADSTONE. posterity, as well as our allies, to the maintenance of a set of institutions in Furkey which you are endeavoring to reform if you can, but with respect to which endeavor few can be sanguine, I should not be content to fall back upon the amendment of m\- noble friend [substituting 'satisfaction' for 'joy' in the address to the queenj, expressing that I regard the peace with satisfaction ; but on the contrary I should look out for the most emphatic word in which to express my sense of condemnation of a peace which binds us to maintain the law and institutions of Turkey as a Mohammedan State. . . . The juxtaposition of a people professing the Mohammedan religion with the rising Christian population having adverse and conriicting inlUiences presents difficulties which are not to be overcome by certain diplomatists, at certain hours, and in acertain place. It will be the work and care of many generations — if even then they may be successful — to bring that state of things to a happy and prosperous conclusion. But there is another danger — the danger of encroachment upon, and the absorption of, Turkey by Russia, which may bring upon iMirope evils not less formidable than those which already exist. Such a danger to the peace, liberties, and privileges of all Europe we are called upon absolutely to resist by all the means in our power." The criticisms of the speaker next extended to the point that the Con- gress of Paris had not secured to Moldavia and W allachia an independent existence. He conceded, however, that Great Britain and France could hardly have secured this desideratum. As to the Black Sea, the speaker feared that in time of peace the neutralization of those waters would be of no effect, while in time of war the neutralization would not be effective, because it was in the nature ol war to break throuvli an agreement of this kind. Furthermore, the Congress ought to have adopted strict rules under which the signatory powers might proceed when interfering in behalf of oppressed Christian populations. The movement of the Congress toward arbitration the speaker heartily approved. There was danger, however, that arbitration — the right of arbi- tration — might be used by weak and unjust States as a cloak for conten- tions which were devoid of truth and justice. Great nations, nations recog- nizing international justice, might thus be harassed with claims and pretexts of not sufficient merit to demand arbitration or any other remedy except the sword, in case such causes should be pressed to extremes. The great advantage of arbitration was without doubt the impetus which it gave to the movement for reducing the military establishments of Europe. These establishments were an incubus on civilization. If the powers represented at Paris could under the leadership of England, followed by France and Russia, promote the reduction to a minimum of the great military establishments of Europe, then the work done would be fraught with happiness to mankind. LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 263 The speaker in the next place discussed at considerable length one of the protocols adopted by the Congress. He was anxious, he said, to know what was the exact meaning of the particular protocol relative to the posi- tion of those States not represented at the conference. He took up the somewhat informal declaration of the plenipotentiaries favorable to the sup- pression of the freedoni of the press in Belgium, and strenuously opposed the principle and tendency of such declaration. England could never con- sent to be a party to the restriction of the freedom of the press. He regretted to note that several of the ambassadors had openly declared them- selves in favor of bridling the Belgium press, as though the Belgian Consti- tution did not provide for the correction of abuses of the kind complained of. " I wish," said the speaker, " to point out as clearly as it is possible for an independent member of Parliament to do that this appeal to a people gallant and high-spirited as the Belgians are — an appeal which appears to be contemplated under the compulsion of foreign and some of them remote powers, and having for its object the limitation by the Belgians of their own dearest rights and most cherished liberties — is not a policy which tends to clear the political horizon, but rather one which will darken and disturb it and cast gloom and despondency over a prospect otherwise brilliant and joyous." The debate ended with a speech by Lord Palmerston and with the adoption of the unmodified address to the queen. And thus closed the par- liamentary agitation relative to the treaty of Paris and the Crimean War of 1854-55- The attention of the House of Commons was at once turned to ques- tions of home policy, more particularly to the subject of the educational system of the kingdom. We may refer to this period the beginning of the agitation which was subsequently so greatly promoted by William E. Forster, vice president of the committee of the council on education in the ministry of Gladstone, 1868-74. It was under Lord Palmerston and at the hands of Lord John Russell that just after the close of the Crimean War a resolution was offered providing for an addition of eighty subinspectors to the body then existing in the kingdom. It was to be the duty of the sub- inspectors to report a method and means for the education of the poor in each district. The same measure provided for enlarging the powers of the commissioners of the charitable trusts and for making available the funds that were then lying idle in the hands of the trusts. The resolution also called for a law giving to taxpayers the right of taxing themselves locally for the support of schools ; also a provision that the employers of children between the ages of nine and fifteen years should be obliged to furnish them schooling for half of each year within the limits named. This measure of Lord Russell's was first presented in the House in 264 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. April of 1856. Upon the question I\Ir. Gladstone spoke, not unwilling to attack whatever w^as vulnerable in a measure proposed by Lord Russell. He, the speaker, strenuously opposed the principles upon which the Russell resolutions were offered. They were not really founded on the principle of the local autonomy of schools as opposed to the principle of a central con- trol. They were not really founded on the assumption of a moral and reli- gious initiative in the schools, but rather favored the secular initiative. Mr. Gladstone declared that in Great Britain the exactly opposite principles, namely, the principle of the local autonomy of the schools and the principle of the moral initiative, ought to prevail. The speaker held that the volun- tary system of education is essentially correct, and certainly English in its character. Should the opposing system be substituted he believed it would degenerate into irreligion. He also held that the propositions of Lord John Russell were of doubtful constitutionality. Whether they were constitu- tional or not, they were of a dangerous character because they tended inexitably to centralization and the substitution of secular for religious education. The contention of Mr. Gladstone prevailed with the House. Lord Russell's resolutions failed of adoption. Nor may the reader omit to notice the identity of Gladstone's argument with the views which he expressed in his celebrated inaugural address at the collegiate institution in Liverpool, in the year 1843. At that time, w-hen the speaker was but thirty-four years of age, he declared that merely secular education, applied even to such a mind as that of Newton, would fail of its sovereign purpose, and would leave the possessor " in the ignorance which we all declare ourselves to commiserate, and which it is the object of this institution to assist in removing from the land." Now, at the age of forty-seven, his doctrine was still the same — a fact which strongly illustrates the underlying conservatism of Gladstone's mind, especially on all subjects relating to the religious order of society. Notwithstanding the urgency of Gladstone, while chancellor of the exchequer, that the revenues of the kingdom should be made to meet even the extraordinary expenditures of war year by year, it was found at the close of the recent conflict that a debt of about five million pounds had accrued for the last year, and that many times as much w-as impending before the account could be balanced. Mr. George Cornewall Lewis had now the office of chancellor of the exchequer, and his budget for 1856 recommended a loan of five millions sterling. In presenting his budget Mr. Lewis gave the usual detailed account of expenditures, amounting to a little more than eighty-nine millions ster- ling, with an income of not quite sixty-six millions to meet it. There was a disposition in the House to refer this unfavorable showing to the illiberal management of the finances during Gladstone's period of responsibility in LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 265 the Aberdeen ministry. This intimation the ex-chancellor resented. He repelled the charge that the unsuccess of the British arms in the East and the hardships to which the soldiery had been subjected were the results of parsimony or incapacity in the former administration of the departments ot war and the treasury. He was of the opinion that Sir George Cornewall Lewis had made his estimates for income too liberal and for expenditures too small ; also that the margin which the chancellor allowed for surplus was wholly insufficient. Again he declared emphatically that it was the duty of the nation in each crisis to meet it with a sufficient annual increase in revenues, and not to " set the pestilent example of abolishing taxes and borrowing money in their stead." It is within the memory of men still living that the relations of Great Britain to our government were shaken to the point of complaint and animosity by the conduct of the former at the time of the Crimean War. The thing complained of by the American people was the Foreign Enlist- ment Act. Mr. Crampton, the British ambassador, came to America and, by the agency of three consuls, opened recruiting offices, offering induce- ments to American citizens to enlist in the British service ; and many did enlist. The result was a serious complaint against the British minister, who had concealed from our grovernment the work in which he was eneaoed. On the 30th of June, 1856, a resolution was offered in the House of Com- mons declaring, " That the conduct of her majesty's government in the dif- ferences that have arisen between them and the government of the United States on the question of enlistment has not entitled them [the govern- ment] to the approbation of this House." On this question Mr. Gladstone spoke in condemnation of the course pursued by the ministry. " I am bound to say," said he, " that neither has a cordial understanding with America been preserved nor the honor and fame of England upheld in this matter. I am bound to say that in regard to neither of these points am I satisfied with the existing state of things or with the conduct of her majesty's government. A cordial understanding with America has not been preserved, and the honor of this country has been compromised. The speaker opposed, however, the adoption of such resolutions as that before the House, unless, indeed, it was the purpose of the House to substitute a new government for the existing one. Other- wise the mere declaration of an opinion must work more harm than good. The speaker acknowledged that Great Britain had been in the wrong, that her agents had broken faith with the government of the United States ; but he held that Mr. Crampton had only acted in accordance with the pre- scribed policy of his government. Mr. Crampton could not be condemned without condemning the government also. It was inconsistent to punish the British ambassador and his three subordinates, as had been done, when 266 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. their actions were the direct result of orders which they had received and were indeed indorsed by the government that had sent the ambassador and the British consuls to America. Finally the speaker broke into a memorable passage, in which he referred in a tone of deprecation to the chaotic condition of political senti- ment and action in the House of Commons. He referred, by way of con- trast, to the efficiency and solidarity which had formerly been manifested in the party divisions of the House. "I believe," said he, " that the day for this country will be a happy day when party combinations shall be restored on such a footing as they occupied in the times of Sir Robert Peel. But this question, instead of being a party question, is a most remarkable illus- tration of the disorganized state of parties and of the consequent impo- tency of the House of Commons to express a practical opinion with respect to the foreign policy of the country. Under these circumstances the only resource left to me is the undisguised expression of the opinions which I strongly and conscientiously (perhaps erroneously) feel after the study of these papers [the papers relating to the trouble with the United States]. I have had the privilege of expressing these opinions freely and strongly, a privilege which I would not have waived on any account when I consider the bearing of the case with respect to the American alliance, which I so highly prize, or with respect to that which I still more highly prize and more dearly love — the honor and fair fame of my country." It remained for the year 1857 to witness the nearest approximation ever made of the lives and policies of W. E. Gladstone and Benjamin Dis- raeli. Neither was in office. Both were carrying free lances in the House^ and each no doubt was awaiting his time and his opportunity. The life lines of the two men, like lines of railway far apart in most places and diverging finally to infinity, came nearly together at the opening of Parlia- ment in January, 1857. There was the usual address to the crown, and the customary debate thereon. Mr. Disraeli, ever vigilant on such occasions, gave a sharp review of the address, marked with his usual precision and illustrated with his apt aphorisms respecting the proposed address. To these criticisms Lord Palmerston in his answer did not reply, but passed them over in silence. This was unusual, and was noted by Mr. Gladstone, who took up the debate with the in(iuiry why it was that the chancellor of the exchequer had not given courteous notice of answer to the charges of Mr. Disraeli touchincr the foreitjn affairs of Great Britain. For the nonce the rare spectacle was witnessed of the one speaking yi^r the other. Mr. Gladstone said that the address could not be appropriate if the charges made by Mr. Disraeli were true; and if they were not true then they ought to be refuted. The address from the throne had not given to the House, and had not promised to give, certain information of great importance relative to LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 267 the treaty of Paris. The address had not referred to the facts of the Per- sian War or given the terms of settlement of the difficulty with Central America. The speaker thought that the recent disastrous break with China ought to have been noticed in different terms. Certainly the country had a right to know also who was responsible for the war with Persia. Was it the directors of the East India Company, or was the government behind the company in this measure.' Who was to provide for the expenditures of the conflict. If Great Britain must pay the bills then Parliament ought to have convened at an earlier date. The address, moreover, touched upon the Bank of England, and referred to the renewal of the act of 1844. The speaker wished to know whether that act was continued in its identical form, and, if so, whether the House should not have had the privilege of amendment. The speaker next took up the question of the income tax. He himself had been partly responsible for that tax, and also for the promise that the same should be extinguished by the year i860. One ot two things must now be done — there must be a new scheme of taxation or another loan by the government. For his own part he was not willing to take either horn of the dilemma. Per contra, he was firmly convinced that the proper method was to reduce expenditures until they should be brought to the level of the revenue. Mr. Gladstone then referred to the false charge that the income tax of 1853 had been obtained by a bargain with other interests. He denied that the government was complicated in that matter. " The pledge of the government," said he, " referred mainly to something that was to take place in i860. Four years of the seven have passed away. It is to my mind reasonable and just that the right honorable gentleman [ Lord Pal- merston] on behalf of his friends, and that every man on his own behalf and on behalf of his constituents, should acknowledge the duty of the House of Commons to say now in 1857 whether the pledges of 1853 are or are not to be fulfilled. . . . As far as my duty is concerned it will be my effort and labor to secure a fulfillment of the pledges given in 1853. I understand those pledges as the right honorable gentleman understands them. I have not forgotten them. I never can forget to the latest da\' of my life, and I shall always remember with gratitude the conduct of the House of Com- mons at the period when these measures \vere adopted, and the gencrosit)' of the sentiments which they evinced. I must endeavor to answer that con- duct at least so far as depends on me ; and I shall endeavor to answer that conduct by striving to bring the expenditure of the country and its fiscal arrangements into such a shape as will allow the extinction of the income tax in i860." The debate on the address was not sufficiently adverse to prevent its adoption. The discussion of the budget for 1857 was still more important. 268 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Sir G. C. Lewis included in his scheme the continuance of the income tax to the year i860 at the rate of sevenpence the pound. It was thought that this source would yield about twenty-one millions sterling in revenue. As aji'ainst the retention of this tax certain other taxes were remitted. The scheme was so computed as to show that if it were carried out the whole debt (about forty million pounds) incurred by the recent war would be linuidaled in a period of twenty years. The budget was presented on the 13th of February, and a week later Mr. Disraeli offered the following amentlment : " That it would be expedient before sanctioning the financial arrangements for the ensuing year to adjust the estimated income and expenditure in a mannc^r which shall appear best calculated to secure the country against the risk of a deficienc\- in the years 18^8-59 and 1859-60, and to provide tor such a balance ot revenue and charge respectively in the year i860 as may place it in the power of Parlia- ment at that period without embarrassment to the finances altogether to remit the income tax." To this amendment the principal debate was directed. Mr. Disraeli averred that it was not his purpose to assail the gov- ernment by offering a vote of want of confidence either directly or indirectly. Neither was it his wish to injure the public credit. He did not propose any scheme of his own as against that offered by the chancellor of the exchequer. He desired only to secure a certain end, namely, the sufficiency of the rev- enues for the ensuing three years and the final remission of the income tax in i860. To this the chancellor of the exchequer replied that both of the ends sought for by the honorable gentleman would be compassed anyhow — that the budget had respect to the very things inquired for, and was suf- ficient. We may perceive in the retrospect that Mr. Gladstone was keenly alive, perhaps sensitive, to whatever measures in the financial management of the kino-dom seemed to traverse those of which he had been the champion when in office. He therefore spoke often, criticising those policies which departed from his own. The budget of Sir G. C. Lewis had been excogitated froni principles almost diametrically opposed to those which governed the treas- ury when Mr. Gladstone was chancellor of the exchequer. Speaking to the budget, or rather to Mr. Disraeli's amendment, Gladstone called attention to the fact that the aim of treasury management had long been to simplify and consolidate the financial laws of the realm. The present chancellor of the exchequer, departing from this theory, had presented a scheme more compli- cated than ever before. As to the income tax, that burden had been assented to during his own administration because of the necessity that was on the nation. Then the highest motives existed for retaining a tax that was inim- ical to the spirit of British institutions. Now no such motive existed. The people had expected that the tax would be reduced and soon remitted alto- LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 269 gether. The estimate which the chancellor of the exchequer held out of a reduction of nearly twelve millions the speaker considered delusive. The real reduction would hardly exceed four and a half millions, and when this was reduced by the amount of the proposed tea tax the actual reduction would be found but little more than three millions. For his own part he should insist that the income tax should, according to the promise made in 1853, be wholly remitted by the year 1S60. He claimed that the principal error in the budget was an allowance for excessive expenditures. He thought that the estimates for expenditure ought to be revised and radi- cally reduced. He would call attention of the House to the fact that within the last quadrennium the aggregate of expenditures, apart from the burden of the war, had been in excess of those before the time named by at least six million pounds. The chancellor of the exchequer had presumed to estimate the revenue for future years, but had shrunk from making an estimate of the expenditures. The speaker then went on to give his own estimates for both revenue and expenditure up to the year i860. Then, by way of retrospect and as illustrative ot the fidelity of his memory to the political party under whose aegis he had risen to fame, he said: " In Sir Robert Peel's time you were called upon to remit a million four hundred thousand pounds of indirect taxes, now you are called on to impose indirect taxes to that amount ; then you were called on to fill up a deficiency at your own cost, now you are called on to create a deficiency at the cost of others ; )ou were then called upon to take a burden on yourselves to relieve the great mass of }'our fellow-countrymen, now you are called upon to take a burden off the shoulders of the wealthier classes in order that you may impose indirect taxes upon the tea and sugar which are consumed by every laboring family in the country. I can only say that for my own part I entertain on this sub- ject a most decided opinion, and nothing sliall induce me to refrain from giving every constitutional opposition in my power to such a proposition. Before the speaker leaves the chair, if health and strength be spared me, I shall invite the House to declare that whatever taxes we remove we will not impose more duties upon the tea and sugar of the workingman. When we are in committee there will be no other opportunities of renewing this protest. These things, if they are to be done, shall at least not be done in a corner. The light of day shall be let in upon them, and their meaning and consequences shall be well understood. . . . No consideration upon earth would induce me by voice or by vote to be a jjarty to a financial plan with regard to which I feel that it undermines the policy which has guided the course of every great and patriotic minister in this country, and which is intimately associated, not only with the credit and with the honor, but even with the safety of the country." 270 LIF1-: AND TI.MtS lU' WlI.l.IAM E. GLAI)ST(.).\ t:. Such was the tenor ol the debates about the financial manaj^ement at this epoch in parliamentary history. Sir G. C. Lewis's budget was accepted. That minister then went forward and moved tor a reduction, by a sliding- scale, ot the duty on tea. To this Mr. Gladstone amended by a proposition for still greater reduction ; and to his amendment he made a speech on the 6th of March, 1857. The purport of his argument was that art'cles of pop- ular consumption ought to be relieved from taxation. This he contended had been the British principle of economy, and he regretted to see the chancellor of the e.xchequer endeavoring to substitute another system. The speaker still claimed that the right way to amend the present situation was by a reduction of cxpe7iditnres. This must be done. The chancellor of the e.xchequer had been able to figure out for the ensuing year a surplus of only eight hundred thousand pounds. Now that minister was moving for a reducticn on tea to the extent of an aggregate of a half a million pounds. This would leave him with only three hundred thousand pounds of surplus, even if his estimates should hold good. But they would not hold good. The minister had taken no account ot expenditures necessary on the score of the war with Persia and the war with China. Finally, the speaker said that the present opportunity was a good one for moving a thorough reform in the management of the finances of the kingdom. The result of the debate showed that the ministry of Palmerston was thoroughly intrenched, and could not be moved with argument. The vote of the House accepted the budget. The debate broke out anew, however, when it came to the consideration of the supplemental scheme for reducing the ta.x on tea. On this subject Mr. Gladstone again spoke, though he could not hope to prevail against the policy of the government. Two or three other questions also demanded his attention. One of these was the report of the committee of supplies for the navy. Once more Mr. Gladstone urged the reduction of expenditures. He adduced figures to show that the expenses of the military and naval establishments were rising rapidly from year to year. Unless expenditures should be reduced there must inevitably come a deficiency. Sir G. C. Lewis, however, was able by argument and assertion to support the report of the committee, and the same was accepted by the House. At this session Mr. Gladstone also distinguished himself by defending in a conspicuous manner the equality of woman with man as it respected her rights under marriage. A divorce bill had been presented modifying somewhat the existing law, but hardlv abating the atrocious discriminations which English custom and statute had long enforced against the woman in the matter of divorce. Mr. Gladstone spoke almost passionately against this injustice. He made an argument in which he showed on theological grounds the equal rights of woman in marriage. He argued that law LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 271 and society growing out of the theological foundation on this subject ought to be equally just. The debate was animated, and nothing but the compact- ness of the ministerial majority prevented the success of Gladstone's attack on the proposed bill. It was at this juncture that one of the ever-recurring difficulties with China came up for discussion in the House of Commons. One of those hybrid vessels to be seen on the coast of China — European as to the hull and Chinese as to the rigging — called a lorcha, and named the Arroiv, had been seized by the Chinese at Canton, although the ship carried, or pre- tended to carry, the British colors. The circumstance was precisely similar to probably a hundred others in which, by this method or by that, a difficulty has been raised by interested and perhaps criminal parties on coasts and in countries thousands of miles from Great Britain ; which circumstance has been made a prete.xt for rallying the bully in England and for continuing her career of conquest and aggrandizement at the expense of civilized, half- civilized, and barbarous nations. Great Britain permits her subjects to go where they will, even to the heart of the remotest barbarism, and there, fol- lowing their" inherent instincts, they raise a difficulty with the natives and get themselves justly killed in retribution. Hereupon Great Britain knows but one method, namely, to make war upon those who have maltreated British subjects ! .She makes war accordingly, slaughters thousands, takes possession of the country, reduces the native races to subjection, uses them for her own purposes of profit until what time, should they be in her way, she destroys them altogether. This she calls colonizing and civilizing the world ! In the instance under consideration the half-breed ship was a vessel which had been built in China and subsequently captured by pirates. After- ward it was retaken by the Chinese. It was owned by Chinese traders and manned by a Chinese crew. The license to carry the English Bag had expired a good while before the vessel was finally seized by the Chinese authorities. In order to save itself the vessel put up the British flag. Therefore the Chinese had violated international law and defied the treaty of 1842 with Great Britain ! The whole affair was one of which almost any civilized State would have been heartily ashamed ; but not so Great Britain. The ministerial policy was reprisal and punishment. Sir John Bowring, the British repre- sentative at Canton, had made reports which, fairly interpreted, showed that he, and not the Chmese authorities, had been at fault. But the ministry supported him and the House of Lords supported the ministry. In the Commons, however, Mr. Cobden introduced the following resolution : " That this House has heard with concern of the conflicts which have occurred between the British and Chinese authorities in the Canton River; and, with- 272 LIFE AND TIMES OI" WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. out expressing an opinion as to the extent to which the government of China may have afforded this country cause of complaint respecting the nonfultiUment of the treaty of 1842, this House considers that the papers which have been laid upon the table fail to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton in the late affair of the Arrozo ; anil that a select committee be appointed to inquire into the state of our commercial relations with China." On this proposition a vigorous debate ensued. The purport of Cob- den's argument was an arraignment of Sir John Bowring, whom he charged with having violated international law, against his instructions, thus involv- ing the country in a difficulty the eml of which might not be foreseen. Night after night the discussion broke out anew, until it was finally con- cluded by Lord Palmerston and a last speech by Cobden in support of his resolution. Among the arguments that of Mr. Gladstone was conspicuous for its ability. He denied that Sir John Bowring was on trial before the House, nor would the speaker allow the case of Sir John to conceal the real issue. It was the duty of the House to treat the absent representative of the gov- ernment with respect and justice, however much he might have erred in his relations with the Chinese. The great business of Parliament was to have respect to the honor of England in her relations with other governments. For his own part he was convinced that Sir John Bowring had committed a wrong, but he thought that that wrong had been done in excessive zeal for the cause which he represented. Whether it were or were not so done, the actions of Sir John Bowring were known to her majesty's government. His policy had not been reprehended or disapproved. He thought that the allegation made by honorable gentlemen of deep-seated wrongs done by the Chinese and treasured up in memory against them was not true. Why had not reparation in case of the ship Arrozi.' been sought by means of reprisals .•* It could not be claimed that all the residents of Hong-Kong were British subjects; and as to our treaty stipulations with China, what were they .'' Had not the British nation itself broken the treaty by permitting the trade in opium to go on unchecked .•' Was not that trade prosecuted illicitly under the British flag by a fleet of lorchas differing not from buccaneers } Such use of the British ensign was a shame to England. The people of Canton had suffered the greatest wrongs, and it was the duty of Parlia- ment to put an end to them. Had such a course been pursued by the gov- ernment there would have been no war with China. " Is it," said the speaker, " too late to disavow the wrongs that have been committed ? Do we fear the moral effect of such disavowal? It behooves the House to consider what will be the moral impressions produced by refusing to disavow injus- tice and wrong. Every member of the House of Commons is proudly LAST HALF OK THE SIXTH DECADE. 273 conscious that he belongs to an assembly which in its collective capacity is the paramount power of the State. But if it is the paramount power of the State it can never separate from that paramount power a similar and para- mount responsibility. The vote of the House of Lords will not acquit us ; the sentence of the government will not acquit us. It is with us to deter- mine whether this wrong shall remain unchecked and uncorrected ; and at a time when sentiments are so much divided every man, I trust, will give his vote with the recollection and the consciousness that it may depend upon his single vote whether the miseries, the crimes, the atrocities that I fear are now proceeding in China are to be discountenanced or not. We have now come to the crisis of the case. England is not yet committed. With you, then, with us, with everyone of us, it rests to show that this House, which is the first, the most ancient, and the noblest temple of freedom in the world, is also the temple of that everlasting justice without which freedom itself would only be a name or only a curse to mankind. And I cherish the trust and belief that when you, sir, rise to declare in your place to-night the num- bers of the division from the chair which you adorn, the words which you speak will go forth from the walls of the House of Commons, not only as a message of mercy and peace, but also a message of British justice and British wisdom to the farthest corners of the world." Mr. Gladstone's address was so powerful and the impression produced by it so distinct that Lord Palmerston felt the necessity of a strong rally lest the majority should declare against the government on the Cobden resolution. The premier, always adroit and effective, spoke to the point that many factions were in union against the administration without other cause than the common cause of opposing the government. The House of Commons was the custodian of the lives and property of all British subjects. More than this, it was the custodian of the honor and fame of Great Britain herself In that capacity the House must resist both the fact and the tendency of the pending motion. The reputation of Great Britain was at stake, and Lord Palmerston could not doubt that that reputation was sacred in the estimation of Parliament. At this juncture Mr. Disraeli saw his opportunity for a home thrust at the premier. For his part he said that he accepted the view that the pending resolution was in character a vote of censure on the government. As for the deprecatory remarks of Lord Palmerston relative to the combi- nation of factions against the administration, those remarks came with ill grace from a noble lord who had himself been the archetype of just such political combinations without principle as that which he now complained of If the premier was about to be made a victim of the system of com- bining many parties against the party in power, then he was about to be victimized by a system of which he had been the greatest patron. More- 18 274 l-IFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. over, if Lord Palmerston did not approve of the act and judgment of the House in the matter now pending he had a right of appeal to the country. It is evident that Mr. Disraeli scented the disposition of the House to vote atrainst the government on the Cobden resolution. The debate was closed, according to custom, by the author of the resolution. The result showed that his attack, powerfully supported by Gladstone and Disraeli, had prevailed. The resolution was adopted by a majority of sixteen. Lord Palmerston, however, regarded this vote as only an incidental expression of opposition, and not as a general condemnation of his policy. He announced this judgment to the House, and instead of accepting the adverse vote as an overthrow and resigning his office he declared that, since the recent divisions did not show want of confidence, he would dissolve Parliament and appeal to the country. This was accordingly done, and the result showed that Lord Palmerston had not miscalculated public opinion. The government, instead of losing a part of its forces, gained considerably in the elections over the opposition. What was worse for the opposition was the fact that five of the most distinguished Liberals, namely, Cobden, Bright, Gibson, Fox, and Layard, were all defeated by the ministerial candidates. An effort was made to prevent the reelection of Gladstone for Oxford Uni- versity, but the effort was unsuccessful. The greater number of the remain- ing Peelites escaped the condemnation of the electors. At this juncture the financial history of England was again touched by that of our own country. The year 1857 witnessed a bank panic in the United States, and the contagion of it was felt abroad as high as the Bank of England. The directors of that institution appealed to the ministry to suspend the operation of the Bank Charter of 1844 so as to enable the bank to increase its issues. To this appeal the cabinet assented ; but the action thus taken had to be approved by Parliament by a resolution to indemnify the bank against the results of suspending the charter. On this question Mr. Gladstone spoke again, not in opposition to what was done, but rather upon correlated questions which arose in connection there- with. He showed the House that the Charter Act related only to the issue of notes, but he believed that Parliament ought now to inquire by its committee into other questions. " Instead of directing the committee," said he, " to go round again the circle of inquiry into the currency and the law of issue it would be better employed in investigating the commercial causes of the late panic, and how far they were connected with the state of bank- ing. The effect of referring a heap of subjects to an overburdened com- mittee would be to postpone legislation and obstruct inquiries into the causes of the recent panic and the present embarrassment." In this debate, however, the government was able to hold its own ; the Gladstonian views LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 275 did not take the form of specific action, and an amendment offered by Dis- raeli was rejected. Thus closed the parliamentary history for 1857, but not until Great Britain had been convulsed by the rebellion of the Sepoys in India. It was on the loth of May, in the year just named, that the dreadful insurrection broke out at Meerut. The insurgents were the native troops of Hindustan, organized, equipped, disciplined, and for the most part commanded by British officers. They were called in their own language Sepahees, easily corrupted into Sepoys. The Hindus had made comparatively a good sol- diery. The government had recently adopted the policy of admitting the high-class Brahmans into the service, mostly in the capacity of officers. This brought into the ranks the confusion of caste. It also added ability and pride to the native ranks and complicated the problem with which Great Britain had to deal. Meanwhile, under the administration of the Earl of Dalhousie, the British dominion in India had been extended far in many directions. Empires had been annexed with multiplied millions and tens of millions of inhabitants. The method was the usual one of getting embroiled with the native princes and then- reducing them to submission. In this manner, within ten years of the time now under consideration, five great provinces had been invaded, either by intrigue or violence of arms, and annexed to the British dominions. These were the Punjab, Magpore, Jattara, Jhansi, and Oudh. The princes of these provinces, of ancient and illus- trious rank, had accepted the position of subordinates to which their con- querors assigned them. This process of conquest was attended with glory and profit. When the Punjab was taken the Kohinoor diamond, greatest gem of the world, was sent to England by the Maharajah of Lahore as his token of submission. The Governor General of India rose to the rank of a great potentate, and if his administration and that of his subordinates had not been characterized with the rapacity, injustice, and insolence for which British rule all over the world is proverbial, then all might have been well ; but the administration was well calculated to be both cause and occasion of a rebellion, and onlj' an e.xciting cause was necessary to pro- duce it. The whole world knows the story of the introduction of the Enfield rifles into the Anglo-Hindu army. The world knows also the story of the greased cartridges, and how the Sepoys at Meerut, finding that they must bite off the cartridges, greased as they were said to be with the tallow of sacred cows and the odious fat of filthy swine, suddenly mutinied, rose upon their officers, broke into wild frenzy and perpetrated cruelties the memory of which still chills the blood. Those British officers who did not save them- selves as they might when the rebels came upon them were shot down or 276 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. stabbed to death. The women and children who prot into the bastion of the Cashmere gate at Meeriit were horribly butchered, though they were only defenseless refugees. Those who surrendered or put themselves in the power of the enraged Sepoys met the same fate as those who stood and fought. The mutiny spread like fire running in stubble before the wind. From Meerut it extended to Delhi, where the same horrid scenes were reen- acted. From Delhi the insurrection reached Lahore, and then extended to the cantonments at Lucknow, where the Seventy-first National Infantry was stationed. The British commander. Sir John Lawrence, and Sir Henry Lawrence, Governor of Oudh, and others, made the most strenuous efforts to save the garrisons and defend the exposed outposts. On the 2d of July Sir Henry Lawrence received a fatal wound. Expiring he left for his epitaph, " Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty." The task of relieving Lucknow had to be assumed by General Henry Havelock, of great memory. Meanwhile the insurrection broke out at Cawnpore, with a ferocity unequaled in any other part of the field. Cawnpore was a first-class mili- tary station. Here was situated the bridge by which reinforcements must pass on the highway to Lucknow, capital of the province. At Cawnpore there were about three thousand native soldiers. The place was inhabited by a mixed population of natives and Europeans, the latter numbering about a thousand. These included the women and children, the officials of the government, the railway officers, merchants, and shopkeepers. The gar- rison was commanded by the venerable Sir Hugh Wheeler, already in his seventy-fifth year. Within the intrenched camp were the hospital and barracks. The non- military part of the population made their headquarters in a church and other buildings near the intrenchments. The commandant sent to Sir Henry Lawrence for aid ; but none could be given. Then it was that Sir Hugh Wheeler appealed to the chief of Bithoor, son of a Brahman of the Deccan, for assistance. He resided about twelve miles from Cawnpore. He was known as the Prince Nana Sahib, and was one of the most treach- erous and cruel villains that ever lived. He had a retinue of soldiers and three pieces of artillery. On receiving Sir Hugh's appeal he came speedily, and pretended to espouse the cause of the garrison; but on reaching Cawnpore the mutineers summoned him to be Mr/r leader and to lead them against Delhi. The subtle chieftain turned against the English and ordered Sir Hugh Wheeler to surrender. This refused, the mutineers assaulted the intrench- ments and were repulsed. At this juncture the news came from Lucknow that not a man could be spared from the defense of that place. The LAST HALF t)F THE SIXTH DECADE. 277 mutineers gathered by thousands around the intrenchments. Reinforce- ments came from Oudh. The garrison was weakened day by day. The suppHes began to fail. The insurgents could see that the fire of the garrison was weakening; but the defense continued desperately against the odds of thousands and the decree of fate. At last there was a nego- tiation, and Nana Sahib agreed that the on surrenderinsf might retire to SIR COLIN CAMPBELL. Allahabad. Nothing else remained for the unfortunates but to accept this proposal, which was accordingly done. The story of what followed has been given to the fame of immemorial tragedy. It was determined to destroy the last one of the cap- tives. The poor wretches were put or begun to be put into boats, but before they could get away they were attacked at the shore and shot and butchered until all were destroyed. The remainder of the Eurooeans were confined in a building, which was assailed, and here the crowning diabolism of butchery was accomplished. Then it was that the dry well behind the trees growing near by was stuffed to the curb with the mutilated bodies of men, women, and children, some of whom were still living when they were thrown in. It was reported that in some instances the Sepoys, by preference, threw in the children alive ! All this was at length discovered by Havelock's column coming to the rescue. Nor need we recite again the story of the horrors of Lucknow, or of how the mutiny was finally extinguished, or of the signal vengeance which the enraged British commanders took upon those who fell into their power. The Sepoy rebellion as a whole will long remain conspicuous as one of the most bloody and furious episodes in the history of war and human slaughter. The general result of the outbreak was to seal the fate of the British East India Company. That company had existed for more than two and a half centuries. Its original charter was granted by Elizabeth in 1600. It was now clearly perceived that no such corporation was fit for the govern- ment of India. The company existed for the prosecution of commerce. Its political functions had been acquired gradually, according to the enlarged demands which had fallen on the corporation. The smoke of the mutiny had not cleared away until one India bill after another was introduced for the better government of the races and nations that had been brought under the sway of the English scepter in the East. The first measure of this kind was brouirht before the Commons in 178 LIFE AXD TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE, February of 1858, and had for its bottom principle to end the existing form of government in India. In the next place, a measure was introduced by the chancellor of the exchequer to abolish the political powers of the East India Company and to transfer the same to the crown. After some discus- sion this measure was withdrawn, and the third India bill was brought for- ward, which was discussed at considerable length, and was passed by the House on the 8th of July, 1858. By this act the entire political machinery GKNKKAL HAVELOCK (JREETED UV THE CHKISTIAXS WHOM HE SAVED. and administrative powers of the company were transferred to the crown of Great Britain. It was enacted that India should be henceforth governed by, and in the name of the sovereign of England through one of the princi- pal secretaries of state, assisted by a council of fifteen members. The gov- ernor general was to be entitled Viceroy of India. The British troops, act- ing hitherto under the company, and numbering about twenty-four thousand ofificers and men, were absorbed in the royal army of India, and the existing Indian navy was abolished as a separate service. Thus was constituted that empire of which, at a subsequent date, under the auspices of Benjamin Dis- raeli, now in office as chancellor of the exchequer, but then to be Premier of England, Victoria was to be declared empress. LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 279 The transfer of India, however, by the acts referred to from the com- pany which had so long controlled the destinies of that country to the crown of England was not effected without many acrimonious discussions and much opposition in Parliament. We cannot be sure but that the posi- tion taken by Mr. Gladstone on this all-important question was taken rather because he was in opposition than on the merits of the case. At any rate he spoke on several occasions in the session beginning in February of 1858 against the legislation of the government with reference to Indian affairs. He seemed to deprecate the agitation of the change. At first he opposed the abolition of the political prerogatives of the East India Company. The India bill number two he also opposed, alleging the great difficulty in attempting to govern one people by another people separated, not only by distance, but by blood and institutions. Mr. Gladstone alleged that the directors of the East India Company had been practically a body protective of the people of India, and that he was unable to see in either of the plans thus far proposed an evidence of a better method than that already existing. The people of India should be protected, not only from those dangers to which they were e.xposed in their own environment, but against the errors and indiscretion of the people and Parliament of England. He believed that the liberties of the people of England as well as the people of India were endangered by the overreach- ing of parliamentary and executive prerogatives ; and in evidence of this he cited the fact that war had been made or undertaken in foreign countries, and debt incurred, without the knowledge or consent of the House of Commons. Later in the session Mr. Gladstone sought to prevent the renewal of the agitation for the transfer of the government of India to the crown of Eng- land. When the ministerial measure for such transfer was finally matured he thought that the time had not arrived ; that there had not been oppor- tunity for consideration; that the question of governing the millions of Hindustan was too great a question to be undertaken and completed in the manner proposed. He finally moved an amendment to the bill before Par- liament, providing that the British forces maintained out of the revenues of India should not be employed except for repelling actual invasion or beyond the frontier of India; but the amendment was negatived and the govern- mental measure became a law. In this opposition to the progressive measures so strongly suggested by the Sepoy rebellion Mr. Gladstone may have been impelled by his conserva- tive disposition to move slowly in a direction which he would have been willing to take under other conditions. But the British manner of antag- onizing whatever proceeds from the ministry, even if the antagonism goes no further than criticising mildly the given policy, was also a moving motive 28o LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. with the statesman. It may be allowed that his opposition to the legisla- tive enactments by which India became an empire under the scepter of England was hardly in the interest of good policy, and certainly not in the interest of British civilization in the East. We here revert to the circumstances which brought about the over- throw of the Palmerston government. Early in the session of 1858 the premier brought before Parliament his measure called " The Conspiracy to Murder Bill." Recently a certain Felice Orsini, out of Forli, Italy, had attempted with certain confederates to assassinate Napoleon III with a bomb. This occurred on the 14th of January, 1858. The thing attempted was dastardly enough. Orsini had lived for some years in England and had been employed by Mazzini, the Italian patriot. From that vantage he had published a brochure on The Austrian Dungeons in Italy. He was a revolu- tionist and anarchist. The attempt on Napoleon's life awakened not a little sympathy. The Imperialists in France were rampant, saying among other thines that England was a den of refuge for just such creatures as Orsini. The ministerial party in England had long been accused of strong sympathies with the imperial regime across the Channel. In this condition of affairs Lord Palmerston introduced his bill proposing to make it a felony to conspire against the lives of rulers. At first the proposition was received with applause, but presently a wave of reaction went over the country, origi- nating in the peculiarly English sentiment that the proposed bill was really an instance of Lord Palmerston's toadying to the Emperor Napoleon. This distrust was fatal. The reaction came on like a wave of the sea. Milner Gibson offered to amend the ministerial measure as follows: "That this House hears with much concern that it is alleged the recent attempts upon the life of the emperor of the French have been devised in England, and expresses its detestation of such guilty enterprises ; that this House is ready at all times to assist in remedying any defects in the criminal law which, after due investigation, are proved to exist ; and that this House cannot but regret that her majesty's government, previously to inviting the House to amend the law of conspiracy at the present time, have not felt it their duty to reply to the important dispatch received from the French government, dated Paris, January 20, 1858, which has been laid before Parliament." Hereupon a critical debate began. The mover of the resolution spoke thereto with great spirit. He attacked Lord Palmerston on the score of not having answered the Paris dispatch. That dispatch from the Count Alex- andre de Walewski, President of the Corps Legislatif, was an affront to Eng- land. Besides, the Due de Morny, recently ambassador to Russia, had declared that England was a den of savages, a nest of assassins. The speaker then read a paragraph from the London Times, to the effect that when Lord Palmerston made up his mind to court the good will of a foreign LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 281 power no sacrifice of principle or of interest was too great for him. The excerpt went on as follows : " From first to last his [Lord Palmerston's] character has been the want of a firm and lofty adherence to the known interests of England, and it is precisely from a want of such guiding laws of conduct that our foreign policy has degenerated into a tissue of caprices, machinations, petty contentions, and everlasting disputes." These allega- tions against the head of the ministry were precisely of the kind to destroy it. A charge of being un-English directed against the cabinet, if not immediately and overwhelmingly refuted, is ahvays fatal to an existing gov- ernment in Great Britain. Gibson's speech was followed with another of like purport, but still more able, by Mr. Gladstone. He began by expressing his approval of the recent alliance with France and the hope that that alliance might continue. He then alluded to the bickerings that had occurred between France and England since the treaty of Paris. He next interrogated the government to know whether the Count de Walewski's dispatch had been answered, and if not, why not 7 To this Lord Palmerston, brought into a strait place, replied that he had given a verbal answer to the message referred to. Gladstone replied with much spirit that a verbal answer was not satisfactory to the House of Commons. The House demanded an explicit and une- quivocal answer to the French dispatch. That message had been inimical to the reputation of England. It behooved the government to answer these charges in no equivocal terms. An explanation should have been sent to the Count Walewski of the nature of the English Constitution and the customs of the realm with respect to domiciliated foreigners. This duty, the speaker said, had been neglected, and following this neglect the House was asked to pass the Conspiracy to Murder Bill. The request to do so did not consist with English dignity. Let none be led away, urged the speaker, with vague statements about reforming the criminal law. Rather should there be an insistence on the necessity of vindicating the law. "As far as justice requires," said the speaker, "let us have the existing law vindicated, and then let us proceed to amend it if it be fountl necessary. But do not let us allow it to lie under a cloud of accusations of which we are convinced that it is totally innocent. These times are grave for liberty. We live in the nineteenth centurj- ; we talk of progress; we believe that we are advancing; but can any man of observation who has watched the events of the last few years in Europe have failed to perceive that there is a movement indeed, but a downward and backward movement ? There are a few spots in which institutions that claim our sympathy still exist and flourish. They are secondary places — nay, they are almost the holes and corners of Europe so far as mere material greatness is concerned, althouy-h their moral p;reatness will, I trust, insure them long 282 LIFE AND TLMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. prosperity and happiness. But in these times more than ever does responsi- bility center upon the institutions of England; and if it does center upon England, upon her principles, upon her laws, and upon her governors, then I say that a measure passed by this House of Commons — the chief hope of freedom — which attempts to establish a moral complicity between us and those who seek safety in repressive measures, will be a blow and a discour- agement to that sacred cause in every country in the world." Other speeches followed in like vein, but none so able or effective. The premier in his reply to these severe strictures of the opposition was less happy, though hardly less sarcastic, than usual. No doubt he apprehended the result. He assailed Milner Gibson for having become a patriot pro tcmpoi-e. Formerly that gentleman had been the most sub- servient of any to foreign powers. The speaker charged that Mr. Gibson was a member of a faction the attitude of which had been that it made no difference if England should be conquered by a foreign St3.l&, provided the English mills shoitld still keep runtiing ! This sally, though it was bitter enough, failed of effect because of the injustice of the charge, and when Lord Palmerston closed the impending result was already manifested. The Conspiracy to Murder Bill was defeated by a majority of nineteen votes. The ministry of Lord Palmerston went down with a crash. The usual resignations followed, and the usual reconstruction. Affairs seemed to hang for a while in medio. It appeared doubtful whether a new government could be constructed by either part)' out of materials that were sufficiently sympathetic to cohere. Her majesty sent, however, for the Earl of Derby, and to him assigned the task of reconstruction. That statesman succeeded fairly well with the work in hand. To Mr. Gladstone he offered the place of secretary for the colonies, but the offer was declined. Mr. Disraeli was a second time made chancellor of the exchequer. The composition of the cabinet was as harmonious as might be under the circumstances; but there was little promise of permanence. Upon the Derby government was devolved the duty of settling the all-important questions which arose out of the great insurrection in India — an account of which and of the terms of pacification we have already given. Once more at this epoch, namely, in the autumn of 1858, Mr. Gladstone and his future rival were almost at one. When Mr. Disraeli presented his budget for the year just named there was direct recognition of the Gladstonian plan of finance, outlined five years previously, and Mr. Gladstone expressed his thanks in the House to the chancellor of the e.xchequer for recommending certain measures which he regarded as highly important. Among these was the proposition to equalize the duties on spirits. If he were disposed to criticise any part of the budget it would be the failure of the chancellor of the exchequer to insist that the expenditures LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 28- EDWARD GEOFFREY STANLEY (EARL OF derby;. of the nation should be kept within the provisions of the income. The whole speech was so kindly in its manner as almost to produce an atonement between the two grreat men who were so loncj to divide the honors of their country. Though Mr. Gladstone would not accept the proffered place in the Derby cabinet he did accept the appoint- ment of lord high commissioner extraordin- ary to the Ionian Islands. This group, consisting of Corfu, Santa Maura, Cepha- lonia, Zante, Paxo, Ithaca, and Cerigo, with a few smaller islands, had a history extend- ing back at least as far as the Crusades. They had been annexed to France in 1797, conquered by the Russians and the Turks two years afterward, made a republic in 1800, annexed to France in 1807, ^"d put under the protection of Great Britain by the Congress of Vienna in 181 5. The question of their annexation to Greece — which was destined to be effected in 1864 — was already agitated. There were political difficulties among the lonians, and Mr. Gladstone was sent as the representative of Great Britain to inquire into the actual condition of affairs. In the meantime the secretary for the colonies had in a dispatch which got to the public hinted at the willingness of Great Britain to relinquish the protectorate. Another communication by Sir John Young, former high commissioner to Ionia, recommended the abandonment of the islands to their own way, with the exception of Corfu, which the lord high commissioner thought ought to be retained as a British fortress. The lonians were greatly excited and angered at these reports, and their Legislative Assembly, in January of 1859, prepared a petition to the British government for annexation of the Ionian Islands to Greece. Mr. Gladstone, to whom the petition was presented, was obliged to inform his government that the Ionian people were unanimous in favor of their union with Greece. Mr. Gladstone remained in his office of lord high commis- sioner until the 19th of February, 1859, when he embarked on his return to England, and was succeeded by General Sir Henry Storks. The question of annexation continued to be agitated until (ireat Britain finally yielded, withdrew her garrisons, and assented to the union of Ionia with Greece. In a future chapter of this work we shall consider somewhat /;/ cxtcnso the literary work and genius of William E. Gladstone. For the present we make note of the fact that in the year 1858 he published his remarkable 284 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. book entitled Sludics on Homer and the Homeric Age. The work bears the imprint of Oxford, and is regarded by most critics as the best and most scholarly production of its author. The appearance of the book greatly enhanced the reputation of Mr. Gladstone among his countrymen. Critics gave him a large measure of commendation. It was seen that a British statesman much occupied with affairs, a parliamentarian, a responsible leader, and an aspirant for the highest honors of his country, could never- theless find time and inspiration for the composition of a scholarly, even a profound, treatise on the Homeric problems. To this question we shall revert in future pages. History had provided a short life for the administration of Lord Derby. The public mind of Great Britain had by the year 1859 suffi- ciently cooled from the heats of the Crimean War and the East Indian insurrection to turn to the consideration of certain reforms relative to Par- liament. Public opinion now ran strongly in this direction. On the assem- bling of Parliament in February of 1859 a Reform Bill which had been prepared was announced to the House of Commons. The tide ol public sentiment could no longer be stemmed. John Bright, before great assem- blies of the people in Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow, had denounced the existing system of representation in terms so scathing that ministerial notice must be taken of the abuses complained of, and a Reform Bill had to be brought in as a panacea. It fell to the part of Mr. Disraeli to introduce and defend the proposed measure. By it it was proposed to establish a new rule of suffrage on a basis of personal property. Every person having ten pounds yearly from the public funds or a pension of twenty pounds, as well as ministers, graduates of the university, lawyers, and doctors should have the right of suffrage. The principle of suffrage should be extended impartially to the counties and the towns. It was estimated that about two hundred thousand suffrages would by this means be gained by the country districts. This was well enough, but the gain made by the country was thought to be at the expense of the towns. Members of both parties attacked the measure on the ground tliat freeholders in towns were robbed by the proposed scheme of the votes which they were then entitled to cast in the counties. The dissension over the bill extended into the cabinet. Two of the ministers refused to support the measure. Lord John Russell introduced an amendment, " That this House is of opinion that it is neither just nor politic to interfere in the manner proposed by this bill with the freehold franchise as hitherto exercised in counties in England and Wales ; and that no readjustment of the franchise will satisfy this House or the country which does not provide for a greater extension of the suffrage in cities and boroughs than is contemplated in the present measure." LAST HALF OF THE SIXTH DECADE. 285 This expression from Lord John Russell, now in his seventy-second year, created a profound impression. Lord John advocated his measure briefly, and ended with this remarkable declaration, " With regard to this great question of reform I may say that I defended it when I was young, and I will not desert it now that I am old." The Liberals and Progressives caught at the question eagerly. Herbert and Bright both made effective speeches. Gladstone took up the theme in a cautious way. Within certain limits he would assent to the governmental plan. He made note of the fact that the political parties were not divided on the general question of a reform. He thought if the amendment should be adopted little good would arise, but rather harm, in unsettling a government that was not strongly fortified. As matters stood the administration had strong claims upon the support of the House. The speaker proceeded almost humorously to present a sketch of the vicissitudes of reform during the decade. " In 1851," said he, "my noble friend, then the first minister of the crown, approached the question of reform and commenced with a promise of what was to be done twelve months afterward. In 1852 he brought in a bill, and it disappeared together with the ministry. In 1853 we had the ministry of Lord Aberdeen, which commenced with a promise of reform in twelve months' time. Well, 1854 arrived ; with it arrived the bill, but with it also arrived the war, and in the war was a reason, and I believe a good reason, for abandoning- the bill. Then came the government of my noble friend the member for Tiverton, which was not less unfortunate in the circumstances that prevented the redemption of those pledges which had been given to the people from the mouth of the sovereign on the throne. In 1855 my noble friend escaped all responsibility for a Reform Bill on account of the war; in 1856 he escaped all responsibility for reform on account of the peace ; in 1857 he escaped that inconvenient responsibility by the dissolution of Parliament ; and in 1858 he escaped again by the dissolution of his government." Mr. Gladstone proceeded in a spirited discussion of the question, crit- icising here and approving there the principles involved. As a true towns- man he objected to the loss by freeholders in boroughs of their franchise in the counties. He also held back from the principle of making the fran- chise uniform, but he favored the reduction of the suffrage now allowed to boroughs. He insisted that this must be done if any genuine reform was to be instituted. He agreed that the seats in Parliament, as the same were now conceded to the constituencies, would have to be redistributed. He pleaded for the small boroughs of England and for the maintenance of their liberties. He ventured to think that from this quarter the great men of England were largely derived. He favored a committee of the whole for the consideration of the question. He wished to see the issue settled. 286 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. In casting his vote against tlic amendment proposed by Lord Russell he would not be understood as voting for the government or for any party. It was evident at this juncture that the House was under the dominion of chaos. When it came to the second reading of the ministerial bill that measure was negatived by a majority of thirty-nine votes. The decision of the House was sufficiently distinct, but Lord Derby was of opinion that the House did not represent the country on the pending issue. He there- fore dissolved Parliament on the 19th of April, 1859, ^^^ made the usual appeal to the constituencies. The result showed that the judgment of Lord Derby had been well grounded. The new elections gave the government a considerable majority. Oxford University continued its support of Mr. Gladstone. Parliament was reconvened on the last day of May, and for the moment all seemed well for the existing order. When, however, the address to the queen was presented the debate broke out with more than the usual sharpness. An amendment, changing the tone and contradicting the statements of the address, was made by the Marquis of Hartington. To this several members spoke, and when it came to a vote of the House the government was again in the minority. Under English usage there was nothing left for the Earl of Derby but to resign his office. Whom should the queen send for in his stead but Lord Palmerston .'* That eccentric statesman, again in full feather, came to the fore and successfully organized a new government, in which the place of chancellor of the exchequer was assigned to Mr. Gladstone. Thus at the close of the sixth decade the statesman whose life and work are the subject of this treatise, being then fifty years of age, found himself for the second time in a position of responsibility inferior by but a little to that of Prime Minister of England. MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER PALMERSTON. 287 CHAPTER XVII. Minister of Finance under Palmerston. Y his acceptance of office under Lord Palmerston, Mr. Glad- stone raised a storm of opposition among his constituents. It could be said against him that in the late ministerial crisis he had voted to sustain the Earl of Derby ; now he had accepted office under the successor of Lord Derby. This must signify that he had turned his political coat — of which there had been vague sus- picion for some years— and had gone over to Liberalism, a thing intolerable to Oxford. The cry against the new chancellor of the exchequer rose high in that sacred seat of the past. Mr. Gladstone must submit his case to his con- stituency before assuming office under Palmerston. The Conservative party at Oxford rose up against him and proposed as its candidate the Marquis of Chandos. The contest became spirited and was marked with some animosity. It seemed in vain for Mr. Gladstone's friends to explain that his late vote in favor of Lord Derby was on\y ^\\&x\ pro forma. In vain did they urge that he had not been guilty of changing his political affiliations. The clamor was so great that it seemed Mr. Gladstone would be here and now defeated; but when it came to the nomination on the 27th of June, 1859, the vote showed a safe but not overwhelming majority in his favor. Under this indorsement of his constituents he was again able to take up his duties as chancellor of the exchequer. This he did by presenting his budget in the House of Commons on the i8th of July. He did so in his usual happy manner, commanding the closest attention of the members. The aggregate results of Mr. Gladstone's recommendation pointed to a revenue of a little over sixty-four million pounds and an expenditure of a little more than sixty-nine million pounds for the current year. The balance showed a deficit of nearly five million pounds. The chancellor in present- ing the budget intimated that the same had been prepared in the short space of time at his disposal, and that the measures recommended were not to be considered as a finality. The time was near at hand, even at the door, when the income tax must cease. This would make a large reduction in the revenues. Another reduction would follow the abatement of the war duties on tea and sugar. Against this he was able to point to the coming in of the duties on annuities ; but for the present there would be a deficiency. As he had ever been, he was still opposed to increasing the national debt. He would not assent to do so unless he were forced by an implacable necessity. He should oppose the method of making loans. Rather would he prefer the system of taxation. England was now prosperous. The people were 288 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. well satisfied with the demands made upon them in the way of taxation. If it should be necessary to increase the tax schedule it must be done in the form either of a direct or an indirect imposition. The chancellor did not think it wise to increase the duty on malt or that on distilled spirits. He should also oppose an increase in the customs or excises. What remained } Only the income tax ; and that was about to expire. The deficit which the treasury must meet was nearly five millions. By a readjustment of the tax on malt the treasury could gain at once the sum of seven hundred and eighty thousand pounds. The remaining four million pounds he proposed to meet by increasing the income tax from five- pence to ninepence the pound. By this means he could obtain the requisite four million pounds. Beginning with the incomes of a hundred and fifty pounds and upward he would make the addition to the rate fourpence the pound ; but for incomes under a hundred and fifty pounds he would increase the rate by only one and a half pence the pound. He would postpone the falling of the tax for a half year after the adoption of a new schedule. By this means, instead of a deficit, the treasury might obtain a surplus of a quarter of a million. Concluding his presentation the speaker said : " Instead of ascribing to the great English people a childish impatience to meet the necessary demands with which they were never chargeable, I, on the con- trary, shall rely on their unyielding, inexhaustible energy and generous patriotism, and shall be confident that they will never shrink from or refuse any burden required in order to sustain the honor or provide for the security of the country." Here then the tables were completely turned. It was now Mr. Dis- raeli's opportunity to give back the compliment of the limited support which he in office had received from Mr. Gladstone. But Benjamin Disraeli was not that sort of a statesman. He, however, had good grounds for the opposi- tion which he now made to the Gladstonian budget. He took up the very argument which Mr. Gladstone had himself so many times employed, namely, that the expenditures were enormous and ought to be reduced. He protested against the scale by which the public funds were consumed. The revenues derived from the income tax, said he, were wasted. The expendi- tures in support of enormous military and naval establishments ought to be reduced by reducing the establishments themselves. Great Britain could not be taxed seventy million pounds annually. It behooved Great Britain and France to reduce their armaments, and thus to obviate the charge of hypoc- risy when pretending to desire universal peace. If such a policy should be adopted then Great Britain, the government of Great Britain, could make good its oft-repeated pledge with respect to the income ta.x, namely, that that odious tax should cease with the year i860. Mr. Gladstone agreed with a part of what his rival had said. He con- MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER PALMERSTON. 289 curred in as much as related to the reduction in the armaments of Europe. He declared that England would be in dut)- bound to favor a movement of this kind. He objected, however, to Disraeli's denunciation of international congresses. In the recent cabinet of which Mr. Disraeli had been a mem- ber international conferences had been promoted. Such bodies might be regarded with favor as agencies for the establishment of peace. Mr. Glad- stone insisted that the income tax might be effectively and justly extended so that onehalf of the additional levy might rest on the year 1860-61. The debate ended by the adoption without amendment of the budget as it came from the hands of the chancellor of the exchequer. It was in the summer of this year that Free Italy began to be by war. A conflict between that country, supported by France, and the Austrian empire had been impending since the beginning of the year. The Austrian domination in Italy could not be longer endured. Victor Emmanuel appeared as the champion of the Italian cause in the field and Count Cavour as its champion in the cabinet. On the 3d of May, 1859, Napoleon HI espoused the Sardinian cause, declaring his purpose to make Italy free from the Alps to the Adriatic. A week later he left Paris for Genoa. The French and Italians combined against the Austrians, and on the 20th of May a severe battle was fought at Montebello. Strategic movements on the part of the allies were now made, and the second battle successful to them was fought at Palestro. On the 31st of May the French moved on Novara. Next was fought the great battle of Magenta, lasting through the greater part of the 4th of June, and ending in a complete victory for the allies. The Emperor of the French and the King of Sardinia entered Milan four days afterward and were received with wild demonstrations by the people. The next engagement occurred at Malegnano, where the Austrians were defeated and driven back across the plains of Lombardy to the line of the Mincio. The allies pursued them, and the advance divisions came together near the village of Solferino, where on the 24th of June, 1859, the decisive battle of the war was fought. On the one side the allies were commanded by the Emperor of the French and the King of Sardinia. The Austrians were under command of the Emperor Francis Joseph, and were defeated with a loss of about twenty thousand men. Such was the severity of the fighting that the allied losses were nearly as great. Just afterward, while expectation was on tiptoe throughout Europe as to the next stage of the war, the two emperors, Austrian and French, met at Villafranca and concluded a treaty of peace the overtures of which were made by Napoleon. That astute ruler perceived that should he press his vantage further the whole Germanic confederation would probably rise against him. He therefore adroitly brought the war to an unexpected 19 290 LIFE AM) TIMKS OK WILLIAM E. GLAUSTONE. MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER TALMERSTON. 29 1 close. An armistice was signed on the 8tli of July, and the treaty was pro- claimed just afterward. The principal features ol the settlement were as follows : 1. The two sovereigns will favor the creation of an Italian confederation. 2. That confederation shall be under the honorary presidency of the holy father. 3. The Emperor of Austria cedes to the Emperor of the French his rights over Lombardy, with the exception of the fortresses of Mantua and Peschiera, so that the frontier of the Austrian possessions shall start from the extreme rang^e of the fortress of Peschiera, and shall extend in a direct line alonof the Mincio as far as Grazio ; thence to Scorzarolo and Luzana to the Po, whence the actual frontiers shall continue to form the limits of Aus- tria. The Emperor of the French will hand over {rcmctti'a) the ceded terri- tory to the King of Sardinia. 4. \'enetia shall form part of the Italian confederation, though remain- ing under the crown of the Emperor of Austria. 5. The Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena return to their States, granting a genefal amnesty. 6. A full and complete amnesty is granted on both sides to persons compromised in the late events in the territories of the belligerent parties. These important events occurred on the Continent without the partici- pation of England. Great Britain feels herself disparaged under such cir- cumstances. If history seems at any time to go forward without her helping hand she conceives that history is neglectful and mankind in error. At this juncture the project of a peace conference to settle the status of Italy was agitated. The measure got utterance in the House of Commons. Lord Elcho in that body introduced a resolution: "That in the opinion of the House it would be consistent neither with the honor nor the dignity of this country to take part in any conference for the purpose of settling the details of a peace the preliminaries of which have been arranged between the Emperor of the French and the Emperor of Austria." An effort was made to avoid the discussion of this issue, but Mr. Gladstone boldly met it with a declaration that the House was willing to reject the resolution by a direct vote, or if the opinion prevailed that the time was inopportune for consider- ing the resolution then the House was equally ready to concur in a motion which had been made for the previous question. In English usage the previous question is debatable. The speaker accordingly went on to review Lord Elcho's proposition. " It might be well," he said, " that the details of the peace, so far as they relate singly to questions of the war, shall be determined by the participants therein ; but if questions of international import arise out of the conflict then there is no reason why Great Britain and other neutral States may not with honor and 292 LIFE AM) TIMKS OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. dignity confer about the conditions of settlement." The present govern- ment in this respect was not, the speaker thought, departing from tine policy of its predecessor. The government had preserved its neutrality. It appeared that the mover of the resolution before the House had a fear lest Great Britain participating in a conference should show herself the enemy of Austria. Great Britain was not the enemy of Austria. Such an assump- tion was gratuitous. Great Britain wished well to Austria and the Austrian people. True, the government might suppose Austria to be in the wrong in the Italian complication. He did not hesitate to say that Austria had repressed Italian liberty with an iron hand. The political abuses of Italy were under the patronage and promotion of Austria. In so far as Great P)rit;iin might participate in a peace conference it would be to consider whatever was best for Europe as a whole, and not only what might be best for Italy or Austria. He would suggest that the last-named power would be the stronger for a withdrawal from Italy and Italian affairs. The true policy for Great Britain might be the policy of nonintervention; but the speaker appealed to the records to show that the policy must have its limi- tations. It had been said that England either confided in the Emperor of the French, and might therefore trust him to determine the conditions of peace — in which event there would be no call for participation in the peace conference — or else England tlid not confide in the Emperor of the French, in which event she should not participate. Mr. Gladstone would agree with Lord Elcho on the last proposition ; but why not participate in a con- ference with Napoleon III, if that ruler possessed the confidence of England .'* The debate continued with sharp fire all along the line. In the discus- sion speeches were made by several of the strongest parliamentarians, including Mr. Disraeli and Lord Palmerston. None of them, however, were thought to equal in force the chancellor of the exchequer, whose explication of the subject was so clear that Lord Elcho withdrew his resolution, and the matter ended. It was at this juncture that the first symptoms of the great religious question which was to play sc large a part in the history of England for the next two decades were seen in parliamentary debates. England was Prot- estant and Episcopalian; Ireland, Roman Catholic. During the current ses- sion of Parliament an amendment bill was offered to the Roman Catholic Relief Act, declaring the eligibility of a Roman Catholic to the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Such a proposition was a red flag to a considerable faction in the House of Commons. This party was composed of extreme Church of England men and of such Irish members as were affiliated or in sympathy with the society of Orangemen. Two members in particular, Mr. Newdegate and Mr. Whiteside, made inflammatory speeches against the proposed measure. They denounced the proposition as inimical to the MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER PALMERSTON. 293 British Constitution. They attempted to show that the passage of such a measure would undo the guarantees of 1S29. It appears that the argument of these gentlemen against the enlarge- ment of religious toleration in Ireland was exceedingly distasteful to Mr. Gladstone, who awaited his opportunity to speak. It was noticed by all that he had been much improved in person and spirits by his recent sojourn and rest in the Ionian Islands. His vigorous health was remarked upon, and when he began his speech an unusual fire appeared in his oratory. He spoke for only a short time, but his effort was so powerful as to arouse the House to an unusual pitch of excitement. It was said by eyewitnesses that the effect of the address was as marked as any which had been delivered in Parliament since the days of Sir Robert Peel. So conservative, however, was the temper of the House and of the British nation that some time elapsed before the pending proposition was accepted. It was at the close of the sixth decade, or rather in the first year of the seventh, that Great Britain was confirmed in her policy of free trade by a commercial alliance with France, on the basis of that principle and practice. It appears that the Emperor Napoleon HI had, during his long sojourn in England, studied the question of free trade and protection with the greatest interest. His residence in London coincided with that period when Great Britain was passing from her immemorial policy of protection to the then untried method of free trade. The Bonaparte was convinced that the change was of an expedient and salutatory character. On his accession to power he was virtually a free trader ; but not so the French nation. The first years of his reign were occupied with the adjustment of the imperial relations, with the Crimean War, and with the Italian complication. Not until the latter difficulty was settled was there opportunity for him, either singly or in conjunction with Great Britain, to promote a change in the commercial theory and practice ot France. It appears that the alliance about to be effected between England and France originated with the powerful speaking of John Bright. It happened that the report of the arguments and appeals made by Bright fell into the hands of M. Chevalier, the French ambassador at London, who, convinced of the validity of the reasoning, signified to Richard Cobden his belief that a commercial policy on the principle of free trade might then be negotiated between France and England. The result was that Cobden himself was, by the advice and under the auspices of the chancellor of the exchequer, sent to Paris, where, after interviews with the emperor, he entered into formal negotiations with Count Walewski, Minister for Foreign Affairs. Full accounts have been preserved by Cobden of his repeated inter- views with Napoleon and the leading statesmen of the imperial government. Gladstone himself was, as chancellor of the exchequer, behind the movement 294 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM K. CLADSTOXE. on the English side, or at least a strong supporter of it. He was the most powerful official factor In the negotiations, though the skill of management was Cobden's. A paragraph from the diary of Cobden for the 21st of December, 1859, shows clearly enough the bottom element in the move- ment: " Had an interview with the emperor at the Tuileries. I explained to him that Mr. Gladstone, the chancellor of the exchequer, was anxious to ^ I I' I I I'T '^ RICHARD COBDEN. prepare his budget for the ensuing session of Parliament, and that it would be a convenience to him to be informed as soon as possible whether the French government was decided to agree to a commercial treaty, as in that case he would make arrangements accordingly ; that he did not wish to be in possession of the details, but merely to know whether the principle of a treaty was determined upon. The emperor said he could have no hesitation in satisfying me on that point ; that he had quite made up his mind to enter MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER PALMERSTON. 295 into the treaty, and that the only question was as to the details. He spoke of the difficulties he had to overcome, owing to the powerful interests that were united in defense of the present system. ' The protected industries combine [said Napoleon], but the general public do not.' " The success of INIr. Cobden in negotiating the commercial treaty was complete. The extract just given shows how profound was Mr. Gladstone's interest in the thing accomplished. The preparation of his budget for i860 depended upon whether or not France could be induced to abandon her system of import duties. Cobden at Paris was Gladstone's agent. He was there at first in a wholly unofficial capacity. All he could say to the Emperor of the French was that the English nation would be favorably disposed toward a commercial treaty. At length the matter proceeded so far that Cobden received official instructions from Lord John Russell, and in the subsequent proceedings was a representative of the government. The treaty in question was framed with great concessions to the prin- ciple of free trade. The duties which had been previously laid by the two governments on importations of each other's goods were either wholly abolished or greatly reduced. On the F"rench side the tariff on English coal and coke, wrought iron, tools, machinery, yarns, flax, and hemp was so reduced as to make the importation of these articles into France virtually free. On the other hand, and on the English side, the duties on light French wines were abolished — a measure which led at once to a great increase in the consumption of such drinks in Great Britain. It was noticed, moreover, that the consumption of the heavy alcoholic beverages, hitherto used in such excessive quantities in England, was reduced in a corresponding ratio. The relation of Gladstone to this important stage in the economic progress of Europe illustrates the history of his whole life. He had not been an original agitator for free trade. That work had been accomplished by Cobden, Bright, and their coworkers of the Manchester school. Glad- stone always rose on the crest of movements which he followed rather than led, and controlled because those who had originated the impulse could not command the opinion of Great Britain sufficiently to be the leaders of the very progress which the)- had initiated. The commercial treaty with France was of vast importance, not only to the immediate measures which the chancellor of the exchequer wished to devise in the department of finance, but bore powerfully upon the whole policy of Great Britain, fixing and confirming it in that form which it has ever since maintained. It was as early as February, in i860, that Mr. Gladstone came forward with that budget about which a good deal of his financial fame hangs like a halo. He had suffered a temporary illness at the time, and was not able to present his statement until the tenth of the month. Old parliamentarians long retained a memory of the extraordinary scene then witnessed. Rarely 296 LIFE AND TIMES OF WII.I.TAM F. GLADSTONE. has the hall of the House of Commons been so packed as on that occasion. Mr. Gladstone came to his task and kept the closest attention of the House and of the throng of spectators for fully four hours. His immense will stood him well in hand, and his hearers were not able to detect in his voice or manner the evidences of his recent indisposition. All the biographers of the statesman agree with common tradition in makine the occasion of the budget of i860 memorable in the annals of the financial history of Great Britain. We may not doubt that the happy MEMBERS' LOBBY, HOUSE OF COMMONS. faculty had been reserved for Gladstone to combine with the mere statistics and bare recommendations of the budget a method of exposition, illustra- tion, argument, and even appeal which converted the document into an address of the highest order and the occasion of its delivery into an oratorical file. The House of Commons, having resolved itself into Committee of the Whole, was ready to hear the finance minister in his address on the budget. Beginning, he said: "Sir, public expectation has long marked out the year i860 as an important epoch in British finance. It has long been well known MINISTER OF FIXAXCE UNDER PALMERSTON. 297 that in this year, ior the first time, we were to receive from a process not of our own creation a very great rehef in respect of our annual payment of in- terest upon the national debt — a relief amounting to no less a sum than two million one hundred and lorty-six thousand pounds — a relief such as we never have known in time past, and such as, I am afraid, we shall never know in time to come. Besides that relief other and more recent arrangements have added to the importance of this juncture. A revenue of nearly twelve million pounds a year, levied by duties on tea and sugar, which still retain a portion of the additions made to them on account of the Russian war, is about to lapse absolutely on the 31st of March, unless it shall be renewed by Parliament. The income tax act, from which during the financial year we shall have derived a sum of between nine million and ten million pounds, is likewise to lapse at the very same time, although an amount not inconsiderable will still remain to be collected in virtue of the law about to expire. And lastly, an event of not less interest than any of these, which has caused public feeling to thrill from one end of the country to the other — I mean the treaty of commerce, which my noble friend the foreign minister has just laid on the table — has rendered it a matter of propriety, nay, almost of absolute necessity, for the government to request the House to de\"iate, under the peculiar circumstances ot the case, trom its usual, its salutary, its constitutional practice of voting the principal charges of the year before they proceed to consider the means of defraying them, and has induced the government to think they would best fulfill their duty by inviting attention on the earliest possible day to those financial arrange- ments for the coming year which arc materiall)- affected by the treaty with France, and which, though they reach considerably beyond the limits of that treaty, yet, notwithstanding, can only be examined by the House in a satisfactory manner when examined as a whole." These strong and comprehensive utterances were but the prelude of the address that followed. Mr. Gladstone in the next place declared his satisfaction with the announcement which he was able to make that for the past year the revenues of the government had surpassed the estimates by more than half a million pounds. The expenditures had been less than the estimated income by about half a million. He was therefore pleased to announce on the face of the balances a surplus of a million six hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. There had, however, been an ex- traordinary expenditure of nine hundred thousand pounds incident to the Chinese war, and also an unforeseen expense of the navy of two hundred and seventy thousand pounds. These two items were a virtual offset to the surplus. But there was another item of six hundred and forty thousand pounds, in the way of a reduction on the score of the abolished duties on French wines. The speaker was able, however, to 298 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. report the payment of an old debt due from Spain, amounting to a half million pounds. Mr. Gladstone next referred to the charge against the government on the score of the interest of the public debt and to the annuities which were about to expire. This brought him to the particulars of revenue to be expected from various sources for the following year. He made compara- tive showings reaching back not only to the period when he had first held the place of chancellor of the exchequer, but as far as 1842, demonstrating how greatly the country had grown in its resources and capabilities. All kinds of industry had been promoted. Agriculture had gained most of all. Wealth had increased more rapidly than the aggregate of expenditures. Notwithstanding the great revenues that might be expected he must announce a deficit of nine million four hundred thousand pounds to be provided for. He thought that a maximum of a shilling a pound in the way of income tax would meet the demand of the treasury and at the same time relieve consumers of the tax on sugar and tea. The income tax which had been so burdensome had been met without complaint. Now, that the commercial treaty with France had been effected, the country would rest assured of an early relief from the tax on incomes. There might have been incidental, but there certainly was no general discontent on the score of the tax referred to, though here and there the voice of the caviler had been heard. In the next division of his oration Mr. Gladstone discussed the general question of the relation of reduced taxation to the aggregate of revenues, showing by examples that in all cases the removal of the burdens from trade and commerce resulted, in no great time, in swelling the revenues of a State. This brought the speaker to the immediate consideration of the recent commercial treaty with France. He told the House that he should confidently recommend the adoption of the treaty as fulfilling and satisfying the conditions of the most beneficial kind of change in commercial legisla- tion. He enumerated the articles exported from Great Britain to France, on which the duties had been either reduced or abolished, namely, coal, iron, yarn, flax, hemp, etc. Part of the duties were to cease in the current year; others were to expire in 1861. Within four years there should be no duty remaining at a higher figure than twenty-five per cent ad valorem. As reciprocal with these great advantages Great Britain would agree to the immediate abolition of all duties on imported manufactures from France ; to a reduction of the duty on brandy to eight shillings twopence to the gallon ; on French wines, to three shillings the gallon, with a sliding scale according to quality down to one shilling the gallon, etc. This sug- gested the question whether the great advantages gained in these respects for British commerce had been purchased with a sacrifice of dignity or MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER PALMERSTON. 299 national honor. This intimation the spealcer rejected as unfounded. There had been no subserviency to France. The time had come when the two powers found it mutually to their interest to dwell in peace and amity. This had not always been so. There had been a time when the alliance of the two nations had been coupled with the shame of England. There was one former instance in which close relations of amity had been established between the two governments, but that instance was a dark spot in English annals. "The spot is dark," said the speaker, "because the union was a union formed in the spirit of domineering ambition on the one side and of base and most corrupt servility on the other. But that, sir, was not a union of nations; it was a union of the governments. This is not to be a union of the governments apart from the countries ; it is, as we hope, to be a union of the nations themselves ; and I confidently say again, as I have already ventured to say in this House, that there never can be -any union between the nations of England and France, except a union beneficial to the world, because directly that either the one or the other of the two begins to harbor schemes of selfish aggrandizement that moment the jealousy of its neighbor will be aroused and will beget a powerful reaction ; and the very fact of their being in harmony will of itself at all times be the most conclusive proof that neither of them can be engaged in meditating any- thing which is dangerous to Europe." Mr. Gladstone next urged that the fears that might arise in the minds of some lest the commercial treaty might be in principle and effect an imped- iment to free trade were entirely unfounded. The treaty could not imply anything of the kind unless it should contain provision for exclusive privi- leges to one or the other of the high contracting parties. No such privileges were contemplated. On the contrary, the whole tenor of the compact was favorable to free trade and against the principle of protection. He remarked with some humor that Protection, dwelling formerly in palaces and other high places of the earth and more recently finding refuge in certain corners and holes of the commercial world, was now about to be ejected from his last hiding places. He showed in the next place that the duties which were struck off by the provisions of the treaty were not revenues in fact, but pro- tective tariffs. He demonstrated with facts and figures the advantage both to England and France of the system of free interchange which had been adopted. He pursued the subject, in illustration of the effects of the treaty, the duties on spirits, and showed how the removal of duties brought those articles on which the duties had rested within reach of an ever-enlarging class of consumers. Thus had it been in the case of tea. Only a century ago that article had been a luxury of the rich, selling at twenty shillings the pound. Tea, by the reduction of the duties thereon, had become the poor man's as well 300 lAhE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. as the rich man's beverage. So might it be in the case ot wine. There was in England a great demand for French wines, and the high price at which they were sold tended to suggest the adulteration of the wines and othi;r frauds on the part of wine merchants. With the removal of the duty pure wines would be imported at a greatly reduced price. The speaker next reverted to the magniticent work accomplished by Mr. Cobden in negotiating the treaty. He declared that he was unwilling to pass from the subject of the I'Vench treaty without paying a deserved tribute to the hi'O persons who had been chieHy instrumental in obtaining it. " I am bound," said Mr. Gladstone, " to bear^this witness, at any rate, with regard to the Emperor of tiie iM'ench : that he has given the most unequivocal proofs of sincerity- and earnestness in the progress of this great work, a work which he has prosecuted with clear-sighted resolution, not, doubtless, -for British purposes, but in the spirit of enlightened patriotism, with a view to commercial reforms at home and to the advantage and hap- piness of his own people by means of those reforms. With regard to Mr. Cobden, speaking as I do at a time when every angry passion has passed away, I cannot help expressing our obligations to him for the labor he has, at no small personal sacrifice, bestowed upon a measure which he — not the least among the apostles of free trade — believes to be one of the most mem- orable triumphs free trade has ever achieved. Rare is the privilege of any man who, having fourteen years ago rendered to his country'one signal and splendid service, now again, within the same brief span of life, decorated neither by rank nor title, bearing no mark to distinguish him from the people whom he loves, has been permitted again to perform a great and memorable service to his sovereign and to his country." Passing on from the consideration of the French treaty, Mr. Gladstone took up the serious and most difficult question of the proposed reduction in the customs duties of the kingdom. He said that his scheme provided for such reduction over and above that already referred to by an aggregate of nine hundred and ten thousand pounds. He then gave a list of com- modities on which the duties were to be abrogated, namely, Initter, tallow, cheese, oranees, lemons, ecrsfs, and several other articles of like character. On these he proposed to throw off a duty amounting to three hundred and eighty thousand pounds annually. He presented another list, including timber, currants, raisins, figs, and hops, on which the duty would be relin- quished to an aggregate of six hundred and fifty-eight thousand pounds. To meet the sum of these two reductions he would introduce certain penny rates, to be explained farther on, amounting to nine hundred and eighty- two thousand pounds. He estimated the loss from the abolition of the French duties at two million one hundred and forty-six thousand pounds, against which he hoped to offset at least a half by the penny rates referred to. MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER PALMERSTON. 3OI Coming directly to articles of English manufacture, Mr. Gladstone said that he would abolish the excise duty on paper. This was touching on dangerous ground. The speaker held that the cheapening of paper by the removal of the duty would greatly promote the dissemination of cheap lit- erature. He was able to say that the newspaper press of Great Britain favored this measure. The House of Commons had already passed judg- ment on the principle of the paper excise, and had condemned it. The retention of the duty tended to make literature a luxury of the rich. The speaker showed that the removal of the duty referred to, since it affected all maufactures of fiber convertible into paper, would extend to a vast range of articles of which at least sixty-nine trades were in demand. He argued that the institution of the duty had destroyed the small paper factories of England and had substituted the great concerns located here and there. This process would be reversed by the removal of the tax, and local enter- prise would again flourish. In proportion as these local enterprises should fiourish the poverty which existed here and there would be alleviated ; the taxes for the support of the poor would be lessened. He cited instances to establish the truth of this argumentation. His proposition, therefore, was that Irom and after the ist of July, i860, the duty on paper should be abolished. The speaker next took up the question of the excise on hops. Instead of the present system he would remove the prohibition on malt, and fix a duty on that commodity of three shillings the bushel. By these means he reckoned that the consumers in Great Britain would be relieved of taxation to the extent of nearly four million pounds, and that the revenue would lose, according to his calculations, but little over two million pounds. The latter sum was just about what the treasury would gain in the following year by the expiration of the annuities paid by the government. Thus the speaker proceeded with the exposition of his scheme. " There would be," he said, " for the following year forty-eight articles under customs duty, and for the year after that forty-four articles. Of these the most important were distilled spirits, tea, tobacco, sugar, wine, cofifee, corn (that is the cereal grains), currants, and timber. He thought tliat he could realize from the malt and hop taxes about a million four hundred thousand pounds in the fiscal year ensuing. This completed the explication of the major division of his subject relating to the abolition of duties. It remained to consider by what means he intended to make up the loss to the aggre- gate revenues of the kingdom. Here the speaker came to the subject of the income tax. He said that out of the necessity of the case that tax must be retained. The total deficiency which must be provided for he estimated at nine million four hundred thousand pounds. To meet this he proposed that the income 302 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. tax should be continued at the rate of tenpence the pound for all incomes of a hundred and fifty povmds a year and over, and at sevenpence the pound for incomes below the sum just namctl. This tax he would fix for a single year, and would require within that year the payment of three fourths of the amount accruing, leaving the other fourth to be collected in the following year. From this source he would expect to realize eight mil- lion four hundred and seventy-two thousand pounds. Adding this to the revenues otherwise provided, he would have a total income of seventy million five hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds. The expenditure he estimated at seventy million one hundred thousand pounds ; the balance showing four hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds in favor of the treasury. In conclusion Mr. Gladstone reverted to the fact that the budget before the House involved a great if not a complete reform in the tariff system of Great Britain. His proposals, he said, embraced a large remission of taxa- tion, and last of all, though not least, they included as a part of their sub- stance the commercial treaty with France. To that treaty he did not doubt there would be objections ; but, he continued, we confidently recom- mend it not only on moral and social and political, but also on economical and physical grounds. Finally the speaker concluded what was, without doubt, the most remarkable budget scheme and. striking representation of the same ever thus far made before the British House of Commons, as follows : " There were times, now long gone by, when sovereigns made progress through the land, and when, at the proclamation of their heralds, they caused to be scattered whole showers of coin among the people who thronged upon their steps. That may have been a goodly spectacle ; but it is also a goodly spectacle, and one adapted to the altered spirit and circumstances of our times, when our sovereign is enabled, through the wisdom of her great council, assembled in Parliament around her, again to scatter blessings among her subjects by means of wise and prudent laws, of laws which do not sap in any respect the foundations of duty or of manhood, but which strike away the shackles from the arm of industry, which give new incentives and new rewards to toil, and which win more and more for the throne and for the institutions of the country the grati- tude, the confidence, and the love of a united people. Let me say, even to those who are anxious, and justly anxious, on the subject of our national defenses, that that which stirs the flame of patriotism in men, that which binds them in one heart and soul, that which gives them increased confi- dence in their rulers, that which makes them feel and know that they are treated with justice and that we who represent them are laboring incessantly and earnestly for their good, is in itself no small, no feeble, and no tran- sitory part of national defense. We recommend these proposals to your MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER PALMERSTON. 303 impartial and searching inquiry. We do not presume, indeed, to make a claim on your acknowledgments ; but neither do we desire to draw on your unrequited confidence nor to lodge an appeal to your compassion. We ask for nothing more than your dispassionate judgment, and for nothing less ; we know that our plan will receive that justice at your hands, and we confidently anticipate on its behalf the approval alike of the Parliament and the nation." Though there might be great differences of opinion in the House of Commons as to the merit and expediency of the recommendations made by the chancellor of the exchequer, differences with respect to the ability with which the budget was presented there could be none. Long since the speaker had established his claim to be one of the foremost, if not the fore- most, British orator of his epoch. His bearing was parliamentary by the highest definition ot that term. He had all the accessories of the ideal min- ister. His voice, his gesticulation, his occasional humor, his flight from the prosaic into the oratorical and the poetical, his dignity and courtesy, all combined to win for him the unbounded applauses of his party and the admiration of all liberal-minded Englishmen. The signs of such admiration were abundant on the great occasion just described. Notwithstanding his recent illness he bore the stress and exhaustion of a four hours' oration without apparent weakening or loss of effectiveness. It was said for long by those who were present that he concluded the presentation of his budget with the easy air and manner of one who had just finished a few extempo- raneous remarks on a trivial topic of the hour. Would the budget be accepted by the House? If there should be a battle would it be victorious for the chancellor of the exchequer or defeat for him and his cause } It was soon manifest that there would be spirited debate and vigorous opposition. In the first place the shipowning business broke out with the allegation that the Gladstonian scheme would weaken the British marine by strengthening that of France. The plan, it was said, did not put the shipping interests of Great Britain and France on an equal footing, but rather disparaged the home industry in favor ot the foreign. In the next place, the eating house managers of London and other leading cities protested because the budget contained a provision for licenses to their establishments. Other especial interests joined the chorus, but the general opinion seemed to be well satisfied with the result. The boards of trade in the leading cities, particularly in the manufac- turing centers, gave emphatic approval and sent petitions to Parliament in favor of the budget. The English radicals, the old agitators and free traders, as far down the column of democracy as the station of John Bright, assented to the scheme, and the heart of the country seemed ready for the reform budget of i860. In the House of Commons Mr. Disraeli, without 304 LIFE AND TIMES OF ^VILLIAM E. C.LAI>STOXE. directly assailing any principle or recommendation of the budget, moved, " That this House does not think fit to go into committee on the Customs Act with a view to the reduction or repeal of the duties referred to in the treaty of commerce between her majesty and the Emperor of the French until it shall have considered and assented to the engagements in that treaty." In supportirig his resolution Mr. Disraeli argued against the treaty with France, against the method of making it, against the government for using such a method, against Richard Cobden as the author of the method. It could not be e.vpected, however, that Cobden could gain by any means the approval of one who differed Irom him toto ccelo in the universe of British politics. The reply of Mr. Gladstone was brief and brilliant. He made a coun- tercharge on Mr. Disraeli, showing that it was absurd to suppose that her majesty and her majesty's government would make an illegal compact with a foreign power. He disclaimed tor himselt a certain intimation of a char- itable sort that his rival had sarcastically offered, claiming that the treaty of France had not been inadvertently made, but with prudence and forethought. He went on to show that there were well-established and undeniable prec- edents which her majesty's government had followed. No less a personage than William Pitt in office had established the principle on which the recent commercial treaty had been effected. The result of the debate showed something more than the party majority in the vote against Disraeli's resolution. .\nother attack came from Mr. Du Cane, who proposed to impeach the principle on which the budget rested. When his friends induced him to withhold a motion to this intent he found opportunity to introduce another declaring that the proposed abolition of duties was inexpedient, and that the continuance of the income tax at an increased rate would prove a shock to the country. To this resolution the mover spoke at considerable length, and found the usual arguments to fortify his position. The chancellor of the exchequer, however, was able to destroy the Du Cane resolution, or at least to bury it under a majority of a hundred and sixteen votes. The real point of danger, however, to the Gladstone scheme lay in the recommendation for the abolition of the duty on paper. This part of the scheme touched and tended to transform an important home industry of Great Britain. Not only the interest thus disturbed, namely, the interest engaged in the manufacture of paper, but several other correlated interests were e.xcited and alarmed ; and the party in opposition was strengthened with a few recruits. Sir Stafford Henry Northcote offered a resolution to the effect that the existing state of the finances of the country made it unde- sirable to proceed further with the bill repealing the duty on paper. That MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER TALMERSTON. 305 bill had now come to its third reading-, and the time was critical. The opposition gained considerably, and the majority ag^ainst the Northcote amendment was only nine votes. This decision of the House, however, did not settle the matter finally. The debate broke out anew on the critical examination of the recommenda- tion abolishing the jiaper tariff It was found that the duty on domestic paper was to be removed, and the duty on foreign paper also. This involved the question of the relative cheapness of rags in England and on the Con- tinent. It was held by the opposition that continental rags were cheaper than British rags; for which reason the French manufacturers of paper would be able, under a system of absolute freedom in the paper trade, to undersell the manufacturers of England. And so the argument went on and on; the party of the ministry contending that \\\& principle of absolute free trade should not be abandoned by Great Britain, whose toes soever were pinched, and the orators of the opposition contending that British interests must not be disparaged or put at disadvantage by British legislation. Finally the budget as a whole came to the crisis of a vote, and was accepted by a fair party majority in the House of Commons. But now an ordeal of another kind had to be met. There was the House of Lords. That conservative body, always opposed to change, always arraying itself against reform, always in the way of progress and transformation, showed itself in its accustomed mood. The paper interest of the kingdom was easily able to find a voice among their lordships. Lord Monteagle, supported by Lord Derby, started a movement to defeat at least so much of the budget as related to the abolition of the duty on paper. As soon as this was known the country was aroused. The general interests of manufacture and industry arrayed themselves against the special interest of paper. Committees from several places, including representative men from a variety of industrial concerns, appealed to Lord Derby to with- draw his opposition. It appears that his lordship was surprised at this manifestation of public sentiment ; at any rate, he began to hedge against the results by saying that his opposition extended, not to the principle of removing the tax on paper, but to the question of the advisability of doing it in the present state of the public revenues. This admission that the sup- porters of the budget in its entirety were right at least in principle was fatal to Lord Derby's position, and the breach in his defenses was still further widened by the admission that all taxes must originate in the House of Commons, be determined by that body, be abrogated by that body if at all — this under the principles of the British Constitution. This was really to give away the whole argument against the removal of the duty. The friends of that measure made a strong rail)-. The whole ministerial party, from its most radical to its most conservative niember, 20 306 LIKK AND TIMES OF WILLIAM K. GLADSTONE. Strongly defendutl the logic of the government.il position. There was no douI)t that the House of Commons was fixed in its determination favoring the budget as a whole, ami that the country was with the House ; but in the Lords an adverse fate awaited. The bill for the apj^roval of the new scheme, coming to the crisis of a vote in that august body, was rejected by a majority of eighty-nine. The issue was thus sharply made u[). The; situation was sufficiently critical. The House must either recede from its position or the Lords must yield to the will of the nation. It was not likely that the lower House, fortified as it was by the voice of the country, would yield. On the 5th of July, 1S60, Lord Palmerston offered the following three resolutions : ■' I. That the right of granting aids and supjilies to the crown is in the Commons alone, as an essential part of their constitution, and the limitation of all such grants as to matter, manner, measure, and time is only in them. " 2. That although the Lords ha\e exercised the power of rejecting bills of several descriptions relating to taxation by negativing the whole, yet the exercise of that power by them has not been frequent, and is justly regarded by this House with peculiar jealousy as affecting the right of the Commons to grant the supplies, and to provide the ways- and means for the service of the year. " ■;. That to sfuard for the future asfainst an undue exercise of that power by the Lords, and to secure to the Commons their rightful control over taxation and supph", this House has in its own hands the power so to impose and remit taxes and to irame bills of supply that the right of the Commons as to the matter, manner, measure, and time may be maintained inviolate." One object of Lord Palmerston in ottering these resolutions was to restore and consolidate the majority in the House favorable to the abolition of the duty on paper. While the budget was under discussion and passing through its readings the ministerial majority had in one instance fallen as low as nine votes, and that particular vote had been given on the question of the paper duty. This decline in the majority favorable to the budget as a whole had encouraged the Lords in their attitude ot hostilitw The Pal- merston resolutions restored the fidl majority of the House and put that body in the position of standing stoutly for its rights. Mr. Gladstone made another speech before the House on the subject of the disaereement with the Lords. He declared that the resolutions of Lord Palmerston did not go far enough in asserting the rights of the House of Commons. Indeed, he thought that the precedents which the noble lord had cited did not reach the principle involved in the subject of disagreement between the two Houses. The House of Lords might well advise changes In a bill covering expenditure from the public treasur\-. That was one MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER PALMERSTON. 307 question. Quite another question was the assumption by the House of Lords of the right to reject a reduction or repeal of taxes. Recently the question had suggested itself to her majesty's government whether a cer- tain reduction of the revenues to the amount of a million a hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds would better be effected by striking off the duty on tea or by removing that on paper. The House had chosen to remove the duty on paper. This had been done with strict reference, not to the popularity ot the measure, but to the interest and honor of Great Britain. The riirht of the House to act in this manner was single and abso- lute. The House could not relinquish its exclusive prerogative to deal with such questions. The speaker concluded by giving notice of his purpose to take up the question again and to offer a plan of practical solution. This Mr. Gladstone did soon afterward. Before a full House he offered a resolution to reduce the duty on foreign paper. He showed that this course had now become necessary under the provision of the commercial treaty with France. It could not be doubted that the very action which he now proposed was contemplated when that treaty was made. Moreover, it had become a simple question of justice to the dealers in paper and the makers of it. Neither could the manufacture be carried on nor the trade in paper continue unless the question of the duty should be definitely set- tled. The government was now under obligation to observe the terms of the French treaty. Moreover, the issue here and now presented was the final contest between free trade and protection in Great Britain. Protection was sprawling its last ; free trade had become the policy of the empire. The friends of that policy must now stand out and be counted in their places as against the friends of the abandoned system of the past. The House of Commons, the speaker said, was bound by both honor and polic)^ to adopt the resolution which he proposed. The House acted accordingly. A stout majority declared in favor of the Gladstonian proposition. The other para- graphs of his resolution were passed in like manner, and the controversy was ended for the present by the reaffirmation of the Commons in their stand against the Lords. The reader will recall the fact that before the presentation of the budget of i860 Lord John Russell had introduced a measure looking to a parliamentary reform. The proposal was to add to the " ten-pound occupa- tion franchise" in country districts a security that said franchise should be actual, and not fictitious, and at the same time to make a six-pound franchise for the boroughs. It had been claimed that this measure would add about two hundred thousand suffrages to the boroughs of the kingdom. Lord Russell's measure also included the reapportionment of the seats in Parlia- ment, and made one condition of the suffrage to be that the elector should be a taxpayer for the support of the poor. 308 LIFE AND TIMKS t)F WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. While this bill was under discussion Mr. Glatlstone went so far in its support as to justify Lord Russell on the score of consistency. He showed that the pending measure had been frequently promised. It had come to the House, not unexpectedly, but undi:r pledge that it would be presented. He showed the groundlessness of that alarm which made the Russell Bill an element of danger to the county constituencies. He showed that those who were to become electors under the provisions of the bill were in rank and intelligence fully capable of having and exercising the right of suffrage. He compared the new classes contemplated with the electors of the boroughs, and found no disparagement of the former. He held that the suffrage might be enlarged with perfect safety so as to include the six-pound qualification for voters in the boroughs. The argument was sufficiently con- clusive, and from the American point of view so obvious as to recjuire no confirmation. Nevertheless the signs of opposition and indifference in the House were so manifest that Lord Russell withdrew his measure from further consideration. Near the close of the spring session of Parliament, i860, namely, on the 1 6th of April in that year, Mr. Gladstone was honored with installation as Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh. The university gave him on the occasion the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. The English and Scotch usage on such occasions is that the newly installed rector shall deliver an address suitable to the event. Mr. Gladstone, appearing before the assembled university, was introduced by Sir David Brewster, and in beginning his address said: " Principal, professors, and students of the University of Edinburgh, I cannot estimate lightly the occasion on which I meet you, especially as it regards the younger and larger part of my academical audience. The franchise, which you have exercised in my favor, is itself of a nature to draw attention ; for the Legislature of our own day has, by a new delibera- tive act, invested you, the youngest members of the university, with a definite and not inconsiderable influence in the formation of that court which is to exercise, upon appeal, the highest control over its proceedings. This is a measure which would hardly have been adopted in any other land than our own. Yet it is also one, in the best sense, agreeable to the spirit of our country and of its institutions; for we think it eminently British to admit the voice of the governed in the choice of governors ; to seek, through diversity of elements, for harmony and unity of result ; and to train men for the discharge of manly duties by letting them begin their exercise betimes." The speaker took for his subject " The Work of Universities." He referred the students to the fact that he was widely separated from them in the scale of years, and that their future was his past. He said that each generation of men labors for that which succeeds it, and that the present is MINISTER OF FINANCE UNDER PALMERSTON. 309 therefore always a sum total of the past. The present is indebted to the past. There is a sense in which each human being begins life as though he were the firstborn of his race. In another sense each one is an epitome of the past. Each generation transmits a modified nature to the next. The progress of mankind is thus a checkered and intercepted progress. The progress of the world is the advancement of mankind rather than the pro- motion of the individual. Each generation of men is bound to accumulate new treasures for the race, and to leave the world richer on its departure. The university is an institution for the promotion of the common move- ment. In modern times it is a Christian institution. Great as were the Greeks, their better nature was scarcely developed at all, and indeed was rather maimed in its supreme capacity ; that is, in its relation to God. We watch with trembling hope the course of the Christian civilization which has succeeded the pagan. The question arises whether our civilization will go the same course as its predecessors, and perish like its older t)'pes. The speaker then went on to discuss the strength and the weakness of Christian civilization and the place of the university therein. " I do not," said he, " enter into the question from what source the university etymo- logically derives its name. At the very least it is a name most aptly sym- bolizing the purpose for which the thing Itself exists. For the work of the university as such covers the whole field of knowledge, human and divine ; the whole field of our nature in all its powers ; the whole field of time, in binding together successive generations as they pass onward in the prosecu- tion of their common destiny; aiding each, both to sow its proper seed, and to reap its proper harvest from what has been sown before ; storing up into its own treasure house the spoils of every new venture in the domain of mental enterprise, and ever binding the present to pay over to the future an acknowledgment at least of the debt which for itself it owes the past. . . . "The idea of the university, as we find it historically presented to us in the Middle Age, was to methodize, perpetuate, and apply all knowledge which existed, and to adopt and take up into itself every new branch as it came successively into existence. These various kinds of knowledge were applied for the various uses of life, such as the time apprehended them. But the great truth was always held, and always kept in the center of the s)-stem, that man himself is the crowning wonder of creation ; that the study of his nature is the noblest study that the world affords ; and that, to his advance- ment and improvement, all undertakings, all professions, all arts, all knowl- edge, all institutions, are subordinated, as means and instruments to their end. . . . " We can hardly expect that human institutions should, without limit of time, retain the flexible and elastic tissues of their youth. Moreover, universities in particular, as they have grown old and great, have come to 3IO I.IKE AM) TI.MKS OK WILLIAM K. GLADSTONE. interlace at nian\- points with the interests and concerns of tliat outer world which has but little sympathy with their proper work. Hut tor these and such like causes they might have displayed at this day an organization as complete, relatively to the present state f)f knowledge and incpiiry, as was that which they possessed some centuries ago. . . . " Universities were, in truth, a great mediating power between the high and the low, between the oKl and the new, between speculation ann in the negative as to the Trelawny Bill. On this issue he was defeated by the majority of the House, supported by all the members of the government except himself A very Important measure of this session was the establishment of a system of post-office savings banks. It had become notorious that the accommodations in England for small depositors were altogether Inadequate. Statistics showed that there were in England and Wales no more than six hundred savings banks of a kind to accommodate the humbler people. These were open to depositors only for a few hours twice a week. The project was conceived of making nearly three thousand post offices in the kingdom depositories for small savings. Mr. Gladstone took up this cause with his usual ability and introduced a bill known as the Post-office Savings Bank Bill. The management of the concern was to be given to the 3l6 LIKE AND TIMES OV \V 1 1 1 I A M E. GLADSTONE. postmaster-fjeneral, who was to be assisted by a body of commissioners. The postal depositories were to be kept open every day in the week e.xcept Sunda\- for ten hours a day. The government was to pay the depositors two and a half per cent on their deposits. It was believed that the system would support itself and jjerhaps yield a revenue ; but in case it should not do so the chancellor of the e.\chequer provided in his bill that any deficiency arising from this postal bank sjstein should be met out of what was called the Consolidated h'unil. The measure soon went into oijcralion and jM-oveil to be one of the most salutary economies that had ever becm invented. While Mr. Gladstone could not claim to be the originator of the system, to him might nevertheless be assigned the place of its principal author and promoter. Parliament in 1861 was seriously agitated by the condition of affairs in Italy. In that country a revolution was on in the full sense of the term. I'Vancis II, King of the Two Sicilies, inert, reactionary, oppressive, had been driven from his dominions in the previous jear. The patriots under the lead of Garibaldi were successful in their insurrection, and Victor Emmanuel was proceeding on the basis of the revolution to create a united Italy. His ambitions e.xtended to and included the State of Venice. In England there was great diversity of opinion as to whether the government should put itself in active sympathy with the revolutionary party or whether it should stand in favor with the past by supporting F'rancis II and the Pope of Rome. It was claimed that the jiolicy of the British government had been too active in favor of the national cause in Italy. This sentiment w^as voiced by a resolution introduced into the Commons on the 4th of March, 1861, by Mr. Pope Hennessy. In support of his resolution Mr. Hennessy attacked the government, praised the old order in Italy, and condemned the new. Hereupon a hot debate ensued. Mr. Layard replied to Hennessy in good set terms. He declared that the government was in accord with the senti- ments of the English people. For himself the cause of United Italy was his cause, in sympathy and hope. He was followed, however, by Sir George Bowyer, who renewed the attack on the governmental policy and attempted to show that that policy was only a continuation of the well-known purpose and predilection of Lord Palmerston for the Emperor of the French. In pursuance of that policy the government had come to shame and griet, and the European friends and allies of Great Britain had suffered much. The British flag was no longer the emblem of justice and honor throughout the earth. The friends of England had come to look upon her with distrust and dread. None now did her honor. None now followed her lead except the revolutionary party on the Continent, and that party was engaged only in overthrowing legitimate sovereigns and making a ruin of the peace of peoples. BUDGET OF 1 86 1 AND AMERICAN COMPLICATIONS. 317 To all this Mr. Gladstone spoke in answer with unusual cogency. He said that it was the excess of the debate which induced him to say anything. So far as Francis of Sardinia was concerned animadversions on that per- sonage might pass. Nor would he undertake an apology or defense of the British foreign minister; but when the criticisms of speakers extended unjustly to the policy of the government of Great Britain he would reply. Her majesty's government was in thorough accord with the English people, and they in accord with the government. It was charged that the foreign policy of England was unjust and dishonorable, also that her majesty's government was supporting an unjust cause in Italy. It had been said that the rising of the Neapolitans and Italians was a conspiracy of wickedness, headed by a crafty minister and an unscrupulous king. The constitutional administration and laws of Naples had been commended by the honorable gentleman who had preceded him. If the Constitution of Naples had any worth in it that worth was trodden in the mire by the King of the Two Sicilies and his party. Francis II, as well as his predecessor, Ferdinand II, had shamelessly overridden the Constitution and the laws, and had brought untold sufferings on the people. We had lived to hear Francis II praised in the British House of Commons ! It had been averred that he was a courageous king. That might be true ; but the courage required by the king and shown by him, as was said, in the casemates, where he was protected from the shells, at the siege of Gaeta, was, according to his (Mr. Glad- stone's) opinion, nothing in comparison with the courage of honorable gen- tlemen who, in the British Commons, the great arena of freedom, had the audacity to uphold the Neapolitan despotism. This flight was said by those who heard it to have thrown the House into such an uproar of applause that the speaker was unable for several minutes to proceed. He then went on to review the character of the papal eovernment in the States of the Church. He called attention to the out- raees and crimes which had been committed, if not under the sanction, at least under the toleration of that government. He was prepared with doc- uments and indisputable proofs to show that in Perugia and Modena crimes all the way frouT base favoritism to legal murders had been committed. As to the eeneral movement for a United Italy, it was not so much the praiseworthy sympathy of Great Britain and France, not so much the pop- ular revolt headed by Garibaldi, not so much the triumphant leadership of Victor Emmanuel, as it was the abuses and maladministration of Austria in Italy that had done the work. As to the character of the Italian revolution the speaker was ready to justify it in all its stages. He declared that never before had changes so great and important been effected with so little to raise a blush on the cheeks of those who promoted them. " They recall to my mind," said he, " the 3^8 LII-i: AM) TI.MKS OK WII.I.IAM K. GLADSTONE. wurds with which Mr. Fox grcettjd the first appearance of the French Revo- lution when he said that it was the most stupendous fabric that had ever been erected on the basis of Iniman integrity in any age or country of the world. -Sadly indeed was that prophecy falsified by subsequent events from causes which were not then suspected; but I believe the words were not far \ICTliR IMMAXUKI.. KIM; OF I lALV. from the truth at the time when they were spoken, and whether they were or not they are the simple and solid truth in their application to Italy. For long years have we been compelled to reckon Italy in its divided state — Italy under the friends of the Austrians, Italy the victim of legitimacy, Italy with a spiritual sovereigntv as its center — to reckon it as one of the chief sources of difficulty and disturbance in European politics. We are now coming to another time. The miseries of Italy have been the danger of Europe. The consolidation of Italy — her restoration to national life (if BUDGET OK 1861 AND AMERICAN CUM PLICATIONS. 3I9 it be the will ol' God to grant her that boon) — will be, I believe, a blessing as great to Europe as it is to all the people of the peninsula. It will add to the general peace and welfare of the civilized world a new and solid guarantee." The effect of this speech was so overwhelming that the mover and sup- porters of the resolution before the House did not press it to a vote. Other speakers followed, most of them in support of the governmental policy. Lord John Russell, the secretary for foreign affairs, against whom most of the animadversions had been directed, replied in conclusion, vindicating his policy, showing that it was a truly English policy, and that the country was in accord therewith. Later in this session of Parliament the question reappeared, and Mr. Gladstone made another short speech on the subject. He repelled the charge that Great Britain, through her ministry, had fomented the Italian insurrections. He repeated his charges as to the des- potism and criminality of the administration in Perugia and INIodena, and was able to fortify his assertions with indisputable proofs. Mr. Gladstone did not bringf forward his budg-et at this session until the 15th of April. The same interest was manifested on the occasion as hitherto, and the interest was not disappointed. The chancellor of the exchequer entered a full House, of which he commanded the confidence. Besides, there was a great throng of visitors drawn to his audience in expec- tation of a master effort. He came to his task with the same confidence and pleasing manner which the public had come to anticipate. There was thought to be a touch of natural pride in his demeanor, but no undue mani- festation of self-consciousness. On this occasion the chancellor of the exchequer began by a reference to a saying in Schiller's Mary St2iart,x}c\-dX if she had been in her time much hated she had also been much beloved. He applied this saying to the financial legislation of the year i860. That also had been much hated and much beloved. He acknowledged that the policy which he had introduced had been displeasing to many people ; but that policy had gained the con- fidence of the country more and more. He begged to revert once more ro the commercial treaty with France, and to call attention of the House to what that treaty involved. It involved the completion and perfection of the policy of free trade, extending that policy from Great Britain to her neigh- bors. The protective tariffs to which the people of Great Britain had been subjected had been removed. Nature during the last year had not been auspicious to England. The expenditures of the nation had been the largest that ever came in time of peace. The aggregate was more than seventy- three and a half million pounds; but he was able to report a balance in the treasury of eight hundred and twenty-two thousand pounds. He then reviewed the balances in a comparative way for several preceding years. 320 I.IFK AND TIMES OK \V I I.I.IA M • K. GLADSTONE. He presented the usual tletailcd statements of revenue, including the arti- cles on which the duties had been abolished, and showing how much loss had arisen from the changed policy of the government. In nearly every case the losses on the various articles had been much less than the estimates which he had presented to the House in i860. As to the e.xcises, he must , allow that there had been a deficienc\- in the aggregate duties on hops, malt, and distilled spirits of about a million and a half pounds. The speaker ne.xt gave the statistics of expenditure as far back as 1853, showing how the same had increased, the reasons of the increase, and the causes ol occa- sional deficiencies. The chancellor of the exchequt-r once more took up the question of the I'rench treaty. He showed the perfect concord ot that agreement and the legislation of Great Britain. He praised the French government for its "loyal, thorough, intelligent, unHinching determination" to carry out the new polic)-. That policy had gr(;atly improved the export trade of both countries. In Cireat Britain the exports had been increased by at least six million pounds in a single year. Imi)orts had also increased, particularly in the lines of those commodities from which the duties had been removed. The importation of grains had been more than doubled. The country instead of suffering from this had been greatly benefited. For the ensuing year Mr. (iladstone estimated the expenditure at sixty-nine million nine hundred thousand pounds ; the revenue at seventy- one million cieht hundred and twentv-three thousand pounds. It was not the disposition of the government to accumulate a surplus, but to reduce the rates of taxation. This might be safely done. He would recommend the remission of the tenth i)cnn)- of the income tax ; also the duties on tea and sugar, and the remaining duty on paper. He hoped that though he might not himself be able to accomplish everything in this direction that he aspired to do yet some future chancellor of the exchequer would accom- plish this result, and I)y so doing wouUl Iniikl himself an everlasting fame. He said that the remission of the penny in the income tax would reduce the revenue by eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The proposed remis- sion of the paper duty would amount to six hundred and sixty-five thousand pounds- but the ao-crreo-ate of the two o^reat reductions would still leave in the treasury a surplus of nearly half a million. Counting safelv on this surplus, the government might remit other minor burdens that commerce and industry were still bearing here and there. The treasury would soon be replenished with the Chinese indemnity, which would goto the credit of the revenues, and at the same time the expenses of the military establishment would be materially reduced by the withdrawal of the army from eastern Asia. As to the income tax, the tea tax, and the sugar tax, he would retain them one year. He congratulated the House BUDGET OF 1861 AND AMERICAN COMPLICATIONS. 32I that Great Britain was about to escape finally from the burdens of taxation she had borne so long. The country was no longer at war. True, there had been a season of blight such as hardly any living man could recollect ; " yet," said he, " on looking abroad over the face of England no one is sensible of any signs of decay, least of all can such an apprehension be felt with regard to those attributes which are perhaps the highest of all, and on which most of all depends our national existence — the spirit and courage of the country- It is needless to say that neither the sovereign on the throne, nor the nobles and the gentry that fill the place of the gallant chieftains of the Middle Age, nor the citizens who represent the invincible soldiery of Crom- well, nor the peasantry who are the children of those sturdy archers that drew the crossbows of Ensfland in the fields of France — none of these betray either inclination or tendency to depart from the tradition of their forefathers. If there be any danger which has recently in an especial man- ner beset us, I confess that, though it may be owing to some peculiarity in my position, or some weakness in my vision, it has seemed to me to be during recent years chiefly in our proneness to constant, and apparently almost boundless, augmentations of expenditure and in the consequences that are associated with them." We have remarked on the splendid bearing of Mr. Gladstone on the occasion of his formal appearances before the Commons. No other finance minister has ever had so great success in the presentation of his budgets and in the explication of them before an audience, the applause of one half of whom was well calculated to betray him to the hungry watchfulness of the other half. It has been claimed that his manner in presenting the budget of 1 86 1 was the acme of his achievement in this role of statesmanship. Never once on such occasions did he lose his balance ; never once surren- der his self-control. His ability to combine statistics with the pleasantries of familiar oratory and to make that the basis and concrete of a really splendid structure was, without doubt, greater than that of any other states- man of his century. On the occasion just described Mr. Gladstone concluded thus: "The spirit of the people is excellent. There never was a nation in the whole history of the world more willing to bear the heavy burdens under which it lies, more generously disposed to overlook the errors of those who have the direction of its affairs. For my own part I hold that if this countrj' can steadily and constantly remain as wise in the use of her treasure as she is unrivaled in its production, and as moderate in the exercise of her strength as she is rich in its possession, then we may well cherish the hope that there is yet reserved for England a great work to do on her own part and on the part of others, and that for many a generation yet to come she will continue to hold a foremost place among the nations of the world." 322 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. If the crovernmcnt of Lord Palmerston was now consolidated, if it was supported, as it was, by a majority of about fifty in the House of Commons, it was nevertheless confronted by a well-organized opposition, numbering much more than two hundred members. The belligerency of the English nature asserts itself powerfully in Parliament. Nothing goes unchallenged. There is nearly always an opportunity for an aspiring orator to make of himself the hero (or the fool) of the hour. The presentation of a budget almost invariably brings out a display of this kind. Not only is the leader of the opposition expected to say something in criticism of the plans pre- sented, but other members also may have their say. On the occasion just described an angry attack was made on the chan- cellor of the e.xchequer by the honorable Mr. Bentinck, who declared that the measures proposed were but a continuation of the lifelong policy of Mr. Gladstone against the interests of agriculture in Great Britain. It was a policy that might do well enough for trade, but Great Britain was a country, and not a shop. The budget was planned wath a cold-blooded indifference to the producing interests of British farmers and landlords. In the same strain spoke Lord Robert Montagu, also a representative of the landed interest. It could but be that the country squires of England should imagine themselves mortally hurt, or at least mortally insulted, wath the new scheme of political economy which confirmed /« toto the policy of Sir Robert Peel, virtually leaving all industries, all trades, and all con- cerns in the realm on the basis oi laisscz faire. To these attacks Mr. Gladstone made small allusion in his reph". To those criticisms, however, which were directed to his pet measure of the abolition of the duty on paper he spoke fully in answer. Of those who appeared as the champions of the paper interest Mr. Francis Thornhill Baring was the ablest and most infiuential. He argued strongly that unless there was to be a corresponding reduction of expenditures the House ought to refuse to enact the abolition of the paper duty. In the same strain spoke Sir Stafford Henry Northcote, who also commanded a following, and who in the next year amplified his views in a work called Trventy Years of Financial Policy. To the criticisms of these distinguished speakers Mr. Gladstone replied, demonstrating that the surplus which he had shown in the figures of his estimates was actual. He again went over the items of his table, and showed that the expectation which he had deduced therefrom was not only arithmetical and logical, but as much of a verity as anything could be which had in it a future contingency. He again traversed certain argu- ments which had been adhered to since the beginning of the agitation in favor of free trade. Finally he challenged the opposition, should there be a disposition to do so, to come to the direct test of a vote, or otherwise BUDGET OF 1 86 1 AND AMERICAN COMPLICATIONS. 323 allow that the debate was only a dallying expedient, wasting the time of the House of Commons. As for Mr. Disraeli, on this occasion, he was as cautious and adroit as usual. He did not directly attack the budget or challenge its merit by calling for a division of the House. He proposed, however, in a mild criti- cism, that any abolition of the indirect tax should not touch the existing duty on tea. But he was unable to prevail even in this small effort at a diversion, and the part of the budget calling for the continuance of the income tax was voted without a call of the House. Mr. Gladstone then went forward to demand that the tea tax and sugar tax, which he declared had been misnamed war taxes, should be extended for another fiscal year. He argued the point that the system of protection had already fallen before the advanced legislation of the period, and that it was now simply a ques- tion of temporary expediency in what manner the taxes referred to should be dealt with. As to an amendment which was before the House for the reduction of the tea duty to a shilling a pound, that could not be accepted, as it would destroy the very surplus which he had been able to show as the expected result of his scheme for the ensuing year. He held that the argument he was now presenting was entirely consistent with the policy which he had long advocated and harmonized even with the views of that prince of free traders. Sir Robert Peel. As between the retention of the tea tax and the abolition of the paper duty the former would stimulate foreign enterprise, while the latter would give an impetus to the home indus- tries of Great Britain. After further debate the plan of the chancellor of the exchequer was adopted without amendment. Mr. Gladstone in the management of his budget of 1861 adopted a new plan of procedure. Instead of offering as many bills as there were provi- sions to be covered in the budget, he prepared one bill only for the whole. He was moved to this course, no doubt, by the spirit which had been shown just previously in the House of Lords relative to the paper duty. The Lords had been able in that instance to negative a sinele clause of the budget without objection to other parts. Gladstone plainly intended by his new method to force the upper House to accept or reject the budget as a whole. This method, however, was also a restriction on the House of Com- mons. That body, as well as the upper House, was brought to the alterna- tive of accepting or rejecting the whole, under the provision of a single bill. The opposition was greatly excited over this turn in the ministerial policy. It was claimed that that policy was against the Constitution of Great Britain. It was a movement on the part of the House, said the opposition orators, to destroy one of the prerogatives of the House of Lords. Several violent speeches were made, the most inopportune of all being that of Lord 324 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Robert Cecil, destined after more than thirty years, under his title of the Marquis of Salisbury, to be Gladstone's successor in the office of prime minister. On the occasion referred to Lord Cecil charged the chancellor of the exchequer with having brought before the House of Commons a merely " personal budget," for which and for the promises of which there was no other pledge than the honorable gentleman's word. For his part he thought the budget such a document as might have emanated from the office of a county attorney. Aye, more than that, he was constrained to say that it would be an injustice to the county attorneys to suppose them capable of producing such a document ! So the harangue continued until the House was in the act of calling Sir Robert down. Episodes of this kind r;irely affected Mr. Gladstone's temper. His almost unvarying policy was to pass by personal attacks and to confine his speech to real issues, whether coming from his own side or from the opposi- tion. In the further discussion of the question he averred that his plan of covering the whole budget with a single bill was not without great and fre- quent precedents in the past usage of the House of Commons. He defied his critics to point to any constitutional provision that was violated by his method. More than this, the plan which he had proposed, of adopting or rejecting as a whole, was more accordant with the real Constitution of Great Britain — that ancient Constitution which had its roots deep down in Anglo- Saxon England — than was the more recent usage of dividing a proposition into many parts. In so far as the proposition referred to affected the House of Lords he was willing to defend that also as consistent with the Constitu- tion. "I think that Constitution," said he, "will be all the better for the operation. As to the Constitution laid down by my right honorable friend, under which there is to be a division of function and office between the House of Commons and the House of Lords — with regard to fixing the income and charge of the country from year to year, both of them being equally responsible for it, which means that neither would be responsible — as far as that Constitution is concerned, I cannot help sa)ing that in my humble opinion the sooner it receives a mortal stab the better." Meanwhile the veto of the abolition of the paper duty by the House of Lords, as hitherto narrated, came back for consideration in the Commons. Along this line of contention the opposition made its strongest rally. There was a fear that the attitude of the Lords would be so strongly supported in the lower House as to prevail. The principal speakers who appeared in the arena at this juncture were Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Mr Disraeli, Mr. Cobden, and Mr. Baring. The onus of the defense of the bill for the abolition of the duty rested most of all on Mr. Gladstone. He found occasion in the speech which he now made to support the authority of BUDGET OP 1861 AND AMERICAN COMPLICATIONS. 325 Cobden against that of Baring. No one could doubt, said he, that Mr.Cob- den was the best informed and most influential of those statesmen who had conduced to the present advanced commercial and industrial condition of Great Britain. That gentleman was therefore an authoritj- whose advice the House of Commons ought to heed. The repeal of the duty on paper, said the speaker, had come in the course of events. It was really a popular measure. The people of Eng- land had come to understand that the removal of such duties as that under consideration was in their interest. The opposition had taunted him with having become the champion of a system that had originated with the ultra radicals of the Manchester school. This the speaker denied. While he was in accord with Mr. John Bright in many of his principles and policies he did not fully agree with that gentleman's opinions. As to the doctrine of free trade — its general benefits as a commercial principle — his views and those of Mr. Bright harmonized. He did not doubt that the House would support him in the position which he now occupied, and thus complete vic- toriously the last act in the drama by which Great Britain was attaining her commercial freedom. The result proved it even so. The House voted with the chancellor of the exchequer, though the opposition succeeded in reducing the ministerial majority to fifteen. The bill, including the abolition of the duty on paper, was sent to the House of Lords, where it again encountered serious opposi- tion. It was not now the Earl of Derby, however, who led that opposition, but the Duke of Rutland. Lord Derby, who had hedged at the previous session, now became convinced that it was better that the House of Lords should not persist in opposition to the will of the nation. He accordingly refused to join the movement for a second rejection of the pending measure, but satisfied himself with the delivery of an ill-timed philippic against the chancellor of the exchequer. Thus the bill for the abolition of the duty on paper \\^'~, permitted to become a law ; and thus another of the ever-recur- ring questions between the two Houses of the British Parliament was adjusted to the satisfaction of the popular branch. As a part of the history of this epoch through which the life line of William E. Gladstone was distinct!)- drawn we may now revert to the American complication arising from the attitude taken by Great Britain toward our country at the outbreak of the civil war. The events of that day are quick in the memories of men still living. In what we shall here offer we shall, as it were, put ourselves in the position of Great Britain, in order to explain a crisis, the portent of which was dark enough to cast a shadow for a season over the best parts of the civilized world. In the first place, there was a great misunderstanding between England and America — between the peoples of the two countries. Great Britain 326 LIKE AND TlMliS OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. could not well realize that a nation, great and independent as herself, had been constituted west of the Atlantic under a republican form of govern- ment. She was ready to believe that such a nation would fall asunder at a touch. She was not greatly concerned to have it the one way or the other ; but her belief was that a large republic could not endure. In America exactly the opposite opinion prevailed. It prevailed so strongly that millions of brave men were willing to fight for it and die for it. America supposed that Great Britain would want her to survive. There was a moral conviction in the United States that England ought to be in sympathy and accord with an English-speaking race and nation on this side of the sea. The American people knew well enough that Great Britain had long pretended to be in favor of the abolition of slavery, and that she had supported a propaganda against the peculiar institution in the United States. Here now a great civil war had broken out, which Great Britain must per- ceive clearly enough to have originated from the institution of slavery. But, on the other hand. Great Britain was astonished to find the government of the United States making war, not — according to its own declaration — for the destruction of African slavery, but simply and solely to uphold and reestablish the Union ; that is, to force the Union back again on the seceded States. Great Britain thinks — has always thought — that she is the friend of the oppressed. It is not true that she is so, but so she believes. It is a good profession to make in that High Court of Casuistry which she has established and maintained for cemturies, as the final appeal in matters affect- ing the greater part of her political, social, and historical conduct. Great Britain is indeed the friend of the weaker party in all the States of the world, except one— herself When it comes to insurrection of any of her own subjects, with the prospect of losing territory and population by suc- cessful rebellion against the strong rule which she has laid upon them, then she is no longer the friend of the oppressed, the champion of the weaker side, the aveneer of the wrongs of those who suffer. Then she is the friend of order and trood trovernment ! Much of this spirit exists in America also. Our nation, in like manner, is the friend of insurgents and democrats and progressive freemen in all countries of the world except one — the United States. Nor is it difficult to see how the rebellion of the Confederate States would appear to be a heinous crime to the American people and at the .same time appear to be a justifiable resort to insurrection to the people of Great Britain. The fact is that among nations it is each one for itself We are not aware that the principles of a high philanthropy, of an unselfish humanity, of an altruistic moral code, have ever prevailed in such relations as those which existed between the United States and Great Britain in 1861. Each BUDGET OF 1861 AND AMERICAN COMPLICATIONS. 327 nation seeks its own aggrandizement and is not hurt at witnessing the calam- ities of others. To this add the pecuHar incidents of the great drama which was then enacting. We might well have been spared the ordeal which came with the arrest on the high sea, under the British flag, of Mason and Slidell. Cer- tainly Captain Wilkes, of the Sait yacinto, was in the right in that matter; but he was also seriously in the wrong. It was one of the most wrong-right actions of modern times. Perhaps only the great deed of John Brown at Harper's Ferry rises above it in that immortal wrong-righteousness which history strives in vain to understand and interpret. Then came the prodigious offense of Great Britain in opening her ship- yards for the fitting out of war vessels intended for the service of a navy that did not exist and that never could exist. The vessels in question were to become Confederate cruisers; that is, freebooters of the sea; that is, buccaneers and semipirates. To all this was added the wise but drawling correspondence of the American secretary of state. He had to explain everything and to argue everything. He admitted that the seizure of Mason and Slidell was wrong, and in the same communication proved that it ought to have been right ! Great Britain, with an unseemly and stupid animosity that refused to restrain itself for an hour, made haste to prepare for war, just as she had made haste to recognize the belligerency of the Confederate States. She went to hobnobbing with France on the question of recognizing the independence of the Confederacy. She did everything that was calculated to offend the sense of justice in the United States, and nothing to conciliate the good opinion of our people. Hurt indeed Great Britain certainly was by our civil war. Her com- merce with the Southern States was cut off. It was seen that if those States should be independent then British trade with the ports of the South would not only be reopened, but greatly increased. In the year i860 England had sent to America twenty millions of exports. All of this was now to be interdicted so far as the South was concerned by the Union blockade, and so far as the North was concerned was to be taxed with heavy import duties to the extent of becoming in many instances prohibitory. The city of Birmingham by this means was to lose nearly four million pounds on her export of cutlery to the United States. Our country, in order to raise revenues, turned quickly to protective tariffs. It was heavy duties on imports or nothing. In March of 1861 the London Times said : " The period between the election of the new Presi- dent [Lincoln] and the surrender of office by the old is a sort of interreg- num, in which it may be said all legislative and executive activity is para- lyzed. But, though unable to do anything for the cause of the Union, the Senate and the Congress have employed the interregnum to strike a second 328 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. blow at the commerce, the finance, and the general prosperity of the coun- try infinitely more fatal than any abstraction of territory or diminution of population. They employed the last weeks of what is probably the last session of the last Congress of the United States of America [How now, evil prophet?] in undoing all the progress that has been made in the direc- tion of free trade and in manacling their country once more in the fetters of a protection amounting to prohibition." We need not enlarge on these conditions and dangers. The peace of our country, already struggling to the death with the Confederacy, was seri- ously, imperiled with Great Britain. But historical causes helped us and the daneer was averted. The under man in Great Britain was on our side. Strange to narrate that in the very places where we should have e.xpected the orreatest animositv to our cause to exist there was the s:reatest friendli- ness, the greatest sympathy. In the swarming manufacturing centers, where the supply of cotton from America was cut off, and the sale of British manu- factured goods to our country destroyed by the disaster of our war, the people, notwithstantling their losses and sufferings, sympathized strongly with the national cause and hoped for the restoration of the Union. John Bright, as representative of these classes, was outspoken in his defense of the Union and the Union cause. Higher up in the circles of British life there was a certain policy which tended to the same end. When it came to the issue of recoQ^nizincr the Confederacy Great Britain was wary. Lord John Russell, the foreign secretary, hesitated to rush in and recognize something that might need defending. When Mason, the Confederate envoy to England, urged the recognition of the Southern States as a separate and independent power, Earl Russell replietl : " In order to be entitled to a place among the inde- pendent nations of the earth a State ought not only to have strength and resources for a time, but afford promise of stability and permanence. Should the Confederate States of America win that place among nations it might be right for other nations justly to acknowledge an independence achieved by victory and maintained by a successful resistance to all attempts to ' overthrow it. That time, however, has not, in the judgment of her majesty's government, arrived. Her majestj's government, therefore, can only hope that a peaceful termination of the present bloody and destructive contest may not be far distant." This could not be regarded as a highly philan- thropic view of the duty of one great nation to another, but it was highly prudential and conservative. On the whole, however, the government of Lord Palmerston, corre- sponding almost exactly in its time relations with the civil war in the United States, was not in sympathy with the Union cause, and was in sympathy with the Confederacy. The aristocracy of Great Britain anticl- BUDGET OF 1 86 1 AND AMERICAN COMPLICATIONS. 329 pated our national end, and wished to see it. As higli as the court this feeHng and sentiment prevailed. It can hardly be wondered, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone, chancellor of the exchequer, on whom the duty was devolved of providing the annual scheme for revenue, of guarding against deficits, of calculating accurately the expenditures of the kingdom, and all this on the peril ever present in the British House of Commons of being deposed from his place in case of failure, should follow the drift of his time and condition and commit himself almost fatally to the secession cause. That the statesman did so was perhaps the greatest break, the greatest misfortune, of his career. True, he recovered himself, and corrected his bearings, as he did in many other instances of less historical importance. But the sentiment with which he was regarded in America was greatly cooled by his attitude, and the end of the century and the close of his life could not witness the total extinction in the memories of old Union soldiers and their fellow-patriot civilians of the evil thing that William E. Gladstone said against us in the darkest days of our national catastrophe. True it is that he saw his well-planned budget of 1861 coming to grief under the evil results which fell on British commerce at the outbreak of the war. True it is that he could not view with equanimity the dreadful losses to the British revenues. He had to remember that the cutlery trade of Birmingham would be reduced three million eight hundred thousand pounds annually; that the American duties on the cotton goods of Manchester would virtually destroy that trade ; that the exports of Newcastle to our country would be stopped ; that the steel trade of Sheffield would be checked and the iron trade of Wolverhampton would be ruined. That all of this should annoy a chancellor of the exchequer and lead him into error may well be conceded as an explanation, but is hardly satisfactory as an apology for Mr. Glad- stone's attitude. It was in August of 1862 that he went to Newcastle, and delivered a speech which was heard on both sides of the Atlantic. It became memo- rable in both England and America. It was repeated with rising hope throughout the Confederacy, and read in gloom and wrath by the Union people of the great North. In this speech Mr. Gladstone declared that Jefferson Davis and his fellow-patriots had created a nation in a day. They had led the insurrection of the Southern States of America in their cause against the old government, and had made themselves independent. He spoke of the matter as though it were fait accompli. He went so far as to indicate the advantageous results which must arise to Great Britain. He echoed the sentiments of the London Times, showing how the Southern Confederacy would of course desire no better than to make Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans depots of English manufactures, "to be 330 LIFE AND TIMKS OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. smuggled across the long and imperceptible frontier which separates them from the United States." Such declaration gave great offense in the United States and for the time injured Mr. Gladstone's reputation in his own country. Many strong men in England never wavered in their conviction that the cause of the Union would ultimately prevail and that that cause should be supported with the active sympathy of England. Such were the views of John Bright, Richard Cobden, John Stuart Mill, Milner Gibson, William E. Forster, and the Earl of Clarendon. To this strong phalanx of statesmen and publicists Mr. Gladstone's utterance was almost as offensive as it was to the upholders of the Union cause in America, It could not be said that this unfortunate circumstance in Gladstone's career was ineffaceable. Time modifies much, and obliterates much more. After a lifetime, there is fortunately but little remaining bitterness in the hearts of any portion of the American people springing from the far-off boiling fountains of our bloody national tragedy. Besides, in Mr. Gladstone's case he had become, or was rapidly becoming, not only a liberal statesman, so called, but the great leader of the Liberal party. This word liberal has been a magic word in America. It has signified to the great majority of Americans all that is good and all that is prophetic in the public and social life of a nation. To be liberal in Gladstone's case was to be popular in the United States; the more liberal the better, from our point of view. His attitude on all questions of policy, whether national or international, after the period of the civil war, was greatly acceptable to a large majority of the American people. Meanwhile a new generation arose, knowing little of the old memory and score against the British statesman. They of this generation joined, therefore, with the greater number of their fathers in accepting the sobriquet of the "Grand Old Man," and of applauding him even to the doorway of his exit from the world. Mr. Gladstone was very far from failing to understand \\\?, fiiiix pas on the American issue. The event of our conflict, foreshadowing itself by the beginning of 1864, helped him to a clearer apprehension of his mistake. The criticisms of his own countrymen promoted the same favorable rectifi- cation of his judgment. Just five years after the Newcastle speech he made the avtcnde honorable as fully as possible, in a letter written to a friend, Mr. Cyrus W. Field, in New York city. In that communication, among other things, he said : "I must confess that I was wrong; that I took too much upon myself in expressing such an opinion. Yet the motive was not bad. My sympathies were then — where they had long before been, where they are now — with the whole American people. I probably, like many Europeans, did not understand the nature and working of the American BUDGET OF 1861 AND AMERICAN COMPLICATIONS. 33i Union. I had imbibed conscientiously, if erroneously, an opinion that twenty or twenty-four millions of the North would be happier and would be stronger (of course assuming that they would hold together) without the South than with it, and also that the Negroes would be much nearer to emancipation under a Southern government than under the old system of the Union, which had not at that date [August, 1862] been abandoned, and which always appeared to me to place the whole power of the North at the command of the slaveholding interests of the South. As far as regards the special or separate interest of England in the matter, I, differing from many others, had always contended that it was best for our interest that the Union should be kept entire." 332 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. CHAPTER XIX. Other Budgets of the Palmerston Regime. E come now to the subject of the budget of 1862. The same was presented to ParHament on the 3d of April in that year. The document was conservative, and was somewhat less elab- orate than its predecessor. Indeed, there was little occasion for the oratorical methods that the chancellor of the exchequer had hitherto employed ; for the new policy of Great Britain might now be reo^arded as an established fact, and need not be argued further. More- over, the circumstances were not such as to make Mr. Gladstone at all jubilant. The evil effects of the civil war in America were discoverable in the British revenues. The e.xports from our mother island to the United States had fallen off from twenty-one million six hundred and sixty-seven thousand pounds to nine million fifty-eight thousand pounds. Here was an appalling commercial loss of more than twelve and a half millions. Idle- ness in England had become enforced and distress a necessary consequence. Another bad harvest had supervened. Every large town and city in Great Britain swarmed with mendicants. London was overrun with them until the municipal provisions for the poor had to be supplemented Avith private charities and organized social aid. Nevertheless Mr. Gladstone came boldly and cheerfully to his task. He showed that the working of the commercial treaty with France had been salutary, and that the revenue from that source had increased by at least two million pounds. He regretted to say that there had been a correspond- ing increase in the expenditures. Certain supplementary grants of 1861 had to be added to the aggregate of expenses. A division of British troops had been necessarily retained in eastern Asia. It had become necessary to send a small army to Canada. The total expenditures for the fiscal year 1860-61 amounted to .seventy-two million five hundred and four thousand pounds. This had to be met with a revenue of sixty-nine million six hundred and seventy thousand pounds. The revenue had decreased by eight hundred and nine thousand pounds ; for the income tax had been reduced a penny a pound, and the abolition of the paper duty had involved a loss of six hun- dred and sixty-five thousand pounds. A change in the credits, or the system of credits, had left the treasury short a million a hundred and twenty-two thousand pounds on the score of the malt duty. It could nnt be said, however, that the revenues were actually declining. There had been an increase in the customs within nine months of four hun- dred and sixty-eight thousand pounds, being by that much in excess of the estimates. The reduction of the taxes on distilled spirits, hops, and paper OTHER BUDGETS OF THE PALMERSTON REGIME. T,^;^ had brought a loss of four hundred and fifty-six thousand pounds. Nor had the amount realized from the Chinese indemnity been as great as was antici- pated by two hundred and seventy-two thousand pounds. The total esti- mate of expenditure for the ensuing year was seventy million and forty thousand pounds, and the total revenue seventy million a hundred and ninety thousand pounds. This would bring the estimated expenditures within the estimated revenues, but would leave no considerable surplus. The government would run this risk rather than impose new taxes. The chancellor of the exchequer regretted to say that the existing taxes could not for the present be reduced ; but the reductions already provided for would relieve the people during the next fiscal year of not less than six hundred thousand pounds. The duties on spirits might remain as they were ; so also the duties on sugar. Nor would the speaker make any rec- ommendations as to a change in the case of malt. The wine trade had increased under the freer system of commerce. Nevertheless he suggested the raising of the scale of duty on certain wines, by which there would be a gain of fifteen thousand pounds a year. On the whole the budget was less elaborate and radical than was its predecessor, and the presentation of it somewhat less confident and spectacular. The existing condition of affairs gave full opportunity for criticism and assault. Mr. Disraeli was now able to make a direct attack. He began his speech as leader of the opposition with the charge that Mr. Gladstone had been profuse in his expenditures. He had repealed the duty on paper against the judgment of the House of Lords and the better judgment of the English people, and had thereby lost a million and a half pounds. He had done this for the sake of a barren triumph over the House of Lords. The chancellor of the exchequer had thought that the loss from the aboli- tion of the paper duty would be six hundred and fifty-five thousand pounds. As matter of fact it was eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Continuing his philippic Mr. Disraeli said : " The right honorable gen- tleman never proposes a vote — and it falls to him to propose the most pro- fuse votes that any minister in time of peace ever brought forward — he never does this without an intimation that he does not in his heart sanction the expenditure he recommends. . . . How is it that the party which preaches retrenchment and reduction — who believe all our estimates, especially the naval and military estimates, are much too extravagant — who are opposed to fortifications and who do not much like iron ships — how is it that this party always support a minister who is bringing forward these excessive estimates and who provides for this enormous expenditure ? Well, that is a great question. This at least we know, that while the spendthrift is weeping over pence — while this penurious prodigal is proposing this enor- mous expenditure — he always contrives to repeal some tax to gratify the 334 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. interests or prejudices of the party of retrenchment. No wonder, then, we hear no longer the same character of the income tax ; no wonder we are no longer reminded of that compact entered into by the House and accepted by the country for its gradual and permanent abolition. Unless the House expresses, on a fitting occasion, its opinion, there is very little hope of our obtaining any redress in this respect. . . . Who will deny that this position of affairs is peculiar and perilous .'' I remember some years ago, when the right honorable gentleman was at the head of a small party, not then absorbed in the gulf of Liberalism, that we heard much prattle about politi- cal morality. What then most distinguished the right honorable gentleman and his friends was their monopoly of that admirable quality. They were perpetually thanking God that they were not as other men, and always pointing their fingers at those unfortunate wights who sat opposite to them. Now we see the end of ' political morality.' We see the position to which political morality has brought the finance of a great nation. I denounce this system as one detrimental to the character of public men and most injurious to the fortunes of the realm." The speeches of Disraeli were never wanting in pith. Whether they were deduced from substantial fact, or evolved out of his own consciousness, they were equally shrewd, witty, and effective. On the present occasion he knew, perhaps, that it was useless to attack the provisions of the budget, and he was probably more concerned to make a dramatic and oratorical display than to accomplish any definite result. Gladstone in answer was able to remind the House that, as to the alleged extravagant expenditures in the matter of fortifications, he had him- self forewarned the Commons and protested against it. He again referred- to the alternative which had been before the House of removing the duty either on paper or on tea. Choosing the latter the loss to the revenues would have been much greater than choosing the former. As to the charge of profusion in expenditure brought by the leader of the opposition, that charge was more fit for himself than for the speaker. He said, in a tone approaching bitterness, that better men than himself had been vituperated by the right honorable gentleman who had preceded him. In this manner he went on to refute the charges made by his opponents. Sir -Stafford Northcote, who had been Mr. Gladstone's secretary when President of the Board of Trade under Sir Robert Peel, was answered in the same stiff and effective manner which the chancellor of the exchequer had employed against Mr. Disraeli. Sir Stafford had committed the indis- cretion of making a garbled excerpt from a speech delivered by Mr. Gladstone at Manchester, and the latter punished him by exposing and repudiating the false construction put upon his words. He continued the refutation till his opponents were silenced, and the bills covering the recom- OTHER BUDGETS OF THE PALMERSTON REGIME. OOO mendations of the budget were passed by the House and sent for approval or disapproval to the Lords. Once more the Italian question flared up in the Commons. The par- ticular champions of the old order in Italy were, as we have seen before, Sir George Bowyer and Mr. Pope Hennessy. The former sought to make himself the champion of the papal interest and the latter to display his powers as an advocate of political reaction and general Bourbonism in Europe. When Parliament was about to adjourn, in April of 1862, these gentlemen sought strenuously to evoke the sympathy, or at least the atten- tion, of the House to the cause for which they were anxious to plead. It seemed astonishing, in consideration of the fact that the revolution in Italy had already abolished the old order and substituted the new, that English parliamentarians should still hug the delusion of dethroning the present, bastardizing the future, and reinstating the past. The effort of the gentle- men referred to provoked little else besides derision in the House, but furnished an opportunity to Mr. Gladstone to speak effectively and conclu- sively in answer to their evil prophecies. In the first place the chancellor of the exchequer said that there was a serious general objection to the discussion of the internal affairs of Italy in the British House of Commons. The two countries were at peace. There was no reason to break the peace or to mar it. Each nation had its own concerns, its own rights, and its own destiny. If the question were international instead of national then it might be a proper theme of discus- sion in Parliament, but it was not international. He characterized the speech of Sir George Bowyer as an astonishing example of the power of paradox. The honorable gentleman had seemed to play upon the credulity of the House. The speech to which they had just listened was an astound- ing example of that kind of address which could be built upon alleged facts. Sir George Bowyer had related marvels which would be regarded by the House as marvels, and no more ! He might cite a particular instance in the case of the downfall of the late kingdom of the Two Sici- lies. " My honorable and learned friend," said Mr. Gladstone, with some sarcasm in his tone, " was so kind as to ascribe to me some infinitesimal share in removing from the world the sorrow and iniquity which once oppressed that unhappy country. I should take it as a favor if the charge were made truh', but I claim or assume no such office. Here is a country which my honorable and learned friend says is, with a few miserable excep- tions amongst the middle classes, fondly attached to the expelled dynasty, and what happened there .-* An adventurer. Garibaldi, clothed in a red shirt, and some volunteers also clothed in red shirts, land at a point in the peninsula, march through Calabria, face a sovereign w-ith a well-disciplined army of thirty thousand men and a fleet probably the best in Italy, and 33^ LIKE AM) TIMES OE WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. that sovereign disappears before them like a mockery king of snow ! And yet such is the power of paradox that my honorable and learned friend still argues for the affectionate loyalty of the Neapolitans, as if such results could have been achieved anjwhere save where the people were alienated from the throne." In this manner Mr. Gladstone continued to throw larger shells into GARIBALDI ADDRESSING THE ITALIAN PARLIAMENT. the enemy's camp than were needed for its demolition. Sir George Bow- yer had very inaccurately complained that the revolutionary results in Italy, that is, United Italy, had not been recognized by the continental powers, w-ith the exception of France, and that, subserviently following the lead of France, Great Britain had acknowledged the kingdom of Italy. This was so far from the well-known facts as to create derision in the House. Glad- stone replied that, admitting the correctness of the honorable gentleman's OTHER BUDGETS OF THE PALMERSTON REGIME. 2)37 history, it was nevertheless sufficient that England and France should recognize a new State to make it so ! The speaker said that not only did he approve the things thus far accomplished by the revolution in Italy, but that he also hoped to see that revolution move forward with steady strides until the Eternal City should fall before it. He cherished this hope because he desired the peace of Europe and the humanizing of mankind. He spoke in urgent criticisni of the policy of the pope in attempting to prolong a temporal power which history no longer recognized. The papal claim was inimical, not only to the Italians, but in a sense to all Europe. As for Italy, that great power was marching on to a high rank among the nations. He declared that he had no hesitation in saying that he believed it a special part of the duty and mission of her majesty's govern- ment to be the true expositor and reflex of the sentiment of the people of England on a question of so great importance as that of the revolution in Italy. He believed that this view would tend to preserve a high and sacred principle of British polity and at the same time promote the future tran- quillity of Europe. " I believe, too," said he, " so far as the judgment of England is concerned, never was that judgment pronounced on any public question at home or abroad with greater unanimity or clearness, and that there will not be any chapter of the life of my noble friend [Lord Palmer- stonj on which Englishmen will probably dwell with greater satisfaction than that in which it shall be recorded that, not now alone, but for many years past, before the question had arisen to the magnitude of its present position, through evil report and through good report, he sustained and supported the cause of Italy." We may here dismiss the Italian question from further consideration. The revolution headed by Garibaldi and organized into victory by \'ictor Emmanuel worked out its own salutary results. Rome did fall before the movement, and became the capital of United Italy. The new order con- firmed itself and was recognized throughout Europe and the world. Nor is it likely that the Italian transformation was either greatly promoted or seriously retarded by the attitude of the other European powers with respect thereto. The movement was born of conditions that were south of the Alps. The age was ripe for the great change by which the dissevered and hostile fragments of Italy were aroused from their petty localisms and fused into one, under the enthusiasm of a common cause. Mr. Gladstone never lost his hold upon the general confidence and admiration of his fellow-countr\men. He was a popular man, antl was in tlemand by society for many ends and aims that were not political. His life was peculiarly happy in the invitations which he received and accepted to participate in the social and moral affairs of England. An instance of this kind, belonging to the year 1862, was the part which he was called to 338 LIFE AND TIMKS OF WII.I.IAM E. GLADSTONE. take as spokesman in the presentation of a memorial to the tragedian Charles John Kean, son and successor of the great Edmund Kean, on the English stage. The popularity and influence of the younger Kean rivaled but did not equal that of his father. His reputation was enhanced by his marriage, in 1842, with the distinguished actress Ellen Tree, who shared with him afterward his histrionic honors, much as in the case of the Ken- dalls in our own day. There was something peculiarly appropriate in the choice of Mr. Glad- stone as speaker on the occasion of the testimonial. A silver service of great value and beauty had been subscribed by the fellows and students of Eton, of which school Mr. Kean, as well as Gladstone, was a graduate. The ceremony took place in St. James's Hall. It had been intended that the Duke of Newcastle, also an Etonian, should make the presentation address; but that statesman, having been called to attend the queen, could not per- form the duty assigned, which was assumed, on invitation, by Mr. Gladstone. His speech was pleasing and appropriate. He praised Mr. Kean as one of those actors who had done much to preserve the dignity and classical character of the English stage. He had been a promoter of the Shakes- perean revival, and had contributed a powerful influence to rescue dramati- cal representations from buffoonery and immorality. The recipient had been single-minded in the prosecution of his professional career. All England admired him, and he (Mr. Gladstone) cherished the hope that other actors would imitate his great and salutary example. We need not dwell at length upon the budget presented by Mr. Glad- stone at the session of 1863. It is to be noted, however, that his policy, fairly instituted only three years before, by this time began to show its beneficial effects on the revenues of the kingdom. Notwithstanding all the drawbacks of the time and circumstances the chancellor of the exchequer was now able to show a surplus over expenditures. This fact was seen to foretoken another contest in Parliament ; for a surplus alwajs suggests to the British mind the reduction of taxation. Whatever else may be said of the Briton, he is a good economist. One of his most striking peculiarities is his dislike of taxation. Having the constitutional right of taxing himself he exercises that right as sparingly as possible. And why should he not ? Man, being human, does not care to give something for nothing. We must allow that the greater part of the enormous taxes in civilized nations are in the nature of something for nothing; that is, so far as the people are concerned. At the juncture of which we speak the two forms of taxes most likely to be assailed were the income tax and the duty on tea. Opposition to these two forms of rating the people arose from the opposite extremes of British society. The aristocracy hated the income tax, and the people hated the tax on tea. OTHER BUDGETS OF THE PALMERSTON REGIME, 339 It was on the i6th of April, 1863, that Mr. Gladstone appeared in the House with his budget for that year. In beginning his statement he referred to the absorbing interest which his former documents had possessed, on account of the pecuHar circumstances out of which they had been pro- duced. He called attention to the fact that it had been the purpose of the House and the country that certain extraordinary expenditures incurred in the last few years on the score of the national defenses should cease at the earliest practicable date. To this effect the House of Commons had passed a resolution. The government was now prepared to make its answer to the demand of the country. The speaker said that in three years, from 1858 to 1861, the national expenditures had increased more than eight million pounds. This increase was traceable to the charge for fortifications. Including that charge the present annual aggregate of expenditure was seventy-one million a hun- dred and ninety-five thousand pounds. He then traced the gradual rise in this aggregate for several preceding years, extending his calculation as far back as 1853. The speaker said that it had been necessary in accordance with the will of the nation to improve the national defenses. He was con- fident that her majesty's government had not overstepped the public wish in this matter. Following the sentiment of the nation the treasury had been hard pressed for at least four years. He was now prepared to present a more pleasing prospect for the finances. There were certain circumstances, however, which must still be regarded, such as the hardships of the people in Lancashire. The people of that prov- ince were true Englishmen. Among them were to be seen the symbols and tokens of English progress and greatness. There, too, might be seen the evidences of moral strength. There had been hardship and suffering aris- ing from commercial and industrial conditions ; and out of the hardship great and salutary lessons might be learned. The power of endurance under distress could not be too highly commended. The manufacturing material of the artisans of Lancashire had so increased in price as to close the factories. Cotton had advanced in a single year from eightpence to two shillings a pound. It seemed impossible for the prosperity or even the comfort of a manufacturing center to be maintained under such conditions. There was similar hardship in Ireland. The agricultural interests in that country were greatly depressed. Within a period of seven years prod- ucts had fallen off by nearly a third of the whole. All of these troublous and distressing conditions had impaired the revenue. Mr. Gladstone thought that for the ensuing fiscal year the expenditures would amount to sixty- seven million seven hundred and forty-nine thousand pounds; and the rev- enue he estimated at seventy-one million four hundred and ninety thousand 340 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. pounds. This showed a balance in favor of the treasury of three milhon seven hundred and forty-one thousand pounds. Mr. Gladstone then went on to deal with the question of the surplus. How should the surplus be applied.'' Prima facie there would be an expec- tation of a large reduction in taxation. The House must, however, consider certain anomalous conditions by which the treasury was bound. He thought it well in the first place to raise the duty on chicory so as to prevent the adulteration of coffee with that article. He thought that clubs, being large consumers of spirits, ought to pay thereon the same duties as were paid by the keepers ot hotels and coffee houses. Those who held licenses to sell beer under the general provisions of a license to sell distilled spirits should pay for an additional license. As to wholesale dealers, he recommended that they might, under a general license of one pound, be permitted to sell in quantities or packages of less than two dozen bottles. Common carriers might be permitted to ply their vocation under license costing one half as much as that charged for the stage-carriage licenses. Railways ought to be charged a general rate of three and a half per cent for all their traffic, including excursion trains. He recommended the equaliza- tion of duties on legacies, whether in Ireland or in England; also that endowed charities should not be exempt from the provisions of the income tax, though the buildings and grounds of such institutions should still have the benefits of exemption. More particularly the chancellor of the exchequer recommended the abolition of the duty of one penny on packages of goods, and also the duty of one shilling sixpence on each bill of lading. He proposed in the next place to set free all incomes between one hundred pounds and two hundred pounds. As to the great question of a reduction of the taxes on tea and sugar, he thought that it would be better to strike off the duty on one of the articles rather than to reduce it on both. He therefore recommended a reduction of one shilling a pound in the duty on tea, whereby he thought the revenue would be decreased for the ensuing year by a million three hun- dred thousand pounds. The loss from the reductions in the income tax would be about two million three hundred and fifty thousand pounds annually. Besides this he would recommend that the general rate of tax- ation be reduced by twopence the pound. From these several items he would secure a total relief to the taxpayers for the ensuing year of three million three hundred and forty thousand pounds. This he thought he might accomplish and still have a working surplus of about four hundred thousand pounds for the following year. After this Mr. Gladstone again reviewed the history of the revenues and expenditures of Great Britain during the period of his incumbency in office. In several matters he went back further, adducing many facts of OTHER BUDGETS OF THE PALMEKSTON REGIME. 34I interest to the House and the people of Great Britaui. He was able to make a favorable comparison between the financial progress of the country and that of other nations. He urged that it was the business of a finance minister in making his annual reports to keep ever in view the honor, the interests, and security of the country; "and next to that honor," said he, " those interests and that security, the deliberate judgment given by the House of Commons in the last session of Parliament. But, subject to these considerations, as I trust I may also say both on my own behalf and on that of my colleagues, it is to us a matter of additional satisfaction, after reading the eloquent denunciation of the finance minister of France, if, while we submit a plan which offers no inconsiderable diminution of the burdens of the people, we can also minister ever so remotely to the adoption of like measures in other lands ; if we may hope that a diminished expenditure for England will be construed across the Channel as the friendly acceptance of a friendly challenge, and that what we propose, and what Parliament maybe pleased to accept, may act as an indirect, yet powerful, provocative to sim- ilar proceedings abroad. Gratifj'ing it must ever be to the advisers of the British crown that the British people should enjoy an alleviation of their burdens; but, over and above the benefit to them, and the satisfaction to us, there will be a further benefit, and a further pleasure, if we may hope that we are allying ourselves with, and confirming such tendencies as may exist elsewhere on behalf of peace, of order, and of civilization, and that we are assisting, in however humble a degree, to allay unhappy jealousies, to strenirthen the sentiments of eood will, and to brincr about a better and more solid harmony among the greatest of the civilized nations of the world." So far as the budget of 1863 proposed the removal of a part of the income tax and the duty on tea it commended itself to the House and the country. If the men of large incomes were in a frame of mind to applaud the favor to their interest then certainly the man who drank tea might applaud — he and his family. As to the aristocratic clubs of London and other great cities, they raised a clamor, after their manner, against that part of the budget which recommended a license to each club for the sale of liquors in the same manner as for hotels and coffee houses. After a good deal of hot discussion in the House, and a still more furious uproar among the swells of the clubhouses, Gladstone reluctantly assented to the with- drawal of his proposition. His recommendation, however, to tax the clubs for their drinks, or for the privilege of them, was by no means the occasion of so great odium as was the recommendation to remove the exemption of charitable donations from the reach of taxation. This might well provoke an outcry and wail throughout the kingdom. While the budget was still before the House there came up a tremendous deputation, headed by the Archbishop of Can- 342 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. terbufA, the Earl of Shaftesbun', and the Duke of Cambridge, to intercede with Mr. Gladstone on the score of the impolicy and inhumanity of taxing the endowments of charitable institutions. Certainly the chancellor of the exchequer had to face a formidable array. He might well have been influenced by such an appeal from such a committee ; but he calmly heard and as calmly answered the delegation that their representations should be properly heard by the House of Commons and the country-, but that he should state to the House the grounds upon which he had made his recom- mendation, and then leave the representatives of the people to decide the question at issue. It appears that this movement against what Mr. Gladstone conceived to be a measure of justice aroused him to the point of strong controversy with his adversaries. He went into the House of Commons and defended his measure with great vehemence and ability. He said that he knew well how his proposition had been received and that he fully appreciated the outer)- that had been raised against him. He believed the measure to be wise and prudent, and was little disposed to recede from his position, but was willing to accept the adverse judgment of the Commons if such judg- ment should come. He was sure that there was a misapprehension as to the intent of the measure which he had recommended. What was the exemp- tion which he wished to have removed .' He assured the House that nineteen twentieths of the charitable endowments to which his measure was directed were deathbed bequests made by the rich as memorials of themselves, in the hour of their going forth, with a view to exempting their posthumous estate from the equitable burdens of taxation. Why should the privilege be thus extended to a man to immortalize himself as the founder of a charity-, under a system that gave him the power thus to withdraw his prof>ert\- in toto from the common provision of prop- erty, namely, that it should be taxed for the public good .' He showed that the actual loss to the revenues on the score of this exemption was two hun- dred and sixteen thousand pounds a year. Besides this it cost the govern- ment fort\--five thousand pounds annually to administer properly on the bequests thus made to charities. He was sure that the whole loss to the treasury- of England by this memorial business was hardly less than a half a million pounds annually. He then proceeded to classif)- the charitable endowments, dividing them into three groups, according to their magnitude. He showed that in the group embracing the small charities there was scarcely a trace of virtue or etficienc)'. On three separate occasions the condition of these charities had been investigated and adversely rejwrted by commissioners sent out by the House of Commons. It had been proved conclusively that the tendency of such institutions was to convert thousands of people into paupers and to reclaim none. The tendency was to weaken OTHER BUDGETS OF THE PALMERSTON REGIME. 343 poor people on the border line of want, to destroy their independence, and to make them beg^gars. In the middle group Mr. Gladstone put those charitable endowments of which the proceeds were distributed in money. He called attention of the House to the abuses which arose, full fledged and naturally, out of such provisions. Finally he showed that the great charities endowed in the man- ner above described were set up for the benefit and glor)' of their patrons rather than for the relief and promotion of those to whom the proceeds were said to be directed. He declared that he had not recommended the removal of the exemption of the endowed charities because the treasury had need of such a measure, but he had made the recommendation because justice demanded it. He would not revert to the clamor which had been raised outside, to the animadversions which had been indiscreetly and unjustly applied to the recommendation he had had the honor to offer. Nor was he the originator of the project to make the endowed charities bear their part of the public burden. A former chancellor of the exchequer (meaning Sir George Cornewall Lewis) had supported and promoted a like measure. '■ We do not," said Mr. Gladstone, " presume as a government by any means which a government might dream of to press it [the above recommenda- tion] on an adverse House. The House is responsible ; we do not wish to show undue obstinacy ; we defer to its opinions ; we reserve to ourselves the power of deciding upon the way in which this question is at a future time to be considered. We have proposed this measure to the House as consistent with ever)- principle which has governed administration for the last twenty years ; as being just to the taxed community and fair to the laboring poor ; favorable to the great object of elevating their character as well as of improving their condition. In proposing this measure we feel ourselves impregnable and invulnerable to all rude reproaches, and we rec- ommend it to the courage, the wisdom, and the justice of the House of Commons." There could not be much doubt of the general truth, the substantial correctness, of this argument ; but in the political world the naked truth rarely prevails in a contest with expediency. Many members of the House of Commons, who understood well enough the essential justice of Mr. Glad- stone's recommendation, quailed before the outer}' which they knew would be raised against the promotion and the promoters of such a measure. They perceived that they who should vote against it, whatever might be their convictions, would get themselves armed with clubs and swords against those who favored the proposition pending. So with the progress of debate and the elevation of expediency, Mr. Gladstone, though upheld by the cab- inet and defended in particular by Lord Palmerston, decided to withdraw — and did withdraw — his measure from further consideration. 344 •I'^E AND TIMKS OF WILLIAM K. (JLAUSTOXE. No further, however, could the chancellor of the exchequer be driven. There were those who believed and hopetl that the remission proposed in the income tax might be carried further. Among these was Mr. Hubbard, who presently moved, " That the incidence of an income tax touching the products of invested property should tall upon net income, and that the net amounts of industrial earnings should, previous to assessment, be subject to such an abatement as may ecpiitabh- adjust the burden thrown u[)on intelli- gence and skill as compared with property." Mr. Hubbard was not alone in his advocacy of the \iews expressed in his resolution ; but the chancellor of the exchequer declared that the method suggested by the mover of the resolution was only a shift and a substitution, which, if conceded, would work out no beneficial results. He then informed the House that the committee of which Mr. Hub- bard was a member had rejected this very proposition and that the House had passed the same judgment upon it at the previous session. He demon- strated that those who were to be favored by the resolution just offered were precisely those who, on account of the rapid increase in their fortunes, were least needful and deserving of an advantage. On the other hand, those who were really in need of favor under the provisions of the income tax were not touched by Mr. Hubbard's resolution. The speaker admitted that there was a sentiment quite natural in its origin favorable to such a motion as that proposed ; but it was not practicable to put such a sentiment into law. Abstract principles could not often be brought into the statute for the prac- tical relief of the public. Thus the debate ended, and the resolution was rejected. At this session of the House was introduced a measure called The Dissenters' Burials Bill. The resolution proposed to give to Nonconform- ists the right of performing their funerals with the ceremonies and services of their own religion and b\- ministers of their own faith, but in the ceme- teries of the Established Church. The proposed bill was offered by Sir Morton Peto, and brought out in full heat the hostility of the opposition. Speeches w^ere made by Mr. Disraeli and by Lord Robert Cecil, afterward Earl of Salisbury. Mr. Gladstone gave a qualified indorsement to the pro- posed measure, saying that he could not see any sufficient reason, or indeed any reason at all, why, after having granted, and most properly granted, to the entire community the power of professing and practicing what form of religion they pleased during life, Parliament should say to them, or to their relatives, when they were dead, " We will at the last lay our hands upon you and not permit you to enjoy the privilege of being buried in the church- yard, w-here, perhaps, the ashes- of your ancestors repose, or, at any rate, in the place of which you are parishioners, unless you appear there as mem- bers of the Church of Eneland, and, as members of that Church, have her OTHER BUDGETS OF THE PALMERSTON UfeOIME. 345 service read over your remains." " That," said Mr. Gladstone, " appears to me an inconsistency and an anomaly in the present state of the law, and is in the nature of a grievance." To the American reader this argument is so obvious that he cannot well understand that it should have been objectionable in England. But so strongly was the England of the first years of the seventh decade wedded to her Church Establishment that anything which seemed to intimate an abatement of her rights and prerogatives was resisted and resented. Mr. Gladstone's view was such an intimation. It was not indorsed by the gov- ernment, and the resolution of Sir Morton Peto was rejected by a large majority. We may here refer to one other measure of importance which was debated at the same session of Parliament. It had been determined to pro- mote with governmental support the International Exhibition at South Ken- sington. The House of Commons took up the measure with considerable enthusiasm and made an appropriation of a hundred and twenty-three thou- sand pounds for the purchase of the grounds necessary as a site for the exhibition buildings. In the next place a proposition was introduced for an appropriation to purchase and retain the building itself Mr. Gladstone, acting for the government in the absence of Lord Palmerston, who was now rapidly approaching the end of his days, proposed a resolution for the pur- pose mentioned. The measure included an appropriation of a hundred and five thousand pounds lor the purchase of the buildings at Kensington and for making in them certain alterations. He told the House that the proposition was to be regarded as an item of business. He thought that the present appropri- ation logically followed the one recently voted for the purchase of grounds. It would be illogical, after purchasing the grounds, not to make provision for the requisite building. He said that the government had already offered eighty thousand pounds to certain contractors for the work contemplated. The bill provided for an additional twenty-five thousand pounds to keep the buildings in repair and for completing them. The public wants as it respected the building were to provide a national portrait gallery, a patent museum, and a hall of natural history for the collections of the British Museum. These propositions seemed obvious enough, but for some reason a whirl of opposition came on in the House, amounting to an uproar. From the American point of view it would appear that the members came all at once to suspect that there was a job lurking in the measure before the House. Some of the leaders of the opposition rather generously sought to support the ministerial proposition, but the effort was futile. The prejudice of the House rose so high that Mr. Gladstone's resolution, although emanating from the government, was voted down by a large majority. 346 LIKE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. By the close of the year 1863 the premonitions might be seen of great changes that were impending in the party life of Great Britain. The government still seemed to hold the confidence of the majority; but that it was growing old could not well be denied. Perhaps the ministers no longer concealed from themselves the fatal truth that their days in office were numbered. If there could be any exception to this general apprehension of the evil to come it was in the case of Mr. Gladstone, who by this date had become by far the tallest member of the ministerial order. He was so regarded in governmental circles and among the opposition. The ster- ling qualities of his character were now recognized by all, and time and cir- cumstance seemed to conspire in ratifying his methods and policies as a statesman. His financial management had been superb. The year 1864 came in under favorable auspices. Financial and commercial prosperity had returned. The trade of the nation had gone forward with rapid strides. The expenses of the government had fallen below and the revenues above the estimates of the chancellor of the exchequer, insomuch that the chief question arising in the finance office was how to dispose of the surplus. It was on the 7th of April, 1864, that Mr. Gladstone brought forward his budget for that year. The document was in the same manner as its pre- decessors. The same intense interest was manifested in the budget and in the explication thereof by its author. His friends were disposed to believe that the public enthusiasm relative to the formal appearance of the chan- cellor of the exchequer in this year was greater than ever before. It may not be doubted that he himself came to the task of the day in full confi- dence and with a proud sense of the showing which he was able to make in the finances of the richest government ever created by man. Mr. Gladstone began his financial oration by calling attention to the 'previous condition of the country. He spoke of the years of hardship that had just gone before, of the failure of the crops, of the suffering in the agri- cultural districts of Ireland and in the manufacturing districts of England. This, he was glad to say, had in great measure passed away. The condition of the country had improved in a marked degree. The improvement in the finances was conspicuously gratifying. The expenditures for the fiscal year had been sixty-seven million fifty-six thousand pounds, being less by a million and a quarter than had been estimated and provided for by Parlia- ment. The revenue had risen above the estimate, amounting to seventy million and three thousand pounds. There was thus a surplus of three mil- lion pounds in round numbers. Even after deducting the heavy expense of improving the fortifications of the kingdom there was a surplus of more than two million pounds. Within three years, the chancellor said, there had been a saving to the taxpayers of England of more than six and a half million pounds. The OTHER BUDGETS OF THE PALMERSTON REGIME. 347 falling off in the revenue from the abolition of duties had been only one million seven hundred and sixty thousand pounds. He was thus able to show an aggregate saving to the people of Great Britain of about five mil- lion pounds. For ten years past the revenues had been increasing at the average rate of more than a million a year. The government had been able to turn its attention to the payment of the national debt. In the past eight years the debt had been decreased by sixty-nine million pounds. The management had been such as to reduce the annual interest by about six million pounds. Recently the treasury had taken up and canceled a mil- lion of exchequer bonds. There had also been paid out over a million in discharge of what were called the terminable annuities. Mr. Gladstone next turned to the topics of the imports and exports of the nation. These showed for the year an aggregate of nearly four hundred and forty-five million pounds. The exports for the preceding year were a hundred and ninety-five million pounds. The speaker pointed out the fact that the commercial transactions of the nation thus amounted to nearly a million and a half pounds for each working day of the year. These totals of trade were so greatly in excess of anything hitherto known in the history of Great Britain as to point unmistakably to the new commercial policy of free trade as the source of the vast augmentation of British com- merce. The same fact indicated the general prosperity of England. At one point Mr. Gladstone seemed to be hard pressed in holding his position. The statistics showed that the importation of foreign paper had increased enormously since the reduction in duty on that commodity. It looked as though the argument made on the rag question by his opponents at the previous session of Parliament were about to be established by facts, but Mr. Gladstone denied that the increase in the importation of paper, though very great, had been attended with a corresponding decrease in the paper manufacture of Great Britain. That, he contended, was not in evi- dence. He could show, moreover, that there had been a great increase in the demand for the raw material of paper, and also that British paper was exported in large quantities ; also that the price of paper had fallen even below the ficrures indicated in his estimate ; also that the recent law had prevented the further diminution in the number of paper makers in Eng- land ; also that the cost of making paper had been reduced — and that, therefore, taken all in all, the abolition of the paper duty had worked the same salutary results which had been reached in all other departments by the removal of the restrictions on trade. Finally he informed the House that France was moving in the proper direction with a proposed reduction or abolition of the duty on rags. This done, the equipoise of trade in paper would be perfectly restored. As to the duties on spirits, the revenue from that source had increased 348 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. by more than eight hundred thousand pounds. At the same time the exportation of spirits was greater than hitherto. The benefit in this direc- tion had extended to a social and moral aspect of the case. There was a smaller consumption of strong liquors and a greatly increased consumption of wines and light drinks. More wine was used in England by fifty-five per cent than had been consumed five years previously. The tobacco trade had improved. As between England and France, the imports from the latter country had increased in five years a little more than a hundred per cent, while the exports from England to that country had increased about a hundred and forty per cent. Meanwhile the social as well as the industrial and commercial condition of the people had been improving, as was clearly shown in the decrease of vagrancy and pauperism. Passing to the present and the future, Mr. Gladstone next gave his estimates for the fiscal year 1864-65. He placed the revenue at sixty-nine million four hundred and sixty thousand pounds, and the expenditure at sixty-six million eight hundred and ninety thousand pounds. This he thought would afford the treasury for the next year a net surplus of about two million five hundred and sixty thousand pounds. This suggested a further reduction in taxation ; that is, in the duties on articles of public consumption. For his part he believed that sugar was the ne.xt commodity from which the duty should be removed. He thought that there should be a scale of duties adjusted to tlie different grades of sugar, and that this should be arranged in a manner to interfere as little as possible with the importers and dealers in the article. On the whole the speaker would reduce the average rate on sugar by one shilling the hundredweight. This would diminish the revenue by about a million seven hundred thousand pounds ; but the increase in the sugar trade would be such as to make the diminution about a million three hun- dred and thirty thousand pounds. The remaining surplus of a million two huiulretl and thirty thousand pounds he thought pointed to a further reduc- tion In the income tax. It might be suggested that the duty on malt should be reduced instead, but he thought otherwise. He should recom- mend that the Income ta.x be subjected to a further reduction of one penny the pound. From this source the revenue would be reduced for the ensuing year by about eight hundred thousand pounds, and for the fol- lowing year by a million two hundred thousand pounds. The last-named reduction would still leave a surplus in the treasury of four hundred and thirty thousand pounds for the year 1864-65. As against this he would recommend a reduction in the rate of fire insurance of one half; that is, from three shillings to one shilling sixpence on stock in trade. By this reduction the surplus, he thought, would be cut down to about two hundred and thirty-eight thousand pounds — a sum which the OTHER BUDGETS OF THE PALMERSTON REGIME. 349 chancellor of the exchequer reckoned a sufficient balance for all contin- gencies of the treasury. This showing of the finances of the kingdom was excellent as it related to the facts, and skillful as it related to method. Very little opposition was provoked on the different parts of the budget. It looked as though the lonar-continued battle of Mr. Gladstone for the establishment of a rational and consistent policy of treasury management had gone completely in his favor. The usual small fire of formal criticism was indulged in, but without effect. One member thought that the reduction of the rates on fire insur- ance ouofht to be greater, but the House did not agree with him. When it came to the consideration of the clause relating to the duties on sugar another member moved, " That the consideration of these duties be post- poned until the House has had an opportunity of considering the expediency of the reduction of the duty upon malt." Hereupon a little debate ensued, springing from the opposition, among whom there was a notion that the paper duty ought to be restored. This opinion, however, was wholly reactionary, and had little hold in the senti- ment of the House. Mr. Gladstone replied firmly that the abolition of the paper tax was now a part of the general policy that could not be reversed. He would point the House to the splendid results which had followed the abolition of the said tax in the establishment of a cheap free press for the people. Besides, the mover of the amendment had not considered that the sum of the surplus reported was so small that any material reduction in the duty on malt would engulf it ten times over. Besides, the malt tax had immediate relation to the drinks of the people, and if the tax was to be tinkered then the whole question of the taxes on spirituous liquors would have to be opened again. The objections of the opposition were then swept away by adverse votes of the House. At this juncture Mr. Gladstone found opportunity to conciliate the pro- ducers of barley somewhat by himself adding a clause to the effect that such malt as was used for feeding stock should be e.xempt from the duty. This done, members of the opposition next assailed the sugar schedule, offering first one and then another amendment for changing the rates ; but these were opposed by Mr. Gladstone in brief but conclusive arguments, and were adversely voted by the House. Another matter of no small importance was the proposition of the chancellor of the exchequer relative to the law for the purchase of govern- ment annuities through the medium of the postal savings banks. He offered an amendment to enable the banks referred to, under auspices of the gov- ernment, to grant policies of life assurance. The object of the measure was to extend the opportunities for assurance to the poor and the humble. The companies had generally offered assurance only in such sums as to put the 350 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. advantage beyond the reach of the working people. The mover thought that the post-office savings banks, which had now been extended through- out the kingdom, under a measure initiated by himself, might be used as a sort of governmental life assurance offices for the poor. Mr. Gladstone was of opinion that the measure proposed was consistent with the spirit of British legislation, since it merely afforded to humble citizens the opportu- nity of making valuable provision for themselves. Hereupon, however, an opposition arose, blowing strongly over the House. The objections came from two quarters. In the first place, it was urged that the pending measure was a kind of paternalism — a sort of method of taking care of the English people, as though they were infants. The other objections arose from the existing assurance companies designated in England as " Friendly Societies." To these the measure seemed dangerous; for it might take away a portion of their trade and profits ! Their cry was in the usual tone that Diana of the Ephesians is great. For the time it looked as though Mr. Gladstone might be forced to recede ; but in his reply to the objections and objectors he was able to declare that never before in his public life had he received so many letters of apjjroval and commendation relative to any single measure that he had had the honor to propose in the House of Commons as he had recently received indorsing the project under consideration. This kind of argument generally prevails in that body ; for, say what we will of the British Parlia- ment, it is an instrument that vibrates most sensitively to the public breeze of the nation. Oddly enough, in the matter now under contention, the House of Lords concurred in the Gladstonian measure; for to the members of that august body the proposal to assure the lives of the common people, as if under governmental patronage, seemed to accord perfectly with the theory of the Lords about the nature of government in general. Mr. Gladstone was able to carry through his measure, and indeed to secure the approval of the whole budget of 1864, with the e.xception only of such modifications as he himself chose to suggest and promote. PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BY OXFORD. 35 1 CHAPTER XX. Progress toward Liberalism, and Rejection by Oxford. E here arrive at the beginning of a great upheaval in British poHtics, in which WiUiam E. Gladstone was both cause and effect. He may be regarded as the prime mover, or one of the prime movers, of a great agitation, on the wave of which he was destined to rise to the acme of his influence and fame. The preliminary swirl of the storm that was to come seems to have occurred on the iith of May, 1864. A measure had been introduced into the House by Mr. Baines to lower the parliamentary franchise in boroughs ; that is, to extend the franchise to new classes of the common people. The bill came to its second reading, to which it failed to pass ; but the majority against it was not great. Mr. Gladstone made a speech on this occasion which may be regarded as the opening of the dike through which the floods of a political revolu- tion were destined to rush in. While he did not positively advocate the adoption of the resolution proposed by Baines he nevertheless concurred in the general view that there ought to be a considerable extension of the fran- chise to the working classes of the nation. He was unwilling to advocate a measure of wholesale suffrage thrown broadcast to the laboring men, but he did advocate an enlargement of the franchise in that direction. He said that the right of suffrage under the present system hardly reached the working classes at all ; the great mass were disfranchised, and this ought not to be. Then Mr. Gladstone broke into the remarkable part of his speech. He replied vigorously to the assertion that the working classes were not themselves moving for the riq-ht of suffrage ; that they were not aoitatingf the question of their right to vote. He inquired whether it was a true policy for the British Parliament to wait foran agitation among the working classes before undertaking the duty of reform. " In my opinion," said Mr. Gladstone, " agitation by the working classes upon any political subject whatever is a thing not to be waited for, not to be made a condition pre- vious to any parliamentary movement, but, on the contrary, is to be depre- cated, and, if possible, prevented by wise and provident measures. An agitation by the working classes is not like an agitation by the classes above them having leisure. The agitation of the classes having leisure is easily conducted. Every hour of their time has not a money value ; their wives and children are not dependent on the application of those hours to labor. When a workingman finds himself in such a condition that he must abandon that daily labor on which he is strictly dependent for his daily bread, it is OD- LIKE AND TI.MliS OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. only because then, in railway language, the danger signal is turned on, and because he feels a strong necessity for action and a distrust of the rulers who ha\x; driven him to that necessity. The present state of things, I rejoice to say, does not indicate that distrust ; but if we admit that we must not allege the absence of agitation on the part of the working classes as a reason why the Parliament of I'^ng- land and the public mind of England should be indisposed to entertain the discussion of the question. To the American reader this speech would seem to be mildly conservative on the question of suffrage. That it should, as late as the middle of the seventh decade, be regarded in an\- civil- ized country as a radical challenge to the existing order appears from our point of view an astonishing, if not an absurd, proposition. So also of the rest of the speech, which was in the same tenor. He showed that the middle classes in England are not divided from those below them by any well-marked line of virtue or capacit}-, such as might indi- cate the right of suffrage to them and the withholding of it from their humbler neighbors. He favored the enlargement of the franchise as a measure calculated indeed to obliterate somewhat the artificial lines in Brit- ish society, and to promote that social and civil unity of the English people as a whole which he was glad to say was indicated by the signs of the times and the progress of humanity. Had this argument of Mr. Gladstone, relating wholly to secular reform, been the sum of his offending the probabilities are that he would have remained in virtually the same relations as hitherto with the e.xisting politi- cal parties. But he presently went further in a matter relating to the Church. On that side also he veered away from the opinions held by his constituents of Oxford University, and, as we shall presently see, alienated a majority of them from his support. In the meantime other questions arose that, for the present, postponed the break between the chancellor of the exchequer and his old party associ- ates. All along a strong tide of opposition had beaten against the govern- ment of Lord Palmerston on the score of his foreign policj'. For years it GLADSTONE IN I S64. AGE HFIV-HVE. PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BY OXFORD. 353 had been alleged that that statesman with respect to the imperial n'gime in France was a toady. To this offense he was said to have added many an odious favor to the revolutionary party existing widely in other European nations. At this particular juncture Germany had summoned Denmark to give up Schleswig-Holstein to the military occupation of Prussia and Austria, until what time the claims of the Duke of Augustenburg might be settled. Driven to close quarters, the Danish government appealed to England and France for support, and received from those governments what the Danes thought were sufficient assurances, and war was declared against Germany ; but the war was not successful. The line of the Dannewerk was taken by the enemy, and the Danes in panic found that the expected backing of Eng- land and France was not in evidence. They rallied, however, in a splendid manner, but could not stand against the overwhelming power of the Ger- mans. They were obligeei to accept such terms as were meted out to them by the peace of Vienna, concluded in October of 1864. For a while Europe waited for Prussia to render back North Schleswigf and the island of Alsen to Denmark, and when this was not done, as Austria had demanded, the break came between that power and Prussia, so lately in alliance, in the great conflict of 1866, ending in the humiliation of Austria and in the begin- ning of the ascendency of Prussia and the house of Hohenzollern. The course of Great Britain toward Denmark in this emergency gave opportunity to the opposition in Parliament to challenge the ministerial management. On the 4th of July, 1864, Benjamin Disraeli offered a resolu- tion, " To thank her majesty for having directed the correspondence on Denmark and Germany, and the protocol of the conference recently assembled in London to be laid before Parliament; to assure her majesty that we have heard with deep concern that the sittings of the conference have been brought to a close without accomplishing the important purpose for which it was convened ; and to express to her majesty our great regret that, while the course pursued by her majesty's government has failed to maintain their avowed policy of upholding the integrity and independence of Denmark, it has lowered the just influence of this country in the capitals of Europe, and thereby diminished the securities for peace." He who ran might read that Mr. Disraeli in this resolution intended in a covert way to carry if possible a vote of want of confidence in the minis- try through the House of Commons. As soon as the resolution was before the House Mr. Alexander W. Kinglake offered an amendment or substitute for the last clause of Disraeli's propositions, as follows : " To express the satisfaction with which we have learned that at this conjuncture her majesty has been advised to abstain from armed interference in the war now going on between Denmark and the German powers." The presentation of this 23 ^554 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. amendment made a sharp issue, and Mr. Disraeli came with great spirit and wit to the support of the resohition, declaring that forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, and that a crisis was now on in which the government might not any longer evade their responsibility to the crown and to the nation. This situation was well calculated to bring into combat the two great statesmen who were destined for so many years to divide the admira- tion of their countrjnicn. Mr. Gladstone went into the arena with more than his usual spirit. He declared that never before had ihc British House of Commons been asked to degrade the country in the hope of overlhrow- ine a government! He wished to know whv the riorht honorable gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) had not come plainly and ojienK- to the charge. The resolu- tion before the House was a subterfuge. The mover was aiming to accom- plish one end by promoting another end, and that other end was the affixing of a sticma on Great Britain. The resolution before the House read as though it might have been composed in the office of an obscure newspaper in Germany ! Certainly the inspiration of it had come Irom that remote antl disreputable source. Why should not the right honorable gentleman adopt the language of the British forefathers, who, when dissatisfied with a govern- ment, said so in unambiguous language } The fathers were wont in such cases to address the crown and to pray that the offending government might be dismissed. " They said boldly," the speaker continued, "that the conduct of the government was open to such and such charges, and they prayed that other men might be put in their places. But the right honorable gentleman was afraid to raise that issue. He has, indeed, plucked up courage to pro- pose this motion ; but why has he not done it in the proper constitutional form in which votes of want of confidence have hitherto been drawn } Never before, as far as I know, has party spirit led gentlemen in this country to frame a motion which places on record that which must be regarded as dishonorable to the nation. I go back to the time of Sir R. Walpole, of Lord North, and Mr. F"ox, but nowhere do we find such a sterile and jejune affair as this resolution. Those charges were written in legible and plain terms ; but the right honorable gentleman substitutes language which might indeed be sufficient for the purpose of rendering it impossible for the o-overnment to continue in office, but which cannot transfix them without its sting first passing through the honor of England. For the reasons I have stated I look forward with cheerfulness to the issue which has been raised with regard to our conduct. Nay, more, I feel the most confident anticipa- tion that both the House and the countr)- will approve of the course taken in this difficult negotiation by her majesty's government, and that they will reject a motion which both prudence and patriotism must alike emphatically condemn." The issue thus sharply made up was further debated by several mem- PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BY OXFORD. 355 bers. Among those may be mentioned Mr. Bernal Osborne, who spoke with much wit against the government. The British cabinet, he said, seemed to him much like a museum of curiosities. In it there were birds of many- plumages, some rare and some noble; some alive and some stuffed ! There was a breed or two that had been preserved with the greatest difficulty — one in particular that had to be crossed with the genus Peclite ! The speaker, however, would do the cabinet the justice to say that there was one great and able minister in the body, namely, the chancellor of the exchequer ; to him and to him alone it was that the government owed " the little popularity and the little support that they get from this Liberal party." If the speaker made an exception complimentary to Mr. Gladstone he did not except Mr. INIilner Gibson, whom he described as being a fly in amber, and then declared his astonishment over the problem of how tlie devil lie got there ! And so on and on through \\-\^ persiflage of the hour. When the matter came to the issue of a vote the Disraeli resolution was rejected and the amendment of Mr. Kinglake adopted by a majority of eighteen, that vote being a tolerable test of the existing ministerial strength. In the following spring, namely, in March of 1865, a resolution was offered in the House by Mr. Dillwyn to this effect: "That the present position of the Irish Church Establishment is unsatisfactory and calls for the early attention of her majesty's government." These were ominous words. They were the foreshining of a great issue that could be settled in only one way. The author of the resolution was a member of the opposi- tion. It devolved on Mr. Gladstone rather than on Lord Palmerston, who was now within a few months of the end of his life, to state the position of the government in the matter which had been brought to the attention of the House. He said that the government could not accept the resolution, but significantly added that they t(;r;r not prepared to deny the abstract trtith of t lie first c/anse. This clause was that the present position of the Irish Church Establishment was unsatisfactory. The government could not affirm that that establishment was satisfactory. Mr. Gladstone then branched out on the merits of the question, speaking to the general condition of the Irish Church and its relations to the people to whom it was expected to minister. The general tenor of his argument was favorable to the theory that the Episcopal Establishment in Ireland was out of its natural and just relations with the people of that country; that the Church was really in a false position, logically and historically. " There is not," said the speaker, "the slightest doubt that the Church of England is a national Church, and that if the conditions upon which the ecclesiastical endowments are held were altered at the Reformation, that alteration was made mainly with the view that these endowments should be intrusted to a body ministering to the wants of a great majority of the 356 LIFE AND TIME^ OF WII.I.IAM E. GLADSTONE. people. I am bound to add my belief that those who directed the govern- ment of this country in the reign of Queen Elizabeth acted in the firm con- viction that that which had happened in England would happen in Ireland; and they would probably be not a little surprised if they could look down the vista of time and see that in the year 1S65 the result of all their labors had been that, after three hundred years, the Church which they had endowed and established ministered to the religious wants of only one eighth or one ninth part of the community." The speaker then referred to the great difficulty of prescribing or even suorgesting a remedy that migiit meet the evils which he had pointed out. He said that many other political problems were closely involved with that before the House. He went so far as to become the spokesman of the Irish people, the interpreter of their thoughts, and declared that while they were, out of the nature of the case, utterly opposed to the maintenance of the Church Establishment in their country when that Establishment was ben- eficial to only a small fraction of the people, they were not covetous of the Church endowments for themselves. They had no idea of availing them- selves of the revenues which were now bestowed on the Episcopal Church in Ireland. But the question was in what manner the administration might meet the condition of affairs here set forth. Mr. Gladstone confessed that no satisfactory way appeared of meeting it. He said that the government could not follow the honorable gentleman (Mr. Dillwyn) into the lobby and declare it to be the duty of the government to give their early attention to the subject. No such promise or hint of a promise as that could be made. And why not ? It could not be made for the reason that a govern- ment so promising could not fulfill. While the abstract truth of the honor- able t>-entleman's proposition was admitted it related to a kind of subject- matter which the government, not being omnipotent, could not manage. The government could not reduce history to logical conditions. This outgiving of an opinion, added to the speech which Mr. Gladstone had made on the Baines Bill relative to the borough franchise, was a cry that signified much in Great Britain. The speech was read with the great- est interest by all classes of people, and by some it was discerned that if history were not logical it might become the duty of a government in Great Britain to contribute something toward abolishing its illogical character and results. How far Mr. Gladstone in his utterance was deliberate, how far he had excogitated the matter beforehand, reducing it to a form ot expression by which he was willing to stand or fall, we do not know. .At any rate he put himself in the attitude of admitting the truth, and if the truth, then the justice, of an open indictment of the Irish Church. As to the debate, that passed without further results. PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BY OXFORD. 357 Sir George Grey spoke for the government, saying that a measure could not be brought forward calculated to promote the object that Mr. Dillwyn had in view. That object was nothing less than the disestablish- ment of the Irish Church. Mr. Gathorne Hardy also attacked the Dillwyn resolution with his usual force and acerbity. Mr. Whiteside, whilom the Conservative attorney-general ior Ireland, in his turn attacked the opinions presented by Mr. Gladstone ; and so the debate was at length adjourned. Soon afterward, however, Mr. Gladstone, when pressed by one of his correspondents at Trinity College to take up the cause of the disestablish- ment of the Irish Church, gave his reasons why he could not as follows: " First, because the question is remote and apparently out of all bearing on the practical politics of the day, I think it would be for me worse than superfluous to determine upon any scheme, or basis of a scheme, with respect to it. Secondly, because it is difficult ; even if I anticipated any likelihood of being called upon to deal with it I should think it right to take no deci- sion beforehand on the mode of dealing with the difficulties. But the first reason is that which chiefly weighs. ... I think I have stated strongly my sense of the responsibility attaching to the opening of such a question, except in a state of things which gave promise of satisfactorily closing it. For this reason it is that I have been so silent about the matter, and may probably be so again ; but I could not, as a minister and as member for Oxford University, allow it to be debated an indefinite number of times and remain silent. One thing, however, I may add, because I think it a clear landmark. In any measure dealing with the Irish Church I think (though I scarcely expect ever to be called on to share in such a measure) the act of union must be recognized and must have important consequences, espe- cially with reference to the position of the hierarchy." Here, then, were laid the foundations of the great controversy which was soon to arise. History can say only thus much, that the time had come when the anachronism of the English Church Establishment in Ireland must be rectified, and, with her usual care, she had provided her antecedent conditions and her man. The personal and historical results of Mr. Glad- stone's utterances were soon to appear, stirring England to her depths, transforming somewhat the political landscape and bringing in the new era of liberalism. The existing Parliament was now rapidly approaching its constitutional limitations. At the opening of the session of 1865 the presentation of the budget was withheld for a while, the same not being presented until the 27th of April in that year. Nor will the American reader fail to remember the great events that were just then completing themselves in America. The drama of secession had reached its bloody end. Appomattox was passed by only eighteen days, and the assassination of Lincoln — dark be the 35i> LIFE AND TIMES UK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. day in the annals of mankind ! — had occurred only thirteen days previously. Not our own country only, but the whole civilized world, stood for a time aghast when that tall patriot, that homely genius, that tremendous s\nr\t of the age, fell prone and lay still in his sarcophagus under the crash of the bullet of an infamous dastard. As for Mr. Gladstone, he had now reached a period in his financial career when he was virtualh' master of the situation. He had the confi- dence of Great Britain to a remarkable degree. His recommendations carried with them as they came almost the force of law. On the occasion just referred to he addressed the House in his usual manner, pointing out, first ol all, the contrasts that existed as between that day so near the close ot the current Parliament and that other day when that body first convened. "When the Parliament met," said he, "we had been involved — although we did not know it at the time — in a costly and difificult war with China. The harvest of the year which succeeded was the worst that had been known for half a century. The recent experience of war had led to costly, exten- sive, and somewhat uncertain reconstructions ; and clouds hung over the continent of Europe, while the Italian w'ar had terminated in such a man- ner as to occasion vague but serious alarms in the public mind. " .Since that period those clouds have moved westward across the Atlan- tic, and have burst in a tempest, perhaps the wildest that ever devastated a civilized country, a tempest of war distinguished, indeed, by the exhibition of many of the most marvelous and extraordinary qualities of valor, hero- ism, and perseverance ; and on the whole, perhaps, no scenes have been so entirely painful as that of which the intelligence has last reached us, which now causes one thrill of horror throughout Europe. " But so far as this country is concerned we have been mercifully spared. We see the state of the public mind tranquil and reassured, and the condi- tion of the country generally prosperous and satisfactory. The financial history of the Parliament has been a remarkable one. It has raised a larger revenue than I believe, at any period, whether of peace or war, was ever raised b\- taxation. After taking into account the changes in the value of money within an equal time the expenditure of the Parliament has been upon a scal<; tiiat has never before been reached in time of peace. The amount and variety of the changes introduced into our financial legislation have been greater than within a like number of years at any former time. And I may say, lastly, that it has enjoyed the distinction that, although no Parliament ever completes the full term of its legal existence, yet this is the seventh time on which you have been called upon to make provision for the financial exigencies of the countrx." These paragraphs aptly illustrate the manner of Mr. Gladstone on the occasion of presenting a budget. Year after year he delivered what may be PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BY OXFORD. 359 called fiscal orations, putting- into them the necessary statistics and practical recommendations ; but he did this with a skill which hardly marred the flow of his eloquence. On the present occasion he was able in a business way to report another diminution of expenditures. The estimate on this score had not been reached by six hundred and eleven thousand pounds. On the other hand, and still more gratifying, was the excess of the revenue over the estimates. Under this head there was an increase of three million a hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds ; indeed, the surplus which had accumulated was well up to four million pounds. During the year there had been a large reduction in the national debt. The average of such reductions in the last six years had been about three million pounds annually. In the next place the speaker referred with pleasure to the paper trade and to the general commercial relations between England and France. While the trade of the latter country had increased more rapidly than that of England during the past year British trade had also increased in a satisfactory measure. There was also a very gratifying trade balance with Belgium and Holland. Once more he emphasized the great advantage which the country had gained by making trade as free as the winds and seas. Here again he turned aside to repeat and vary the eulogy which he had more than once pronounced on Richard Cobden, the Father of Free Trade. Turning to the question of the fiscal management for the ensuing year, he presented an estimate of expenditure of sixty-si.x million a hundred and thirty-nine thousand pounds. He calculated the total revenue at seventy million a hundred and seventy thousand pounds. This would produce a surplus of more than four million pounds. How should this large sum be applied 7 Should it be used to extinguish the duty on malt.? That, the speaker thought, would be the end of the system of indirect taxation in Great Britain. This might be done, but it was not the most desirable method of balancing the surplus. He admitted that beer was twenty per cent higher than it would be if the duty were removed from malt ; but he showed that it would require a reduction of only one farthing the quart to consume one half or more of all the expected surplus for the ensuing year. Was it worth while to attempt at such a cost so small a reduction in the price of beer to consumers .'* The House must remember in this connection that while beer was taxed twenty per cent the wines which met the greatest consumption in England were taxed full)- fift)- per cent. If it was a question of cheapening the popular drinks then why not begin with the duty on wine } Moreover, the growing consumption of beer in England showed conclusively that the tax did not perceptibly impede the use of the article. Again, the tax on tea was forty per cent by the chest ; wherefore the common drink of the 360 LIFE AND TIMKS OK WIII.IAM E. GLADSTONE. poorer classes at the domestic board was taxed twice as heavily as beer! To his mind it was clear that the next reduction of duty ought to be a reduction of the tea tax, and this he recommended by sixpence a pound. He showed that the aggregate loss to the revenue from this source would be, at the present rate of importation, two million three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds. But with a reduction of the tax a much larger quantity o{ tea would be consumed, from which he thought the actual loss would not exceed a million L-ight hundred and eight thousand pounds. INIr. Gladstone next came to the ever-present and all-important question of the income tax. What should be done with that ? He would recommend the reduction of the same from sixpence to fourpence the pound. This would diminish the sum total of that tax to a little over five million pounds. It would also bring the rate to fourpence, which the chancellor of the exchequer thought was as small a figure as need to be retained at all. If there were to be further reduction it might be made a total abolition, and have done. That question he would leave to the next Parliament, to be dealt with according to its wisdom. Adding together the loss from the reduction of the duty on tea and that from the reduction of the income tax Mr. Gladstone was still able to show a surplus that would justify a further reduction in the expense of fire insurance. Hitherto a duty of a shilling had been charged on each policy; he would recommend that this duty be reduced to a penny stamp for each policy. To sum up, the budget showed a reduction of taxation to the amount of five million four hundred and twenty thousand pounds. There would be a total loss to revenue in the following year of three million seven hundred and seventy-eight thousand pounds, and for the ensuing year (1866-67) of a million four hundred and seventeen thousand pounds. After all balances were made there would still remain a surplus of a little more than two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which Mr. Gladstone urged the necessity ot retaining against the contingencies of the treasury. The document thus presented was less elaborate than its predecessors. It also invaded less the grounds of controversy. Only on one question was there a serious objection to the budget, whether in the house or out of it. That related to the duty on malt. The maltsters and barley farmers were of course dissatisfied, and their representatives were ready to declaim. Nevertheless the opposition was ineffectual. The bill for the adoption of the budget was readily passed without amendments. In many respects the measures proposed were met with great popular favor. The reduction of the tea ta.x was something to appeal to the common people. At the other extreme of society the payers of large sums on incomes cheerfully accepted the reduction that was offered. Moreover, the recent heavy expenditures PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BV OXFORD. 36 1 for fortifications and for the maintenance of navies in distant seas were eitlier at an end or greatly reduced. Mr. Gladstone was able to pass his annual ordeal with more than the usual applause. The Parliament so long in existence was now drawing rapidly to a close. It would reach its constitutional limitation on the 6th of July, 1S65. Lord Palmerston had already announced the termination of the session and the end of the existing Parliament at that date. Already the members ot the House were busy with preparation for going to the country on the records made. It was noted that political excitement was for the time running low. There could hardly be found a single question of general importance on which the electors might divide. There were, however, many local questions, and the seats of great numbers of members were to be vigorously contested. What about William E. Gladstone.? The statesman made the usual appeal to his constituency of Oxford University. He might well expect that his great success as a finance minis- ter and his widening reputation, extending to all civilized lands, would ap- peal strongly for indorsement to the electors on whom he must depend for his return to Parliament. Now it was, however, that his advanced and ad- vancing opinions on both secular and ecclesiastical concerns began to tell seriously on his prospects in the ancient seat of learning. There was a por- tentous defection from his interest. A clangor was raised against his prin- ciples. His speech on the Baines Bill and his more offending utterance on the Dillwvn resolution were brought forth against him. He had become a dangerous man ! Opposition put on a bold front. It was noted that the enemy was not so strong in the very seat of the university as it was among those electors who were nonresident at Oxford. The older Fellows and others whose opinions had been fixed at an earlier date were mortally offended at their representative, and were determined to prevent his re- election. It chanced at this particular juncture that a new system of voting had been adopted, by which the electors of Oxford were authorized to send their ballots through the mail to the vice chancellors, thus obviating the necessity of going to the poll in person. The same measure extended the time of voting to a period of five days. The scheme had been devised by the Liberals as a matter of convenience and popularity, and with little expecta- tion that on the very first trial it would return to plague the inventors by giving an advantage to the nonresident opponents of Mr. Gladstone. But so it was. The Conservatives came to the contest in full feather. Their candi- date in direct opposition to Mr. Gladstone was Gathorne Hardy, whose wit and force of character made him by no means an opponent to be despised. As to Sir William Heathcote, the other representative of Oxford, he was to 362 LIKE AND TIMES Ul- WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE, be returned by common consent of both parties. The election, or in English jjarlance, the nomination, began on the 13th of July. Dr. Liddell, Dean of Christ Church College, proposed Mr. Gladstone ; Sir William Heathcote was named by the warden of All Souls' College ; and Mr. Hardy was an- nounced by the public orator of St. John's. As the election proceeded it was found that Mr. Gladstone was falling behind his competitor. At the end of the first day's voting there w^as a serious difficuky involving a question of law. .Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester, son of William Wilberforce, the philanthropist, came to the poll to vote. On announcing his name he was informed that by a new law ot Parliament peers of the realm were not permitted to vote at elections for members of the House of Commons. The bishop said he was informed of the law, but offered his vote none the less ; and the ballot was accepted. Two or three other peers, of whom one was the Bishop of Durham, also voted for Mr. Gladstone ; but even this powerful — if illegal — support could not avail ; and before the five days' voting was out it became evident that Mr. Gladstone would be defeated. An appeal was sent out at this crisis by Sir John Taylor Coleridge, recently justice of the King's Bench, in which he set forth the danger of the defeat of the Liberal candidate, saying: "The committee do not scruple to advocate his cause on grounds above the common level of politics. They claim for him the gratitude due to one whose public life has for eighteen years reflected a luster on the university herself They confidently invite you to consider whether his pure and exalted character, his splendid abilities, and his eminent services to Church and State do not constitute the highest of all qualifications for an academical seat and entitle him to be judged by his constituents as he will assuredly be judged by posterity." The event justified the growing expectation. On the last day of the votintr the Liberals made a rallv; but the election had alreadv trone airainst their candidate. Sir William Heathcote received virtually the whole vote of the Oxford constituency; that is, 3,226. Mr. Gathorne Hardy had 1,904, and Mr. Gladstone 1,724, leaving the latter in a minority of iSo votes. The total of ballots cast showed that the constituency was aroused. Of the votes 415 had no other name than that of Mr. Gladstone, while of this kind there were but 43 for Sir William Heathcote, and only 16 for Mr. Gathorne Hardy. The friends of the candidates, particularly the adherents of Mr. Glad- stone, were quick to analyze the votes, and to point out the peculiarities of the contest. It was found that a fair majority of the resident Oxonians were for Gladstone, and, what was more important, this majority included nearly every name of men whose support in America from that seat of learning would be regarded as an honor. Among these were the great scholar, Pro- PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BY OXFORD. 363 fessor Max Milller; Sir John Taylor Coleridge, Justice of the King's Bench; the poet Prancis Turner Palgrave ; Professor John Conington, the trans- lator of Vergil ; Edward Augustus Freeman, the historian ; Professor Ben- jamin Jowett, the translator of Plato ; Dr. Jelf, custodian of the Bodleian Library ; and the three Bishops (be it said to their honor !) of Durham, Ox- ford, and Chester. This array of scholarship, character, and progress, standing firmly in his support, might almost compensate Mr. Gladstone for the loss of his election. Indeed, of the whole college body, properly so-called, the chancellor of the exchequer had as his supporters the great majority. Twenty-four of the professors gave him their votes, while only ten supported Mr. Hardy. In Lincoln College seven of the ten Fellows voted for Gladstone, and only three for his opponent. Moreover, it must have been — and was — when the business was done, that they who compassed Mr. Gladstone's defeat should feel a certain inward wilting over their triumph. It is In human nature to do such things and to repent afterward. The election at Oxford was decisive of much. The chancellor of the exchequer was cast forth to seek what constituency he might in a more coneenial field. To him there was in the event a minofled sense of rcjret and exultation. For how long a time he had felt hampered and constrained by the views and political purposes of his constituents we know not. That he was heartily tired of the necessity that was on him to be true to the wishes and opinions of his electoral body may well be believed. Now, in any event, he was set free. He micrht seek amoncr the numerous bodies of English electors a new support, whose purposes and motives back ot him might better accord with his own. He was not the man to be cast down by re- verse — if reverse that might be called which had made him a free man. To the British Liberals the result at Oxford seemed a happy deliver- ance. They perceived at a glance that the liberalizing tendencies in Glad- stone's mind would be accentuated by the thing done. Throughout England there was a general opinion that Oxford had made a sad muss of her oppor- tunity. That a great academic institution should discard a man like Glail- stone appeared to reason as a thing well-nigh impossible. The public sentiment ran strongly to the notion that Oxford had fallen down in the dirt. The newspapers — at least the leading journals — echoed this opinion far and wide. The London Times sue^ested that the enemies of Oxford would make the most of her recent disgrace. " It has hitherto been sup- posed," said that great organ, " that a learned constituency was to some extent exempt from the vulgar motives of party spirit, and capable of form- ing a higher estimate of statesmanship than common tradesmen or tenant farmers. It will now stand on record that they have deliberately sacrificed a representative who combined the very highest qualifications, moral and 364 LIKE AxNI) II.MKS OF WILLIAM K. GLADSTONK. intellectual, for an academical seat, to party spirit, and party spirit alone. Mr. Gladstone's brilliant public career, his great academical distinctions and literary attainments, his very subtlety and sympathies with ideas for their own sake, mark him out IxNond all living men for such a position. How- ever progressive in purely secular politics, he has ever shown himself a stanch and devoted Churchman, wherever Church doctrine or ecclesiastical rights were concerned." The 7^i»ns went on to enlarge upon this state- ment, and to establish it with citations from Mr. Gladstone's past history, showing his loyalty to the existing religious order. Continuing, the paper said : " Henceforth Mr. Gladstone will belong to the country, but no longer to the university. Those Oxford inlluences and traditions which have so deeply colored his views, and so greatly interfered with his better judgment, must gradually lose their hoUl on him." Such was the decision of the Iluittdcrer on this important personal and historical episode. Other great organs of opinion ratified the same notion relative to Oxford's mistake and Gladstone's emancipation. The London Daily News^^t that time the mouthpiece of the Liberal party in the metrop- olis, said : "Mr. Gladstone's career as a statesman will certainly not be arrested, nor Mr. Gathorne Hardy's capacity be enlarged by the number of votes which Tory squires or Tory parsons may inflict upon Lord Derby's cheerful and fluent subaltern, or withhold from Lord Palmerston's brilliant colleague. The late Sir Robert Peel was but the chief of a party until, admonished by one ostracism, he became finally emancipated by another. Then, as now, the statesman who was destined to give up to mankind what was never meant for the barren service of a party could say to the honest bigots who rejected him : ' I banish you: There is a world elsewhere.' Mediocrity will not be turned into genius, honest and good-natured insig- nificance into force, tluency into eloquence, if the resident and nonresident Toryism of the University of Oxford should prefer the safe and sound Mr. Hardy to the illustrious minister whom all Europe envies us, whose name is a household word in every political assembly in the world." So the expressions of public opinion drew in this direction and in that. The journals of the Church Establishment for the most part justified the thing done by Oxford ; and therein lay the secret of the whole business. Political conservatism Mr. Gladstone was able to drae after him somewhat, and to plant it slowl)- in more liberal fields; ecclesiastical conservatism, never. The former might forgive him for advancing in the direction of new truth ; the latter would forgive neither him nor any man for leaving the old camping ground or for suggesting that by any possibility a better station mi^rht be found on the other side of the mountain. PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BY OXFORD. 365 The chancellor of the exchequer took his defeat with perfect good humor. We may discover in what he said and wrote just afterward some evidence of suppressed excitement, but no sign of mortification or resent- ment. On the iSth of July, the day after the closing of the poll at Oxford, he sent to the members of the Convocation his valedictory address, saying : " After an arduous connection of eighteen years I bid you, respectfully, farewell. My earnest purpose to serve you, my many faults and shortcom- ing's, the incidents of the political relation between the university and myself, established in 1847, so often questioned in vain, and now, at length, finally dissolved, I leave to the judgment of the future. It is one imperative duty, and one alone, which induces me to trouble you with these few parting words — the duty of expressing m)- profound and lasting gratitude for indulgence as generous, and for support as warm and enthusiastic in itself, and as honorable from the character and distinctions of those who have given it, as has, in my belief, ever been accorded by any constituency to any representative." After the Oxonians, whom 7 Mr. Gladstone immediately surveyed the landscape, and saw in South Lancashire his open opportunity. The election there had not yet been held. On the last day of the balloting at Oxford, the electors in South Lancashire, foreseeing what was to come in the Oxo- nian complication, proposed the name of William E. Gladstone as their rep- resentative. After sending his brief note to his former constituency Mr. Gladstone, on the same day, made all haste to Manchester, and there had an interview with the local leaders of that party of which he was himself to become the leader par excellence. The interview was highly satisfactory, and the chancellor of the exchequer at once prepared and sent out his address to the electors. " I appear before you," said he to the voters of South Lancashire, "as a candi- date for the suffrages of your division of my native county. Time forbids me to enlarge on the numerous topics which justly engage the public interest. I will brine them all to a single head. You are conversant — few so much so — with the legislation of the last thirty-five years. You have seen, you have felt its results. You cannot fail to have observed the verdict which the country generally has within the last eight days pronounced upon the relative claims and positions of the two great political parties with respect to that legislation in the past and to the prospective legislation of public affairs. I humbly, but confidently, without the least disparagement to many excellent persons, from whom I have the misfortune frequently to differ, ask you to give your powerful voice in confirmation of that verdict, and to pronounce with significance as to the direction in which you desire the wheels of the State to turn. Before these words can be read I hope to be among you, in the hives of your teeming enterprise." 366 UlE AM) TI.MKS OI- WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. And SO he was. He was received on the following day on the Man- chester Exchange. The hum of excitement swelled to a roar as the distin- guished candidate was borne away to the Free-Trade Hall, in which he was to address his intending constituents. There the throng had gathered to the number of many thousands. The people poured in like a Hood, and the orator, as he began, struck tire with his first sentence. He said: "At last, my friends, I am come among )ou — antl I am come, to use an expression which has become very famous and is not likely to be forgotten, I am come among you iDninizzlcd !" The vast crowd caught the reference and broke into a universal shout. The speaker had already, with that one word, car- ried Manchester. The whole drama of the contest at Oxford, with the sug- gestion of long constraint now ended, was revealed at a stroke in the word unmuzzled. It was equivalent to saying, " I shall now speak out my best thought on the political and ecclesiastiad polity of Great Britain." Mr. (iladstone went on to say that after an anxious struggle of eighteen years, during which time he had been upheld by the unbounded devotion and partiality of his friends, the electors of the University of Oxford, who had maintained him in the artluous position of their representative, he had been pushed from his seat. " I have loved the university," said he, "with a deep and passionate love, and, as long as I breathe, that attachment will continue ; if my affection is of the smallest advantage to that great, that ancient, that noble institution, that advantage, such as it is, and it is most insignificant, Oxford will possess as long as I live. But do not mistake the issue which has been raised. The university has at length, after eighteen years of self-denial, been drawn, by what I might, perhaps, call an overween- ing exercise of power, into the vortex of mere politics. Well, you will readily understand why, as long as I had a hope that the zeal and kintlness of my friends might keep me in my place, it was impossible for me to aban- don them. Could they have returned me by a majority of one, painiul as it is to a man of mv time of life, and feeling the weight of public cares, to be incessantly struggling for his seat, nothing could have induced me to (juit that university to which I had so long ago devoted my best care and attach- ment. " But by no act of mine," continued the speaker, " I am free to come among you. And having been thus set free, I need hardly tell you that it is with joy, with thankfulness and enthusiasm, that I now, at this eleventh hour, a candidate without an address, make my appeal to the heart and the mind of South Lancashire, and ask you to pronounce upon that appeal. As I have said, I am aware of no cause for the votes which have given a majority against me in the University of Oxford, except the fact that the strongest conviction that the human mind can receive, that an overpowering sense of the public interests, that the practical teachings of experience, to PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BY OXFORD. 367 which from my youth Oxtord herself taught me to lay open my mind — all these had shown me the folly, and, I will say, the madness of refusing to join in the generous sympathies of my countrymen, by adopting what I must call an obstructive policy." The speaker then adverted to the magnificent legislation that had been enacted under the direct and indirect infiuence of the Liberal party. " With- out entering," said he, " into details, without unrolling the long record of all the great measures that have been passed — the emancipation of Roman Catholics ; the removal of tests from Dissenters ; the emancipation of the slaves ; the reformation of the Poor Law ; the reformation — ^I had almost said the destruction, but it is the reformation — of the Tariff; the abolition of the Corn Laws; the abolition of the Navigation Laws; the conclusion of the French treaty ; the laws which have relieved Dissenters from stigma and almost ignominy, and which in doing so have not weakened, but have strenijthened, the Church to which I belono- — all these Q-reat acts accom- plished with the same, I had almost said sublime, tranquillity of the whole country as that with which your own vast machinery performs its appointed task, as it were, in perfect repose — all these things have been done. You have seen the acts. You have seen the fruits. It is natural to inquire who have been the doers. In a very humble measure, and yet according to the degree and capacity which Providence has bestowed upon me, I have been desirous, not to obstruct, but to promote and assist, this beneficent and blessed process. And if I entered Parliament, as I did enter Parliament, with a warm and anxious desire to maintain the institutions of my country, I can truly say that there is no period of my life during which my con- science is so clear, and renders me so good an answer, as those years in which I have cooperated in the promotion of Liberal measures. . . . Because they are Liberal they are the true measures, and indicate the true policy by which the country is made strong and its institutions preserved." This speech, of which the extracts are but a liint, was the beginning of a short, swift campaign that roared along with enthusiasm to its end. Prom the Free-Trade Hall of Manchester the candidate went next and spoke on the same evening in the Royal Amphitheater at Liverpool. There he was met with the same popular approval. It was evident that he was already becoming the idol of the great middle classes of the English people. For the time he was visited with what Whittier calls " the angel of the backward look," who reminded him ever and anon of the academic shades at Oxford. At Liverpool he referred again to the university which had sent him torlh in his youth and had now sm^ him forth in a different sense. " If I am told," said he, " that it is only by embracing the narrow interests of a politi- cal party that Oxford can discharge her duties to the country, then, gentlemen, I at once say I am not the man for Oxford. We see repre- 368 LIFE ANC TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. sented in that ancient institution — represented more nobly, perhaps, and more conspicuously than in any other place, at any rate with more remark- able concentration — the most prominent features that relate to the past of England. I come into South Lancashire, and I find here around me an assemblage of different phenomena. I find development of industry ; I find growth of enterprise; I find progress of social philanthropy; I find prev- alence of toleration ; and I find an ardent desire for freedom." The speaker went on to elaborate the aspects of the social and indus- trial condition in the great centers of Liverpool and Manchester. He spoke in commendation of the tremendous social, industrial, and commercial forces that were here displayed, and in profound sympathy with the teeming cities and progressive people that had evolved so auspicious a civic life. Then he continued : " I have honestly, I have earnestly, although I may have feebly, striven to unite in my insignificant person that which is represented by Oxford and that which is represented by Lancashire. My desire is that they should know and love one another. If I have clung to the representa- tion of the university with desperate fondness, it was because I would not desert that post in which I seem to have been placed. I have not abandoned it. I have been dismissed from it, not by academical, but by political agencies. " I do not complain," said the speaker, " of those political influences by which I have been displaced. The free constitutional spirit of the country requires that the voice of the majority shall prevail. I hope the voice of the majority will prevail in South Lancashire. I do not for a moment complain that it should have prevailed at Oxford ; -but, gentlemen, I come now to ask you a question whether, because I have been declared unfit longer to serve the university on account of my political position, there is anything in what I have said and done in the arduous office which I hold which is to unfit me for the representation of ni\' native county." The reader may discover in this appeal the deep anxiety of a great and earnest mind not to be again stranded on the rocks. The orator did not fail, however, to lay sound logical foundations also for his intending constituents to build upon. He took up the course of legislation as promoted by the liberal ministry of Lord Palmerston, and enacted by the House of Commons, and defended that policy against the arguments of Conservative politicians and statesmen. But he had no time for much speaking. The day of the poll was already at hand. On the 20th of July the election was held, and resulted in the choice of two Conservatives and one Libe7-al, the latter being William E. Gladstone. The candidate having the highest number of votes (9,171) was Mr. A. Egerton ; the second in rank was Mr. Turner, who received 8,806 votes ; and the third was Mr. Gladstone, who received 8,786 votes. The majority of the last named over his PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BV OXFORD. 369 Conservative competitor, Mr. Leigh, was only 310 votes. In Liverpool and Manchester, however, the balloting showed better results for the Liberal candidates. In these great cities Mr. Gladstone led all the others, with so large a majority as to carry him back to the House of Commons, as if in triumph — though he was only third on the general poll of South Lancashire. The general complexion of the new Parliament was Liberal. The majority, which had been barely a working majority at the late session, was emphasized by the gain of a number of seats. Of the 657 members of Parliament returned at the elections 367 were set down as Liberals, and 290 as Conservatives. The Liberal party, as the exponent of those commercial and reformatory tendencies described in the preceding pages, had the manifest approval of the country. The time had come, however, when the leadership of that party must pass from its late head. Lord Palmerston, to another. Henry John Temple, the Viscount Palmerston, died at Brocket Hall, near Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, on the i8th of October, 1865. He was within two days of completing his eighty-first year. He was descended from the Irish Temples. When he was in his eighteenth year he succeeded to his father's title. His education was obtained at Harrow School. He first appeared in public life as a member of Parliament for Newton, Isle of Wight, in the year 1807. In the Duke of Portland's cabinet he held the place of junior lord of the admiralty. Afterward, from the year 1808 to 1828, he was secretary of war. In politics he was in youth a Tory disciple of Pitt, and advocated Catholic emancipation. At the age of forty-six he accepted the place of minister of foreign affairs in the Whig cabinet of Earl Grey. It was at this juncture that Palmerston acquired his strong taste — and some said his strong sympathy — for continental affairs and tendencies. He favored the establishment of Prince Leopold as King of the Belgians, and advocated the maintenance, under the auspices of the great Powers, of the Ottoman empire, .as a breakwater against the Russian floods. From the year 1840 to 1845 Lord Palmerston was out of office. In 1848 he appeared again in the ministry of Lord John Russell, and made himself conspicuous as the champion of the revolutionary cause on the Continent. He regarded the coup d'etat in France as a part of the general movement, and strongly supported the cause of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte — until what time he was virtually dismissed from office. We have seen Lord Palmerston again as home secretary in the ministry of the Earl of Aberdeen. Finally, on the 5th of February, 1S55, he became Prime Minister of England, and remained in that high office, omitting the brief interregnum of the Derby administration in 1858, until the day of his death. He made a powerful political and social impression upon his countrymen. He might almost be regarded as the founder of the Liberal 24 370 l.II-E AND TIMES Ol WILLIAM E. (ILADSTO.NE. party ; for it was under his wino- that the erstwhile belligerent factions were unified and brought to a common purpose under the name of Liberals. Lord Palmerston had been greatly admired by the majority of his country- men and greatly disliked by the rest. He was a man of strong and peculiar characteristics, a wit, an epigrammatist, a satirist, almost a skeptic, but withal a thorough Englishman, jovial and self-confident, believing in the attainment of success, the champion of progressive ideas, and the hero of Punch. The death of Lord Palmerston did not pass without appropriate public notice. It fell to Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons to move an address to the queen, praying her majesty to order a monument for the late minister in Westminster Abbey. In the formal commemoration of the death of the statesman Mr. Gladstone said in the House: "All who knew Lord Palmerston knew his genial temper and the courage with which he entered into the debates in this House; his incomparable tact and ingenuity ; his command of fence ; his delight, his old English delight, in a fair stand-up fight. Yet, notwithstanding the possession of these powers, I must say I think there was no man whose inclination and whose habit were more fixed, so far as our discussions were concerned, in avoiding whatever tended to exasperate, and in having recourse to those means by which animosity might be calmed down. He had the power to stir up angry passions, but he chose, like the sea god in the yEneid, rather to pacify! ' Quos ego — sed moios pmstat cotnponere fluctus.' ['Whom I — but it is first needful to pacify the perturbed seas.'] That which, in my opinion, distinguished Lord Palmerston's speaking from the oratory of other men, that which was its most remarkable characteristic, was the degree in which he said precisely that which he meant to express." In concluding his remarks the speaker emphasized the noble quality of Lord Palmerston in refusing to nurse the anger and animosity which were so frequently the incidents of public life. The leader of the opposition fol- lowed in a similar vein, speaking of the social character of Lord Palmerston and of the enviable tradition of a great and generous personality which he had left to his countrymen. Nor may we pass from this event and epoch without referring also to the death of Richard Cobden. That statesman expired in London, almost in sight of the House of Commons, on the 2d of April, 1865, lacking two months of having completed his sixty-first year. His fame in Great Brit- ain and throughout the world as a political economist, as an advocate of free trade, and as an incorruptible statesman had become immense. He was an explorer in the domain of untried reforms. We have seen him as the chief supporter of the Anti-Corn-Law League in 1838-46 ; also as the unaided negotiator of the commercial treaty with France ; also as the PROGRESS TOWARD LIBERALISM, AND REJECTION BV OXFORD. 37 1 uncompromising friend of the American Union in the day of our greatest trials. He was a man of the very highest abihties. His genius was acknowledged in his own day, and is now an unchallenged fact in the per- sonal history of the age. Mr. Cobden's conscience was acute and mandatory. He seems to have had no ambition beyond the welfare of his countrymen. In the first min- istry of Lord Palmerston the place of president of the Board of Trade was offered to Mr. Cobden, but he refused to accept the place on the ci^round that he could not support the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston. When urged by a committee to accept the place, and when it was pointed out to him that Lord John Russell, who had just accepted the office of minister for foreign affairs, had been as severe as ever Cobden was in denouncincr Palmerston and his policy, Cobden simply replied, " Yes ; but I meant lukat I said/" A like trait of character was shown when he and a friend were walking on a certain occasion among the great tombs and monuments in Westminster Abbey. Cobden was then fifty-two years old, but had never been in the Abbey before. The musings of the two were broken b)- the remark of the friend that, as he hoped, the name of his companion (Mr. Cobden) would one day be seen on these immortal walls. " I hope not, I hope not," said Cobden, quickly. " My spirit could not rest in peace among these men of war. No, no ; cathedrals are not meant to contain the remains of such men as John Bright and me." Still further was the character of this man illustrated within less than two months of his death. On the loth of February, 1865, being then in a greatly enfeebled condition, he received a letter from Mr. Gladstone speak- ing in behalf of Lord Palmerston, and offering to him the chairmanship of the Board of Audit, which was about to become vacant. The salary of the position was two thousand pounds a year, and the duties, though highly responsible and honorable, were not onerous. Mr. Gladstone's letter was cordial and sympathetic, but Cobden would not accept. He gave a suffi- cient reason, found in the state of his health, which would not permit him, he thought, to assume the performance of any stated and permanent duties. Then that peculiar conscience which he carried came into play, and he added : " Were my case different, still, w^hile sensible of the kind intentions which prompted the offer, it would assuredly not be consulting my welfare to place me in the post in question with my own views respecting the nature of our finances. Believing, as I do, that while the income of the govern- ment is derived in a greater proportion than in any other country from the taxation of the humblest classes, its expenditure is to the last degree \vaste- ful and indefensible, it would be almost a penal appointment to consign me for the remainder of my life to the task of passively auditing our finance accounts. I fear my health would sicken and my days be shortened by the 372 I.IFK AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE, nauseous ordeal. It will be better that I retain my seat in Parliament as long as 1 am able in any tolerable degree to perform its duties, where I have at least the opportunity of protesting, however unavailingly, against the government expenditure." There spoke one of the most robust and incor- ruptible natures of this great century of power and subserviency. Would that in the last decade of it one other such voice might be heard above the roar of place-seeking, avarice, greed, and compromise ! Mr. Cobden gradually sank under an attack of bronchitis running into consumption. There were little intervals of delusive improvement. He went with his eldest daughter into Suffolk Street, and there took his last lodeinofs near the Athena-um Club and the House of Commons. He con- tinued to perform certain light duties of correspondence, and finally, on the day of his death, left a half-written letter on his desk. He was laid to rest in a slope of pine woods in the humble churchyard of Lavington, where he had buried his promising son years before. As soon as Lord Palmerston was gone the queen sent for Earl Rus- sell and intrusted to him the conduct of her government. Mr. Gladstone was called to assume the leadership of the House of Commons. It was agreed by his friends beforehand, and was eagerly remarked by his political enemies, that this position would be especially trying to him on account of his temper and temperament. There were, indeed, good grounds to doubt, not his qualifications, but his qualities with respect to the position to which he was now assigned. We may agree that the place in question called rather for the humor, the irony, the recklessness, the audacity, and even the unscrupulous methods and manners of a man such as Benjamin Disraeli or Lord Palmerston himself than for the philosophical, urbane, and serious Gladstone, always in earnest, didactic rather than paradoxical, convincing rather than amusing. But the exigency of party government made his assumption of parliamentary leadership a necessity, and he came to his task with force of will, great abilities, and a high measure of success. Not a year elapsed until both friends and foes acknowledged that the great finance minister was also to be regarded as a great leader of the House of Commons. REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 373 CHAPTER XXI. Reform Bill of 1866. E have now arrived at the parhamentary session of the year 1866, and at the threshold of the great reform contention of that year. That such an issue was at the very door was a fact recog- nized by all; but the depth and vehemence of the agitation about to break on the country had not been anticipated. There were not wanting public men and parliamentarians who had foreseen and welcomed the oncoming storm. The question of a general electoral reform had been openly and vehemently debated here and there in the recent parliamentary canvass. The advance Liberal, John Stuart Mill, in one of his preelection speeches, said : " With regard to reform bills, I should vote at once both for Mr. Baines's bill and for Mr. Locke King's, and for measures going far beyond either of them. I would open the suffrage to all grown persons, both men and women, who can read, Avrite, and perform a sum in the rule of three, and who have not, within some small number of years, received parish relief At the same time, utterly abominating all class ascendency, I would not vote for giving the suffrage in such a manner that any class, even though it be the most numerous, could swamp all other classes taken together. In the first place, I think that all considerable minorities in the countrj' or in a locality should be represented in propor- tion to their numbers. I should be prepared to support a measure which would give to the laboring classes a clear half of the national representa- tion. We must here note, however, the budget of the year 1866. Mr. Glad- stone on this appearance again congratulated the House and the country on the prospect of a further reduction of taxes. It was on the 3d of May that he presented his annual report. He said that the revenue would war- rant the hope of still further reducing the burdens of the nation. He was glad to believe that the disputes now running high between the parties would not be evoked or aggravated by the presentation of the accounts of the nation. He said that the surplus for the fiscal year about to close was not as large as that of the three preceding years; but it was sufficient to warrant the expectation of the intended reduction in taxation. The expend- iture for the past year had been somewhat less than the estimate, and the revenue greater than he had calculated by a million four hundred and twenty-four thousand pounds. The surplus would be nearly two million pounds. The revenues of Great Britain for the past two years had increased by a million and a quar- ter pounds annually. The abolition of duties and taxes made under his last )74 LIKE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. annual presentation hatl occasioned a loss to the treasury somewhat in excess of his calculations. He had in the interim proceedetl, however, to make an unusual liquidation of the public debt. The same had been reduced by nearly two million pounds. His estimate for the expenditures of the ensuing year was sixty-six million two hundred and twenty-five thou- sand pounds, and the revenues he calculated at sixty-seven million five JOHN STUART MILL. hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds, thus providing for an estimated surplus of a million three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The commercial history of the government was most gratifying. The treaty with France had nearly trebled the export trade of that country. Similar treaties made with Beleium, Italy, and the Zollverein Union had been productive of like results. More recently a similar treaty had been made with Austria. The eeneral commercial a^rreement between Great REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 375 Britain and the continental powers now was that no import duty should be charged on British goods in excess of twenty-five per cent ad valorem. Great foreign markets were thus opened for British commerce. All this had been obtained by negotiation, and with only a slight sacrifice to the revenue of the kingdom. It had been found expedient as a compensatory measure to repeal the duty on timber, and to equalize the duty on wine imported in bottles with that imported in casks. The former repeal had brought no loss to the rev- enue on account of the increase in the consumption of lumber. There had been a loss of seventy-one thousand pounds from the falling off in the duty on bottled wine. He was able to recommend the abolition of the duty on pepper, and also a reduction in the mileage duty on public conveyances, such as omnibuses and hacks. The fare on these he proposed to reduce from a penny to a farthing the mile. This he thought would enable the small proprietors of carriages to stand on an equal plane with the large managers of lines. The losses to the revenues from these several reductions Mr. Gladstone placed at five hundred and sixty thousand pounds. As to the duty on tea and the income tax, he would recommend the continuation of those charges according to the present schedule. The chancellor of the exchequer then adverted with much seriousness to the question of the national debt. American readers will note with inter- est that during his whole career Mr. Gladstone had strongly advocated the reduction and speedy extinction of the national debt of Great Britain. Time and again he had declared that debt to be an intolerable mortgage on the future prosperity of the empire. Discussing the question at this time, he called attention to the large cessation of the terminable annuities. These were coming within the reach of the treasury at the rate of about six hun- dred thousand pounds a year. He pointed out the fact that the public debt was a fluctuating quantity, now diminished and now increased, according to vicissitudes in the revenue and changes in management and policy. He was convinced that these fluctuations, and indeed the very existence of the national debt, exercised a hurtful influence, not only on the industrial, but also on the social condition of Great Britain. He called attention to the fact that the United States of America had begun to apply their surplus revenue to the reduction of the war debt of the nation. He thought this ought to be an example to the European nations with whom the policy of reckless borrowinsj and debt-making had become a habit. Mr. Gladstone here branched into a consideration of the future com- mercial prospects of Great Britain. He said that for the present the nation had a commercial preeminence which could hardly be overestimated. With thirty millions of people Great Britain had as much commerce as France and the United States together, with their population of seventy millions. 376 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. What was the cause of this striking preponderance of British commerce ? It was based ultimately on coal mines and metallurgy. Great Britain was working her coal and her ores to greater advantage than any other nation, and these industries were the concrete on which rested the whole industrial and commercial fabric of the nation. But would the coal and the minerals of England hold out ? That was the question. If the coal should In; exhausted what should lake its place? If something else should be substituted therefor would not that something else be the discovery and property of other nations as well as England? In that event how could the commercial supremacy of Great Britain be maintained.'' Those who were expert in such matters calculated that in another century the coal mines of England and Wales would be exhausted to a depth of four thousand feet below the surface. It were vain to consider the question of economizing the coal by taxing its production or by curtail- ing its consumption in any way. Neither could the exportation of coal be hindered, for that would be against the established policy of the nation. What then ? For his part Mr. Gladstone thought it well to prepare in the present day of amazing success and prosperitj' for the contingency of a hundred years to come. There was one way in which to do this, and that was to cancel the mortgage on the future of England. That mortgage was her national debt. This outrht to be extinguished. The chancellor of the exchequer called attention to several methods by which the debt of Great Britain might be reduced. Whoever is curious to understand his particular suggestions and arguments may consult the details of his recommendation in the records of the House of Commons. The leading feature of his plan was the proposal to convert a portion of the debt into terminable annuities. This part of the scheme he presented in the form of a bill, and the bill was carried to its second reading, when the parliamentary cataclysm of that year, resulting in an overthrow of the government, came on, and the measure w^as caught in midair, to be whirled about and dropped bj- the winds of the great reforming storm. Before proceeding to the account of the greater agitation, however, we will here advert to two or three other matters of intermediate importance. The Irish question, so called, thrust itself forward at the very opening of the session. When the address to the queen was under consideration one of the Irish members offered an amendment expressing the deep regret of the House at the disaffection in Ireland, and declaring that the troubles in that country were the result of grave causes which ought to be sought out and remedied by the government. As leader of the House Mr. Gladstone must oppose such a resolution ; and he did so by saying that the purport of the pending address was threefold in intent : first, to announce a solemn denunciation of Fenianism ; secondly, to show the existence of a public REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 2)11 Opinion in England wliich had enabled the government to lay a strong hand on the conspiracy ; and thirdly, to demonstrate the impartial administration of law in both countries. The speaker said that there were acknowledged evils in Ireland which could not be at once extinguished, and that the true policy of the gov'ernment was first to suppress lawlessness and restore order, and after that to consider calmly the ills with which the Irish people were afflicted. In all this the reader ma}' discover only in the last clause a symptom of a purpose in Gladstone's mind to espouse the Irish cause and make it his own. This subject, however, was even in that day a plague spot that was not easily filmed over. The great Nonconformist contingent in Parliament — much greater for its ability than for numbers — was ready and eager to contend at all times for the emancipation of the Irish from the ecclesiastical tyranny then existing. John Bright took up the theme in the House and besought Mr. Gladstone and his rival, Disraeli, to lay aside their official contentions in the interest of a greater cause. That cause, he said, was the discontent of the Irish people. He did not doubt that there was a just method by which the Irish could be made as loyal as any citizens of the empire. It was the business of the government to find such method and to find it now. This was a home thrust which again called for the parrying skill of Gladstone. He did not think that Mr. Bright was commissioned to speak for the Irish people. They had their representatives in Parliament, and those representatives were generally in accord with the government. To this he added that the government would be ready when the proper time came to consider the causes of Irish complaint ; but for the present there was one thing to do, and one only, and that was to vindicate the law and restore order. In this work it was the duty of all to uphold the ministry and thus support the national authority. Once more the question of the abolition of taxes for the support of the Church came up for consideration. A bill to this purport was introduced by Mr. Hardcastle, and to that bill Mr. Gladstone was again called to speak. He said that he would have to withhold his assent from the proposition before the House for the abolition of the Church rates, although he consid- ered the law by which those rates were imposed to be objectionable. Would it not be better to meet this difficult question with a compromise, under which the Dissenters might exempt themselves from the payment of Church rates and by the same act disclaim the right to interfere with the ecclesiastical revenues .'' Although a compromise on such a question is repugnant to the best sense of man it must frequently be accepted on the grounds of expediency. The British House of Commons seeks for nothing more earnestly than for 3"8 LIKE ANT) TIMES OK WII.I.IAM E. GLADSTONE. the expedient. The Constitution of Great Britain is an accretion of expedients heaped up for a thousand years. On this occasion the attempt to add another was well-nigh successful. Mr. Gladstone's proposition to abolish compulsory Church rates was at length accepted as a substitute and was carried through the second reading ; but, like its predecessor relative to Irish affairs, it was suspended by the revulsion which overthrew the Russell ministry. The affairs of Europe and the relation of Great Britain thereto con- tinued to obtrude themselves into the House of Commons. The outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War was now imminent, and a proposition was made in Parliament for an international conference to consider and, if possible, adjust the alarming controversy in Germany. This proposition Mr. Glad- stone favored. Indeed, his voice was always heard against the spirit and the fact of war, except only in such cases as those in which he deemed war to be necessary to the national honor. In this instance the English protest was without avail. The war broke out with great fury, and Austria went quickly to the wall. Just before his retirement from office Mr. Gladstone spoke a second time on the affairs of Germany, pointing out the great harm which had been done to that country and to all Europe by the struggle that was on. He held, however, that Austria, though defeated, would be the gainer by her loss, as she would by the event of war be thrown back to her historical and normal place among the European powers. He thought that even the loss of Venice to Austria would be on the whole advantageous to that empire. He held that if Austria should even be excluded from her place among the Germanic nations she would still have a great destiny in the development of her terri- tories and the improvement of her people. The war had had the effect of confirming the emancipation of Italy, and for that England might rejoice; for the cause of Italy was dear to the people of Great Britain. The debates here referred to extended through and beyond the great reformatory excitement of the year. The question of making a reform in the English representative .system, having its expression in the House of Commons, came on in full force in the early part of this year. It was fore- shadowed in the address of her majesty. That utterance contained not indeed a distinct and emphatic promise of a reform in the system of parlia- mentary representation and the franchise, but was rather a mild deliverance in that direction. It fell to Mr. Gladstone to present and defend the governmental meas- ure in fulfillment of his pledge. He accordingly prepared the Reform Bill of 1866. In presenting this measure in the House of Commons he called attention to the history of the reformatory tendency as far back as 1832. The bill which he proposed contained several provisions, but the most REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 379 important of all was that relating to the right of suffrage in Great Britain, and to the extension of the same to a large class of new electors. He thought that, in consideration of the brief time in which Parliament must consider and dispose of the measure it now proposed, it would be better to limit the attention of the House to the Franchise Bill only, leaving the remainder for future consideration. Mr. Gladstone then proceeded to explain the measure which he pro- posed. He said that it was the purpose of the government to create in the counties an occupation franchise, covering all those householdings valued at rentals between fourteen pounds and fifty pounds a year. The present min- imum was fifty pounds. The extension of the suffrage downward to house- holders paying a rental of fourteen pounds would add a hundred and seventy-one thousand electors. This was not all. The measure extended to the counties the same electoral rights which now arose under the provi- sion which leaseholders and copyholders enjoyed in the boroughs entitling them to votes in the counties. The next provision extended the right of suffrage to all citizens who, whether in county or town, should within two years have a deposit of fifty pounds in savings banks. This provision would add about fifteen thousand voters to the present list. Another feature of the bill was to place " com- pound householders" on an equality with other taxpayers. The present clause relative to taxpaying, as the same existed in the Reform Act, should be abolished, whereby about twenty-five thousand additional voters would be enfranchised. Another clause extended the right of lodgers under cer- tain conditions. Whoever had apartments worth ten pounds a year, exclu- sive of the furniture, should be entitled to the suffrage. The present restriction with regard to registration for residence at the time of voting should be annulled. Persons employed in the government yards should be enfranchised. Altogether the chancellor of the exchequer thought there would be added, under the various provisions of the bill, not fewer than four hundred thousand voters to the present list. The speaker argued and defended the various propositions here presented with great ability ; nor might anyone at this stage of the proceedings anticipate anything other than a prosperous issue for the measure. Mr. Gladstone, if we may judge from his tone, had little apprehension of the confusion that was presently to come. In closing his address he referred to the possibility that the bill might not be accept- able to the House, but at the same time urged that if there should be an adverse vote he hoped it would be upon a plain and direct issue. He dep- recated any confusion in the question now pending. Referring to the vote about to be taken, Mr. Gladstone said : " I trust it will be taken upon the question whether there is or is not to be an enfran- 380 LIFE AND TIMES OF ^VI1,I,IAM E. GLADSTONE. chisement downward, if it is to be taken at all. We have felt that to carry enfranchisement above the present line was essential; essential to character, essential to credit, essential to usefulness ; essential to the character and credit not merely of the government, not merely of the political party by which it has the honor to be represented, but of this House, and of the successive Parliaments and governments, who all stand pledged with respect to this question of the representation. We cannot consent to look upon this large addition, considerable although it may be, to the political power of the working classes of this country, as if it were an addition fraught with mischief and with danger. We cannot look, and we hope no man will look, upon it as some Trojan horse approaching the walls of the sacred city, and filled with armed men bent upon ruin, plunder, and conllagration. We can- not join in comparing it with the inonstruni infelix ; we cannot say: " ' Scandit fatalis machina m tiros. Fata armis, mediaqiie mimins illabitur tirbi.' ['The fatal machine, pregnant with armed men, Breaches the walls, and threateningly slips into the heart of the city. '] " I believe that those persons whom we ask you to enfranchise ought rather to be welcomed as you would welcome recruits to your army, or children to }Our family. We ask you to give within what you consider to be the just limits of prudence and circumspection ; but, having once deter- mined those limits, to give with an ungrudging hand. Consider what you can safely and justly afford to do in admitting new subjects and citizens within the pale of the parliamentary constitution; and, ha\ing so considered it, do not, I beseech you, perform the act as if you were compounding with daneer and misfortune. Do it as if vou were conferrintr a boon that will be felt and reciprocated in grateful attachment. Give to those persons new interests in the Constitution, new interests which, by the beneficent processes of the law of nature and of providence, shall beget in them new attachment ; for the attachment of the people to the throne, the institutions, and the laws under which they live is, after all, more than gold and silver, or more than fleets and armies, at once the strength, the glory, and the safety of the land." The sequel to the introduction of the Franchise Bill well illustrates the peculiarities of government by party. Such government always exhibits to us the retardation of progress by factional interests. Parties, like carpets, have their selvages. There is always along the edge a raveling of self- interest, tending to raggedness. The party leader can rarely count with certainty upon the absolute solidarity of his column. In the present in- stance the great body of the Liberals stood firmly in support of the Glad- stonian measure ; but there were soon to be heard ominous mutterings of defection in the ranks. Scarcely had the debates begun when Mr. Horsman, a professed Liberal, REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 38 1 arose and declared his opposition intototo the pending measure. This note of alarm might have been disregarded but for the similar strain of other speakers of greater inHuence and abilities. Mr. Robert Lowe, destined him- self after two years to become chancellor of the exchequer, broke out in bitter denunciation of the bill. Indeed, it was on this occasion that Mr. Lowe made his reputation, much in the manner of Disraeli in his famous attack on Sir Robert Peel. The speaker was by no means an orator. His manner was without grace or elegance. He was a tall, angular man, suffering from myopia to such an extent that he was obliged to hold his notes almost against his nose. Besides, his invective, rising ever to the verge of personality, was in many parts excessive and unreasonable. But Mr. Lowe was thoroughly in earnest and thoroughly angry. Whatever may have been his motives, he attacked the proposition before the House with an ability which first aston- ished and then bewildered the members. The Conservatives applauded him to the echo, and the enthusiasm spread into the Liberal ranks. The House really became a surging sea, in which the opposing currents ran to- gether and broke themselves into foam. If the opposition was elated over this episode the friends of the govern- ment were alarmed and confused by the suddenness and success of the onset. Mr. Lowe gave utterance to some of his opinions in this manner : "You have had the opportunity of knowing some of the constituencies of this country, and I ask if you want venality, ignorance, drunkenness, and the means of intimidation ; if you want impulsive, unreflecting, and violent people, where will you go to look for them } To the top, or to the bottom 1 It is ridiculous to blink the fact that since the Reform Act great compe- tition has prevailed among the voters of between twenty pounds and ten pounds rental ; the ten-pound lodging and beer-house keepers. . . . We know what sort of persons live in these small houses ; we have all had ex- perience of them under the name of freemen, and it would be a good thing if they were disfranchised altogether." Then referring to Mr. Gladstone's rather stale Vergilian quotation about the wooden horse, Mr. Lowe continued : " It may be that we are destined to avoid this enormous danger with which we are confronted, and not — to use the language of my right honorable friend — to compound with danger and misfortune ; but it may be otherwise, and all that I can say is that if my right honorable friend does succeed in carrying this measure through Parliament, when the passions and interests of the day are gone by I do not envy him his retrospect. I covet not a single leaf of the laurels that may encircle his brow. I do not envy him his triumph. His be the glory of carrying it ; mine of having to the utmost of my poor ability re- sisted it." 382 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. As for Mr. Horsman, that gentleman denounced the speech of the chancellor of the exchequer as being another bid for power, another promise made to be broken, another political fraud and parliamentary juggle. But it happened that both Mr. Lowe and Mr. Horsman were vulnerable in the position which they occupied. It was known that both were discontented with the honors which they had received — that they were aspirants for what had not yet come, that they had grievances, and might therefore be regarded as members of the eenus Pcssimisticiim. John Bright, thoroughly aroused at the Liberal defection, came back at the gentlemen who had just spoken with a retort which struck the enemy like a ball of hot pitch, never to be removed. There came suddenly into his mind the vision of the affair described in the twenty-second chapter of First Samuel. King David " escaped to the cave of Adullam : and when his brethren and all his father's house heard it, they went down thither to him. And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him." This was too good not to be siezed upon by Mr. Bright. He said that Mr. Horsman was the first member of the new Parliament who had shown his wounds and uttered his griefs. " He has retired," said Mr. Bright, " into what may be called his political Cave of Adullam, to which he has invited everyone who is in distress and everyone w'ho is discontented. He has long been an.xious to found a party in this House, and there is scarcely a member at this end of the House who is able to address us with effect, or to take much part, whom he has not tried to bring over to his party and his cabal. At last he has succeeded in hooking the right honorable the member for Calme [meaning Mr. Lowe]. I know it was the opinion many years ago of a member of the cabinet that two men could make a party ; and when a party is formed of two men so amiable, so genial, as both of those right honorable gentlemen, we may hope to see, for the first time in Parliament, a party perfectly harmonious and distinguished by a mutual and unbroken trust. But there is one great difficulty. It is very much like the case of the Scotch terrier that was so covered with hair that you could not tell which was the head and which was the tail." This retort was sufficient without doubt to cru.sh any ordinary defec- tion. In an argumentative way Mr. Bright added: " I said at the beginning that I did not rise to defend the bill. I rose for the purpose of e.xplaining it. It is not the bill which, if I had been consulted, I should have recom- mended. If I had been a minister it is not the bill which I should have consented to present to the House. I think it is not adequate to the occa- sion and that its concessions are not sufficient. But I know the difficulties under which ministers labor, and I know the disinclination of Parliament to do much in the direction of this question. I shall give it my support REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 383 because, as far as it goes, it is a simple and honest measure, and because I believe, if it becomes law, it will give some solidity and duration to every- thinq- that is good in the Constitution and to everything that is noble in the character of the people of these realms." By this time the parliamentary winds were blowing high. If the speeches of Lowe and Horsman had evoked great applause that of Bright brought enthusiasm and uproarious laughter. His reference to the cave of Adullam took without measure. Instantly the quick wit of honorable members fastened on Mr. Lowe and Mr. Horsman and their fellow in in- surrection the name of Aditllainites, which became ever afterward their political designation, and which has passed into all the dictionaries and encyclopedias of the world. It is a sign of real agitation and forward movement that such names come into play. Political phraseology is a hint of something more important than either politics or politicians; it points to progress and change in institutions. Shortly afterward another expression, this time exployed by Mr. Gladstone himself, was caught up and borne along the floods, visible from afar. Mr. Gladstone had been importuned to bring forward the whole scheme of reform, including the redistribution, or, as we would say, the re- apportionment, of the parliamentary seats. This he was asked to do, and not to insist on pressing the single measure couched in the Franchise Bill. Speaking on this subject, Lord Robert Montague had referred to Mr. George William Villiers as a pretended friend of the workingmen. Mr. Gladstone, with more than his usual severity, replied, saying that "if the workingmen whom the noble lord and others seemed to dread as an invading and destroying army, instead of regarding them as their oivn flesh and blood, were introduced into the House, they would set him an example of both courtesy and good breeding." This was sufficiently caustic; but the phrase "own flesh and blood" was snatched from Gladstone's remark by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, wrested from its purpose, and turned effectively, if not truly, against its author. The measure proposed by Mr. Gladstone was not radical and complete. It was an extension of the right of suffrage, but it by no means reached to manhood or universal suffrage. On the contrary, it was onl\- a feeble concession, by which fewer than a half million voters would be added to the entire lists in Great Britain. These facts gave Lord Lytton a great opportunity. "What," said he, "has the right honorable gentleman [meaning Mr. Gladstone] to say to the millions who will ask him one day : ' Are we an invading army ? Are we not fellow-Christians } Are ive not your own flesh and blood?' Does he think it will be answer enough to give that kind of modified opinion which he put forth last night, and to say, ' Well, that is very true. For my own part, in 384 LIFE ANT) TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. my individual capacity, I cannot see that there is any danger of admitting you ; but still, you know, il is wise to proceed gratlually. A seven-pound voter is real flesh and blood. But you are only gradual flesh and blootl. Read Darwin on the origin of species and learn that you are fellow- Christians in an imperfect state of development?' " The refusal of Mr. Gladstone to bring forward his whole scheme at once tended to aggravate the opposition, and to increase the importance of the Adullamite contingent. The leader of the House had said that he would present his whole plan of reform after the Franchise Bill had passed the second reading. This did not satisfy. Other supporters of the govern- ment, as well as the recalcitrant l.owe and Horsman, drew back from sup- porting a part of a thing, not understanding the whole of it. Of this kind were the Earl Grosvenor and the Marquis of Westminster, both of whom put themselves in the attitude of standing with the Adullamites. Before the second reading could be called the Easter recess of Parliament occurred, and the agitation, central in the House of Com- mons, went out, like a refluent wave, over all the country. Englishmen were more concerned about the Franchise Bill than they were about their Easter eggs and flowers. Public demonstrations in the English manner swelled up spontaneously here and there. The war was on, and the Liberals found that they must fight a hot battle or be beaten on their own proposition. One of the popular demonstrations was at Liverpool, at which Mr. Gladstone spoke to thousands of people. There were also present on the occasion the Duke of Argyle, with his popular sympathies, and Mr. George Joachim Goschen, just then rising to parliamentary fame. The chief interest centered, of course, in Mr. Gladstone and his speech. In beginning he declared his jnirpose to abide by the Franchise Bill, to stand with it or fall with it ; and hereupon the audience sprang up with a long-continued chorus of cheers. Continuing, Mr. Gladstone said : " Having produced this measure, founded in the spirit of moderation, we hope to support it with decision. It is not in our power to secure the passing of the measure; that rests more with you, and more with lliose whom you represent, and of whom you are a sample, than it does with us. Still, we have a great responsi- bility and are conscious of it, and we do not intend to flinch from it. We stake ourselves — we stake our existence as a government — and we also stake our political character on the adoption of the bill in its main provisions. You have a right to expect from us that we should tell you what we mean, and that the trumpet which it is our business to blow should give forth no uncertain sound. Its sound has not been, and I trust will not be, uncertain. We have passed the Rubicon — we have broken the bridge and burned the boats behind us. We have advisedly cut off the means of REFORM BILL OF 1 866. " 385 retreat, and having done this we hope that, as far as time has yet permitted, we have done our duty to the crown and to the nation." It is cheering in the retrospect, looking into the turmoil and commo- tion of the period and noticing how hardly England was advancing but a little in the direction of universal suffrage, to hear the stentorian voice of John Bright across the swell. In Birmingham there was a meeting rela- tively as enthusiastic as that at Liverpool. Mr. Bright, who could not attend, sent a letter to be read, of the quality of which the reader may judge from extracts. " Parliament," said he, " is never hearty for reform or /or any good measure. It hated the Reform Bill of 1831 and 1832. It does not like the Franchise Bill now upon its table. It is to a large extent the offspring of landed power in the counties and of tumult and corruption in the boroughs, and it would be strange if such a Parliament were in favor of freedom and of an honest representation of the people. But, notwith- standing such a Parliament, this bill will pass if Birmingham and other towns do their duty." There spoke the true democrat, who might have been an American statesman in our best days. The writer went on to allege that the opposition which had burst out against the extension of the franchise was " a dirty conspiracy." " What," said he in his bluff manner, " should be done and must be done under these circumstances .'* You know what your fathers did thirty-four years ago, and you know the result. The men who, in every speech they utter, insult the workingmen, describing them as a multitude given up to ignorance and vice, will be the first to yield when the popular will is loudly and resolutely expressed. If Parliament Street, from Charing Cross to the venerable Abbey, were filled with men seeking a reform bill, as it was two years ago with men come to do honor to an illustrious Italian, these slanderers of their countrymen would learn to be civil, if they did not learn to love free- dom." Mr. Bright went on to urge the people of Manchester to organize, to hold public meetings and prepare petitions, as men should do who live in a free country, having representative institutions, and being determined to partake in some measure of that representation and to be free. The event showed that the opponents of the franchise were hard pressed by the rising people. Mr. Lowe, in particular, was singled out and brought to book for his utterances respecting the character of the under man. He tried to explain that he had not meant to ascribe a bad character to all of those who had been recently admitted to the rights of suffrage. He had described only a worse part of the new voters. With the reassembling of the House after Easter there was one ques- tion uppermost in the minds of all. The second reading of the bill was pending. Mr. Gladstone had, in American phrase, been handling the Adullamites without gloves. On the seventh evening of the debate Mr. 25 386 I.IIE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Lowe returned to his task. He had prepared himself with all manner of panoply and with every kind of weapon that he was able to wield. It appears that the severe treatment to which he had been subjected aroused his animosity to the highest pitch. He spoke for two and a half hours in a manner to call out the constant applause of the opposition, and it could Init be noted that the approval extended over alarmingly into the ministerial benches. Mr. Lowe declared that the pending measure was based on false prin- ciples, that it was promoted in the House bj' political coercion and outside of the House by the trades unions and a rampant democracy that if loosed would prove fatal to the English Constitution. He assailed the bill because it implied the fitness of the poorer classes to exercise the right of suffrage. It admitted that their claim to do so was indefeasible. The measure, he said, was calculated to appease democracy, but not to promote good govern- ment. He showed, or tried to show, that Mr. Gladstone's scheme signified not the enfranchisement of two hundred thousand men, but the final enfran- chisement of all. Then he rang the changes on Mr. Gladstone's allegation that the poor were "our own Hesh and blood — fellow-citizens and Christians — and fathers of families." He then referred to the death of Lord Palmer- ston, and declared that all the remaining members of the cabinet had cast their prudence and statesmanship into the grave of that statesman. He charged the Liberal leaders with having carried over the great mass of their party and laid them at the feet of the member for Birmingham (meaning Mr. Bright). The Liberals were alreadv, continued Mr. Lowe, cheek bv iowl with men and principles with whom and with which they would lately have scorned to be in company. Those who, belonging in the Liberal ranks, stood by the old landmarks were now left like sheep in the wilderness. Those who had been faithful to the principles of the party were now charged with treason and conspiracy. It was alleged, said the speaker, that Liberals were bound to support Lord Russell. " I," said he, "dispute that. I never served under him. I have served, untortunately, for a little less than ten years under two prime ministers, one being Lord Aberdeen and the other Lord Palmerston. Both the.se governments Lord Russell joined ; both these governments he abandoned; and both these governments he assisted to destroy. I owe him no allegiance. I am not afraid of the people of this country ; they have shown remarkable good sense — remarkable in contrast with the harangues that have been addressed to them. "Nor am I," continued the speaker, "afraid of those who lead them. Demagogues are the commonplaces of history; they are found everywhere where there is popular commotion. They have all a family likeness. Their names float lightly on the stream of time; they finally contrive to be handed REFORM BILL OF 1866. 387 down somehow, for they are as Httle to be regarded for themselves as the foam which rides on the top of the stormy wave and bespatters the rock it cannot shake ; but what I do tear — what fills me with gloomiest miseivines — is when I see a number of gentlemen of rank, property, and intelligence carried away without even being convinced or even overpersuaded to sup- port a policy which many of them in their hearts detest and abhor. Mon- archies exist by loyalty, aristocracies by honor, popular assemblies by political virtue. When these things begin to fail it is in their loss, and not in comets, eclipses, and earthquakes, that we are to look for the portents that herald the fall of States." In this flight Mr. Lowe reached the height of his argument and outcry. There could be no doubt as to its effectiveness. He went on in full tide to say that, though he could not agree with the chancellor of the exchequer in the measure which he proposed, or with an\' part of it, there was, happily, one common ground left them, and that was the second ^-Eneid. " My right honorable friend." said Mr. Lowe, " returned again to the poor old Trojan horse. I will add one more to the excerpts from the story of that noble animal, after which I will promise to turn him out to grass for the remainder of his life. The passage to which I wish to call attention presents a sketch of the army, and not only of the army, but of the general also : " ' The fatal horse pours forth the liunian tide. Insulting Sinon flings his firebrands wide ; The gates are burnt, the ancient rampart falls, And swarming myriads climb its crumbling walls.' " I have now traced as well as I could what I believe would be the nat- ural result of a measure which seems to my poor imagination destined to absorb and destroy, one after the other, those institutions which have made England what she has hitherto been and what I believe no other country ever was or ever will be. Surely the heroic work of so many centuries, the match- less achievements of so many wise heads and strong hands deserve a nobler consummation than to be sacrificed to revolutionary passion or to the maudlin enthusiasm of humanity. But if we do fall we shall fall deservedly. Unconstrained by any external force, not beaten down bv any intestine calamity, in the plethora of wealth and the surfeit of our too exuberant prosperity we are about, with our own rash and unconstrained hands, to pluck down on our owm heads the venerable temple of our liberty and our laws. History may record other catastrophes as signal and disastrous, but none more wanton and more disgraceful." None could say that this was not a splendid and effective tirade against the measure of the government. There have been few such passages in the history of the House of Commons. Not more than a dozen instances could 388 LIFE AM) TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. be produced of so extreme and powerful an attack. Mr. Lowe seemed to appeal to everything that was English, and to stand against what must appear for the moment to have been the utterly un-English bill before the House of Commons. Certain contingencies in parliamentary history have brought out just such brilliant and evanescent bursts of eloquent assault as that of ]\Ir. Lowe, but not many others have surpassed his effort. Mr. Disraeli himself, in taking up the debate, felt as much, and it was conceded that his effort, though by no means tame, was not up to the level of the great Adullamite who had preceded him. The leader of the opposition began by a Hing at the Franchise Bill, in asserting that it was "based on American principles." He denied that the Conservative party was justly chargeable with unfairness with respect to the franchise. The House of Commons ought to remember that it was not the House of the People. The body stood for political order, and did not stand for a multitude. In the matter of estimating the part which workingmen should bear in the State, which part the speaker declared he did not begrudge to them, the House ought to proceed according to the spirit of the English Constitution. He then proceeded to attack Mr. Glad stone's record on the question of reform, and to show that his history on that subject for the full span of a lifetime was wholly inconsistent with the part which he was now performing in Parliament and before the nation. It was to all this outcry and array of talent that Mr. Gladstone must now reply. He must do it well or else be defeated. It was manifest from the commotion of the House that the elements were revolutionary. The chancellor of the exchequer began his speech with an allusion to the state- ment of Mr. Lowe that his (Gladstone's) words at Liverpool had been of a character to disparage members of the House. It was not true that they bore that character. He begged leave to remind his right honorable friend (meaning Mr. Lowe) of a passage from Aristophanes. That author makes one of his characters, in addressing an audience, to say, " But now, my good Athenians, pray recollect, I am not speaking of the city, I am not speaking of the public, I am only speaking of certain depraved and crooked little men." After this sally Mr. Gladstone passed on to consider the speech of Mr. Disraeli. " At last we have obtained," said the speaker, "a declaration from an authoritative source that a bill which, in a country with five millions of adult males, proposes to add to a limited constituency two hundred thou- sand of the middle class and two hundred thousand of the working class is in the judgment of the leader of the Tory party a bill to reconstruct the Constitution on American principles." The statement of this position of Mr. Disraeli .seemed to be sufficient to confute his argument. What that gentleman said relative to the attitude of Mr. Gladstone in 1830-32 seemed REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 389 to touch the speaker, and he rose to the height of the occasion. He called attention of the House to the fact that Mr. Disraeli, in replying to Mr. John Stuart Mill, had disclaimed the intention of referring to the writings of that distinguished gentleman produced a quarter of a century previously. Then Mr. Gladstone continued: "The right honorable gentleman, secure in the recollection of his own consistency, has taunted me with the errors of my boyhood. When he addressed the honorable member for Westminster he showed his magnanimity by declaring that he would not take the philosopher to task for what he wrote twenty-five years ago ; but when he caught one who, thirty-six years ago, just emerged from boyhood, and still an under- graduate at Oxford, had expressed an opinion adverse to the Reform Bill of 1832, of which he had so long and bitterly repented, then the right hon- orable gentleman could not resist the temptation. . . . " As the right honorable gentleman has exhibited me, let me exhibit myself It is true, I deeply regret it ; but I was bred under the shadow of the great name of Canning ; every influence connected with that name governed the politics of my childhood and of my youth ; with Canning I rejoiced in the removal of religious disabilities and in the character which he gave to our policy abroad ; with Canning I rejoiced in the opening which he made toward the establishment of free commercial interchanges between nations ; with Canning, and under the shadow of that great name, and under the shadow of that yet more venerable name of Burke, I grant my youth- ful mind and imagination were impressed just the same as the mature mind of the right honorable gentleman is now impressed. I conceived that fear and alarm of the first Reform Bill in the days of my undergraduate career at Oxford which the right honorable gentleman now feels. ... I envy him not one particle of the polemical advantage which he has gained by his dis- creet reference to the proceedings of the Oxford Union Debating Society in the \'ear of grace 1831. " My position, sir, in regard to the Liberal party is in all points the opposite of Earl Russell's. ... I have none of the claims he possesses. I came among you an outcast from those with whom I associated, driven from them, I admit, by no arbitrary act, but by the slow and resistless force of conviction. I came among you, to make use of the legal phraseology, in forma pauperis. I have nothing to offer you but honorable and faithful service. You received me with kindness, indulgence, generosity, and, I may even say, with some measure of confidence. And the relation between us has assumed such a form that )ou can never be my debtors, but that I must forever be in your debt." Mr. Gladstone, drawing to a close, said : " We are assailed ; this bill is in a state of crisis and of peril, and the government along with it. We stand or fall with it. . . . We stand with it now ; we may fall with it a short 390 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. time hence. If \vc do so fall, we, or others in our places, shall rise with it hereafter. I shall not attempt to measure with precision the forces that are to be arrayed against us in the coming issue. Perhaps the great divi- sion of to-night is not the last that must take place in the struggle. .'\t some point of the contest you may possibly succeed. You maj- drive us from our seats. You may bury the l)ill that \vc have introduced, but we will write upon its gravestone for an epitaph this line, with certain confi- dence in its fulfillment : ^"' Exoriare aliqiiis tiosiris ex ossibiis ill tor.' ['Out of our bones some avenger will arise.'] "You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. The great social forces which move onward in their might and majesty, and which the tumult of our debates does not for a moment impede or disturb — those great social forces are against } ou ; they are marshaled on our side, and the banner which we now carry in this fight, though perhaps at some moment it may droop over our sinking heads, yet it soon again will float in the eye of heaven, and it will be borne by the firm hands of the united people of the three kingdoms, perhaps not to an easy, but to a certain and to a not far distant \ictory." Thus concluded the remarkable debate. It had become manifest at the end that the division would be close. It might not be certainly known on which side the majority would declare. The crisis came. The speaker put the question, and in the English manner the members of the House with- drew to be counted. So nearly balanced were the forces that no one but the tellers could declare whether the second reading of the bill had passed or been rejected. The members returned, and the tellers handed up their report. There was a moment of suppressed agitation, not only on the floor of the House, but in the galleries and corridors, that were ]:)acked with people to the utmost capacity. At length the speaker said, "Ayes, 31S; noes, 313." Then came a scene the like of which has rarely been witnessed in the House of Com- mons. The storm of shouting burst in one uproarious blast from floor and gallery. The Tories were frantic and the Adullamites seemed to be utterly abandoned to the delirium of what was a virtual victory over the govern- ment. The majorit)- for the governmental proposition was only five for the second reading ! That plainly portended the end of all things. It w-as said that Mr. Robert Lowe was for the time in an ecstasy that might easily have been mistaken for insanity. He stood in his seat and waved his hat and shouted to e.xhaustion. It seemed to him and the Adullamites like a personal triumph over all the powers. It looked like the disruption of the Liberal party. The storm roared on until it exhausted itself, like a REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 39I wind cloud charoed with the debris of earth rattlino- down the horizon. o o Then all of a sudden there was a great calm, when Mr. Gladstone arose and, without the slightest perturbation, addressing the speaker, said: "Sir, I propose to fix the committee for Monday, and I will then state the order of business." It was already daybreak when the scene was over. The excitement which had just burst in the House rolled out into the palace yard, thence into the streets, thence throutrh London and England and the world. It was now realized that the government was in deadly peril, and would per- haps be driven across the border. Mr. Gladstone, to use his own expres- sion, had adopted the policy of burning the bridges behind him. He had announced that the government would stand or fall with the Franchise Bill. He had made his speech about the banner that might droop over his head but would still be borne to victory. More important still, he had promised an impatient House that as soon as the bill had passed the second reading he would report his plan for the redistribution of the parliamentary seats. This must now be done. It could but be foreseen that a proposed change in the apportionment would bring confusion, cause further defection, and in all probability bring an adverse vote to the government. But Mr. Gladstone went boldly forward with his plan for redistribution. He would not disfranchise any of the boroughs. He would not alter the total number of members in the House. Some of the smaller borouehs should be reduced in their representation from two members to one. In a few cases boroughs now separate should be consolidated. By these means there would be a gain of forty-nine seats, and the seats thus gained might be advantageously distributed in the way of equalizing the whole repre- sentation. Of the forty-nine seats thus gained Liverpool, Manchester, Bir- mingham, Leeds, and Salforcl should have one member each additional. Twenty-one seats should be distributed to counties and divisions of coun- ties that were now inadequately represented. The borough called Tower Hamlets should be divided into two, and each division should have two members. Chelsea and Kensington were made into a borough with two members. Burnley, Stalybridge, Gravesend, Hartlepool, Middlesborough, Dewsbury, and the University of London should each have an additional member. The remainder of the seats gained should be allotted equitably to .Scotland and Ireland. Such was the Redistribution Bill, which came to its second reading on the 14th of May, 1866. Then the two measures, namely, the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill, were combined, and on the 28th of the month were brought forward as one measure. Then the usual fusillade broke out. Sir Robert Knightley offered an .amendment to prevent corruption and bribery at the elections, and, though the government opposed, the amend- 392 I.IKK AND TIMES OF WILLIAM K. GLADSTONE. ment was carried. Mr. Hayter, and Mr. Lowe entered the arena, and the excitement again rose high. There was a proposition against the grouping of boroughs proposed in the governmental plan ; but the mover was induced to withdraw it. Presently Lord Dunkellin, a Liberal in name, offered an amendment that the basis of franchise should be made accordinL"" to the tax rates of the intending elector, antl not according to rental. This proposition Mr. Gladstone, as the spokesman of the government, strenuously opposed. He said that the principle of resting the franchise on ' Tour. * BALMORAL CASTLE. rates instead of rentals was fatal to the pending plan, and that the govern- ment would insist on the bill in its present form. Hereupon the House divided on Lord Dunkellin's amendment, and the same was adopted against the government bv a vote of three hundred and fifteen against three hundred and four. This was a coup de grdcc to the Russell ministry. There was a majority of eleven squarely against a measure which the leader of the House declared to be essential. The ministry hereupon resigned, leaving the Conser\'atives and the Adullamites to enjoy their extraordinary success as they would. REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 393 The queen at this juncture was at Balmoral Castle, and some days were required to complete the formality of resignation. There was a reluctance on the part of her majesty to allow the government of her " old and tried friend," Lord Russell, to be driven out ; but Mr. Gladstone showed that the exigency required a change of ministry. The government, he said, had given a pledge to stand or fall by the Franchise Bill. He admitted that such pledges ought to be rarely made. He said that a promise of this kind was "the last weapon in the armory of the government; it should not lightly be taken down from the wall ; and if it is taken down it should not be lightly replaced, nor till it has served the purposes it was meant to fulfill." The queen was constrained by the constitutional exigency to accept Lord Russell's resignation, and casting about she chose Lord Derby as his suc- cessor. Benjamin Disraeli was made Chancellor of the Exchequer; Lord Stanley, Secretary for Foreign Affairs ; Mr. Walpole, Home Secretary; and VMscount Cranborne, Secretary for India. Lord Derby, feeling his way cautiously, devised the scheme of incorporating certain members of the Liberal party in a new ministry; but the Liberals, not to be so easily caught, sent Lord Grosvenor to say to Lord Derby that, while they might be able as independents to give a qualified support to governmental measures, they could not accept places in the cabinet. These events occupied the month of June. The new ministry was completed early in Tuly, but the prorogation of Parliament was at hand, and there was no time for the government to do more than to offer preliminary statements. Lord Derby proceeded with great caution, letting it be understood that the new ministry was not opposed in par- ticular to the reform of Parliament, and hinting that the same ought to be effected by the cooperation of the two great parties. He went so far as to say that he should be pleased if " a safe and satisfactory measure " of reform could be passed. He thought that a considerable number of those who were not now admitted to the electoral franchise ought to be admitted. He believed, however, that that part of the people who appeared to be most earnest in advocating a reform bill were not those who could command the confidence of either the Conservative or the Liberal party. The meaning of these outgivings on the part of the prime minister was not far to seek. The government in Great Britain is sensitive to pub- lic opinion. It is quite true that whenever the people arise in their might the government of that empire becomes quite humble before them. In the present case the people were thoroughly aroused. The overthrow of the Russell ministry led immediately to an outcry in England which could not be well disregarded. Monster demonstrations beran to be held in all the leading cities. One crowd of ten thousand persons gathered in Trafalgar 394 Llf'E AND TIMES OF WILLIAM K. GLADSTONE. Square and passed a resolution ol" rej^ret that the late ministry instead of resigning hatl not a[j]jealed to the country. Other meetings of like kind were held in London. The ereat nianu- facturing towns were ablaze with excitement. The utterances of the orators were of no uncertain quality. The Tories at first undertook to cry down the meetings and the resolutions of the meetings, on the ground that they were merely covert expressions of democracy, republicanism, revolution, ter- rorism, and anarchy. Hut the people took no fright. Out at Brookfields, near Birmingham, a host gathered that was said to number two hundred and fifty thousand. John Bright and his fellow-patriots addressed crowds that could not be numbered. Organization was resorted to. A Reform League was created, having for its president Mr. lulmond Beales, a man of considerable force of character and abilities as a leader. The excitement rose high. A monster meeting was called, to be held in II)de Park on the 23d of July. All London seemed to be astir, ami the government took alarm at a movement which seemed to be little less than revolutionary. A proclamation was issued by Sir Richard Mayne, Chief Commissioner of the London Police, forbiddingr the meetinof and orderintr o o o the closing of the gates. The police was ordered out, and certain military contingents got ready for the crisis. When the day came an innumerable throng made its way toward Hyde Park, and the head of the column was resisted at the gates. There was parleying and disputing, and on the part of the rougher element some stone-throwing, hooting, and insurrection. But the great body heeded the mandate of authority and stood aloof. Thousands, however, turned into the side street, packed it full, crowded against the ience ot the park, which gave way under the pressure, and the Hoods rushed in. Thousands upon thousands roared along over flower beds and forbidden grass plots, shouting and indulging in some good old Anglo-Saxon fist fighting, without much fear of interference. There was a little firing, and many persons were seriously hurt ; but the Life Guards came on the scene, and order was restored without much difiiculty. The effect of all this was salutary. Toryism had a change of heart. The Reform League came to be recognized as a force in society. Its lead- ers were invited by Mr. Walpole, of the Home Ofifice, to meet him for a conference with respect to what he called "the unhappy proceedings." The story went abroad that at the interview the home secretary was quite defer- ential to the representatives of the people, and that he attested his feelings by shedding a few tears. So the violent aspect of affairs in London passed by, but not without a striking effect on the ministerial mind. Lord Derby, and in particular Mr. Disraeli, perceived that something must be done in the way of a reform bill, or else themselves must be hurtled out of office by the winds of popular disapproval. It was devolved on Mr. Disraeli as REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 395 leader in the House of Commons to meet as best he might this remarliable condition of affairs. No doubt of all the men in the world he was best qualified to do it! His qualities were well understood. Lord Salisbury had declared that the ethics of Mr. Disraeli were the ethics of a political adventurer. He had got to himself several sobriquets significant of the popular estimation of his character and abilities. He was called "the Asian Mystery." Others changed the title a little by designating him as "the Hebrew Mystery Man." It should be allowed that this business affected him but little, or not at all. He was ready for any contingency, and having his eye fixed and single to the question ot being Prime Minister of England, he deemed it well to write expediency on the blade of his sword. He understood perfectly that the recent revulsion by which he had come into power was only an incident. He read the signs of the times aright, and knew that a parliamentary reform, and in particular a reform of the franchise, was a certainty of the near future. Fully apprehending the situation he deliberately made up his mind to become a reformer himself to make the Torv government of Lord Derby a reforming government, to outdo, if necessary, the Liberal enemy at his own game of popular advances, to snatch the very wind out of his sail and leave his ship becalmed at sea until the masts should rot and fall down piecemeal. The scheme was worthy of the man. Of course he did not at once divulge his plans, but went forward cautiously, feeling his way. On the 5th of February, 1867, the House of Commons convened. Mr. Disraeli arose and began his first communication as the mouthpiece of the government. He said that for his part he thought the time had come when parliament- ary reform should no longer be a question wdiich ought to decide the fate of ministers. This was fairly good to begin with ! The statement was received with a roar of laughter from the opposition. Mr. Disraeli did not propose to hazard anything by the sudden assumption of perilous responsi- bilities. The derision with which his first propositions were met disturbed him not at all. He went on to say that the government had prepared thir- teen resolutions which he would offer one by one to the House, as express- ive of the tentative purposes of the ministry covering the matter of reform. The speaker then began with resolving something or other which was so true as to be absurd! From this axiomatic basis he worked along into certain and sundry changes, as if to feel the temper of the House. One resolution reembodied the princijjle of Lord Dunkellin's amendment on which the late government had gone to pieces. Another related to a system of plural voting as a settlement of the franchise question in boroughs. Still another declared it inexpedient to disfranchise any borough altogether; and another would leave it to the option of the elector to vote b}' ballot. 596 LIFE AND TIMES UF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. CUiNFLlCr OF IHK AU THdKI I I KS Willi I 1 1 K KEFOKM I.KAliU li llEMONSTKA 1 Ic iN, JULY 23, lj)66. REFORM liILL OF 1866. 397 The last resolution proposed a scheme for a royal commission to consider and submit a plan for alterations in the boundaries of parliamentary boroughs. The Liberal leaders mounted upon these resolutions as though they were chaff in the breach of a wall ; and the work was easy enough. The resolutions were assailable at almost every point. Besides, affairs outside were again heating themselves to the point of combustion. While Mr. Dis- raeli was reading his resolutions a crowd of Englishmen, numbering about twenty thousand, assembled in Agricultural Hall at Islington, and having obtained possession of Mr. Disraeli's pending platitudes, passed a resolution to the effect that no change in the representation of the people in Parlia- ment would be satisfactory which was not based on the principle of the people themselves being ]>ersonally represented, and that such direct and real representation could be effected only by means of " residential and registered m?nhood suffrage, protected in its exercise by the ballot." The assemblage was made up of workingmen and trades unionists — a class whose voice could be no longer disregarded in the affairs of Great Britain. On the 2 I St of February a ministerial meeting was held to determine, if possible, the details of a bill to be presented to the House. The prime minister was reported to have said at this meeting that for his part this would be the last time in which he would attempt to meet the question of reform, and that in case of failure nothing would again induce him to accept the onerous duty of conducting the government. The history of what transpired is here obscure. It is said that a bill was prepared, but that it was not the bill which was presented to the House. That measure, it is believed, was prepared at an extra-official meeting of the cabinet, on account ol the refusal of some of the members to support the regular bill which jNIr. Disraeli had in hand. Three of the ministers were at this juncture on the point of resigning. The bill that was brought before Parliament on the 25th of February was designated as the Ten Minutes Bill, because it was said to have been prepared in that length of time. At any rate Mr. Disraeli had two bills in hand, or one in hanil and one in pocket, the latter being radical and disruptive, the former reformatory but tame. Tlie bill in hand was brought forward and was met with such pronounced and general opposition that Mr. Disraeli withdrew it from con- sideration so quickly that his critics said the bill had disappeared in a time as short as that of its preparation. This left the leader of the House no alternative but to bring forward the 7-cal bill, which it is claimed he had already prepared. We should remark that this method and act of trifling with the House of Commons — tormenting it, so to speak, in a manner that seemed to proceed on the hypothesis that honesty does not exist — would have wrecked then and there 398 LIFE AXn TIMES OV WILLIAM E. CLADSTONE. any other statesman cxce[)t "the Asi.m Mystery." lliin it seems to have affected not at all. The chancellor of the exchecjuer came on with his i)ill on the i8th of March, 1S67, and ha\in«'' now eot down to the level of busi- ness and necessit)' his measure was heard with the profoundest interest. There was a full House; there were crowded galleries ; there was an anxious country outside. Mr. Disraeli met all this with a plan of reform in the franchise and parliamentary representation which went altogether beyond the plan which Mr. Gladstone had proposed the year before, was more radical in its provisions, more thoroughgoing and more rational in its bottom principles, and more inclusive in its general character. It was a spectacle that might well astonish the whole political world to see tlie accomplished and perfectly self-possessed leader and representative of the Tory party in Great Britain offering a measure of reform in the House of Commons which altogether exceeded in merit the measure which the Lib- eral party less than a twelvemonth before would have gladly accepted, and which that party could not pass because of the defection and recalcitrancy ot some ot its own members." What, then, were the provisions of this Tory Reform Bill of 1867.^ In the first place, the right of suffrage was to be conferred on every man of full age not subject to any legal incapacit)- who, whether as ownc'r or tenant, had for the two full preceding years occupied any dwelling house within the borough of his residence, and who had during that time been rated (or as we should say, taxed) under the full schedule for the relief of the poor, as determined tor the premises occupied, and who had before th(? 20th of Iul\- in the current year paid all such poor rates that had accrued up to the pre- ceding 5th day of Januar\-. This clause was indeed a large and liberal stride in the direction of manhood suffrage. In the second place, the right of the franchise in the counties was to be granted to every man of full age, not subject to legal incapacity, who on the last day of Jul\- in any year had for the preceding twelve months been the occupant, whether as owner or tenant, of premises within the county rated (that is, taxed) at a valuation of fifteen pounds or upward, and who during the time of such occupancy had been taxed under the full schedule for the ♦What Mr. Disraeli thought of this business himself may be seen in an extract from the speech which he delivered subsequently at a banquet at CiuiUlhall. " What," said he, " is the Tory party if it does not represent national feeling? The Tory party is nothing unless it represent and upliold the institutions of the country. For what are the institutions of the country? They are entirely, in theory, and I am glad to see they are likely to be in practice, the embodiment of the national necessities, and the only security for national privileges. Well, then, I cannot help believing that because my Lord Derby and his colleagues have taken a happy opportunity to enlarge the privileges of the people of England we have not done anything but strengthen the institutions n( this country, the essence of whose force is that they re|>resent the interests and guard the rights of the people." In this extract we may clearly discern the workings of that adroit, cunning, and comprehensive intellect which was destined in the ensuing decade to rise to the very highest place of influence and power in the affairs of Great IJritain. REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 399 relief of the poor and before the 20th of July in the current year had paid all tax dues that had accrued up to the preceding 5th day of January. This was another stride. The third clause granted the right of suffrage to all graduates or asso- ciates in arts of any university of the United Kingdom ; also to every male person who had passed at any senior middle-class examination of any university of the United Kingdom ; also to every ordained priest or deacon of the Church ot England or minister of any other denomination ; also to all barristers, pleaders, attorneys, medical men, and schoolmasters holding certificates. This clause, leaving property out of view as a basis of the franchise, adopted the educational qualification with such boldness and freedom as to commend itself to the intellectual classes of the country. The fourth clause returned to property (but not to Arwc/cv/ property) as a basis of the right of suffrage. By this clause every man who on the ist of July in any year and for the two years immediately preceding had had a balance of not less than fifty pounds in a savings bank or in the Bank of England, or in any parliamentary stocks or funds, or who during the twelve months immediately preceding the 5th of April in any year had been charged with and paid twenty shillings for taxes and income tax, should be admitted to the franchise. The next clause related to double voting — a method unknown in America. The bill provided that any person registered as a voter for a borough by reason of his having been charged with and paid the requisite amount of assessed taxes and income tax, or either of such taxes, should not on that account lose any right to which he might be entitled — if he were otherwise duly qualified — to be registered as a voter for the same borough on the ground of any franchise involving occupation of premises and payment of rates. When so registered in respect of such double qualifica- tion the elector should be entitled to cast hvo votes for the member to be returned to Parliament for that borough. The clause provided, in a word, that any elector qualified under two provisions of the law to vote might cast two votes, one, as it were, under one provision, and the other under the other. Such were the principal features of the Franchise Bill. The provision of the Redistribution Bill related first of all to the boroughs that should be reduced to a single representative. These were Honiton, Thetford, Wells, Evesham, Marlborough, Norwich, Richmond, Lymington, Knaresborough, Andover, Leominster, Tewkesbury, Ludlow, Ripon, Huntingdon, Maldon, Cirencester, Bodmin, Great Marlow, Devizes, Hertford, Dorchester, and Litchfield. The following boroughs should be disfranchised : Totness, Reigate, Great Yarmouth, and Lancaster. The Tower Hamlets should be divided into two boroughs, and each of these should have two representa- 400 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. tives. The tullowini,^ counties or parts of counties were to be divided into two districts, and each district should have two representatives, namely, South Devon, West Kent, North Lancashire, South Lancashire, Lincohi, Middlesex, South Staffordshire, and East Surrey. The following districts should be enfranchised and have one representative each, namely, Torcjuay, Darlington, Hartlepool, Gravesend, St. Helen's, IJurnley, Stalybridge, W'ednesbury, Croydon, Middlesborough, Dewsbury, Burslem, and the University of London. In one particular the bill followed the lead of Lord Dunkellin's propo- sition. The plan of drawing a line against a certain class of possible electors at the minimum of seven pounds, on the ground that those nut possessed of that siun would be most open to bribery and corruption, was a part of the Gladstonian scheme. This was rejected in the plan of Disraeli, and simple household suffrage, with the payment of taxes, was inserted therefor. By this means the so-called "compound householders" were excluded from the suffrage to which indeed under equitable provisions they were not entitled. According to Mr. Disraeli's calculations there would be added about two hundred and thirty-seven thousand electors to the lists, while four hundred and eighty-six thousand would still be excluded from the borough franchise. Fixing his attention on the social conditions in Great Britain, he reckoned that under the proposed bill one fourth of the voting power of the kingdom would belong to the aristocracy, one fourth to the working classes, and the remaining two fourths to the middle classes of the people. Here, then, was a great, and we must say veritable, system of reform. The measure, as we have said, completely robbed the bellying sails of Liberalism of their wonted winds — and the sails fell flapping. But we are not to suppose that the daring scheme of the Tory leader was to pass unchallenged through the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone was ready for the fray. As the head of his party he was armed for the combat ; but as a patriot he was willing to concede much to the cause of reform, although his own banner was drooping. There was a conference of the Liberal leaders and a difference of views as to how they should proceed. Some wished to take what the gods had sent, and most were of this opinion, hi deference to it Mr. Gladstone agreed that the bill might pass the second reading without opposition ; but he set forth with great cogency the parts of the measure which he should oppose. These were the omission of a clause for the enfranchisement of lodgers; the omission of a provision against trafific in votes of poor house- holders, which might easily begin by the corrupt payment of the taxes of such for the sake of their votes; the clause disqualifying compound house- holders under the existing law ; the clause adding disqualifications to REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 4OI compound householders under the proposed law; the clause providing a franchise founded on direct taxation ; the clause providing for plural, or at least dual, voting ; the part relating to the redistribution of parliamentary seats, which Mr. Gladstone regarded as inadequate ; the clause reducing the franchise in counties, which was insufficient ; the proposal to adopt the ballot; the clause relative to special franchises. In fact, the objections of the Liberal leader extended to the larger part of the details, and to a con- siderable part of the essentials, of the bill. So the measure of Mr. Disraeli and the Tory reformers passed the second reading, and was sent into committee. The discussions, however, cleared the field a little on a few points. That part of the bill providing for dual voting was withdrawn. The part embracing the title and excluding from the pro- visions of the bill Ireland and Scotland and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, was passed, and the body of the measure came to the final issue. At this juncture, namely, in April of 1867, the Liberal leaders had a second meeting and adopted a policy which they would follow in what was to come. A resolution was prepared by them to this effect: "That it be an instruction to the committee that they have power to alter the law of rating ; and to provide that in every parliamentary borough the occupiers of tenements below a given ratable value be relieved from liability to personal rating, with a provision to fix a line for the borough franchise, at which all occupiers shall be entered on the rate book, and shall have equal facilities for the enjoyment of such franchise as a residential franchise." The form of this resolution indicates that Mr. Gladstone was its author ; but it was put into the hands of Mr. Coleridge, with instructions to bring it forward in the House of Commons coincidently with the motion for going into committee on the bill. Afterward, however, a smaller representation of the Liberals agreed that Mr. Coleridge should present only the first part of the resolution, namely, that relative to the law of rating. A message was sent to Mr. Gladstone from the meeting assuring him of the confidence and continued support of his party. He reluctantly assented to the change in the resolution ; and the resolution, thus altered, was accepted by Mr. Disraeli. Hereupon Mr. Gladstone announced that he had important amend- ments which were not acceptable as instructions, but which he nevertheless should advocate, and at this Disraeli declared thai if the amendments in question should be carried he would not proceed with the bill. But Mr. Gladstone's first amendment was voted down by a majority of twenty-one, and he receded from the contest. He expressed his views on this question in answer to a letter of inquiry from Mr. Crawford, one of the representatives of London, who wished to know the intentions of Mr. Gladstone about pressing his other amendments. 26 402 LIFE AND TIMES OF NVII.I.IAM E. GLADSTONE. The latter replied : " The country can hardly now fail to be aware that those gentlemen of the Liberal party whose convictions allow them to act unitedly on the question are not a majorit\-, but a minority, in the existing House of Commons; and they have not the power they were supposed to possess of limiting or directing the action of the administration or shaping the provisions of the Reform Bill. Still, having regard to the support which mv proposal with respect to personal rating secured irom so large a number of Liberal members, I am not less willing than heretofore to remain at the service of the party to which they belong; and when any suitable occasion shall arise, if it shall be their wish, I shall be prepared again to attempt concerted action upon this or any other subject for the public good. But until then, desirous to avoid misleading the country and our friends, I feel that prudence requires me to withdraw from my attenqjts to assume the initiative in amending a measure which cannot, perhaps, be effectually amended except by a reversal, formal or virtual, of the vote of Friday, the iith; for such attempts, if made by me, would, I believe, at the present critical moment, not be the most likely means of advancing their own pur- pose. Accordingly, I shall not proceed with the amendments now on the paper in my name, nor give notice of other amendments such as 1 had con- templated ; but I should gladly accompany others in voting against any attempt, from whatever quarter, to limit yet farther the scanty modicum of enfranchisement proposed by the government, or in improving, where it may be practicable, the provisions of the bill." The condition at this juncture was quite chaotic. Party discipline was loose on both sides. An analysis of the vote on the recent amendment propo.scd by Mr. Gladstone showed a considerable defection in the Liberal ranks. The defection was greater than appeared in the majority against him ; for, on the other side, there was a like breaking off of Conservative votes that came over to his side. Nevertheless, the decision was against him, and he must accept it as irrevocable. We may not pass from this contingency of affairs without noting some- thing of its philosophy. The event as it now stood seemed unjust to Glad- stone in the last degree. He had accepted the leadership of a movement which the country clearly, even emphaticall}-, promoted. The reform in the franchise and in parliamentary representation was demanded. Why, then, should the House capriciously and invidiously renounce Mr. Gladstone's leadership and allow the prodigious inconsistency of substituting Mr. Dis- raeli in his stead .'* Why should Tory be put for Liberal in such a contin- gency.'' Why should a party be allowed notoriously to abandon its own principles and take up the principles of a party which had been discarded ? The answer to these questions involves much of the peculiar temper of the British nation. That temper is strongly reflected in the House of Com- > REFORM lULL OF 1 866. 403 mens. Great Britain at this juncture wanted to go forward. She wanted leadership to aid her in going forward. She despised herself for the neces- sity of going forward. Like a crab she would rather have gone backward ; but history dragged her on. She was afraid to go. In particular, she was afraid of going too far. There was, she thought, more danger of going too far under Liberal than under Tory management. She would rather have the hypocritical substitution of a reluctant Toryism to mark the limits of her advance than to leave that matter to a sincere Liberalism. These con- ditions caught up Mr. Disraeli and brought him to the fore. They also caught up Mr. Gladstone and sent him for the time being to the rear. We resume the narrative of the vicissitudes of the Reform Bill before the House. On the i 7th of May, Mr. Hodgkinson moved an amendment to the third clause ot the bill, as follows : " That no person other than the occupier shall be rated to parochial rates in respect of premises occupied by him within the limits of a parliamentary borough, all acts to the contrary notwithstanding." This measure, the sense of which is not easily under- stood in America, was really radical in its character. The system to which it referred had been regarded, as Archer says, and had been represented " as one of the great conservative safeguards of the bill." It was supposed that the Hodgkinson amendment would be promptly rejected. There was no expectation on the part of either Conservatives or Radicals of an\- other action. What, therefore, was the surprise of the House when Mr. Disraeli, without consulting his colleagues and without explanation, promptly accepted the amendment, the result of which was to quadruple the number of those who would be enfranchised by the bill ! It was a day of wonders. Another member moved that the period of anteced- ent residence for the intending voter should be reduced from two years to one year. This the leader of the House, as in duty bound, opposed, and a division was called for, when, lo, the amendment was carried by a majority of seventy-three ! So astonishing was this result, and so chaotic was the condition which it manifestly indicated, that Mr. Disraeli said he could not proceed without consulting his colleagues. It looked for the nonce as though the Tory ministry, so lately instituted and so abh' manned, would incontinently topple down with a crash. But not so. The subtle and thoroughK' adaptable Mr. Disraeli came humblv into the House on the following night and announced that the gov- ernment would accept the decision of Parliament and persevere with the bill in hand ! Thus the measure went forward, all the time improving. The Liberal leaders began to take heart. First there was a concession of a ten- pound limit for the lodger franchise; and th(;n what were calleil the "fancy franchises" were abandoned. In the next place a measure prevailed whereby the number of boroughs condemned to the loss of one of their 404 LIFE ANn TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. representatives, lor the very j^ood reason that thej' were over-represented already, was increased to forty-six. The House thus gained the number of seats just named for equitable distribution. Two of the seats thus gained were assigned to Hackney; two were given to Chelsea, with which Kensington was joined; one seat was given to each of twelve boroughs, not one of which was at the present represented at all ; one seat each was added to West Kent, North Lancashire, and East Surrey; South Lancashire was divided into two representations; and Lin- colnshire, Derbyshire, Devonshire, Somersetshire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, Cheshire, Norfolk, .Staffordshire, and Essex were each made into three electoral districts, and to each district two members were assigned. As to the two universities (London and Durham"), they were put together, and one representative was assigned thereto instead of to London Uni- versity alone, as hitherto. The last clause, however, was modified by re- serving the seat in question for the University of London alone. Perhaps there never has been a time at which the House of Commons, irrespective of ministerial arrangement and party dictation, went forward in its own way more resolutely than at the crisis of 186.7. Amendments were freely made to the bill, and the most astonishing propositions spring- ing from the opposition began to be accepted 1)\' the leader of the House representing the government. There was much confusion. Mr. Lowe found himself in a remarkable situation. The overthrow of the Russell ministry, instead of stopping the reform, as he had hoped, had loosed the winds. He attacked the concessive spirit of the government in the bitterest lan- guage. He characterized himself as the one six-hundred-and-fifty-eighth part of the House of Commons, and said that he was ashamed to have the government address to him in his fractional capacity this language : "If the House will deign to take us into its council, if it will cooperate with us in this matter, we shall receive with cordiality, with deference, nay, even with gratitude, any suggestion it likes to offer. Say what you like to us, only, for God's sake, leave us our places ! " From this juncture forward Mr. Disraeli became the most obliging prime minister that the House had ever known. It appeared that he had no notion of resigning from office, though he frequently hinted at that con- tingency. On the contrary, he openly announced the following unparalleled program : "All I can say," said he, " on the part of my colleagues and myself is, that we have no other wish at the present moment than, with the cooper- ation of the House, to bring the question of parliamentary reform to a set- tlement. I know the parliamentary incredulity with which many may receive avowals on our part that we are only influenced in the course we are taking by a sense of duty ; but I do assure the House, if they needed such assur- ances after what we have gone through, after the sacrifices we have made, after REFOR>[ BILL OF 1 866. 405 having surrendered our political connections with men whom we more than respected, I can assure them that we have no other principle that animates us but a conviction that we ought not to desert our posts until this ques- tion has been settled. . . . We are prepared, as I think I have shown, to act in all sincerity in this matter. Act with us cordially and candidly, and assist us to carry out — as we are prepared to do, as far as we can act in accord- ance with the principles which we have not concealed from you — this meas- ure, which we hope will lead to a settlement of the question consistent with the maintenance of the representative character of this House. Act with us, I say, cordially and candidly ; you will find on our side complete reci- procity of feeling. Pass the bill, then change the ministry if you like." This was extraordinary language to be employed by a leader of a great political party and Prime Minister of England. But there was much good locdc in it. Time and acrain Mr. Disraeli receded from one grround to occupy another. Frequently it appeared that he was prime minister only by the courtesy of the majority against him ; but he held on to the reins of government. It became more and more evident that he was the govern- ment — that his colleagues, including Lord Derby, had yielded to his impe- rious but complaisant will. Though he seemed to be constantly defeated he nevertheless retained the field and continued to look like a victor. This was vexatious. Mr. Bernal Osborne broke out against the chan- cellor of the exchequer as follows : " I say if we wish to make progress with this bill let us have no law. Let us rely on the chancellor of the excheq- uer. I say this without any innuendo respecting his sincerity. I always thought the chancellor of the e.xchequer the greatest Radical in this House. He has achieved what no other man in the country could have done. As I have said before, he has lugged up that great omnibusful of stupid, heavy country gentlemen — I only say stupid in the parliamentary sense. It is a perfectly parliamentary word. He has converted these Conservatives into radical reformers. In fact, the chancellor of the exchequer is the ministry by himself, for it could not exist a day without him ; and all the rest who sit near him are most respectable pawns on the board, their opinion being not worth a pin. When I hear the chancellor of the exchequer say a thino- I know it shall and will be so." Other members broke out in .strains of similar sarcasm and invective. Lord Cranborne (afterward the Marquis of Salisbury) threw down his office of Secretary for India, disgusted with the method of Mr. Disraeli. He did not hesitate to assail that gentleman in language like this: " If you borrow your political ethics from the ethics of the political adventurer [meaning by innuendo Mr. Gladstone] you may depend upon it the whole of your repre- sentative institutions will crumble beneath your feet. ... I entreat honor- able gentlemen opposite not to believe that my feelings on this subject are 406 LIKE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. dictated by my hostility to this measure, though I object to it most strong!)-, as the House Is aware. But even if I took a contrary view, if I deemed it to be most advantageous, I should still deeply regret to find the House of Commons had applauded a policy of legerdemain." The speaker went on to denounce the political immorality and un- soundness on which the governmental scheme was founded. The method, he thought, was contemptible, whatever might be the merits of the meas- ure. He was sorry to think that the alleged great boon of a Reform Bill should be bought as if in the market, with a political treason which could not be parallelled in the history of the British Parliament. It was a betrayal of trust which was fatal to that mutual confidence on which party govern- ment must rest or have no foundation at all. It was a confidence on which not only party rule, but the freedom and durability of representative insti- tutions also rested. But Benjamin Disraeli, like King John at Poitiers, could ware both right and left. Such a situation as that in which he now found himself was well suited to his genius. He warded off the attacks of the Adullamites — now as bitter toward him as they had been toward Mr. Gladstone — and con- tinued his policy of concession to the opposition until his Reform Bill was perfected, passed by the Commons, and sent to the House of Lords. In that hotly the measure was subjected to severe criticism. Lord Derby, still nominally prime minister, was nearing the end of his days. He was in feeble health and in his si.xty-ninth year. Nevertheless he did what he could to supjjort the cause of his lieutenant in the House of Commons. He also summoned Lord Malmesbur)' to his aid in the House of Lords. Two amendments were forced through that body, by the first of which the lodger franchise was raised from ten pounds to fifteen pounds. The other amendment provided that in any parliamentary elections in which three members were to be chosen the voter should have the privilege of voting for only two. This was the scheme of Lord Cairns to restrict the suffrage at a single point. Against this business Lord Derby opposed himself with all his re- maining strength. He secured a reversal of the vote raising the lodger franchise ; but he could not effect as much with the measure to give the voter but two ballots out of three possibilities. In the course of the debate Lord Derby let slip the intimation that the course which he advocated was necessary in order to save the ministry from going to pieces. At this Earl Russell found his opportunity of attack. Not without good reason did he call attention of the lords to the conduct of the government, or rather the party in power, as compared with that of the Liberal ministry which he had recently conducted. That ministry, when beaten on a bill less radical than that now pending, had resigned from office; but the present ministry, beaten REFORM BILL OF 1 866. 4O7 time and again and obliged by the majority to concede the most radical innovations, still held the reins of government and refused to abdicate. Lord Russell showed that the Reform Bill now about to pass was a leap in the dark. He demonstrated that it was an illogical and compro- mising measure. On the one hand it did not admit the principle oi manhood suffrage, and on the other hand it did not allow the time-honored principle of suffrage based on property. The present bill was neither the one thing nor the other. It could not be described as a Conservative measure, a Liberal measure, a Whig measure, or a Radical measure. It was a con- glomerate measure having in it many and inconsistent elements. In spite ot the protest of the Liberal lords, however, the Reform Bill went through their House, and was returned to the Commons. Here- upon Mr. Lowe again broke out with unusual violence. His attack in this instance was directed mostly against John Bright, whom he represented as having started a train of conditions that could not be arrested. " You can never stop," said he, "when once you set the ball rolling. ... I believe it will be absolutely necessary to compel our future masters [meaning the new voters of England] to learn their letters. It will not be unworthy of a Con- servative government, at any rate, to do what can be done in that direction. I was opposed to centralization. I am ready to accept centralization. I was opposed to an education rate. I am now ready to accept it. This question is no longer a religious question ; it is a political one. From the moment that you intrust the masses with power their education becomes an absolute necessity ; and I believe that the existing system is one which is much superior to the much-vaunted continental system. But we shall have to destroy it ; it is not quality, but quantity that we shall require. You have placed the government in the hands of the masses, and you must therefore give them education. You must take education up, the very first question, and )ou must press it on without dela}- for the peace of the country. O that a man would rise in order that he mieht set forth in words that could not die the shame, the rage, the scorn, the indignation, and the despair with which the measure is viewed by every Englishman who is not a slave to the trammels of party or who is not dazzled by the glare of a temporary and ignoble success ! " The historical forces easily worked out their own result, and the Reform Bill was passed. The amendments adopted by the House of Lords did not stand for much in the Commons. The proposition to give the voter but two votes in a parliamentary election in which there were three candidates was accepted by the House of Commons, because that measure seemed to favor the notion of minority representation. The other amendments of the lords were speedily rejected. Nor did the debate again break out with the vio- lence that had marked its former progress. Thus by a remarkable maneuver 40S LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. in political histor)- the Reform Bill of 1866-67 became a law, and by it Great Britain went forwanl at a trementlous stride from her mediaeval system of representation toward a complete and equitable manhood suffrage. The House of Commons became more truly than ever before a repre- sentative body. The measure could not well be claimed by either of the political parlies. The Liberal ministry, under the leadership of Earl Rus- sell and Mr. Gladstone, failed in securing the adoption of the measure which they originated ; but the leaders of the cause were enabled to force their Tory opponents to occupy the abandoned camp, and in the jargon of the times to wear the discarded clothes of the Radicals. The Reform Bill thus came by a double birth. The voice was the voice of Jacob, but the hand was the hand of Esau. At this period it chanced that the two strong men of British statesman- ship, standing over against each other, w-ere each preceded by another who still bore the nominal honor of being first. Earl Derby was before Mr. Disraeli, and Earl Russell before Mr. Gladstone. Both of these distin- guished lords were now nearing the end of the journe3\ At least one had come to the close of his pilgrimage and the other to the end of his political activity. Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, known the world over as the Earl of Derby, was born on the 29th of March, i 799, and died on the 23d of October, 1869, being in his seventy-first year. The contest of the year 1867 was the last of his battles. He resigned his place as head of the Conserva- tive party in February of 1868, and was succeeded by Benjamin Disraeli. " The Asian Mystery " thus reached the acme of distinction and honor that might be attained by a subject in Great Britain. If he reached the coveted station in advance of Mr. Gladstone he had to charge himself with more than four years of difference in age. When he became prime minister he was alread)' in his si.xty-fourth year, and was somewhat broken by the excitements and battles of life. He had before him more than twelve years of remaining labor and rest, full of vicissitudes and extraordinary reverses; but lor the present he had the unspeakable gratification — which he was modest enough never to display — of seeing himself the first man of his race, and the first to attain so powerful a station in the domain of history. Mr. Gladstone at this particidar juncture was rather in the shadows — how soon to emerge we shall presently see. Earl Russell, ceasing to be prime minister in 1866, continued the nominal head of his party, but from this position he retired, leaving Gladstone in the lead. The change in the captaincy of the opposition came just at the juncture when Mr. Gladstone might best avail himself of existing conditions and work them to the high- est possible advantage. A situation had been preparing In the history of Great Britain that required just such a leader — a situation well calculated to compensate him for such leadership with the highest rewards and honors. DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 4O9 CHAPTER XXII. Disestablishment of the Irish Church. EFORE entering upon the history of the great event to be recorded in this chapter we may notice some of the side move- ments of society. On the iith of May, 1866, occurred the collapse of the great house of Overend, Guerney & Com- pany (^Limited), in London. The failure indeed occurred on the preceding day, but was not announced until Friday, the i ith — a day that became known in financial history as " Black Friday," destined after three years and six months to repeat itself in the great collapse of the American Gold Exchange in New York, which was also designated as Black Friday. The London firm was a discount house, its business being to make advances on acceptances, and the acceptances were made of paper. A vast inflated scheme was thus created on a basis of confidence. The paper on which the advances were made by Overend, Guerney & Company was enarly all of the kind called accommodation paper. The business of the concern became enormous, -and when the collapse came the outstanding lia- bilities amounted to nineteen million pounds. The jar of the failure was felt throughout the kingdom. The excitement in London was for the time tremendous. An appeal was made for assistance to the Bank of England but that conservative institution would not come to the rescue of a concern that in the estimate of legitimate bankers must be reearded as an orgfan of adventure and fraud. The losses entailed by the disaster and by the other disasters that came in the wake were prodigious. Nearly all similar institutions in England were knocked down like so many houses of cardboard. The event showed, how- ever, that the financial condition of the country was essentially sound, and the balance of trade was not seriously affected by the panic. On the night of the day in which Overend, Guerney & Company went to the wall Wil- liam E. Gladstone was summoned to an interview with the directors of the London banks and other representatives of large commercial interests, and returning from the meeting he announced to the House of Commons that the government had decided to authorize the suspension of the Bank Charter Act. The Bank of England went so far as to expand its loans and discounts by more than four million pounds, and at the same time took the risk of reducing its reserve to about three million pounds. Another thing to be noted at this period was the beginning of those agitations which spring from organized labor. The winter of 1866-67 ^^^s severe, and there was much suffering among the poor. In the eastern dis- tricts of London in such places as Bethnal Green, Limehouse, and Poplar, 4JO LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. the distress was extreme. The workingmcn, out of employment and with half-starved families, began to move in an ominous manner. At Deptford there was an incipient bread riot. The supplies which were furnished to those out of employment and to mendicants were insufficient, and with the continuance of the bitter weather want and suffering increased to an alarm- ing extent. Public charities had to be organized, and at this the managers of the workhouses, according to their manner, took umbrage, many of them preferring to see the needy starve according to law rather than to see them relieved in an irregular manner. This condition of affairs had two effects. One was to stimulate philanthropy and the other to invite a strict inquiry into the condition of the poor laws and the best means of their improve- ment. We have seen the accession of Mr. Disraeli to the position of prime minister of England. This occurred in February of 1868. On his own side of the House of Commons he had no longer a competitor. His leadership was unequivocal, and his station seemingly secure. The event showed hov/ little there is of calculated stability in the affairs of men. Just at this juncture Mrs. Disraeli, to whom the premier was greatly devoted, was taken seriously ill, and was lying in that state at the opening of Parliament in November, 1868. Moreover, there was a dangerous foreign complication of the govern- ment, or at least an expensive hazard, which had now to be met. A war had broken out with Abyssinia. King Theodore had taken Mr. Rassam, the British consul at Massowah, and held him as a hostage. Of course this could not be tolerated. Nor is it our purpose in this connection to follow the story of the Abyssinian war until Theodore's capital was taken and himself done to death by a division of the British army. Again, a so-called conspiracy of P"enians in Ireland and America had led to the outbreak of violence in several places, and the promoters of the mo\ement'were charged with crimes reaching as high as assassination. These matters must be referred to in the Queen's Address and be immediately dealt with by the govern- ment ; so that Mr. Disraeli, on coming to his duty as prime minister, was confronted at the outset with the most serious difficulties. It was already known that just behind the Fenian disturbances the great specter of the Irish Church stood, tall and gaunt, wearing a sardonic smile and saying " Look at VIC .' " It devolved on ]Mr. Gladstone, leader of the opposition, to criticise in the usual formal manner the address from the throne. His manner in com- ing to this task was courteous and humane. In the first place he e.xpressed his sympathy with the prime minister on the score of the painful circum- stances under which he was placed. This was really a touching allusion to the dangerous sickness of his wife. Mr. Gladstone said that he would for DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHL'RCH. 4II the present refrain from presenting certain questions which he had in mind relative to matters that had occurred during the recess of Parliament. As to the war in Abyssinia, the gov^ernment must be regarded as wholly responsible for that event ; for it had occurred since the adjournment of Parliament. The House, therefore, could have for the present no responsi- bility therefor. The speaker said, however, that the House should certainly require a conviction that the war had been undertaken for a justifiable end, and that the end miijht be reached with the means at hand. He susjoested that the Abyssinians might prove to be an elusive enemy who would slip away from the issue of battle. Parliament would insist also that the purpose of the war was, negatively, not a conquest for territorial acquisition, and that it was not intended to complicate the government of Great Britain with new rela- tions and new troubles in the East. As for the rest, Mr. Gladstone urged the government to rely on the House as to the means requisite for prosecuting the war to an honorable conclusion, and not to resort to the expedient of increasing the national debt. In the next place he was pleased to hear the reference in the address to the termination of the troubles in Italy and of the purpose to put down the lawless outbreakings of Fenianism in Ireland. He hoped, however, and expected, that the recent reformatory measures of Parliament would be quickly extended into Ireland; that the land question in that country might be got on a better basis ; and that (which was most significant) the prevail- ing rumor that the Irish Church Commission was about to draw up plans for the reorganization of the Establishment in Ireland zcas zvifhojit foiin- datio7i. To this the prime minister replied in fitting terms. It was manifest to the House that Mr. Disraeli was sincerely moved by the touching reference of Mr. Gladstone to the affliction in his family. It might well reconcile the thoughtful reader to at least a modicum of the unprincipled violence and outrage of political battles and animosities that they are occasionally flecked with those touches of human nature which make the whole world akin. The prime minister next adverted to the difficulty in Abyssinia, and said that the prosecution of the war thus far had been an executive measure to which the House was not pledged. As to the Irish question, he expressed the hope that the government would be able to devise a measure which would satisfy reasonable demands on the subject of landholding in Ireland. The government would also consider the Church question, but Mr. Dis- raeli indicated nothing as to what the consideration might lead to. These were the principal features of his rejih', which was conciliatory, prudent, and ivell received. The Abyssinian question pressed for a solution. The war was on in 412 LIFE AM) TI.MKS OK WILLIAM E. (ILADSTON K. earnest. Sir Robert Napier, in command ol an cxpidition ai'ainst Magdala, capital ot Kin^; 1 heodore, set out on that hard mission with an army of nearly twelve thousand soldiers, mostly Hindu infantry, and more than that number of army followers and adventurers. This force advanced upon Ma^^dalaand reached that place in the beginning of 1868. The Abyssinians fought with great courage, but could not stand before the su[)erior arms and discipline ot their assailants. The British force had to make its way against an almost imi)regnable fortress in the rocks. Roads had to be tut up steep slopes, and the artillery had to be drawn up by mules and elephants and relays of men. Theodore finally gave up his prisoners, but would not surrender. His artillery, old and useless, burst at the first fire. The assailants carried the place, and Theodore's chiefs attested their loyalty by dying in the gateways. The body of Theodore himself was found, a grim smile on his face, lying where he had shot himself dead with a pistol in the moment of the catastrophe. The royal family was taken. The widow died in the English camp. Alamayou, the son, seven years old, was carried to India, and after- ward to England ; but his health gave way, and he pined and died. The usual glory came trom the expedition. Sir Robert Napier was made Baron Napier of Magdala. Mr. Disraeli, when expressing the thanks of Parliament to the general and his army, said of Lord Napier, with his usual striking figures and phraseology: "He led the elephants of Asia, bearing the artillery of Europe, over broken passes which might have startled the trapper of Canada and appalled the hunter of the Alps. . . . Thus all these difficulties and all these obstacles were overcome, and that was accomplished which not one of us ten years ago could have fancied, even in his dreams, and which it must be peculiarly interesting to Englishmen under all circumstances to call to miml ; and we fiml the standard of St. George hoisted upon the mountains of Rasselas." What Mr. Disraeli said was never wanting in picturesqueness and intellectual brillianc)'. Thus much for Abyssinia. What of Ireland.? In that country things went from bad to worse. There never had been peace. For fully six hundred years of political connection between Ireland and England there had been in the former country only distress, alienation, and the ever-burning spirit of resentment and insurrection. John Stuart Mill, in referring to the con- dition of affairs in that country, when the discussion of the Habeas Corpus Acts was on, in 1S66, had declared that if the captain of a shi]) or the mas- ter of a school had been under the constant necessity for a long time of having recourse to violent measures, "we should assume without waiting for further evidence that there was something wrone in his system of trov- ernment." Indeed there was something wrong. Almost everything was wrong. DISESTABLISHNFEXT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 413 The Fenian society, having its bifurcations in America and Ireland, did not spring up without adequate cause. That great pohtical organization, which has been the subject ot so much animadversion, and the very memory of which is so profoundly detested in England, had true cause of its existence. Many of its acts, no doubt, were lawless, and some were criminal. But it is in the character of Great Britain to pursue toward her subject peoples a long course of oppression and spoliation, and then, when her subjects, thus VISIT OF TITHE PROlTclR IN IRTLAND. wronged, turn upon her, she calls them rebels, revolutionists, incendiaries, and assassins. Ireland at the epoch of which we speak was not suffering in all her parts with equal anguish. The scourge of England was laid most harshly and unjustly on the southern quarter of the kingdom. There the old Celtic population was oppressed to the last degree. There the potatoes were tithed, and the hay was tithed, and the flax. Indeed nothing was free from the ravening landlords, who saw the starving peasants, with little compunc- tion, scratching the poor earth with spade and hoe, in the hope of keeping life and paying rent. In the larger part of Ireland the tithes were not exacted with equal severity. There was great inequality in the condition of 414 '-"I- -^M* TIMES OF WILLIAM K. C.LADSTONE. the people ; but the condition as a whole — irrespective of the question of the foreign Church that rested u[)on them — was grievous to the full measure of that term. We are not to suppose that Great Britain had done nothing to alleviate the condition of her Irish subjects. Something had been done to correct by littles many of the abuses. In 1838 the tithe system under which the country groaned had been softened down into a fixed rental. Before that date, namely, in 1832, the cess, or Church rate, had been abolished ; but the Protestant Establishment was left undisturbed, heavily bearing on a people of a different ami hostile failh. In many of the districts the Episcopal clergyman, his family, and his assistants were the only Protestant inhabit- ants ; the remainder were without exception Roman Catholics. Three hundred years had now elapsed since the Protestant Church had thus been established for the benefit of a fraction of the Irish people scarcely exceed- ing one eighth of the whole, while the other seven eighths had been sub- jected to the expense, the despotism, and, we must say, the insult ot a foreign Establishment with which they had nothing in common, not even a remote sympathy. This condition of affairs had time and again been brought to the attention of Parliament; l)ut never could that bod\- be moved to any rational and broad-minded policy of reform. As early as 1788 Henry Grattan, the great Irish orator and statesman, had exclaimed against the cruel sj'stem of secular and religious government in his country. " In three fourths of this kingdom," said he, " potatoes pay no tithe ; in the south they not only pay, butpa\- most heavily. They pay frequently in proportion to the poverty and helplessness of the countrymen. . . . What so galling I What so inllammatory as the comparative view of the condition of his majesty's subjects in one part of the kingdom anil the other I In one part their sustenance is free and in the other tithed in the greatest degree; so that a grazier coming from the west to the south shall inform the latter that with him neither potatoes nor hay is tithed; and a weaver coming from the north shall inform the south that in his country neither potatoes nor flax is tithed ; and thus are men, in the present unequal and unjust state of things, taught to repine, not only by their intercourse with the pastor, but with one another." The Catholic Relief Act of 1829 and the extension of the Poor Laws in 1838 brought some relief to the suffering Irish ; but they still remained the poorest, the most miserable, and the most ill-governed people in civilized Europe. It seemed in vain that the abuses of the Irish Church should be one by one eliminated. The Irish Church was itself the abuse. It stood in the way of a system of national education. It was a nightmare, a specter, reigning with a des])otism that would have been intolerable among DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 415 any other than a people reduced to abject conditions, both socially and politically. This question of the Irish Church, as well as the question of the land system, ever and anon obtruded itself upon an unwilling government. It came in a threatening form as early as the years 1835-36. The echo of it had been ' heard as far back as the period of the American Revolution. "Truth and justice in England," said Lord Russell, "make sure but slow progress ; parliamentary reform caused great agitation in i 780, but it was not carried till 1832 ; the slave trade provoked much indignation in 1780, but it was not abolished till 1807. Measures to promote free trade were proposed in 1835, but the work was not completed till 1862, even if it can be said to have been then complete. The Corporation and Test laws were repealed in 1828 ; the edifice of religious liberty was only completed by the admission of the Jews to Parliament at a later time." Such were the antecedents of the great agitation which came up un- bidden in the year 1868. Let us note with particularity what the demand, or demands, of Ireland were at this important crisis. They were, first of all, that the Episcopal Establishment in that country, an institution alien to the temper and sympathies of the people, should be abolished ; that is, that the laws for the establishment and support of the English Church in Ireland should be annulled. The second demand was that a system of national education should be provided in accordance with the wants and actual conditions of the people; and the third was that the law of tenantry should be so modified as to concede the rights of tenants in the improvements which the\- might make or had already made on their holdings, and also a modification in the law which would establish general equity between the landlord and the tenant. Of these demands the most difficult to meet was that with respect to the Irish Church ; but the most pressing was the question of the land tenure. It was the land question that had led to Fenianism, and that had, according to English definitions, blossomed into crimes. But on the whole it was easier to deal with the secular tlian with the ecclesiastical concern. The latter issue involved not onl)- the interests of the whole Establishment, l)ut touched jirofoundly the prejudices of the British nation. The whole ecclesiastical order was in a temper to take fire at the first suggestion of the curtailment of their prerogatives and dominion. This order was in- trenched in the social, civil, and political constitution of England. It sat in panoply in the House of Lords, and was hand in hand with the throne. We may admit the misfortune to Mr. Disraeli and the Conservative ministry of the sudden oncoming of this question. There were not wanting persons who had foreseen, at a little distance, the looming up ot an issue which woultl demand an affirmati\-e answer from the British Parliament. 4l6 LII'E A.M-i TIMES OV WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. At least two years previously, while Earl Russell and Mr. Gladstone were making a tour in Italy, they discussed the question of the Church in Ireland and its probable disestablishment. I'^arl Russell in his notes left this memorandum of the conversation: "I fountl that he [meaning Mr. Gladstone I was as little disposed as I was to maintain Protestant ascendency in Ireland, and irom that time I judged that this great (question would be safer in his "hands than mine." There may have been from that time forth a quasi understanding between l-Larl Russell and his younger and abler lieutenant that the latter should await the opportunity to agitate the question referretl to, and to jiress it to a solution in the; House of Commons. That opportunity came at the spring session of 1868. Mr. Disraeli had just taken the reins of government from the hands of Lord Derby. Scarcely had Parliament settled itself for the business in hand wdien a resolution was offered by Mr. John P'rancis Maguire that the House should go into com- mittee /(' /cr/ci' into i>innediate consideration tJic condition 0/ Ireland. It is probable that such a motion was not foreseen by the prime minister. When the cjuestion was seriously pressed, and when it became evident that the House was in earnest relative to Magu ire's proposition, it also became evi- tlent that the gox'ernment was not [irepared to give adequate answer or to indicate any broad and satisfactory policy with respect to the matter in- volved. The prime minister would have been glad, we doubt not, if he could have put the question aside. The government was in the attitude of doubt ; it was pressed forward 1)\- unseen and unexpected forces, and jet durst not yield to the pressure. The first pass that was made on the issue which thus thrust itself into the House of Commons was by Lord Mayo, Chief Secretary for Ireland. He proposed that the question should be met by the process which in the jargon of the day was called 'leveling up." I)_\- this was meant the policy of putting all the denominations under governmental sujiport and authorit)-. Instead ot abolishing the PLpiscopal Establishment in Ireland Lord Mayo would allow that Establishment to remain, but would advance the other sects to a like relation of patronage and support. The sequel showed, however, that Lord Mayo did not speak for the government, but for himself It also showed that his proposition met wMth little favor in the House. In the debate that ensued nearly everybody spoke to the Maguire resolution, and paid but little attention to the propo- sition of Lord Mayo. I'or three nights the discussion continued. At one point in the debate Mr. tjladstone, who was addressing the House, chanced, almost incidentally, to use the word "disestablishment" as a hint of the proper solution. Hereupon a great applause broke out, and would hardly stdl itself for the continuation of the debate. It was evident that the cir- cumstance disturbed Mr. Disraeli not a little. He availed himself of the DISESTABLISHMENT UF THE IRISH CHURCH. 417 first opportunity to say that he should resist with all his power any propo- sition looking to the overthrow of the Established Church in Ireland. He planted himself firmly upon what had up to that time been regarded as a truism in Great Britain, namely, the principle of the union of Church and State. If the applause of the House at the mention of the word disestablish- ment brought alarm to the Conservatives it apparently decided Mr. Glad- stone in the course he would pursue. On the fourth night of the debate he boldly threw clown the gauntlet. He said in so many words that in his opinion the time had come when the Church Establishment in Ireland must cease to exist ; that is, cease to exist as an institution supported by the State. He said, moreover, that the policy of leveling up the other denomi- nations to the plane of the Establishment could not be accepted. He ad- mitted that the attainment of religious equality in Ireland would be exceed- ingly difficult, but that equality must be reached by some means or other. It was necessary to promote the loyalty and confirm the union of the Irish people with the British nation ; but it was useless to try to secure these essential ends unless the unreserved loyalty and devotion of the Irish could be had. The speaker then continued, as if exploring his wa)', in these words: " If we are prudent men I hope we shall endeavor as far as in us lies to make some provision for a contingent, a doubtful, and probabl)' a danger- ous future. If we be chivalrous men I trust we shall endeavor to wipe away all those stains which the civilized w'orld has for ages seen, or seemed to see, on the shield of England in her treatment of Ireland. If we be com- passionate men I hope we shall now. once for all, listen to the tale of woe which comes from her, and the reality of which, if not its justice, is testified by the continuous migration of her people — that we shall endeavor to ' Raze out the written troubles from her brain, Pluck from her memory the rooted sorrow.' But, above all, if we be just men we shall go forward in the name of truth and right, bearing this in mind — that, when the case is j^roved and the hour is come, justice delayed is justice denied." The apparition of this great subject before the House was sufficient to appall the government. Mr. Disraeli, not given to quailing, quailed before it. He knew not what to do. Perhaps no other in his station would have known what to do. The temper of the House was already manifested. We doubt not that it occurred to Mr. Disraeli, long-headed and atlroit as he was, to adoi)t again the policy which he had used so successful!)' in the case of the Reform Bill ; that is, go over per saltimi to the position oi the Lib- erals and outdo them on their own ground. But could he perform this feat -1 4i8 LIFE AND TIMHS (iK WILLIAM E. CLAUSTOXE. < o X ■A Wr" u: W X ir f ■f. a: ^■ — fv u: \ H / J DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 419 again ? That method might be successful once, but could hardly prevail a second time. It might be successful when it came— as it did in the last in- stance — as the climax of a ministerial revolution. At such a juncture a prime minister coming into authority might indeed vault over into the camp of the disorganized opposition and make battle from their line. But this method could hardly be employed again by the very minister who had successfully used it once under favoring conditions. Therefore Mr. Disraeli must oppose the movement, even though it seemed irresistible. He contented himself with the utterance of a com- plaint almost pathetic that the obtrusion of such a question as that of the Irish Church at the very beginning of his career as the responsible head of the government was unfair, if not cruel. Why should he be suddenly sum- moned to meet a difficulty that was seven centuries old .? No new ministry ought to be so treated. All the essentials of this Irish question existed when Mr. Gladstone was prime minister, and he neither attempted to meet the question nor indeed gave heed thereto. He passed over it as a nullity. Now the right honorable gentleman, having been converted by Mr. Bright and his fellow-radicals and social philosophers, makes haste to bring forward, almost at the natal day of the new government, an issue which many ages had not been able to settle. Was this fair.^* Besides, he did not admit what was asserted, namely, that the spirit of the age was against the principle of religious endowments. He was himself personally favorable to such endowments. He favored them in Eno-land and in Ire- land. He was not willing that the Irish Establishment should be destro\-ed. And thus and thus to the end of his address, which, since it offered nothing, must in the nature of the case end in nothing. It was now Mr. Gladstone's opportunity to press his advantage. He saw that the majorit)- were with him. He first induced Mr. Maguire to withdraw his resolution, and then presented three resolutions of his own, firmly expressing his views on the question of disestablishment, as follows: " 1. That in the opinion of this House it is necessary that the Estab- lished Church of Ireland should cease to exist as an estal>lishment, due regard being had to all personal interests and to all individual rights of property. " 2. That, subject to the foregoing considerations, it is expedient to pre- vent the creation of new personal interests by the exercise of any public patronage, and to confine the operations of the Ecclesiastical Commission- ers of Ireland to objects of immediate necessity, or involving individual rights, pending the final decision of Parliament. " 3. That an humble address be presented to her majesty, ])raying that, with a view to the [uirposes aforesaid, her majesty will be graciously pleased to place at the disposal of Parliament her interest in the temporali- ^20 LIKE AM) TIMES OF Wll.I.lAM K. GLADSTONE. tics, in archbishoprics, bishopiics. and other ecclesiastical dignities and benefices in Ireland and in the custody thcreol." Thus, in a word, was challenged the existence of an institution having a history of about four centuries' duration. Indeed, the institution in ques- tion was interwoven with others that were much older. In reality the project of disestablishment was a challenge to the past. It was a challenge that the past did not dare boldly to accept. There was an attempt to go around it, to postpone it, to change its nature into something other than a challenge. Lord Stanley, speaking for the government, made the first pass in the "attempt to temporize with the existing situation. He gave notice that as soon as the House should be called into committee of the whole, to consider the question of the Irish Church, he would move, " That this House, while admitting that considerable modifications in the temporalities of the United Church in Ireland may, after pending inquiry, appear to be expedient, is of the opinion that any proposition tending to the disestab- lishment or disendowment of that Church might be reserved for the decision of a new Parliament." To this proposition the adherents of the government rallied with all their power ; and they were not without hope that the resolution might be carried by a coup de main. It was on the line of Lord Stanley's amendment that the great battle was fought. We may admit that Mr. Gladstone, captain of the Liberal host, had the advantage in the temper of the House and the growing sentiment of the nation. Better than this, he had the silent forces of history on his side. It was on the 30th of March, 1868, that the leader of the opposition delivered the first of his remarkable speeches on disestablishment. There was in his manner something of the method of Webster in his great debate with Hayne, who, before he began, called attention to the Senate to how far the speakers had drifted away from the real point at issue, and ended by calling for the reading of Mr. Foote's resolution relative to the public lands. Mr. Gladstone in beginning asked for the reading of the titles of the acts relating to the Church Establishment ; also the fifth article of the Act of Union ; also the coronation oath of the .sovereigns of Great Britain. From these fundamental utterances and lamlmarks he proceeded to the great debate. The scene was such as had been witnessed on many previous critical occasions in parliamentary history. The House was crowded ; the aisles around were filled with an e.xpectant throng, as were also the galleries. Mr. Gladstone said that in opening this great contention he was but perform- ing a solemn duty. The laws which had just been read were a proper basis for all he had to say. The great question with which they were now face to face was whether or not the Irish Church Establishment should cease to exist. This question the House should decide, and decide at the present DISESTABLISHMEXT nF THE IRISH CHURCH. 421 crisis. If the decision should be affirmative, then the Irish Establishment ought to cease in a manner worthy of its character and of the British nation. Every proprietary and invested right in that event ought to be adequately recognized and equitably met. As to the remainder of values after the fact of disestablishment the same he thought should become an Irish fund, and should be used for the exclusive benefit of the people of Ireland. Mr. Gladstone then went on to reply to the complaint of Mr. Disraeli — seemingly well founded — that the question which had now come upon the MR. GL.^DSTONE ADDRESSING THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. House had been previously avoided. The prime minister had charged that the Liberal party lately in power had avoided the issue, but as soon as the Conservative party had come in then the Liberals, as it were in the first day of the Conservative rdginie, had brought confusion to the ministry by urging this time-worn and difficult question on the attention of Parliament. Mr. Gladstone said that these charges were unjust. True it was that the two great parties had hitherto avoided the question which had now come up for solution ; but they had been justified in doing so — this for the reason that public opinion had never hitherto approved of the agitation of the question. Public opinion had never hitherto been ready for the change. Public opinion was now ready for it; and it was for this reason that he 4:2 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. appeared to champion the project of disestablishment. It was claimed by the friends of the government that there- had been a great deal of apostasy, of sudden apostasy, on the part of those who occupied the same position with himself There had been no apostasy. The change which was now at hand had been preparing itself for fully a quarter of a century. The speaker in the next place adverted to the views which he himself had formerly hekl respecting the Irish Church, and, indeed, the whole Church question. I'rom this he went on to allay all apprehension relative to depriving the Protestants of their properties in Ireland. They might retain those properties. They might continue to apply them to religious purposes or to oilier purposes if they desired. This principle ought to extend to all the tangible possessions of the Irish Church. There should be an honest and adequate method of compensation. He thought that per- haps two thirtls of the aggregate value of all the properties held by the Church in Ireland would remain to the Protestant communion as before. Moreover, the Act of Disestablishment, instead of being dangerous to the Church in England, would be highly advantageous thereto. It would relieve the Irish Church from an ancient scandal. Neither was the pro- posed disendowment fatal, or even hurtful, to the maintenance of Protestant- ism as a faith and practice among the Irish people. He called attention to statistics as establishing the slow increase of Irish Protestants under the present system, and proved that with the same rate it would require two thousand years to convert the Irish race ! Mr. Gladstone insisted that the one question for the present was to declare disestablishment or to refuse to declare it. The measure having once been determined in the affirmative the rest might be left to another Parliament. The main issue, however, should be no longer postponed. The present crisis had been preparing itself for long ages. For seven hundred years the relations of the two islands had been unfriendly. The two peoples had never been at one. Now was the time when the way should be opened for their union and unity. Let the House, therefore, boldly meet and settle the disturbing question. There might be some who would still think it a ])rofane and unhallowed act to lay hands upon the Church P'stablishment of a country. The speaker said that he respected this feeling, this sentiment, and sympathized with it. " I sympathize with it," said he, "while I think it my duty to overcome and repress it. But if it be an error it is an error entitled to respect. There is something in the idea of a national establishment of religion, of a solemn appropriation of a part of the commonwealth for con- ferring upon all who are ready to receive it w-hat we know to be an inesti- mable benefit; of saving that portion of the inheritance from private self- ishness in order to extract from it, if we can, pure and unmixed advantages DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 423 of the highest order for the population at large. There is something in this so attractive that it is an image that must always command the homage of the many. It is somewhat like the kingly ghost in ' Hamlet,' of which one of the characters of Shakespeare says : ' We do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence; For it is, as the air, invulnerable, And our vain blows malicious mockery.' Rut, sir, this is to view a religious establishment upon one side, only upon what I may call the ethereal side. It has likewise a side of earth ; and here I cannot do better than quote some lines written by the present Archbishop of Dublin at a time when his genius was devoted to the muses. He said, in speaking of mankind : ' We who did our lineage high Draw from beyond the starry sky, Are yet upon the other side To earth and to its dust allied.' And so the Church Establishment, regarded in its history and In its aim, is beautiful and attractive. Yet what is it but an appropriation of public property, an appropriation of the fruits of labor and of skill to certain pur- poses, and unless these purposes are fulfilled that appropriation cannot be justified. Therefore, sir, I cannot but feel that we must set aside fears which thrust themselves upon the imagination, and act upon the sober dic- tates of our judgment. I think it has been shown that the cause for action is strong — not for precipitate action, not for action beyond our powers, but for such action as the opportunities of the times and the condition of Par- liament, if there be but a ready will, will amply and easily admit of If I am asked as to my expectations of the issue of this struggle I begin by frankly avowing that I, for one, would not have entered into it unless I believed that the final hour was about to sound — 'Vcnit sioiima dies ct ineluclabile fatuin.'' And I hope that the noble lord [meaning Lord Stanley] wmII forgive me if I say that before Friday last I thought that the thread of the remaining life of the Irish Established Church was short, but that since Friday last, when at half past four o'clock in the afternoon the noble lord stood at that table, I have regarded it as beingr shorter still. The issue is not in our hands. What we had and have to do is to consider well and deeply before we take the first step in an engagement such as this ; but, having entered into the controversy, there and then to acquit ourselves like men, and to use every effort to remove what still remains of the scandals and calamities in the relations which exist between England and Ireland, and to make our best 4-M LIFE AND TIMES f)F WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. t'ftbrts at least to fill up with the cement of human concord the noble fabric of the British empire." Such was the conclusion of Mr. Gladstone's address. The tone of Lord Stanley's reply was concessive of the first principle in the argument. He said that hardly one educated man out of a hundred would venture to de- clare that the Irish Church was what it shouUl be. Not one out of a hun- dred would say that that Church was not the origin of many scandals. However, he objected to the resolutions offered by the leader of the oppo- sition, for the reason that they were simply destructive. They proposed nothing in a positive way. They were equivalent to declaring that some- thing must I)e done witliout indicating what. Suppose the resolution should be carried. Then what } There would be a mere hiatus. The change proposed would be sudden. Indeed, the speaker thought that action in the immediate present was impossible. On the other side, Lord Cranborne (afterward Marquis of Salisbury) held that Lord Stanley's amendment did not propose anything. It was a mere postponement. It indicated clearly that the government were afraid to avow a policy. Besides, the amendment offered by the noble lord was an ambiguity. As for the prime minister, he was as uncertain as the amend- ment proposed was ambiguous. No one could predict, said Lord Cranborne, what the right honorable gentleman who conducted her majesty's govern- ment at tiie present time would do under any circumstances. One might as well look to the weathercock of the steeple and try to indicate how it would point to-morrow. Such a method in government was intolerable. It was unworthy and degrading. He himself would not vote for the resolutions before the House, but he would not support an amendment which was a mere makeshift to postpone an overwhelming question. To him the govern- ment seemed more anxious to hold their cards well for another year than to bear their legitimate responsibilities. After this came the speech of Mr. Gathorne Hardy. What he would say might be known before it was uttered ; but his address was earnest and eloquent. He stood strongly for the past. He would have the Irish Church as much established as ever. He declared that the outcry against that Establishment was a mere explosion of party spirit. He held that the Con- stitution of Great Britain, as deep down as the Act of Union and the coro- nation oath, was about to be invaded and destroyed by radicalism. This appeal called out John Bright, who said in answer that the Epis- copal Establishment in Ireland was notoriously a failure. If its mission had been to convert Catholics to Protestantism it had failed. Instead of such conversion the Irish Catholics, under the influence of the Establishment, had become more Romanist than ever; indeed, they were the most intensely Romanist of all the Catholics of Europe. Regarded as a missionary Church . fDISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 425 the Irish Establishment had signally miscarried. The general effect of its maintenance had been to foster anarchy to such an extent that force was now required to subdue it. Honorable members had aforetime been greatly alarmed at the apparition of free trade. They had also suffered fright with the coming of parliamentary reform. All such changes had alarmed the Conservative party, whose method was to cry out, revolution, rebellion, anarch)- ! The next speech was made by Mr. Lowe, who attacked the government on the score that its methods were as crooked as its principles were un stable. Under the influence of the ministry the character of the House of Commons Had been injured in the esteem of thoughtful men and before the world. As to the Establishment in Ireland, that was a body of death. The speaker would remind the House of the tradition of Mezentius, the despot who bound a dead body to a living one. It was time that the thongs of the tyrant should be cut and the living body be liberated. The speaker de- nounced the Irish Establishment as a thing monstrous, lagging superfluous on the stage. As to the Prime Minister of England, he came in for his full share of denunciation. Mr. Lowe had discovered that he could wield the flail of in- vective with great success. No doubt he had astonished himself, as he had certainly astonished the House, with his abilities in this particular. He charged that the government, instead of initiating measures, had thrown out, " like the cuttlefish of which we read in Victor Hugo's novel, all sorts of ten- tacula, for the purpose of catching up something which it may appropriate and make its own. . . . The Irish Church is founded on injustice; it is founded on the dominant rights of the few over the many, and shall not stand. You call it a missionary Church. If so, its mission is unfulfilled. As a mission- ary Church it has failed utterly; like some exotic brought from a far country, with Infinite pains and useless trouble, it is kept alive with difficulty in an ungrateful climate and an uncongenial soil. The curse of barrenness is upon it ; it has no leaves ; it bears no blossoms ; it yields no fruit. Cut it down ; why cumbereth it the ground 7 " These assaults, coming from several quarters, would have disconcerted a minister of unsteady nerves ; but Mr. Disraeli was not apt to be discon- certed. On rising to reply he directed his remarks mostly to personal ends. He hardly entered at all into the general argument. He spoke briefly in support of the amendment offered by Lord Stanley, and justified the govern- ment in its present course. He then turned upon his colleague, Lord Cran- borne, and charged him with being ever ready to impute unworthy motives to the CTovernment. He said that Lord Cranborne was a man of great talents, and had the fatal gift of invective. He regretted that the noble lord's ability in this particular ran easily into sheer vindictiveness. His vigor 426 LIFE ANP TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTON^. of lan^niage was wont to degenerate into animosity. " I admit," said Mr. Disraeli, "that now, speaking as a critic, and not perhaps as an impartial one, I must say I think it [Lord Cranborne's style] wants finish. Consider- ing that the noble lord has studied the subject, and that he has written anonymous articles against me before and since I was his colleague — I do not know whether he wrote them when I was his colleague — I think it might have been accomplished more ad unguem!' It appears that Lord Cranborne had been employing his vacations in writing some contribu- tions to the Quarterly Rcviciv, in which Mr. Disraeli and the government were handled without gloves. In the next place, Mr. Disraeli retorted bitterly on Mr. Lowe. "When the bark is heard from this side," said he, "the right honorable member for Calne emerges, I will not say from his cave, but, perhaps, from a more cynical habitation.* He joins immediately in the chorus of reciprocal malignity — 'And liails with horrid melody the moon.' The right honorable gentleman is a very remarkable man. He is a learned man, though he despises history. He can chop logic like Dean Aldrich ; but what is more remarkable than his learning and his logic is that power of spontaneous aversion which particularly characterizes him. There is nothing that he likes, and almost everything that he hates. He hates the working classes of England. He hates the Roman Catholics of Ireland ; he hates the Protestants of Ireland. He hates her majesty's ministers. And until the right honorable gentleman, the member for South Lancashire [meaning Mr. Gladstone], placed his hand upon the ark he seemed almost to hate the riijht honorable eentleman, the member for South Lancashire. But now all is changed. Now we have the hour and the man [again intimating Mr. Gladstone]. But I believe the clock goes wrong, and the man is mistaken." Certainly this speech of Mr. Disraeli was an example of what the mem- bers of the old French National Convention used to call " despicable per- sonalities." The prime minister, as matter of fact, was cornered, but not confused. In such situations he was capable of doing the pathetic almost as well as the sarcastic act. In this instance he went on to declare that for his part he had never attacked anyone in his life. That statement might well astonish the members, who after their manner derisively called out, "O, O !" And some added the cry of " Peel, Peel " — with a quick memory of that extraordinary incident in which Mr. Disraeli achieved his first par- liamentary fame. Quick as thought, however, he added, ".unless I was first assailed." He concluded his rather inconsequential but bitter speech with • This phrase of " cynical habitation " for plain dog house is perhaps the greatest of all Latinisms. DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 427 the assertion that the opposition, under the specious name of LiberaHsm, and under the pretext of answering" the call of the age, were about to take the reins of government. That they might succeed in doing ; but so long as he (Mr. Disraeli) should hold the responsible place of prime minister he should, by her majesty's favor, to the full measure of his ability, oppose, and if he could defeat, the manifest purpose of the opposition. It remained for Mr. Gladstone to conclude the debate, which the reader will remember was on Lord Stanley's amendment to postpone the consider- ation of the question of disestablishment. The speaker said that he could not exactly discover the relevancy of the greater part of the prime minis- ter's speech. He thought that a portion of the address to which the House had just listened must have been the result of an overheated imagination. The intention of her majesty's opposition was sufficiently clear and unmis- takable. In so far as he represented that intention it was simply and un- equivocally to separate Church from State in Ireland. It w^as his business in concluding the discussion to call on the House to decide this question. By so doing the House would clear the way for future parliamentary action. Hereupon a division was ordered on Lord Stanley's amendment, and the same was defeated by a majority of sixty-one. This was sufficiently decisive. It might well have terminated the existing government then and there, for the Stanley amendment was a ministerial measure. In the next place, the motion came up for going into committee for the consideration of the questions involved in Mr. Gladstone's resolutions. A motion to this purport was carried by a majority of fifty-six. On the whole, these votes showed a tolerable solidarity of both the Conservative and the Liberal forces. About seven members of the opposition went over and voted with the government, and five Conservatives returned the compliment by voting with Mr. Gladstone. The majority of the Liberals was more emphatic than had been anticipated. The decision was so clear as to indicate the resigna- tion of the ministr)', but that event was for the time postponed. No sooner was the decision of the House known than the outside agita- tion of the subject was increased to the pitch of public demonstration. The supporters of the Irish Establishment secured St. James's Hall, and held there a monster meeting; but this was answered by a Liberal meeting of still greater projaortions in the same place. The government sought to gain something by negotiations with the Roman Catholic prelates in Ireland, but the movement was without avail. The public mind was heated with the controversy. In many instances the debates degenerated into bitter personalities. Mr. Gladstone was so severely assailed at this juncture that he felt called upon to make a formal denial of certain and sundry charges brought against him. One of these was that while he had been in Rome he had made arrangements with the pope to overthrow^ the Church Estab- ^28 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. lishmciu in Ireland. To this it was added that Gladstone had himself for a long time been a Romanist at heart. Another charge was that as far back as the time of Sir Robert Peel Mr. Gladstone had resisted and prevented the preferment of Dr. Wynter. The third charge was that he had publicly renounced the principle of Church support in any of the three kingdoms. A fourth was that, being at Balmoral, he had declined to attend her majesty at Crathie Church. The fifth was that he had received a letter of thanks from the Pope of Rome. The sixth and last was that he was a member of a High Church ritualistic congregation. It seems amazing that Mr. Glad- stone should have felt called upon to pay any attention to slanderous charges so manifestly and ridiculous))- improbable, and indeed impossible, as those enumerated. At this juncture came the Easter recess of Parliament. When that body reconvened the question of Mr. Gladstone's resolutions was at once taken up. Meanwhile in the House of Lords Earl Derby had discussed the resolutions pending in the House of Commons, and declared the same to be unconstitutional. Lord Derby thought that to ask the queen to sur- render certain temporalities which had been discussed only in the lower House was a breach of the Constitution. This criticism, however, provoked sharp retorts from the opposition in both the House ot Lords and the Commons. Thus with debate and varying vicissitudes of controversy Mr. Gladstone's first resolution came to vote on the 30th of April, 1868, and was carried by a majority of si.xty-five. Hereupon Mr. Disraeli intimated the resignation of the government; but after an adjournment he returned to the House on the 4th of May and explained that the ministr\- had not resigned for reasons which he offered. His statement was that ministers had tendered their resignations, but had done so with the advice that if possible the government should conduct public busjnesswith the aid of the House until the end of the session. This would presently arrive, and Parliament might then be dissolved until the autumn. As matter of fact the situation was so complicated as to warrant Mr. Disraeli in this course ; for if Parliament should be dissolved at once the new elections would be held by the constituencies as they now stood. The new Reform Bill had not yet become operative. If, therefore, a new House should be elected, it would be under the old scheme, and it must thus expire in so short a time that the benefit, if any, would not compensate for the outlay, trouble, and confusion. Should the ministry go forward under the present scheme and be defeated by failure of cooperation on the part of the House, there would remain the necessity of an immediate dissolution; but in that event the Reform Bill would have become operative, and the new elec- tion would be held by the new constituencies, under the new apportionment. DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. ■ 429 But this explanation could not satisfy the victorious opposition. To them it appeared like arrant trifling. Mr. Gladstone would not concede the correctness of the prime minister's course. Mr. Lowe contended that two distinct divisions of the House with emphatic decisions adverse to the ministry ought to have sufficed. Mr. Bright, with his usual bluntness, charged the ministry with a motive no higher than that of keeping them- selves in office. He denounced the proposition of Mr. Disraeli as nothing less than an outrage on the patience of Parliament. He said that the prime minister under such circumstances had no right to dissolve the House, and he added that the present government of Great Britain was not able to carry a single measure, unless it should be a sixpenny addition to the income tax. These criticisms were so severe that Mr. Disraeli winced a little, and presently explained that his proposition to dissolve Parliament related only to the question of the Irish Church. If there were other subjects of disa- greement in the House, and the government should not have the coopera- tion of the majority, then the ministers must again put their resignations in her majesty's hands. All this occurred as the sequel to the adoption of Mr. Gladstone's first resolution. The second and third resolutions were soon carried, with approxi- mately the same majorities as the first. To these three the author, before the measure was acted on as a whole, appended the following : " That when legislative effect shall have been given to the first resolution of this com- mittee, respecting the Established Church of Ireland, it is right and necessary that the grant to Maynooth and the Regiurn Donum be discon- tinued, due regard being had to all personal interests." This proposition developed the policy of the opposition still further, and soon afterward, namely, on the 14th of May, Mr. Gladstone got leave of the House to present a bill to prevent for the present new appointments to the Irish Church, and to restrain the ecclesiastical commissioners for Ireland from further proceedings. This proposition was, in parliamentary jargon, desig- nated as the Suspensory Bill. Meanwhile, however, the debates continued to wear themselves out in the usual manner. John Bright again spoke in strong denunciation of Mr. Disraeli. 'The latter had animadverted upon the factions in the Liberal part)', and had spoken with some arrogance of his recent communications with the queen; and this Mr. Bright resented. In his strictures he said: "The prime minister the other night, with a mixture of pompousness and sometimes of servility, talked at large of the interviews which he had had with his sovereign. I venture to say that a minister who deceives his sovereign is as guilty as the conspirator who would dethrone her. I do not charee the rioht honorable oentleman with deceiving his sovereign; but , ,n I IKK \M) riMKS OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. if he has not changed the opinions which he held twenty-five years aoo, and which in the main he said only a few weeks ago were right, then I fear he has not stated all that was his duty to state in the interview he had with his sovereign. " The speaker further declared that for a prime minister thus to use his sovereign as a sort of buffer in a political battle for his own advantage was committing a high crime and misdemeanor against that sovereign, as well as against the nation. Mr. Gladstone took up the theme and continued the castigation, saying that for his part he had never before heard a prime minister say anything that was so much out of place in his relations with the sovereign. To all this Disraeli retorted in his usual manner, challeng- ing his antagonists to put the charges which they had presented to the decision of the House. We here advert to the two important matters contemplated in Mr. Gladstone's fourth resolution. The reader will recall, we think, from a former chapter the story of the grant made by Parliament to the Irish College of Maynooth. For many years that subject had come and come again into the House as a hackneyed issue of debate. The extreme Protestants were in the habit of animadverting upon the Maynooth grant when they had nothing better to discuss. The grant in question had been originally a contribution toward the secular education of young men who were destined to the Irish priesthood; that is, to the Roman Catholic priesthood in Ireland. It was contended that such young men would become teachers of the people, and that it was better that they should be educated — whatever might be their faith — than that they should be ignorant. The government of Great Britain was thus in the attitude of patronizing the servants of an institution which they disclaimed, namely, the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. If the Episcopal Establishment in Irelaml should now be abolished, then certainly the Maynooth grant ought to cease, in order that all might be even in the land. As to the Rcgiiun Donum, that was a grant of money from the crown which had been made by every sovereign from Charles II to X'ictoria, with the single e.xception of James II, who refused to make it. The object of the grant was to aid the support of Presbyterian ministers in Ireland. The means by which this crown grant was supported had, since the days of William III, been derived from the public customs of Belfast. The sum of the Maynooth grant and the Rcgiiivi Doiium was about a million and a quarter pounds. The measure for the abolition of the two grants in question was intro- duced in the form of a resolution by Mr. .Aytoun, one of the members for .Scot- land. Mr. Gladstone sought unsuccessfully to have the resolution withheld until such time as the greater question should be decided. An angry and tumultuous debate arose over the matter among the Liberals themselves, DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 43 1 some of whom perceived that Mr. Aytoun's motion was putting the cart before the horse. The uproar gave opportunity to Mr. Disraeh to say that the revolutionists in opposition were already quarreling over their spoils — a sarcasm not warranted by the facts. At length the Aytoun resolution was amended so as to declare that when legislative effect should be given to the first of the Gladstonian resolutions, then the Maynooth grant and the Rcgiiim Donuin should be discontinued, all personal interests being duly regarded. At this juncture it appeared necessary to attend to several items of legislation which had been deferred. The estimates for the support of the nav\' were alread)' three months overdue, and must be passed. It was deemed essential that that part of the recent Reform Bill extending the provisions thereof to Scotland should be completed. The Scotch repre- sentation had to be enlarged. There was, however, a strong feeling that the House of Commons was already sufficiently numerous in its membership. A measure was accordingly introduced providing that a sufficient number of English boroughs having fewer than five thousand inhabitants should be disfranchised, to compensate for the additional seats assigned to Scotland. The project in hand was to add ten seats for that country. The Reform Bill, passed under the auspices of Mr. Disraeli, had declared that no English borough should be disfranchised thereby. In order to save this provision Sir R. Knightley moved that English boroughs having a popula- tion under twelve thousand should suffer a loss of one seat each, to the extent of ten seats in all ; and this proposition the government supported ; but the measure was met with an adverse vote by a majority of twenty-one. In the next place Mr. Bouverie moved that the ratepaying provisions of the Reform Act should be repealed so far as Scotland was concerned, and this measure, in spite of the opposition of the government, was adopted. A bill was also passed empowering the government to purchase from the private companies the lines of electric telegraph in Great Britain. Thus the session reached its close, and on the last day of July, 1869, Parliament was prorogued. The election of a new body was now to be made under tlie provisions of the Reform Bill of 1867. Though the election was not to occur until the following November the excitement flamed up immediately, and the ques- tion was hotly on as to the policy of disestablishment and of the Irish Reform Bill covering the tenant system in Ireland. In the arena of dispute Mr. Glad- stone stood boldly forth as the leader of the Liberal party. Mr. Disraeli stood in like relation to the Conservative party. Both causes were sup- ported with much activity by the ablest men in the kingdom. The Conserv- atives adopted as one point in their tactics the defeat of Mr. Gladstone for reelection. That statesman was now a candidate for the district known as A ^2 LIKE AND TIMKS ol- WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Southwest Lancashire. He found himself antagonized by prevailing forces, and though on the hustings there appeared to be a great majority for him the decision at the polls was against him. Mr. Cross and Mr. Turner, the Conservative candidates, were chosen by a majority of about three hundred. There were shrewd Liberal politicians, however, wlio had foreseen this result, and had prepared for it. The electors of Greenwich, without Mr. Gladstone's solicitation, put him in nomination and elected him as their rep- resentative, along with another Liberal, Mr. Alderman Salomons. The same tactics employed against Mr. Gladstone in Southwest Lancashire were successful in compassing the defeat of John Stuart Mill, who was succeeded by Mr. William Henry Smith, a Conservative. Sir Wentworth Dilke was also defeated for reelection, but was compensated for the loss of his seat by the election of his distinguished son, Charles Dilke, afterward Sir Charles Dilke, by the constituency of Chelsea. But on the whole the Liberals were surprisingly successful. The elec- tions showed unmistakably that the nation was w'ith the Liberal cause. Mr. Gladstone's party was returned with a majority of a hundred and fifteen in the House of Commons. In the boroughs generally the Conservatives were completely routed; but in the counties they still held their own. Scotland and Ireland both gave large majorities for the Liberals. The majorities in all three kingdoms were larger than had been cast at any election since 1832. The popular voice seemed to be overwhelmingly in favor of the measures to which the Liberal party was pledged. One of the first results of this verdict was the resig-nation of the Con- servative ministry. Mr. Disraeli anticipated the meeting of Parliament by announcing his retirement trom office. He said in a public circular that the election had shown conclusively that the existing government could not rely on the cooperation of the new House of Commons, and that for this reason her majesty's ministers had resigned, though they should not fail in opposi- tion to present an uncompromising front to the project of disestablishing and disendowing the Irish Church. On the other side there was nothing left but the inevitable, and that was the call of William E. Gladstone to be Prime Minister of Endand. The queen's summons came on the 4th of December, 1868. INIr. Gladstone at once complied, and was able on the 9th of the month to announce the first distinctly Liberal cabinet, as follows : Lord Clarendon, Secretary for foreign Affairs; Lord Granville, Secretary for the Colonies; Mr. Bruce, Home Secretary; Mr. Cardwell, Secretary of War; the Duke of Argyle, Secretary for India; Lord Hatherly, Lord Chancellor; Earl Kimberley, Lord Privy Seal ; Mr. Childers, First Lord of the Admiralty ; Earl Spencer, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; Marquis of Hartington, Postmaster-General ; and Mr. Robert Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer. To which we must add. DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 433 marvel of marvels, Mr. John Bright, President of the Board of Trade. To conservative England it might well appear that the end of all things was at hand when the Quaker member for Birmingham was invited to a seat in the British cabinet* All of the members of the new ministry were promptly accepted by their respective constituencies. Mr. Gladstone at this juncture delivered a speech WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. For the first time Prime Minister, December 4, 1S6S. at Greenwich, in which he declared that the Conservative administration now going out of power had melted away ; that the late prime minister had The speaker discussed several ot the <:one from sieht like a kino- of snow. * A cycle of interesting traditions grew up around Mr. Bright's appointment to the presidency of tlie Board of Trade. It is said tiiat tlie queen was almost violently opposed to his admission to office ; but Mr. Gladstone told her majesty that it must be — that it was necessary to his successful conduct of her government. So the queen yielded. But this was not the worst. Bright had to be inducted into office, and his Quaker manners, and, more than manners, his Quaker conscience, were serious impediments. In the first place, it was difficult to get him to accept the office. He finally said that he thought the time had come when an honest man might enter the service of the crown ! When it came to the ceremony of kissing her majesty's hand it is said that Bright, against all solicitations, would not kneel and would not lake ofl' his hat. All tlie other members did their obeisance in the usual manner : but the bluff Quaker stood hatted, and kissed her m.ijesly's hand in that attitude, no doubt as loyally .as the most loyal Briton that ever lived ! z8 ^j^ LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. great projects that were just ahead. He spoke of the necessity that would rest on the new ParHament of protecting the purity of the ballot and the liberty of the elector. He said that it would be necessary to remedy at once the evils and abuses which had appeared in connection with the ratepaying provisions in the Reform Bill. It would also devolve upon the new House to handle the subjects of education and of national expenditures. The government must proceed to the disestablishment of the Irish Church by proper enactment. There would be no shrinking and no recession. " We confide," said Mr. Gladstone. " in the traditions we have received of our fathers; we confide in the soundness both of the religious and of the civil principles that prevail ; we confide in the sacredness of that cause of justice in which we are engaged, and with that confidence and persuasion we are prepared to go forward." The reader must not suppose that the passage of the Gladstonian reso- lutions by the recent Parliament was equivalent to the disestablishment of the Irish Church. The real battle remained to be fought. The resolu- tions which had been adopted were simply academical. They declared an abstract principle ; that is, in a word, that it was the opinion of the House of Commons that the Irish Church Establishment should cease to exist. The statutory enactment by whicli the existence of that establishment was to be determined had yet to be passed. Aye, it had to be prepared. The duty of preparing it was devolved on Mr. Gladstone and the Liberal ministry. Meanwhile, the old order in England was shaken to its profoundest depths. There was an outcr\- on ('vcry hand. The organs of the Church, both men and newspapers, were vociferous in their denunciations. Reso- lutions were passed ; public assemblies were harangued ; synods debated ; and high ecclesiastics stooped to vituperation. All the bottles of clerical wrath were poured out on those who had challenged the further e.xistence of the Church Establishment in Ireland. One said that such a proposition was an offense against Alniight\- God. A bishop declared it to have been framed in a spirit of inveterate hostility to the Church. The Earl of Car- rick thought it the greatest national sin that ever was committed. An archdeacon told his hearers to trust in God and keep their powder dry. .Another of the same rank denounced the crreat national sin. One doctor of divinity was not able to utter his destation of the ungodly, wicked, and abominable measure. Still another wanted the queen to prevent the destruc- tion of the Church, even if she had to jeopard her crown in doing it. To all this tirade of unbottled ecclesiastical bitterness the political speakers and newspapers added other bitterness of their own. The name of the waters was Marah! Orangemen of Ireland were as furious as the most furious of all the army. They said that the Liberal ministry was a cabinet of brigands. Mr. Gladstone was a traitor to his queen, his country, and his DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 435 God ! And so the anathemas rolled on in ever-increasing volume, the chief significance of which was that it must presently subside and disappear forever. The new Parliament convened in February of 1869. By the ist of March Mr. Gladstone was ready with his bill for the disestablishment of the Irish Church. On that day he entered the Commons of England as a gen- eral and conqueror. In the explication of his plan he consumed three hours, delivering one of the finest legislative orations on record. It must be con- fessed that Mr. Gladstone's style of speaking and writing was frequently attenuated and somewhat straggling. It lacked incisiveness and condensa- tion. We may admit that it was not as brilliant a style as that of his great competitor. But if it was always cautious, and if it moved slowly, it was always certain and convincing. It was noted on the occasion of the delivery of the great oration just referred to that he had prepared himself with unusual care, and that his style came up to the best standard required in such an utterance. Mr. Disraeli, who was not likely to be partial to his rival, said that in the whole speech there was not a redundant word. Mr. Gladstone began by having read the Acts on which the Estab- lished Church of Ireland rested, the Act of the Maynooth grant, and also the first of the four resolutions the passage of which he had secured at the previous session of the House. His new bill, which he now asked leave to introduce, was entitled "An Act to Put an End to the Established Church in Ireland, to Make Provision in Respect to the Temporalities thereof, and of the Royal Collesfe of Mavnooth." He beean by reviewing historically the question which now engrossed the attention of Parliament. He antici- pated the objections with which the proposed measure was likely to be met by its opponents. He did not fail to remind the House that the decisive step of a declaration to abolish the Irish Establishment had already been taken. The House was pledged, the campaign was begun, and it only remained for Parliament to prosecute the great enterprise to a successful conclusion. Mr. Gladstone next assured the House that it was not the jaurpose of her majesty's government to propose halfway measures. It was not the pur- pose of government to postpone the issue. It was the purpose to make the action about to be taken final and complete. He then proceeded to analyze the proposed bill, and to consider the same in three parts : first, its immedi- ate effects; secondly, its effects at a date which the speaker fixed at the ist of January, 1871 ; and thirdly, its effects when the Establishment in Ire- land should be finallv brought to its close and should cease to exist. Under the first head the prime minister proposed the appointment of a new ecclesiastical commission to take the place of the one now existing and to hold office for ten years. To this commission the entire properties of ^^6 LIFE AND TIMES OF WII.I.IAM E. GLADSTONE. the Irish Church should be, as it were, assigned, but the assignment should be subject to all equitable life interests held by individuals. The assign- ment would work, both technically and legally, an immediate disendowmcnt of the Irish Church; but the Establisluncnt would be regarded as having ah existence up to the ist of January, 1871. This distinction between disendowment and disestablishment signified that the organic union of the Churches of Kngland and Ireland would con- tinue to the date named, and at that date the latter, namely, the Church of Ireland, would be severed and cease to exist. The ecclesiastical courts and the ecclesiastical code would then be abolished ; but if the clergy and laity of the Irish Church should ilesire for their own convenience to continue the voluntary use ot the existing laws, they might do so; that is, until such time as the new order to be provided for might annul the remaining condi- tions of the old order. In the interim there should not be further appoint- ments made for the Irish Church, except to such spiritual offices as would not imply any vested interests as conferred on the appointees. This prin- ciple of temporary appointment should be extended as far as the bishoprics. Any person appointed to an episcopate in Ireland should henceforth receive with the appointment neither a crown living nor a right of peerage. The pending act contemplated, said the prime minister, the reorgani- zation of the Irish Church ; that is, the formation of an ecclesiastical body out of the disendowed institution, which body, to be known as a " governing body," should confer with the ecclesiastical commission with a view to gain- ing for the clergy and laity the right of voluntary assemblage, and this new order should be recognized by the crown. The body thus formed should become an incorporated institution. This might be effected in the interval of two years. There would thus be an ecclesiastical organization in Ireland formed out of the Establishment, with full right of concurrent action with the ecclesiastical commission. The speaker next proceeded to consider the disposal of the vested interests of the Establishment. He conceded that the bishops and all the dignitaries and beneficed clergy of the Irish Church, as the same now existed, should be entitled to receive during life, instead of the endowments, certain annuities, which should be paid from the properties of the Church; but the ecclesiastics would be expected to perform, as compensatory for their annuities, the religious duties that might be expected of their respec- tive offices. How much the annuities should be would be determined by the ecclesiastical commissioners It was not proposed to interrupt the bishops and other clergy in the enjoyment of their freeholds or the pre- rogatives which they held as landed proprietors. To this principle, how- ever, there were certain exceptions. The tithe hitherto charged as a rental should now be paid to the commissioners. In the second place, such DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 437 churches as had gone to ruin should no longer be regarded as the appanage of the incumbent ; and, thirdly, that the rights of peerage enjoyed by the Irish bishops should be abolished from date. A special provision was to be made for the curates, some of whom would be dismissed with a gift and others would be continued in employment for two years, with compensation. The compensation, however, in such cases was to be paid as usual by the bishops incumbent. As to private endowments, these should remain intact. They would become a marketable property in conveyance to the new Church organization. These provisions, however, related only to such private gifts to the Church as had been made since the Restoration. They did not include church edifices or glebe houses. As to the former, that is, church buildings, the governing body, meanino- the new organization, miorht either continue to use them for houses of worship, under the voluntary plan, or remove them to other places, according to the sueeestions of the situation. In the case of a few of the great ecclesiastical buildings, including St. Patrick's Cathedral, these might be regarded as national memorials, not to be disturbed, and to such the ecclesiastical commissioners might assign a certain amount for their sup- port. Old churches no longer used for worship and unfit for restoration should be given in trust to the Board of Works, and suitable funds should be set aside to preserve such properties. The speaker said that the disposal of the glebe houses was attended with peculiar difficulty. In studying the subject he had modified his own views with respect to them. The glebe houses ought not to be regarded as marketable .commodities. There had been expended upon them a million two hundred thousand pounds ; but their annual value was not more than eighteen thousand pounds, and there were charges against them amounting to a quarter of a million. He recommended, in view of all the conditions, that the glebe houses should -be given to the governing body ; that is, to the voluntary Church organization, on condition that that body should pay the charges against the properties and have the privilege of purchasing the glebe lands adjacent on equitable terms. As to the graveyards connected with the churches they should go with the churches, and should be undis- turbed ; but burial grounds not in connection with the churches should be assigned to the overseers of the poor. The prime minister next approached the exceedingly difficult question of the Maynooth grant and the Regium Donum. The nature of these two benefits we have already explained. As to the Regium Donum the recip- ients, said Mr. Gladstone, should be compensated in the same manner as the Irish bishops who were to be deprived of their endowments. He did not think that the grant to the Royal College of Maynooth and to certain Presbyterian colleges should be immediately taken away. To do so would 438 LIFE AXn TIMKS OV WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. work hardships and produce a shock injurious to the cause of education and hurtful to many individuals. He proposed that the endowments in question should be converted into a fourteen-jear annuity, and be purchased in the interest of the beneficiaries. In the next place Mr. Gladstone took up the great question of extin- guishing the tithe-rent charges, and proposed that that work should be extended over a period of forty-five years ; but if the proprietors should elect to have the period reduced by one half they might do so. There should be a compulsory sale of the tithe-rent charges on such terms as would produce a fund at four ami a half per cent. The proprietors should be credited as if with a loan at three and a half per cent running for forty- five years. Under this arrangement the tenants of the lands tithed should have the privilege of purchase for three years after date. The prime minister in the next place set forth the financial details of the scheme, as the same would appear when fitted to the existing condition. The tithe-rent charges would amount to so much ; the rents in perpetuity to so much ; moneys invested to so much ; the total sixteen million pounds. That was the sum, according to Mr. Gladstone's calculation, of the present value of the properties of the Irish Church. The Bill for Disestablishment would dispose of the various sums, under the heads already enumerated, to an amount just about one half of the total valuation. There would remain a balance of seven million or possibly eight million pounds ; and the ques- tion of prime importance was what should be done with this large overplus. Mr. Gladstone then laitl it down as his first principle that the balance referred to should be devoted exclusively to the benefit of the Irish people. In the second place he thought that the large sum in question should be used wholly for other than religious ends. He passed over in review certain possibilities which were to be rejected for good reason. The government, he said, after full consideration, had determined to apply the surplus in question to the relief of unavoidable calamities, and to the alleviation of such distresses as were not already provided for under the poor laws of the realm. The government would recommend, as provided in the bill, that a hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds be set aside for the support of asylums for the insane ; also, twenty thousand pounds annuallv for the sup- port of asylums for the feeble-minded ; also, thirty thousand pounds annually for training schools for deaf-mutes and for the blind ; also, fifteen thousand pounds annually for training schools for nurses; also, ten thousand pounds for reformatories ; also, fifty-one thousand pounds for the support of county infirmaries — making a total annual expenditure of three hundred and eleven thousand pounds. By devoting the surplus to these ends great reforms might be promoted and philanthropic enterprises quickened into greater efficiency. He was confident that the plan proposed would be accepted by DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 439 the nation as a substantial gain and as an unselfish method of disposing of the accumulations of the Irish Church. In all this vast scheme — in the presentation of it — Mr. Gladstone bore himself courageously but modestly. He said that it was possible there might be errors in his calculations. He should be glad to accept corrections as to such, or suggestions from any quarter for the benefit of the cause. Moreover, he hoped that the clergy of Ireland, now about to be obliged to bear a great change in their condition, would meet the same with equanim- ity. The change indeed was great. He did not know in what other coun- try so tremendous a transformation had been proposed for the ministers of a religious communion who had for many ages enjoyed such a position as that held by the ministers of the Established Church in Ireland, which change was now proposed for them. " I can well understand," said he, "that to many in the Irish Establishment such a change appears to be nothing less than ruin and destruction ; from the height on which they now stand the future is to them an abyss, and their fears recall the words used in ' King Lear ' when Edgar endeavors to persuade Gloucester that he has fallen over the cliffs of Dover, and says : ' Ten masts at each make not the altitude Which thou hast perpendicularly fallen; Thy life's a miracle ! ' And yet but a little while after the old man is relieved from his delusion, and he finds he has not fallen at all. So I trust that when, instead of the fictitious and adventitious aid on which we have too longf taught the Irish Establishment to lean, it should come to place its trust on its own resources, in its own great mission, in all that it can draw from the energy of its ministers and its members, and the high hopes and promises of the Gospel that it teaches, it will find that it has entered upon a new era of existence — an era bright with hope and potent for good. At any rate, I think the day has certainly come when an end is finally to be put to that union, not between the Church and religious association, but between the Establish- ment and the State, which was commenced under circumstances little aus- picious, and has endured to be a source of unhappiness to Ireland and of discredit and scandal to Eno-land. o " There is more to say. This measure is in every sense a great measure — great in its principles, great in the multitude of its dry, technical, but interesting details, and great as a testing measure ; for it will show for one and all of us of what mettle we are made. Upon us all it brings a great responsibility — great and foremost upon those who occupy this bench. We are especially chargeable, nay, deeply guilty, if we have either dishonestly, as some think, or even prematurely or unwisely challenged so gigantic an ^^O LIKE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE, issue. I know well the punishments that follow rashness in public affairs, and that ought to fall upon those men, those Phaethons of politics, who, with hands unequal to the task, attempt to guide the chariot of the sun. But the responsibility, though heavy, does not exclusively press upon us ; it presses upon every man who has to take part in the discussion and decision upon this bill. Every man approaches the discussion under the most solemn obligations to raise the level of his vision and expand its scope in proportion with the greatness of the matter in hand. " The working of our constitutional government itself is upon its trial, for I do not believe there ever was a time when the wheels of legislative machinery were set in motion under conditions of peace and order and con- stitutional regularity to deal with a greater question or more profound. And more especially, sir, is the credit and fame of this great assembly in- volved ; this assembly which has inherited through many ages the accumu- lated honors of brilliant triumj)hs, of peaceful but courageous legislation, is now called upon to address itself to a task which would, indeed, have de- manded all the best energies of the very best among your fathers and your ancestors. I believe it will prove to be worthy of the task. Should it fail, even the fame of the House of Commons will suffer disparagement ; should it succeed, even that fame, I venture to say, will receive no small, no insen- sible addition. I must not ask gentlemen opposite to concur in this view, emboldened as I am by the kindness they have shown me in listening with patience to a statement which could not have been other than tedious ; but I pray them to bear with me for a moment while, for myself and my col- leagues, I say we are sanguine of the issue. We believe, and for my part I am deeply convinced, that when the final consummation shall arrive, and when the words are spoken that shall give the force of law to the work em- bodied in this measure — the work of peace and justice — those words will be echoed upon every shore where the name of Ireland or the name of Great Britain has been heard, and the answer to them will come back in the ap- proving verdict of civilized mankind." This peroration of an address occupying three full hours in its delivery has been regarded as one of the very greatest of Mr. Gladstone's deliver- ances. The scheme presented was satisfying in the highest degree. The Liberals were rejoiced at the success with which their now famous leader had met the great emergency. Perhaps no other could have done it. To the Conservatives nothing was left but mild and desultory criticism and mere fault-finding with the scheme which, as a whole, was already predeter- mined by both House and nation. The leader of the opposition came to his task of criticism in a mood showing how completely he recognized the fact that the case had gone against him. He limited himself to making a brilliant speech. That he was always able to do. With epigram and DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 44I philosophy and historical and literary citation he was capable of much under the most adverse circumstances. The House might always expect to be entertained when Benjamin Dis- raeli had the floor. On this occasion he made the now well-worn argument in favor of the union of Church and State. He said that the State should preserve the method of surrounding itself with the ecclesiastical panoply. He urged that without State support the Church was likely to fall away into a sacerdotal corporation of no influence in society. He thought that to divorce secular authority from religious concern was to introduce all manner of evils. On the other hand, the establishment of an independent religious authority in the State was likely to result in the creation of a power greater than the civil power — a thing intolerable to the British Con- stitution. To his apprehension the act of the State in disendowing a Church and seizing its revenues was simply a spoliation ; and in cases where there migrht be a srood reason for it it was still an act of confiscation. There was no secular landlord who held his titles by firmer right than the right of the Irish Church to her possessions. He carried this suggestion into the supposed parallel furnished by the landless gentry of Ireland, demanding the confiscation of the estates of the landed gentry ; but the House was unable to see the analog}^ On the whole, Mr. Disraeli's speech was ineffective. It was marked with his usual wit — a kind of wit which, in the present instance, gave opportunity to the London Times to describe it as a kind of flimsiness relieved with spangles which suggested to the beholder the skirt of Columbine ! The next speech on the pending measure was delivered by Dr. Ball, an old and strict Conservative, who assailed the measure as revolutionary. Dr. Ball declared his opinion that general discontent would follow in the train and a great shock be given to the sacred rights of property. There would come, said he, an extreme agitation of the question of landownership, and that question would have to be met with other organic changes more radical than those now proposed with respect to the Church. Then came John Bright in answer, challenging in his brusque manner the assertions of Mr. Disraeli. That gentleman had proclaimed the Irish Establishment as a protector of religious freedom and toleration. To him (Mr. Bright) the leader of the opposition seemed to have a peculiar view of history. Like Voltaire, Mr. Disraeli had a history from which the facts were eliminated, and he thought the text all the better for it! Mr. Bright said that the Irish Church Establishment had signally failed in everything for which it claimed to be instituted. Having failed, the question was pertinent whether it would be a misappropriation of the surplus funds accumulated by the great Establishment to apply them to some humane and philanthropic objects such as those described in the bill. ^^2 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. " Do you not think." said Mr. Bright, "that from tlie charitable deaHng with these matters even a sweeter incense may arise than when these vast funds are applied to maintain three times the number of clergy that can be of the slightest use to the Church with which they are connected? We can do but little, it is true. We cannot relume the extinguished lamp of reason. We cannot make the deaf to hear. We cannot make the dumb to speak. It is not given to us — ' From tlie thick film to purge the visual ray, And on the sightless eyeballs pour the day.' But at least we can lessen the load of affliction, and we can make the life more tolerable to vast numbers who suffer. ... I see this measure giving tranquillity to our i)eople, greater strength to the realm, and adding a new luster and a new dignity to the crown. I dare claim for this bill the sup- port of all good and thoughtful people within the bounds of the British empire, and I cannot doubt that, in its early and great results, it will have the blessing of the Supreme, for 1 believe it to be founded on those prin- ciples of justice and mercy which are the glorious attributes of his eternal reign." In the course of the debate there was a slight breaking away from party lines ; but the same was not so noticeable as in the discussions of the pre- vious Parliament. Sir Roundell ' Palmer, a distinguished Liberal, spoke against the measure pending on the ground that it was competent for the House to declare disestablishment, but not to disendow the Irish Church. He claimed that there was no constitutional precedent for disendowment. To enact a disendowment was to interfere palpably with vested rights. This he could not approve ; but he nevertheless admitted what was now inevitable, namely, that the bill would pass ; and he went so far as to tell the adherents of the Irish Church that they should not follow the advice of Mr. Disraeli by refusing to cooperate with the new ecclesiastical commis- sion. That the speaker thought would be to jeopard their remaining rights. As for Mr. Lowe, he, being now in office, was no longer an Adullamite. His powers were let loose in a charge on Mr. Disraeli. He asserted in his speech that the Irish Church had so long neglected its opportunity of rec- onciling itself to the Irish people that it had sinned away its day of grace. For years the crisis had been coming, and it had now come. It had been thought that the conditions in Ireland could not be changed. "But," said the speaker, "the present state of things in Ireland is no longer unalterable. We can alter it, and we w^ill." Mr. Gladstone could not expect to go through so great an ordeal imscathed. Mr. Gathorne Hardy compared him to Haman. He said that DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 443 the prime minister in his malicious attack on the Irish Church had been actuated by jealousy. This was proved by a citation of Mr. Gladstone's former views with respect to the Church and its place under the patronage of the State. Mr. Hardy said that the Irish Church was not a badge of conquest. It was not a stigma. It did not deserve to be destroyed. The Irish question had not sprung from the ecclesiastical side, but from the side of English politics. To abolish the Irish Church was to loose the Act of Union. If this were done the oath of coronation would have to be changed and mutilated. The bill before the House was evil in the siorht of God and man. It was perilous to the interests of Great Britain. He (Mr. Hardy) would denounce it and oppose it because it was impolitic and sacrilegious. To all this Mr. Gladstone replied most effectively by saying that Mr. Hardy's declaration reminded him of a mot of Burke, who had once characterized a like performance as an attempt to draw an indictment against a whole nation ! Mr. Hardy's description of the condition of the Irish people was a libel. Mr. Hardy would not recognize the insufferable evils which had afflicted that people, and for which the honorable gentleman proposed no remedy. The government had a remedy, and the government would apply it. The speaker said that Sir Roundell Palmer could not logicall)' disestablish without disendowing. Neither would the proposed measure in any way affect the prerogatives of the crown. The attacks made on the pending measure convinced him that the government had been wise in pledging itself to such a remedy and in bringing it forward. Then calline attention to the lateness of the night, Mr. Gladstone said that the clock was already pointing to the dawn, and that as rapidly as the hand of the dial was going forward to the index of the light so rapidly were falline out the last remaining sands in the existence of the Established Church in Ireland. The speaker said further that the government was not now opening the great question. That was opened, he did not doubt, when last year's Parliament declared the approaching doom — a verdict that could not be recalled. " Opened it was further," said the speaker, " when in the months of autumn the discussions which were held in every quarter of the country turned mainly on the subject of the Irish Church. Prosecuted another stage it was, when the completed elections discovered to us a man- ifestation of the national verdict more emphatic than, with the rarest excep- tions, has been witnessed during the whole of our parliamentary history- The good cause was further advanced toward its triumphant issue when the silent acknowledgment of the late government that they declined to contest the question was given by their retirement from office and their choosing a less responsible position from which to carry on a more desultory warfare against the policy which they had in the previous session _|^^^ LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. unsuccessfully attempted to resist. Another blow will soon be struck in the same good cause, and I will not intercept it one single moment more." The clock was indeed about to strike ! It was the morning dawn of the 19th of May, 1S69. The division of the House was called. The excite- ment rose to the pitch of fever, but there was little doubt as to the result. The division was on the question of the second reading. There were six hundred and eighteen members answering to the call. Those for the second reading of the bill were three hundred and sixty-eight ; those against, two hundred and fifty — majority for the government, one hundred and eighteen. The verdict was more emphatic than had been anticipated. An analysis of the vote showed that six Conservatives had voted with the Liberals and only three Liberals with the Conservatives. There were twenty-one absentees from the House and fourteen vacancies at the time. The vote was so decisive, the majority so great, as to indicate that the future stages of the bill would hardly be attended with danger to its final passage. Nevertheless, the progress of the measure was impeded as much as might be by the opposition, and three months elapsed after the introduction of the measure before the third reading of the bill was moved. At this stage Mr. Disraeli made another vain appeal to the House against the project of disestablishment. He said that the measure was tending powerfully to establish the papal ascendency in Ireland. The destruction of the Church in that country was about to produce a great reaction in favor of Rome. He then repeated his original objections to the measure as being against the Act of Union, the coronation oath, and in general inimical to the British Constitution. To this Mr. Gladstone replied that the measure which he was promoting was the legitimate offspring of suggestions made by William Pitt and others who were recognized in British history as the best supporters of religious equality. Besides, whether indorsed by the great men of the past or not, the bill for disestab- lishment was not in its principles unjust, not illiberal, and not harsh. It was not inimical to Protestantism in Ireland. There mi^ht be a feeline of regret in ecclesiastical circles that the temporal splendor of the Irish Church had departed; yet the day was in the future when men might say of her that the glory of the latter house is greater than that of the former. Protestantism in Ireland would yet learn that the Parliament of England had been its friend, and had manifested that friendship in the disestablish- ment and disendowmcnt of the Irish Church. On the question of the third reading the majority for the government was one hundred and fourteen. The voice of the nation thus expressed was conclusive, and the opposition were reduced to the necessity of merely abusing an antagonist whom they could not overthrow. At this juncture the stories were revived that Mr. Gladstone was in league with the Church DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRISH CHURCH. 445 of Rome — a slander which he had already refuted, and which in the retro- spect appears from the first to have been drowned in its own absurdity. Over in the House of Lords there was as strong an opposition as was expedient to the Irish Church Bill. The Earl of Derby marshaled his remaining energies and fought a last battle for the past. In like manner Lord Cairns denounced the pending measure as an invention of evil, a men- ace to the welfare of society, and a mortal hurt to the British Constitution. Nor may we pass from the discussion of the subject in the Lords without referring to the great act of Dr. Connop Thirlwall, the historian. Bishop of St. David's, who, though high in the ecclesiastical order, came with his probity and learning to the support of the bill for disestablishment. He said that the notion that church property is in some sense divine is a heathenish superstition. Of like kind he declared to be those material offerings which some persons thought they might make to Almighty God as if to answer some necessity of his nature. For his part, he regarded the market established at Spitalfields by Miss Burdett Coutts (afterward the Baroness Burdett-Coutts) as being as good a religious work, and better, than that of Mr. Guinness, who was restoring the Dublin cathedral. He agreed with other speakers that the Protestant ascendency in Ireland ought to be maintained, or rather obtained, and promoted ; but the ascendency which he would have should be the ascendency of truth and reason. In this spiritual temple he was sorry to say that the Irish Church was not a pillar. As to the power of the pope in Ireland, he did not believe in it, and did not fear it. He regarded the papacy as being in its decline. The best way to uphold the papacy was to give it a grievance. By that means the Irish priesthood could plead their grievance and gain the sympathy of the people. Without the grievance — which was the Irish Church — the argu- ment would be futile. Most of the bishops, however, arrayed themselves on the other side. In this rank was the Bishop of Peterborough. In closing the discussion Lord Derby made his final attack on the bill, denouncing it as the fruit of political folly and moral baseness. But his appeal was in vain. The oppo- sition could rally only one hundred and forty-six votes against one hundred and seventy-nine for the government. Nor may we pass without noting that the Marquis of Salisbury voted with the Liberals in this great contest. There were thirteen English and two Irish bishops who voted against the bill, and several others who, through their extreme animosity, absented themselves from the House of Lords. The only bishop who stood with the government was he of St. David's, whose manly address to the Lords is mentioned above. In the upper House the bill as a whole was ultimatel\- passed by a majority of seven, though a protest was prepared and signed by forty-three 446 LIKE AND TIMES OK WII.IJAM K. GLADSTOXE. of the temporal peers and two of the spiritual order. Among the former was Lord Derby. The bill came down to the House of Commons with several amendments from the Lords, but these were nearly all rejected. A<,^^in the Act went to the upper House, and that body accepted the inevitable, though not without many grimaces. Rarely have such denunci- ations been hurled at any great leader as those which the Conservative Lords sent after Mr. Gladstone in the days of his triumph. The Earl of Winchilsea characterized the prime minister as another Jack Cade come to plague the English people. He was an incipient Cromwell, who had his foot on Parliament and on the Constitution. To cap the climax, the earl said that he himself would go to the block, but never surrender to such a brigand statesman. A final conference was held between Lord Granville, of the ministry, and Lord Cairns, of the opposition, and an agreement was reached which, if it did not satisfy the discomfited, at least mollified a little their wasted pride. The suggestions of the conference were accepted by the House of Commons, the bill was completed, and on the 26th of July, 1869, the Act for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church received her majesty's assent, and became the law of the realm. jMr. Gladstone, leader of the great event, Prime Minister of England, was sixty years and five months of age. The measure thus enacted may be regarded as one of the most impor- tant in the legislative history of modern times. Like nearly all the other great acts in the civil history of mankind, it was an act of destruction. Stransre it is that it is the destructive side of this world's legislation, and not its constructive side, that tends to make men great and free. It is the strik- ing off of the manacle, the breaking of the fetter, the tearing away of the blindfold, that liberates and enlightens the human race. Such an act was that of disestablishment. So far as human agency was concerned, the chief honor of it belongs to William E. Gladstone, who from this time forth was recotrnized as the foremost statesman of Great Britain in the current asfe. THE GREAT LIBERAL ASCENDENCY. 447 CHAPTER XXIII. The Great Liberal Ascendency. HE settlement of the Church question seemed to sugfjest and indeed demand another measure of reform of kindred charac- ter. Landownership and the occupation of land in Ireland ■were subject to abuses as intolerable as those which were struck down by the Act of Disestablishment. Indeed, the reform begun in the Church had not been called as a single or complete measure in itself, but only as the initial part of a general reformation. The Liberal party was almost as much bound to promote a land reform as it was to carry a Church reform through Parliament. Besides, a movement was in full force. The epoch was reformatory. The Liberal party rose to its ascendency on a swell whose primary billows were in the great national sea. The party must go forward. It is in the nature of things that they who lead in such movements can only lead while they continue to lead. To cease is to be overthrown. The other force comes just behind, and a popular party must keep well to the fore or perish altogether. Mr. Gladstone was not at all disposed to shrink from his responsibility or to blink the necessity of the age. No sooner had the par- liamentary session of 1S70 begun— even while the address from the throne was still under discussion — than the prime minister declared it to be the purpose of the government to take into consideration the condition of Ire- land. Such a duty he said was paramount to others. The outrages which had sprung from Fenianism, and in general the disturbed and distressed state of the Irish nation, would all, as he believed, pass away if Parliament should go boldly to the task before it and destroy the evils that were prey- ing on the sister island by reforming the laws of land tenure and cultiva- tion in tJTat country. It was under these conditions that the great Irish Land Bill was, on the 15th of February, 1S70, introduced into the House of Commons. As usual on such occasions, when INIr. Gladstone was to appear in the role of leader, the House was crowded with members, and the galleries thronged with visitors and strangers. Mr. Gladstone in presenting the bill referred to a dogma of the opposition which they had been previously much dis- posed to advance, namely, that the land question in Ireland, and not the Church question, was the real origin of grievances. For this reason in intro- ducing the Land Bill he thought he might claim the consideration of the opposition and the sympathy of that party relative to the importance of the measure and its justice to all concerned. Mr. Gladstone said that Parliament and nation were now in the midst 448 Llf'E AM) riMKS t)K Wll. 1,1AM E. GLADSTONE. of a dispute, or, ratlicr, they were drawn in opposite directions by two forces, and one or the other must prevail. The controversy must be ended. F"or his part he thought that it ought to be ended by the concession and agree- ment of the fair-minded and the moderate of all opinions. The first great act in reform had already been accomplished by Parliament, and the ne.xt act was now to be announced. Great misapprehension prevailed, continued the prime minister, with regard to conditions in Ireland. Some claimed with much uncharity that the Irish, being a Celtic race, were prone to insurrection and disorders. Many were abused with the notion that land tenure and land occupation and the laws of landed property were the same in Ireland as in England. Therefore such persons were of opinion that like results of contentment and prosperity ought to be seen on both sides of the Irish Sea. Such an opinion was wholly erroneous. In Ireland the conditions were so bad that in the last ten years wages had not risen by a farthing. On the other hand, the number of those appealing to charity for relief of their wants had greatly increased in Ireland. So also the cost of living had increased. To these fundamental griefs had been added violent and imprudent interference with the usages and customs of the people, and such interference could not be brooked by any race. Going back further, Mr. Gladstone said that for fifty years at least the lesfislation of Great Britain, though not intended to work harm, had been ever detrimental to the welfare of the Irish. It seemed that every act had wrought by contrarie.s. When in i 793 the right of suffrage had been ex- tended to Roman Catholics, freeholds of forty shillings had been created : but when after thirty-six years of trial the franchise was abolished, the evil was not abolished, but was aggravated. Then came the Encumbered Estates Act, and this led to the Act for Dealing with the Sale of Landed Estates. In these laws no provision had been made to protect the Irish tenants in what ou>dit to have been their inalienable riehts to share in the improvements which they made on the landed properties. All the while the principle of eviction had been asserting itself and getting itself recorded in acts more and more stringent. On the whole, the speaker declared that after a century of legislation ostensibly in favor of Ireland the condition of the occupiers of land in that country, instead of being better, was positively not better, or even worse than at the beginning. The .American reader must understand that the conditions of land tenure in Ireland at this time had become so complicated as to require a careful study before they could be realized. Everything had grown up locally. Custom had been piled on custom. Irish industrial society was an agglomerate combination, the parts of which were held together by force, but were not in union. Much of the explication of the Land Bill here to THE GREAT LIBERAL ASCENDENCY. 449 follow will refer to usages unknown in America, and will puzzle the under- standinof of the intellicrent reader. Mr. Gladstone himself labored with the almost infinite complications of the question before him. He said in the first place that the fundamental evil in the land system of Ireland was insecurity of tenure. This fact had been pointed out, he said, long ago by the committee known as the Devon Commission. Insecurity of tenure was a paralysis on industry. All the relations between the occupier of the land and the landowner were vitiated thereby. The occupier, suffering from insecurity, became indifferent to society and hostile to the State. Many remedies had been offered for this condition of affairs. The first principle which the premier laid down was negative. There should be no perpetuity of tenure. This signified that the system of tenancy should not be made statutory and perpetual. To do so would be to make the landlords the recipients of unending rentals. This once accomplished they would no longer acknowledge or meet their respon- sibilities. That effected, there would be an end of duty, with great harm to the public. The harm would show itself in the further decline of the agri- cultural interest in Ireland. The speaker went on to show that the existing insecurity of tenure was manifested in at least four ways. The first was the withdrawal by the land- lords of privileges hitherto enjoyed by the tenant ; the next was in the prerogative which the landlords held of issuing, without regard to equity or humanity, notices to quit occupation ; the third was the power of evic- tion ; and the fourth was the privilege which the landlords exercised of rais- ing the rents. One of the great abuses — a most remarkable exhibition of the wrongs that may arise in the administration of the strong over the weak — was that when the Irish estates were improved by the tenants and were thus made more valuable by their exertions, the landlords discovered in that fact the excuse for raising the rents ! The more the tenant improved his holding the higher were made his rent charges. If he refused to improve his hold- ing, and starved, then his rental was small ; but if he was enterprising, and improved his holding, then the landlord would say, " This holding is worth more, and you must pay more for it." Thus all stimulus to improvement was taken away. To improve was simply to increase the value ot the land- lord's property. The improving tenant was as poor as his neighbor who did not improve. We should here refer to the varying conditions in tenancy in different parts of the island. In Ulster there was a custom peculiar to that county far more liberal and just than might be found in any other. It was noticed too that in Ulster the industrial condition was greatly superior to that in any other part of Ireland. Mr. Gladstone showed in his argument that 29 45° Llll. AM) TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. wherever security of tenure prevailed there the industrial results were better. He showed that between the years 1779 and 1869, a period of ninety years, the rents in England and Ireland had increased six hundred per cent. In all Ireland it had only increased one hundred per cent, but in Ulster it had increased two hundred per cent. There was thus a constant relation between security of tenure and the amount of rentals derived, implying also a corre- sponding increase in the agricultural productiveness of all rented landhold- ings where the better system prevailed. The prime minister then entered into the consideration of the bills which he had brought to the House. The provisions of the same were pre- sented under two heads : first, the acquisition ; and, secondly, the occupation of land. Untler the first head he had two bills to introduce respecting land tenure in Ireland, one of which was to facilitate the transfer and distribution of lands in that country. He wished to enlarge the powers of limited owners in the matter of selling or leasing lands, and to furnish assistance by means of loans out of the treasury to tenants who would purchase the lands which they occupied. The assistance was not to extend to purchases of other than the occupied holdings of the tenants. There was also a provision to lend to those who would reclaim and purchase waste lands, and also to assist landlords in compensating tenants who wished to surrender their holdings. In the next place, Mr. Gladstone explained the changes in the judiciary which were made necessary under the new system. There should be a court of arbitration from which appeals might be made to the judges of assize. The courts in deciding causes .should pass on all the circumstances and equities before them, as well as upon the legal aspects of the cause. The speaker explained that the Irish holdings might be grouped in four classes, namely, such as were under what was called the Ulster custom ; secondly, those in other counties that were under analogous customs; thirdly, yearly tenancies not under the protection of any custom; and, fourthly, tenancies under lease. As to the first class of holdings — those of the Ulster custom — ^these, under the provisions of the bill, should be made legal. The other customs of like kind .should also be legalized, but with certain restrictions, namely, that the tenant when disturbed by his landlord might claim, but not other- wise ; that he should not claim if evicted for nonpayment of rent, or in cases where he sublet his holding ; that the landlord might plead in bar of complaint arrears of rents and damages; and that, finally, the custom might be limited with a lease for thirty-one years. As to yearly tenancies the bill provided for a scale of damages which might be allowed in the case of com- plaints under this head. A provision was made for extending the rights of tenants-at-will in holdings of certain values for a certain length of time and for certain rentals. THE GREAT LIBERAL ASCENDENCY. 45! In trying causes under this scale the judges should consider injuries done to tenants by eviction, and should regard such improvements as they had made on their holding. Mr. Gladstone defined improvements to be any addition suitable to the nature of the holding made by the tenant thereto. He said that it was the purpose of the bill to reverse the existing presump- tion of the law. That presumption was that the improvements on land- holdings were the property of the landlords. Henceforth the presumption should be that such improvements were the properties of the tenants. As to existing improvements the law should reach back and take in all such as had been produced within the last twenty years. This principle should not extend, however, to the reclamation of waste lands or permanent buildings on any kind of land. If a lease existed with positive provision on this sub- ject, then the lease should be regarded. In allowing to the tenant a prop- erty in the improvements the judge trying a cause should consider how long the tenant had enjoyed the said improvement, and also whether he had fulfilled his engagements. In the last place, in the case of holdings under lease the owner might exempt his lands from the custom and from the scale of damages by con- ceding to his tenants a term lease of thirty-one years. There were minor provisions also touching this and that condition in the landholding system of Ireland. The question of eviction for failure to pay rent should not be regarded as a legal wrong unless the demand were excessive and unjust. The equities in such a case should be considered by the court. After the passage of the act a notice from landlord to tenant to quit his holding must have a year to run, and the notice must bear an excise stamp of half a crown. Such were the general provisions of the Irish Land Bill of 1870. Mr. Gladstone told the House most truly that the government had worked hard in the preparation of the measure. Neither did he believe that the scheme was above improvement. He did not doubt that it contained imperfections. The subject to which it applied was so complicated that human wisdom was hardly sufficient for it. The government in the present case, having acted in good faith, were desirous of having the liberal cooperation of all parties. He thought that the proposed measure would prove a blessing to the Irish people. He hoped that the grievances and sufferings of that country would thereby be in large measure extinguished. He disclaimed having acted in the spirit of party. He had aimed to prepare a bill which should give security of tenure to the occupiers of land. He had also aimed to gain for the landlord improved security in the matter of his rent and the better cultivation of his estates. As to the Irish laborer himself, he believed that his labor would be in greater demand than ever before, that a great stimulus would be imparted to industry, with a consequent increase in 452 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. comfort and happiness. He was ready to concede that the landlords might sutler a temporary loss, but he did not believe that the loss would be ulti- mate. In the end the landlord also would be the gainer. Best of all, Ireland herself would arise from her humiliation. That country was rich in the elements of national wealth. Development was all that was needed. He hoped that the proposed measure would be accepted on the score of its justice by landlortl and tenant alike. If the speaker should be asked what he hoped to accomplish by the bill he would answer that he hoped to effect a great change in Ireland. He would answer also with an expression of his confidence that the change in question would be accomplished by gentle means. " Every line of the measure," said he, " has been studied with the keenest desire that it shall import as little as possi- ble of shock or violent alteration into any single arrangement now existing between landlord and tenant in Ireland. There is, no doubt, much to be undone ; there is, no doubt, much to be improved ; but what we desire is that the work of this bill should be like the work of Nature herself when on the face of a desolated land she restores what has been laid waste by the wild and savage hand of man. Its operations, we believe, will be quiet and gradual. We wish to alarm none ; we wish to injure no one. What we wish is that where there has been despondency there shall be hope ; where there has been mistrust there shall be confidence ; where there has been aliena- tion and hate there shall, however gradually, be woven the ties of a strong attachment between man and man. This we know cannot be done in a day. The measure has reference to evils which have been long at work ; their roots strike far back into bygone centuries, and it is against the ordi- nance of Providence, as it is against the interest of man, that immediate reparation should in such cases be possible ; for one of the main restraints of misdoing would be removed if the consequences of misdoing could in a moment receive a remedy. " For such reparation and such effects it is that we look from this bill, and we reckon on them not less surely and not less confidently because we know they must be gradual and slow ; and because we are likewise aware that if it be poisoned by the malignant agency of angry or of bitter passions it cannot do its proper work. In order that there may be a hope of its en- tire success it must be passed, not as a triumph of party over party, or class over class, not as the lifting up of an ensign to record the downfall of that which has once been great and powerful, but as a common work of common love and good will to the common good of our common country. With such objects and in such a spirit as that this House will address itself to the work and sustain the feeble efforts of the government. And my hope, at least, is high and ardent that we shall live to see our work prosper in our hand, and that in Ireland which we desire to unite to England THE GREAT LIBERAL ASCENDENCY. 453 and Scotland by the only enduring ties — those of free will and free affec- tion — peace, order, and a settled and cheerful industry will diffuse their blessings from year to year and from day to day over a smiling land ! " The general judgment was highly favorable to the measure which Mr. Gladstone thus so ably and eloquently propounded. Current comment was in its favor. The approval of the House was manifested in no uncer- tain accents. It is probable that no other piece of legislation in modern times has met so complicated and almost inexplicable a condition of society as that to which the Irish Land Bill was directed. It may be singled out as the most difficult legislative act of modern times. The skill displayed in its preparation was as great as its complexity. Certainly a long debate en- sued, beginning on the 7th of March and continuing at intervals until the measure was finally accepted in July following. The first speaker who criticised the bill was Dr. Ball, who held that it was not proper to use the Ulster custom of tenantry as the legal basis of a great parliamentary act, for the reason that the Ulster custom varied with different estates, and was wanting in equity and abstract correctness of principle. For this reason he opposed the bill, and thought it as bad a measure as could well be brought to the attention of the House. As for Sir Rounclell Palmer, that quasi-Liberal statesman thought the Irish Bill a humiliating necessity of the age; but he was unable to discover that it was of a revolutionary character. The leader of the opposition fol- lowed in a stirring speech, indicating that he was more anxious to rout cer- tain inconsistent adherents of the government than to prevail against the bill. In this way he attacked Mr. Horsman, who it must be allowed was sufficiently vulnerable. Mr. Disraeli satirically referred to the gentleman as a superior person upon whose conduct no uncharitable construction ought to be put. Mr. Horsman had been secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but while in that office, which ought to have made him well informed with respect to the condition of the Irish people, he had not dis- covered a single grievance or said a word about abuses. No doubt this was a part of some profound policy which the gentleman (Mr. Horsman) e.x- pected subsequently to spring on the House and the nation for the regen- eration of Ireland and the consolidation of the United Kingdom ! As to the Land Bill now pending Mr. Disraeli contented himself with defining it as the most complicated, clumsy, and heterogeneous measure ever obtruded on the attention of Parliament ! Nor will the reader fail to note the adroitness as well as the injustice of such a charge. The phrase " com- plicated," as defining the Land Bill, was correct; but was not the condition to which it applied still more complicated ? It was also " heterogeneous," for the facts were heterogeneous. The facts were heaped up like the broken masses of Irish society, mountains high, and one could hardly expect that ^:;^ LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. they should be made homoofeneous by a sino;le stroke of law. To say that Mr. Gladstone's measure was "clumsy "was hardly justifiable, unless we should call a huge engine clumsy, even when effectively performing its revo- lutions and offices. But Mr. Disraeli's denunciation sufficed to interest the House, though it convinced not even himself. In concluding he appealed more seriously to the Commons to decide the great subjects at issue in a manner becomine to them as members of the British Parliament. Mr. Gladstone in his concluding speech said : " It is our desire to be just ; but to be just we must be just to all. The oppression of a majority is detestable and odious — the oppression of a minority is only by one de- gree less detestable and less odious. The face of justice is like the face of the god Janus. It is like the face of those lions, the work of Landseer, which keep watch and ward around the record of our country's greatness. She presents the tranquil and majestic countenance toward every point of the compass and every quarter of the globe. That rare, that noble, that imperial virtue has this above all other qualities, that she is no respecter of persons, and she will not take advantage of a favorable moment to oppress the wealthy for the sake of flattering the poor any more than she will con- descend to oppress the poor for the sake of jDampering the luxuries of the rich." The fate of the bill was already certain. That it would be accepted by both Houses of Parliament could not be doubted. The Liberal supremacy was now so firmly established, the solidarity of the party so completely effected, that it could work its will. The Liberals, marvelous to relate, and not the Tories, as Lord Macaulay had thought in 1839, had found a leader whom they were willing to follow " riotously, almost mutinously." The division of the House for the second reading of the bill was forced by only a few irreconcilables of the opposition. Nearly all of that following went out into the Liberal lobby, so that four hundred and forty-two votes were counted for the second reading against only eleven votes in the negative. Mr. Disraeli himself was counted with the majority. At the next stage the House went into committee of the whole for consideration of the bill ; but before this Mr. Fortescue had secured in a hurried manner the passage of an act for the better protection of life and property in Ireland. In the County Mayo sundry outrages had been com- mitted of late that made the adoption of such a measure imperative. Meanwhile everybody's neighbor had come forward with an amendment to the Land Bill, insomuch that there were no fewer than three hundred amend- ments pending. Few of these had any significance. Nearly all were dis- posed of with a simple negative. Some were merely rejected by the prime minister; some were withdrawn. Mr. Disraeli offered one that might have fallen under his own definition of complicated, clumsy, and heterogeneous. THE GREAT LIBERAL ASCENDENCY. 455 It was that in the matter of compensation for eviction the same should be limited with this clause : " In respect of unexhausted improvements made by him [meaning the tenant], or any predecessor in title, and of interruption in the completion of any course of husbandry suited to the holding." This amendment, however, was opposed by the premier, who said that it was an undisguised attempt to destroy a cardinal principle of the bill. So at last, on the 30th of May, 1870, the bill in its entirety was passed by the House of Commons. It was sent to the Lords and by them sub- mitted to a debate for three sittings, and was then approved without a divi- sion. Next came the final committee, and the Irish Land Bill was adopted by a large majority and with the concurrence of both Houses. It received the royal assent on the ist of August and passed into history as one of the g^reatest acts of modern legislation. The reformatory tendency was not yet satisfied. The question of national education next demanded the consideration of Parliament. The educational system of Great Britain had grown up like all of her other institutions, in a desultory manner, out of suggestions of locality and the incidental desires of the people. There was indeed no system of education. Observe that we speak of a period as late as 1870. Meanwhile the United States of America had gone forward with the invention and perfection of a system of free public education the most admirable that had ever yet been produced by man. Great Britain was behind. Her educational condition was a crying abuse. It devolved upon Mr. William E. Forster, vice presi- dent of the council, to lead in the production of a new system more in accord with modern times and more honorable to the intelligence and philanthropy of the British nation. Already the way had been blazed with the sharp hatchet of Charles Dickens, whose gash and lash had cut his countrymen to the quick. Strange it was at this juncture that the Nonconformists and Dissent- ers of Great Britain should set themselves against so manifest a benefit as that involved in a general reform of education. These held that there was no right of support to schools by the State ; but, more properly, they objected to any national system of education into which the teaching of religion was to be injected. They were willing to go as far as mere secular instruction, but they held, properly enough, that the teaching of religion is a function of the clerical and parental relations. In Great Britain the opinion had long and firmly prevailed that the relieious manner and element in education could not be extracted without the ruin of the whole. There was a large party in England, just as there has been a large party in the United States, who, while objecting stren- uously to dogmatic and denominational teaching in the schools, were still favorable to the reading of the Scriptures and to certain primary exposition 456 LIFE AND TIMES Ol" WILLIAM E. GLADSTUXE. of religion by the teachers. In tlie confusion of opinions there was danger that Mr. Forster's effort to institute an educational reform might come to naught. He went ahead, however, with the preparation of what was called the Elementary Education Bill. In presenting the same to the House of Commons he was met with a considerable defection in the Liberal ranks ; DICKENS, 1861. for many of these were Dissenters or Nonconformists, and were jealous, from their religious prejudices, of the proposed system of public education. There was, however, a consensus that something must be done in the way of a reform. In the country districts the schools had been mostly under the management of the Church. In such institutions the secular teaching amounted to little, and the pupils issuing from the schools were virtually ignorant of those branches upon which sensible people mostly rely as on the bottom elements of education. In the cities, particularly in the great THE GREAT LIBERAL ASCENDENCY. 457 manufacturing cities, there was hardly a pretense of giving primary instruc- tion to children. In the city of Leeds only nineteen thousand of the fifty- eight thousand enumerated attended school at all , in Manchester, twenty- five thousand out of sixty thousand ; in Liverpool, thirty thousand out of ninety thousand ; in Birmingham, twenty-six thousand out of eighty-three thousand. These great cities had got their free trade ; they had got their manufacturing establishments galore ; they had got their wealth ; they had got a franchise that amounted almost to manhood suffrage ; but in the way of public schools they had got nothing except a miserable, semiecclesi- astical, local, and voluntary inheritance from the past. There was at this time no general system in any part of Great Britain under which primary instruction could be authoritatively given to the chil- dren of the people. In connection with almost every Church and chapel there was some kind of a day school. There were local schools for small children, none of which were adequately supported. There were Sunday schools everywhere. But in all these, as a general fact, the religious intent was dominant over the secular interest of the schools. There were educa- tional institutions of intermediate and primary grade, to which large grants of money had been made; but such grants were nearly always accompanied with prejudicial conditions imposed on them by the donors. Over and above all this was the question of the indifference of parents to the interests of their children in matters of education. This indifference was general throughout Great Britain. If provision should be made for the education of the people they would not avail themselves of it. About two thirds of the children of the Luiited Kingdom were out of school. In Lon- don the mass of non-school-going children made an appalling and pitiable army, subject to all the vices with which they might be inoculated, and capable of nothing but the lower activities of life. The thoroughfares and byways of London, and even the gutters, were alive with its army of neg- lected, untaught childhood. Beggary and stealing were the natural trades to which these hundreds of thousands of children were consigned by society. The condition had become one of national shame and of international reproach. Youthful criminals multiplied until there went a saying that "the prisoner's head does not reach above the dock." Mr. Forster's Education Bill was directed as a remedy to this mon- strous and intolerable condition. It provided for a general system of pri- mary education, and put parents under compulsion to avail themselves thereof The law was to be that children must be sent to school — that parents could not without committing a misdemeanor refuse to comply with the law. As to the homeless and destitute, the bill provided for them not only educational privileges, but supplies of food and clothing also. All this grew out of the agitation which had been started by philan- 458 LIFE AM) TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. thropists aiul by the report of a commission sent out in 1865-66. Tlie com- mission reported that a milHon and a half of the British \outh were in a state of destitution. These were employed mostly in manufacturing estab- lishments. Already there had been passed a Factories Act ; but that measure had to be amended with other regulations more stringent. As the investigation into the condition of the poor proceeded a state of affairs was unearthed which for the distress and suffering which it entailed and the cruelty it manifested has hardly been paralleled in any civilized country. We need not here trace all of the intermediate stages which led up to the rational endeavor of 1870. Mr. Forster's bill was received with interest and profound concern, lie explained to the House that it was the purpose of the proposed legislation to provide an efficient school in every district in England where the same was demanded. The school districts should be constituted a sort of civil parishes. If any district should of its own accord provide a proper amount of primary secular education for its children, then the voluntary schools of such district should not be disturbed, so long as the provision was sufficient. Schools should be placed under the patronage of the government, and should be of a - that the so-called armed neu- trality of Great Britain had become so attenuated as to be a scandal. He said that the recent conference in London had succeeded simply in making a record of the humiliation of England, adtling that the condition of the country was critical and perilous. In answer to this Mr. Gladstone entered a general denial. He said that the ministry could have had no idea of what was coming when the Russian note broke upon them. As to the present military condition of the king- dom, he compared that with what it had been ten years previously. In 1861 Mr. Disraeli had denounced the government for upholding a bloated armament. Now he denounced the government for supporting an aiicjiu- rt'Avz' armament. But the attenuated armament of 1871 was about twice as strong as the bloated armament of 1861 ! Moreover, it had never been supposed in the inner circle of diplomacy that the neutralization of the Black Sea was a permanent part of European policy. Lord Clarendon had not thought so. Lord Palmerston had not believed that the compact would endure. Should Great Britain now attempt to enforce the j^rovision of the treaty of 1856 relative to the Black Sea she would not have the support of a single neutral power in Europe. True, the neutralization of the Black Sea was a vital provision, but the remainder of the treaty was vital, even if the less vital part should be abrogated. Mr. Disraeli, retorting, showed that the prime minister had been mis- taken in regard to Lord Clarendon's position relative to the neutralization, and this correction Mr. Gladstone was obliged to accept; but he still held that Lord Palmerston did not believe or insist that the neutralization of the Black Sea would be perpetual. The contingency that had come was his- torical, and was unforeseen. No government in Great Britain could have provided against it. A great war had Just swept Europe, and new condi- tions had arisen. The government ventured to believe that the true policy was to sustain the remaining neutral influences in Europe, and thus, as he hoped, come into the office of mediator and peacemaker for the disturbed nations. The debates on this question ran on to a considerable extent. Mr. Herbert introduced a resolution to the effect that the House was of opinion that it was the duty of her majesty's government to act in concert with the neutral powers in an effort to obtain moderate terms of peace in the settle- ment between Prussia and France, and to withhold acquiescence in case the Prussian terms were such as to impair the independence of her beaten antagonist. To this Mr. Gladstone answered that it was the policy of the government to use all proper influence to the end that the victor in the recent war should exact no more than reasonable and honorable conditions of peace. Both France and Prussia were unwilling to accept proffered DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 467 intervention. The prime minister thought that under the circumstances it would be prejudicial for Great Britain to press her intermediary offices. He declared that the government was not unmindful of the progress of affairs in Europe or unconcerned about the conditions of peace. Hereupon Mr. Herbert withdrew his resolution and the matter ended, but not without opportunity to the opposition to make capital out of the embarrassments which history, rather than weakness, had brought upon the government. The next question of importance arising in Parliament was that of pur- chase in the army. A bill was introduced called the Army Regulation Bill. The measure was brought forward by Mr. Cardwell, the war minister. He proposed that there should be a reorganization of the army, and that the system of purchasing commissions should be abolished. Mr. Cardwell explained that the theory of the new policy was that military duty should be paid for, and should not be compulsory. Hitherto commissions in the army had been purchased. There was a stated scale of prices for the various grades of official rank ; but the actual prices had risen, for there was com- petition among the bidders. A condition of affairs had supervened which was a disgrace to Christendom. Mr. CardwelTs measure provided for the appointment of an army com- mission, which should take the place of the intending purchasers with respect to all officers who wished to sell their commissions and retire on half pay. All such should be relieved from duty and should be bought out from the Consolidated Fund. New commissions should henceforth be issued, not by purchase, but by public competitive examinations. To these examinations subalterns in good standing should be admitted from any regiment that had rendered two years' acceptable service. The measure proposed was virtually a revolution in the military organization and admin- istration of Great Britain. Of course so great a reform would meet with strenuous opposition. Mr. Cardwell had strong support from the Liberal ranks, but his party was not steady in defense of the new policy. The bill was opposed by Colonel Lo\d-Lindsay and by Sir J. Pakington, who denounced it as a costly party project and a sop to democracy. The measure w-as supported b}' Mr. Trevelyan with historical argument and statistical citations. He brought to the attention of the House the case of Sir Henry Havelock, of great fame, who waited, sick at heart, for years for the promotion to which he was entitled. Sir Henry had himself declared l\\-AX. tlircc sots and tioo fools \\^di purchased over him, and that if he had had no family to support he would not have served another hour. Mr. Tre^•elyan also challenged the opposi- tion to go before the country on the question of the pending measure, say- ing that "Abolition of Purchase" would make a popular war cry for those who favored it. 468 I.IKE AND TIMES (IF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. The cautious Disraeli, percei\in,<^ the merits of the reform, held back those who attacked it. He prudently stood out of the wind and suggested that the measure might be perfected in committee of the whole. Mr. Gladstone strongly advocated the adoption of the measure and insisted that the amendment proposed by Colonel Loyd-Lindsay should be voted down, which was accordingly done. When the House went into committee the debate was continued with great spirit. Some thought that there was to be a great increase in army expenditure, and that this should not be incurred. Mr. Pease contended that it would be immoral for Great Britain to set the example to Europe of increasing her military expenditures. Mr. Gladstone showed that a reduc- tion in expenditures was at this time impossible. He also showed that the expenditure for the current year would not be as great as that of the last. He declared that the grovernment were favorable to retrenchment, and that they were determined to carry the principle of economy into every depart- ment of the service. In continuing the debates Mr. Disraeli said that he approved of the abolition of purchase only because he thought that measure a means to the great end of a reorganization of the army. That was the primary object, antl it seemed that that object would be abandoned by the government. Mr. Gladstone said in answer that the abolition of purchase was theirs/ essential of the new measure, and that reorganization would follow. Under this representation the bill passed the House and was sent to the House of Lords. There it encountered the usual opposition. The Lords concealed their intent by saying that they did not feel at liberty to vote for the aboli- tion of purchase in the army until the whole plan of the government should be made known. The result of the discussion was that the bill was rejected by the Lords by a majority of twenty-five votes. For the nonce it appeared that Mr. Cardwell's project was to be defeated. At this juncture, however, Mr. Gladstone discovered a method by which the measure might be carried through and the House of Lords left in the air. He noted in the examination of antecedent conditions that the right of purchase had been created, not by an Act of Parliament, but by a royal warrant issued to that effect. What, therefore, if the royal warrant should be canceled? Who could purchase a commission when there was no law for doing it and no royal warrant for doing it? On the 20th of July, 1S71, while the question was still before an em- barrassed House, the prime minister, having been interrogated on some point by Sir George Grey, announced to the astonished body that the gov- ernment had determined to advise the queen to cancel the royal warrant by which army purchases had been legalized. This advice was accepted by her majesty, and not only this, but a new royal warrant had been prepared DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 469 the terms of which were identical with those of the recent bill passed by the House of Commons ! Never was there a more adroit proceeding or one more successful in the issue ; but it raised an outcry that was heard to th6 corners of the kingdom. The prime minister announced that in accordance with the new warrant purchases of commissions in the army would cease forever after the first of November proximo. As to the House of Lords, he did not presume to say what course that honorable body should pursue ! He added that it was the purpose of the government to secure an honor- able and equitable measure by which the troublesome matters involved might be finally settled. He should use all the means in his power to ob- tain from Parliament full justice and equity for the officers of her majesty's army. Mr. Disraeli at this juncture flamed up and denounced the course taken by the government as high-handed and outrageous. He went on to say that the thing done was a part of an avowed and shameful conspiracy against the undoubted privileges of the other House of Parliament. This was carrying the matter too far, and the speaker called Mr. Disraeli to order for his unparliamentary language. The leader of the opposition withdrew the offensive expression, but contended that the action of the British min- ister in appealing to the prerogative of the crown in order to help himself out of the difficulties with which he was embarrassed was unwise and un- patriotic. In the House of Lords the course taken by Mr. Gladstone produced the hottest antagfonism. The Duke of Richmond offered a resolution : " That this House in assenting to the second reading of this bill desires to express its opinion that the interposition of the executive during the prog- ress of a measure submitted to Parliament by her majesty's government, in order to attain by the exercise of the prerogative, and without the aid of Parliament, the principal object included in that measure, is calculated to depreciate and neutralize the independent action of the Legislature, and is strongly to be condemned ; and this House assents to the second reading of this bill only in order to secure the officers of her majesty's army com- pensation to which they are entitled, consequent on the abolition of pur- chase in the army." In the same vein were sundry speeches from noblemen of high rank. Among these were the Marquis of Salisbury, who went so far as to intimate that Lord Granville, who had defended the government bill in the upper House, was merely doing the bidding of his master (meaning Mr. Glad- stone). He also said that to him it seemed hardly worth while for the House of Lords to retain their place and rank under the Constitution of Great Britain when they were compelled to act under their responsibilities in only one way, and that against their convictions ! Some of the Liberal 470 I.I1-1-: AND TIMES (IF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Lords went over to the opposition, and the vote of censure on Mr. Glad- stone was passed by a majority of eighty. Pnit the bill went forward and was adopted without a division. On the return of the measure to the House of Commons there was a sort of hiatus that had rarely occurred in British legislation. The cancel- lation of the royal warrant had already accomplished the main object of the bill, namely, the abolition of purchase in the army. Mr. Gladstone openly avowed that he had advised the crown to use the warrant. Whether the action was to be regarded as done by a statute or by prerogative he did not much care to inquire. Her majesty had the legal power to cancel a royal warrant, and there was a sufficient necessity for her to e.xercise the power. As to the censure which the Lords had passed upon him, he did not disre- gard the same, but he would appeal to the nation against the Lords and their judgment. Thus the controversy ended. The ro}al warrant was fortified by the passage of the bill, and the reform in the British arm)- was thus effected. In the next place the House reached the discussion of the Ballot Bill. We in America may well be surprised at the opposition which the privilege of voting by ballot has encountered in Great Britain. In the House of Lords the measure was so detested that even Liberal peers stayed away from the sittings rather than discuss so revolutionary a measure ! When at last the bill, by sheer stress of government pressure, was carried through to its second reading, it was found that the measure had been curtailed of many of its essential parts, and that only ninety-seven of the Lords had the cour- age to support it with their votes. The fact is that there never was a meas- ure of progress and reform in England that was not seriously impeded by the upper House of the British Parliament. It is the function, in truth, of that body to impede and obstruct the motion of mankind as much as pos- sible, to retanl the future and support the crumbling throne of the past. Another measure of this time was the University Tests (Repeal) Bill, which was now finally settled. The matter had been agitated the year before; but a measure adopted by the House had been rejected by the Lords. .A new bill repealing the universitj' tests was now prepared and adopted by the Commons. In the Lords an amendment was added at the dictation of the ecclesiastical bench, which was equivalent to a rejection of the whole. But the amendment was in its turn refused by the Commons, and the House of Lords was obliged to yield. The effect of the new law was that all lay students of the universities, whatever might be their religion, might hereafter be admitted as students on terms of equality with those who were adherents of the Encrlish Church. Meanwhile two or three incidents of parliamentary history occurred worth mentioning in this narrative. Early in the session of 1871 a propo- DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 47 1 sition was made of a grant to the Princess Louise, on the occasion of her marriage. The resolution provided for a grant absolute of thirty thousand pounds, and of six thousand pounds annuity to the princess, who in this case was to be married to a subject of the queen not of princely rank. Such measures were customary ; but the temper of the people had changed, and opposition showed itself openly in the House of Commons. It devolved on Mr. Gladstone to defend the measure, and he did so in a well-considered speech. He spoke in praise of the queen, and referred to the motherly character of her majesty, who had assented to the marriage of her daughter to a subject on the score of the affection between them. He also said that the grant was moderate, and that the royal household was marked in its management for strict economy. He called attention to the fact that the civil list prepared at the beginning of the reign had not con- templated provisions such as that now about to be made. There was also, he said, a hieh around on which the grant ought to be voted, and that was the propriety of supporting in a dignified manner the royal household. Nothing less than this was becoming to the British empire. In questions of this kind affecting the dignity and even the preferences of the queen Mr. Disraeli, whether in government or in opposition, might always be depended on to favor her majesty's honor, and possibly even her majesty's whim, and he did so on the pending question. As to the affairs of Ireland, they also came up for review at this ses- sion. It must be allowed that the disestablishment of the Church in that country and the passage of the Land Bill, though both measures were salu- tary and produced a good result, did not wholly appease the spirit of dis- content. In a country situated as Ireland has been during the present century there are only two completely successful methods — that is, if success is to be measured by the quietude that may follow a given course. One method is absolute suppression and the other is absolute justice and equality. Great Britain could no longer secure quietude by absolute suppression, but a large part of her subjects were willing to have her do so. She was not then willing — and is not yet willing — to secure quietude by absolute justice and equality. She is still engaged in "governing" Ireland in a sense very different from her methods in England proper. At the time of which we speak, though there was a tendency toward justice and equality, there were still so great wrongs and so much injustice that the Irish nation was perturbed, unsettled, discontented, unhappy, and capable of the insurgent spirit. Crime, though it had subsided in Ireland, still broke out in outrages here and there. It became necessary again to investigate the condition of Irish affairs, and Lord Hartington moved the appointment of a committee to that end. In discussing this question Mr. Disraeli attacked the government with great spirit. Lord Hartington was 472 LIFE AM) TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Chief Secretary of Ireland, and of him the leader of the opposition said that lie held a most unenviable official relation. He continued by putting a speech into the chief secretary's mouth to this effect : " It is true that murder [in Ireland] is perpetrated with impunity ; it is true that life is not secure and that property has no enjoyment and scarcely any existence ; but this is nothing when in the enjoyment of abstract political justice — and by the labors of two years we have achieved that for Ireland ; massacres, incendiarism, and assassinations are things scarcely to be noticed by a min- ister, and are rather to be referred to the inquiry of a committee." The speaker continued with the assertion that many people in England seemed to think that the prime minister was the owner of the philosopher's stone ! They had sent him to the House with an immense majority with the avowed object that he should procure tranquillity for the Irish nation. Then he added that under Mr. Gladstone's influence and at his instance Parliament had legalized confiscation, consecrated sacrilege, and condoned high treason ; Parliament had destroyed churches, shaken property to its foundation, and emptied jails under the direction of the prime minister ; and yet he could not govern Ireland without appealing to a parliamentary committee ! He said that the right honorable gentleman (meaning Mr. Gladstone) had, after many heroic exploits and with the support of an over- whelming majority, succeeded in making the government of Great Britain ridiculou.s. In answer to this Mr. Gladstone declared with keen irony that he was glad the leader of the opposition had been in so great measure relieved of his last year's fears. Then he had declared to the House that disestablish- ment would be followed with results more dreadful than a foreign conquest. Now he was able to find nothinsf more alarming: than legalized confiscation and consecrated sacrilege ! The ministry was able to conduct ministerial affairs ; but the committee proposed by Lord Hartington was necessary to investio-ate allesred facts and unlawful acts said to exist and to have been done in Ireland. He called attention of the House to a former assertion of Mr. Disraeli, who had once said that in three counties of Ireland life and property were not protected because the government was too weak. Then Mr. Gladstone asked, " If the defenses of the government are weak and the number of troops insufficient, is a government to make it an apology for departing from the first principles of duty that they sit upon this bench, that they want to sit upon this bench, and, therefore, cannot propose meas- ures which, in their opinion, principle justifies and the safety of the country demands ? " The debate was continued by Mr. Bernal Osborne, who contented him- self with wit and sarcasm. He said that the cabinet had been whitewashed and transformed and moved around, but had finally come to the old military DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORV MOVEMENT. 4/3 aspect of " as you were ! " He noticed that in the cabinet the friends of Ireland were not themselves Irish. When he went through the list of min- isters, a long and dreary list of men who bowed to their leader, he thought he could see over the cabinet door this inscription : " No Irish need apply !" So the debate wound its length along and came to the finality of a vote, when the select committee was appointed by the voice of a large majority. Another question that arose at this session was that of woman suffrage. A resolution was introduced to extend the parliamentary fran- chise to single women who were householders. This motion failed by a majority of sixty-nine votes, but it received sufficient support to warrant the belief that under favoring auspices it might ultimately prevail. The prime minister himself said that in case the Ballot Bill should become a law he thought that the electoral franchise might be conceded to women without detriment to the interests of society or the nation at large. It was in this j'ear that matters came to a crisis between Great Britain and the United States. Si.x years had gone by since the conclusion of our civil war, and the Union had been unequivocally restored. The government of the United .States continued to reaffirm and to press a claim against Great Britain for the injuries which she had permitted to be done by her agency to American commerce and the Union cause during the late war. This claim could be no longer put aside. The time had come when something had to be done. Five British commissioners were accordingly appointed and sent to Washington to negotiate a treaty. They were Earl Grey, Sir Stafford Northcote, Professor Bernard, Sir Edward Thornton, and Sir John A. Macdonald, Premier of Canada. The government of the United States appointed commissioners also; and the two bodies of representatives constituted a High Joint Commission to pre- pare a treaty. Several minor provisions were readily agreed to. American vessels should be admitted to the St. Lawrence River free, and to the Canadian canals on payment of the customary tolls. As to the San Juan boundary, that question should be arbitrated by Emperor William of Germany. No claims should be admitted asrainst the United States for the Fenian fiasco against Canada. As to the great question, that of the.A/abama claims, the same should be settled on the assumption that responsibility for the depre- dations done on American commerce should be recognized where govern- ment had not exercised due diligence and precautions relative to the fitting out of the Confederate cruisers. This was the great point. The principle having been determined, all subordinate questions of fact and damages were to be submitted to a board of arbitration to be held the following year. This agreement, which was completed, after thirty-seven sittings, at New York in May of 1871, is known as the Treaty of Washington. 474 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Such were the general measures promoted at the parliamentary session of that year. The changes which had been agreed to relative to the organization and methods of the army introduced confusion into the calcu- SIR JOHN ALEXANDER MACDONALD, PRE^^ER OF CANADA. lations of Mr. Lowe, chancellor of the exchequer. In order to make up certain deficiencies he proposed a tax on matches, in the nature of a stamp to be affixed on each box. The measure produced great popular di.scontent. It seems that Mr. Lowe had not well considered what he DI-:CLINE OF THE REFORMATORY WOVEMEXT, 475 recommended, for the match-box stamp proposed was found to be worth as much or more than the matches which it covered ! The newspapers at- tacked the measure with great vivacity, and the chancellor of the exchequer was obliged to abandon his proposition. Finally, it was resolved to meet the extraordinary expenses of the military administration by a slight in- crease in the income tax. This concluded the legislation of the year, and on the 2 1st of August Parliament was adjourned. William E. Gladstone was always a busy man. His appearance in public was almost continuous. His avocations of business were only remitted to make opportunity for his intellectual pursuits. At this period he was annoyed not a little by the renewal of the slander that he was in heart and life, if not in profession, a Romanist. On this question he was nagged not a little, and sometimes defended himself in a memorable manner. At this juncture a certain member of Parliament, Mr. Whalley, of Petersborough, wrote to the prime minister, saying that he did so on behalf of his constituents. Mr. Whalley told him, as their mouthpiece, what their sentiment was about the head of the government, on the supposition that, while pretending to be a pillar in the Church of England, he was in secret sympathy with Mother Rome. To this Mr. Gladstone replied in no uncertain tone. He said to Mr. Whalley : " I quite agree with those of your constituents in thinking that the question ' whether the prime minister of this country is a member of the Church of Rome, and being such not only declines to avow it, but gives through a lonsf life all the external sig-ns of belonging to a different com- munion,' is a 'question of great political importance,' and this not only ' in the present,' but in any possible condition of the ' Liberal ' or any other ' party.' For it involves the question whether he is the basest creature in the kingdom which he has a share in ruling, and instant ejectment from his office would be the smallest of the punishments he would deserve. If I have said this much upon the present subject it has been out of personal respect to you ; for I am entirely convinced that, while the question you have put to me is in truth an insulting one, you have put it only from having failed to notice its true character, since I have observed during my expe- rience of many )ears that, even when you undertake the most startling duties, you perform them in the gentlest and most considerate manner ! " It is probable that Mr. Gladstone's power of sarcasm — not to be despised when he was once aroused — was never more fully displayed than in this communication to the rash, intruding Mr. Whalley. Nor may we pass from this recess of Parliament without noticing the beginning of a far cry. Now it was that the phrase " Home Rule " was first distinctly uttered in England. As usual, Mr. Gladstone did not at once or readily accept either the phrase or the fact. About this time he ^j6 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. was invited to Aberdeen to receive what is denominated the freedom ot the citv. In the interim the commotion in Ireland had continued. That class of outrages called agrarian increased, and it was found that Irish juries summoned to try persons against whom such crimes were alleged stood with their countrymen, and returned verdicts against the landlords which if not unjust were at least unlawful. In delivering his speech at Aberdeen Mr. Gladstone said, in passing, that as to the cry of Home Rule he was not certain what it meant. He hoped it did not mean the breaking up of the United Kingdom. He hoped that all those his hearers as well as himself intended that the kingdom should remain united. He said that he was induced by circumstances to think that the Irish people were frequently made the victims of political delusions. He went on to say that all had been conceded by Parliament — by the late Parliament — which Ireland had demanded. " This Parliament," said he, " has done for Ireland what it would have scrupled to do for Eng- land and for Scotland. There remains now a single grievance, a grievance with regard to university education, which is not so entirely free in Ireland as it has now been made in England, but that is an exceptional subject, and it is a subject on which I am bound to say Ireland has made no united demand upon England ; still, I regard it as a subject that calls for legisla- tion, but there is no demand which Ireland has made and which England has refused ; and I shall be very glad to see such a demand put into a practical shape in which we may make it the subject of rational and candid discussion." The prime minister went on to speak of the relations of the two coun- tries—politically one country — in a spirit of commendable candor. He admitted that the government of Ireland had been hitherto well-nigh fatal to her growth. He thought that, under the circumstances, complaint ought not to be made of Irish progress. He thought (the reader will note well what he thought in 1871) that if the doctrines of Home Rule should be applied in Ireland then Scotland would be equally entitled to Home Rule, and Wales still more entitled to it. In Ireland the people spoke English, but in \\'ales the vernacular Celtic tongue. Then the speaker cried out : " Can any sensible man, can any rational man suppose that at this time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to disintegrate the great capital institutions of this country for the purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind, and crippling any power we possess for bestowing benefits in legislation on the country to which we belong .' " Then he continued : " We desire to concil- iate Ireland, we desire to soothe her people — the wounded feelings and the painful recollections of her people. We desire to attach her to this island in the silken cords of love ; but there was a higher and a paramount aim in the measures that Parliament has passed, and that was that it should do DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 47/ its duty. It was to set itself right with the national conscience, with the opinion of the world, and with the principles of justice ; and when that is done I state fearlessly that, whether conciliation be at once realized or not, the position of this country is firm and invulnerable." This paragraph illustrates as fully as any other the character of Wil- liam E. Gladstone. It shows his method and intellectual limitations. He was never a primary leader in any cause. He was the great secondary leader in many great causes. Here we see him in his attitude on the question of Home Rule in Ireland when that question first made itself an incipient issue in Great Britain. It was a far call from this position to that which he was to occupy ten years afterward. But this change from a really conservative to an essentially progressive mood and policy on Mr. Glad- stone's part was of the essence, the intellectual constitution, of the man. He must always be viewed from this point of observation. He was a cau- tious, prudent man, and yet a courageous man, who really followed his con- victions. Sometimes he followed them at a considerable distance ; but he followed them, and sooner or later arrived at that station from which his great character is best and most critically observed. Mr. Gladstone made good use of the recess after the parliamentary session of 187 1. He perceived that the Liberal ascendency was weakening, and he sought to shore up the fortunes of his party. He spoke in many places, discussing the political questions of the day and defending the meas- ures of the late Parliament. At Whitby he addressed the people in support of the Army Regulation Bill, saying that that measure by itself was suffi- cient to entitle the Parliament to the gratitude of the country. He said that the House of Commons had exerted itself to the utmost to pass the Ballot Bill, and that that measure had been rejected, or at least retarded, in the House of Lords. Just at this juncture there had appeared an anonymous article in one of the reviews, entitled the " Battle of Dorking," which was a mock-heroic description of the work of the recent Parliament, very witt}^ and withal dangerous , for it was calculated to scatter alarm on the score of the covert implication that Great Britain was losing — had already lost — her prestige among the nations. Mr. Gladstone noticed this alarmist article in his Whitby speech, saying: "The power of this country is not declining. It is increasing — increasing in itself, and I believe increasing as compared with the power of the other nations of Europe. It is only our pride, it is only our passions, it is only our follies which can ever constitute a real danger to us. If we can master these no other foe can hurt us, and many a long year will make its round, and many a generation of men will be gathered to its fathers before the country in which we are born and which we deeply love need forfeit or lose its place among the nations of the world." 478 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. More notable was the prime minister's address to the people at Black- heath. Much excitement existed in that neitjjhborhood about the acts of the late Parliament, and hot prejudice had arisen against Mr. Gladstone because of what was alleged to be the injuries done to labor by the recent legislation. The occasion was memorable. Many writers have regarded the success of Mr. Gladstone at Blackheath as one of the most marked instances of power which he ever displayed. The meeting was held in the open, and twenty thousand persons were thought to be gathered in the assembled crowd. It was a rough outpouring of burly English life, and the day was cold and dreary. A large part of the crowd had gathered for the purpose of hooting down the speaker. The assemblage was not unlike a mob. Mr. Gladstone had a great following in the crowd, but there was also a tremen- dous force against him, and that force was vociferous and insulting. It had become a policy with the Conservatives to bend around from the aristo- cratic end of society and unite with the laboring mass of society in the hope of inducing the latter to break away from Liberal control. All these conditions Mr. Gladstone had to face. He entered upon the duty of the hour with calmness and self-possession. He said that it was a misfortune that the government establishments in which the people of Blackheath district were so much interested had to be closed. Perhaps three fourths of such establishments were shut up ; but this was the direct result of the policy and work, not of the Liberal government now in power, but of its predecessor. He defended the Act for Abolishing Purchase in the Army. The late utterances to the effect that the British army was in a state of disorganization were wholly unwarranted. There was never a time when Great Britain was better defended by her military arm. The speaker went on to defend Mr. Cardwell, the war minister, saying that Great Brit- ain had rarely if ever had another such officer in the War Office, and declaring that with him he would himself stand or fall. With like boldness he defended Mr. Forster's Education Act. From this he proceeded to discuss the difficulties in the educational system of the countr\- on the score of reli- gious biases. He said that he was not willing to compel a religious person to send his children to school under conditions that were against the con- science of the parent. All that could be done in such case was to work expediently and prudently toward a ge'neral reform that might be fairly acceptable to all. During this discussion Mr. Gladstone was constantly interrupted by the shouts and derisive outcries of one part of the crowd and by the cheers of the other part. Gradually he gained the ascendency. The hisses and groans began to recede from the stand where he was speaking and were at last heard only in mutterings and low noises along the outskirts. He DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 479 spoke for fully two hours, and the attempt of the enemy to put him down utterly failed. When he began his remarks about the late action of the House of Lords and to say something about the constitution of that body some one cried out, " Leave the constitution of the House of Lords alone." To this Mr. Gladstone answered : " I am not prepared to agree with my friend there, because the constitution of the House of Lords has often been a subject of consideration amongst the wisest and most sober-minded men ; as, for example, when a proposal — of which my friend disapproves, perhaps — was made a few years ago to make a moderate addition to the House of Lords of peers holding their peerage for life. I am not going to discuss that particular measure ; I will only say, without entering into details that would be highly interesting, but which the vast range of the subject makes impossible on the present occasion — I will only say that I believe there are various particulars in which the constitution of the House of Lords might, under favorable circumstances, be improved. And I am bound to say that, though I believe there are some politicians bearing the name of Liberal who approve the proceedings of the House of Lords with respect to the Ballot Bill at the close of last session, I must own that I deeply lament that proceeding. I have a shrewd suspicion in my mind that a very large pro- portion of the people of England have a sneaking kindness for the hered- itary principle. My observation has not been of a very brief period, and what I have observed is this, that wherever there is anything to be done or to be given and there are two candidates for it who are exactly alike — alike in opinions, alike in character, alike in possessions — the one being a commoner and the other a lord, the Englishman is very apt indeed to pre- fer the lord." In the remaining parts of his address Mr. Gladstone touched upon nearly all the social and political questions of the day. He spoke in par- ticular of the effort that was making to effect a union of the working classes and the Conservative party. This movement was promoted b)' a certain Mr. Scott Russell, who now suffered a caustic criticism for his attitude and effort. The speaker showed the absurdity of the attempted combination of the aristocratic and commoner elements in politics. He demonstrated that no such union could exist, and that the Liberal policy was the true refuge of the under man in Great Britain. The premier next reverted to the hackneyed subject of free trade, and exalted that method as the agency by which twenty million pounds in taxa- tion had been thrown off by the British nation and other incalculable bless- ings obtained. In conclusion he touched upon the growth of luxury and selfishness, which he considered the enemies of the national welfare. He said that it was necessary that labor should be held in due honor and the laborer be secured in all his rights. Idleness, he said, is always contempt- 480 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. ible. " Depend upon it, gentlemen," continued the prime minister, " I do but speak the serious and solemn truth when I say that beneath the politi- cal questions which are found on the surface lie those deeper and more searching questions that enter into the breast and strike home to the con- science and mind of every man ; and it is upon the solution of these ques- tions that the well-being of England must depend. Gentlemen, I use the words of a popular poet when I give vent to this sentiment of hope with which, for one, I venture to look forward to the future of this country. He says : ' The ancient virtue is not dead, and long may it endure; May wealth in England — ' and I am sure he means by wealth that higher sense of it — prosperity, and sound prosperity — ' May wealth in England never fail, nor pity for the poor.' May strength and the means for material prosperity never be wanting to us ; but it is far more important that there shall not be wanting the disposi- tion to use those means aright. Gentlemen, I shall go from this meeting, having given you the best account of my position in my feeble power with the time and under the circumstances of the day — I shall go from this meeting strengthened by the comfort of your kindness and your indulgence to resume my humble share in public labors. No motive will more operate upon me in stimulating me to the discharge of dut)' than the gratitude with which I look back upon the, I believe, unexampled circumstances under which you made me your representative. But I shall endeavor — I shall make it m}' hope — to show that gratitude less by words of idle compliment or hollow flattery than by a manful endeavor, according to the measure of my gifts, humble as they may be, to render service to the queen who lives in the hearts of the people and to a nation with respect to which I will say that through all posterity, whether it be praised or whether it be blamed, whether it be acquitted or whether it be condemned, it will be acquitted or condemned upon this issue of having made a good or bad use of the most splendid opportunities, of having turned to proper account or failed to turn to account the powers, the energies, the faculties which rank the people of this little island as among the few great nations that have stamped their name and secured their fame amoncj the sjreat nations of the world." Thus ended the year 1871. That year witnessed much in the legisla- tive progress of Great Britain. It closed, however, with a manifest decline in the spirit of reform. The people began to weary of reform. Many thought that reform was proceeding too rapidly ; some that it had already gone too far. Many were like that class of Roman citizens who were described bj' Caesar as cupidi rcruiii novartim ; that is, eager for new con- DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 481 ditions. On the whole the Liberal party was gradually losing its ground. One might see far off the premonition of a Conservative reaction that would reverse with an irresistible hand the prevailing political conditions. Just at the close of the year the popularity of the reigning house was put to the test of public sympathy by the serious, even critical, illness of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. The heir apparent, while visiting Lord VVu.HucsoN. A CRITICAL QUESTION IN THE HOUSE. Londesborough at his house near Scarborough, contracted malarial fever. It appeared afterward that the place was infected. Earl Chesterfield also got the fever there and died. The Prince of Wales managed to return to Sandringham, but became very ill, and by the middle of the month his life was well-nigh despaired of. The 14th of December was the anniversary of his father's death, and at that date the bulletins scarcely gave any hope of his recovery. The prince had not been altogether popular with the English people, though he had many winning ways. He was said to bear in character and person a resemblance to Henry VHI of great memory. When it was seen, however, that the prince was about to die the excitement was great and the 31 482 LIFE AND TIMES Of' WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. ^ sympathy with the royal family sincere and universal. On the day after Christmas the queen was enabled to write a touching letter to her subjects, thanking them for their sympathies and announcing the almost certain recovery of the prince. On the 29th of February following she sent out a second letter of thanks and appreciation, for in the meanwhile a great thanksgiving service had been held in St. Paul's Cathedral to express in a formal way the gratitude of the nation for the recovery of the Prince of Wales. The service was attended by the queen herself the prince, and other members of the royal family. Like services were held throughout the kingdom, and it was demonstrated that the reigning house still rested firmly on the afi'ections and loyalty of the people. It now became the policy of the opposition to damage the Liberal administration with a view of destroying it by degrees. This policy showed itself in attacking the ministers severally and in a concentrated fire on the premier. The queen's speech at the opening of Parliament, or rather the debate thereon, was not permitted to pass without challenge and reckless attack. Mr. Disraeli found his opportunity. He said that the ministers in the late recess had not given the nation time to forget anything. He described the eovernment as havinsf existed for the last six months " in a blaze of apology !" He said that this was a new system in English politics. Then, reverting to resolutions that had been offered, he said : " The notices of motion given this evening will afford her majesty's government ample opportunit)' for defending their conduct, past or present. If it is in the power of the government to prove to the country that our naval administra- tion is such as befits a great naval power they will soon have an occasion of doing so ; and if they are desirous of showing that one of the transcendental privileges of a strong government is to evade Acts of Parliament which they have themselves passed, I believe, from what caught my ear this evening, that that opportunity will also soon be furnished them." In a like vein he proceeded to criticise the different clauses of the queen's speech, touching upon the Ballot Bill, the Irish question, the Washington treaty, etc. Respecting the late treaty with our country he w^as especially severe, saying that the British government w^as likely to fall into a bog out of which the nation could be extricated only at the expense of results and conditions that would be appalling. All this was in Mr. Disraeli's accustomed vein. Mr. Gladstone replied with perfect equanimity, challenging the scrutiny of Parliament on all the measures of the administration. He said that every facility would be afforded to the opposition to know the facts and the spirit of the recent legislation. He spoke in touching terms of the overpast sickness of the Prince of Wales ; of his recovery ; of the gratitude of the nation. He said that the Ballot Bill had been mentioned first in the Queen's Address because DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 483 that measure was of paramount importance. As to the great matter of the Alabama claims it was the duty of government to speak of that in tem- perate and concihatory terms. He thought that the part of the address referring to the treaty of Washington was fully adequate. He called the attention of the House to the fact that the representatives of Great Britain PRINCE OF WALES. in their American negotiations had never admitted the validity of construc- tive or secondary damages in the claims of the United States against Eng- land. It was true that large concessions had been made to the American government ; but such were justifiable. The American government had accepted the interpretation put on the treaty in the House of Lords in the previous summer, and had made no protest against it. As a matter ot fact the American construction of the pending difficulty had only been in the 484 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. possession of the cabinet for a week, and no time had yet been found in which to prepare an answer. The speaker denied that the treaty of Wash- ington was ambiguous. He said that it would be a deduction of insanity to force upon the treaty such a construction as that with which Mr. Disraeh had chosen to alarm the House. At this juncture some of the appointments made by the government were subjected to severe criticism. One of these was the judicial appoint- ment of Sir Robert Collier. Against this Lord Chief Justice Cockburn had protested in severest terms. A vote of censure against the government was defeated in the House of Lords by a majority of only two votes. The same motion was made in the House of Commons, whereupon a heated debate ensued and the motion was rejected by a majority of twenty-seven. In similar manner came up the appointment made by the prime minister of Rev. j\Ir. Harvey to a vacancy in the rectorship of Ewelme. There was a statute requiring that he who occupied the rectory of Ewelme should be a member of the O.xford Convocation ; but Mr. Harvey had not been a mem- ber of that body. He was not a graduate of Oxford, but of Cambridge. It was shown that Mr. Harvey was made a member of the Oxford Convo- cation in order to make him eligible for the appointment of rector of Ewelme. This appeared like sharp practice, and Mr. Gladstone was severely criticised ; but he said in answer with much spirit that he had appointed the Rev. Mr. Harvey because of his fitness for the office, because of his health, because of the general desirability of the appointment, and not for other reasons, and that no apology was necessary for the action. Early in the parliamentary session of 1872 an extraordinary scene was witnessed in the House of Commons, the same being precipitated by a motion of Sir Charles Dilke. That noted personage had recently, in a public address, declared himself a republican, and here he was in the House of Commons. He came boldly forward with a resolution inquiring for the facts relative to the Civil List. The American reader will understand that this is the name of the provision made by Parliament for the maintenance of the sovereign and the sovereign's household. It is the/^ri'^wrt/ provision for the queen's support and for the support of the members of the family. The sums deemed necessary for such support are generally set aside, or voted, at the beginning of the reign, and certain other sums are voted as circum.stances seem to susreest or demand. Nor has it ever been the usage to inquire with much exactitude into the way of the royal e.xpenditure or to criticise the amount of it. The expenses in question are regarded in the nature of a salary, or salaries, and the temper of Great Britain has always been to make these abundantly sufficient and to say but little about it. Sir Charles Dilke's motion was that the facts should be reported to the Commons, and the motion was DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 485 admitted by the speaker as being in order. An inquiry was made at this juncture by Lord Bury, whether Sir Charles's declaration at Newcastle that he was a republican was not so reflected into the motion which he had made as to make that motion inadmissible in Parliament ; but this was decided in the negative, and Sir Charles Dilke went on to declare his reasons. In the course of this Sir Charles apologized for having erroneously said that the queen had paid no income taxes. He said that his motive had been quickened by the recent grant to a princess and by the secrecy which was maintained in the royal family about the disposal of grants made to them, particularly the secrecy of the royal wills. He thought that under the privilege thus granted to the crown great sums of money had been wasted and would be wasted hereafter. Such a question as this must needs be answered by the prime minister. It appears that it would have been better in the present instance to have made no reply, but rather to have permitted the House to go at once to a vote. But Mr. Gladstone spoke, and charged that Sir Charles Dilke had been reckless in stating as facts what were not facts at all. He said that Sir Charles's charges fell wide of the mark, and that the mover of the reso- lution had brought an ominous shadow on himself and his motion by his ill-timed declaration at Newcastle. He went on to say that Sir Charles ought to have remembered that not the royal family, but the British Parlia- ment was solely responsible for the Civil List. Such a motion as that offered by the right honorable gentleman could not be entertained, if for no other reason, then because he had declared against the existing form of govern- ment. As to the queen, Mr. Gladstone said that she had faithfully kept her compact with the nation and that she had been generous to a fault — that she had expended, for example, six hundred thousand pounds on private pensions. Parliament could not reopen the question of the settlement which had been made with her majesty at the beginning of her reign. Let the motion be rejected. We need not here attempt the description of the scene that ensued in the House. It has been described by many as the most disgraceful uproar and mck'e witnessed in Parliament in the present century. The members undertook to hoot down Sir Charles Dilke and bury both him and his motion under the mountain of contempt ; but the effort was not successful. The House became a mob, and the business raged on for about an hour in utter tumult, when Sir Charles succeeded in securing a division of the House and in gaining tioo votes for his resolution. History preserves the names of these two — Mr. George Anderson and Sir William Lawson. That may be regarded as the republican strength in Great Britain in the year 1872! The reader will remember that the Ballot Bill had now been for about 4.86 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. a year in a state of suspended animation. Its reintroduction to the House was effected by Mr. William E. Forster, and the measure was passed to the second reading. The debates continued, much being said against extending the privilege of secret voting to the electors. The general claim of the opponents of the bill was that if the suffrage were exercised privately then the ballot would be corrupted by purchase. It was alleged that with a secret ballot whole electoral districts would be bought. While matters dragged along Sir William Vernon Harcourt offered an amendment which was carried adversely to the government by a majority of twenty-eight. The proposition was to this effect : " No person shall, directly or indirecth', induce any voter to display his ballot paper after he shall have marked the same, so as to make known to any person the name of the candidate for or against whom he has so marked his vote." This amendment was, as w-e have said, carried over the government, and the bill so amended was at last adopted by a majority of fifty-eight. In the House of Lords the measure was taken up and an amendment passed making the ballot optional! But this in the House of Commons was disagreed to, since it was opposed to the spirit of the measure, which was to make the voting strictly private and personal. There were at this time sharp encoun- ters between Mr. Gladstone and the leader of the opposition ; but the same was in the nature of repartee and running fire rather than of set speech. The disagreement of the two houses on the Ballot Bill was at length bridged over with compromise, and the measure became a law. We now come to the great episode of the settlement of the Alabama claims. Great Britain was at last arrested by the soft but resolute hand of history and obliged to swallow a bitter draught. The Board of Arbitration provided for by the treaty of Washington met in Geneva, Switzerland, in December of 1871 ; but having organized and heard the pleas of the parties the body was adjourned until the following June. Meanwhile the British public became informed, perhaps for the first time, of the real condition in which the nation had been placed. Great Britain never understands that she has done wrong until she is finally arrested and presented w-ith a bill of particulars. The bill in this case was sufficiently alarming. The American government made out a claim under two heads : the first for direct dam- ages, and the second for indirect or consequential damages. Under the latter head was included the general plea that by the conduct of Great Britain during our civil war American commerce had been virtually destroyed or (which was the same thing) transferred to the British marine. The claim, when published, agitated British society to the foundation. There w-ere angrj^ protests heard on every hand ; but the matter had now got itself under way and must be left to work out its own results. The Board of Arbitration at Geneva consisted of five members : Count DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 487 Frederick Sclopis, appointed by the King of Italy, President; the Baron Jaques Stsempfii, appointed by the President of the Swiss Repubhc ; the Viscount d'ltajuba, appointed by the Emperor of Brazil; Sir Alexander Cockburn, Chief Justice of Great Britain; and Charles Francis Adams, appointed by the President of the United States. The agent for Great Britain was Lord Tenterden, and the counsel Sir Roundell Palmer ; the agent for the United States was J. C. Bancroft Davis, and the counsel Wil- liam M. Evarts, Caleb Gushing, and Morrison R. Waite. Soon the business was under way. After much discussion the indirect claims of the United States were disallowed, and President Grant ordered their withdrawal. Then the debates continued until the 14th of September on the question of the direct claims of our government, and those claims were allowed, namely, for injuries done by the cruisers Alabama, Florida, Shenandoah, and Gcorgui, with their tenders, to the amount of fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars in gold, equal to three million two hundred and twenty-nine thousand one hundred and sixty-six pounds sterling. It was sufficient ! Though our government was obliged to give up the claim for indirect or consequential damages, it nevertheless carried the claim for direct damages to a successful issue, and an international fine of no mean character was justly assessed on the mistress of the seas. The sequel was not w^iolly pleasant. Chief Justice Cockburn would not sign the decision against his country. On the contrary, he published a prodigious document of many hundreds of pages, trying to prove that the judgment of his peers was incorrect. The most that he would do was to admit the claims for ravages done by the Alabama, but not for those com- mitted by the Florida, the Shenandoah, and the Georgia. Sir Alexander's protest, however, was in vain, and Great Britain was obliged under the deci- sion of the Geneva tribunal to pay the damages. Thus was concluded the not unimportant legislation of 1872, and that of 1873 was like it, but more critical. Indeed, it proved to be most critical for the Liberal party and for Mr. Gladstone as prime minister. The reader will understand that the life of Gladstone was essentially the life of a public man. More than almost any other Englishman of this century his activi- ties were of a public character. Even his literary works have partaken of the essential element in his career, namely, its publicity. For a long period the line of his life was drawn through Parliament ; and for a con- siderable period parliamentary history was arranged around that line as its central cord. For these reasons we dwell upon the great episodes in his parliamen- tary career. In doing so we come at length to the period when and the fact with which his career as first minister of the crown was for the time con- cluded. The fact in question was the attempt, at the spring session of Par- 488 LIKE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. liament, 1873, to pass the Irish University Bill. This measure was essentially Gladstonian in its conception and formulation. The prime minister brought the bill into the House on the 13th of February, 1873, ^"^ in presenting it spoke at great length. He said that he reckoned the measure hardly second in importance to the Irish Church Bill and the Irish Land Acts. He recog- nized the difficulty and complexit)- of the measure. He perceived that it would be almost impossible to secure unanimity of opinion for the measure, though he strenuously sought to do so. He regarded his proposition as essential to the welfare of Ireland. He denied that Ireland was an unfruit- ful field for parliamentary endeavor. He urged upon the attention of the House the improved condition of that country. There treasonable crimes had ceased to exist. There the agrarian outrages had almost disappeared. There common crimes against the law were less frequent than in England. There industr\' was flourishing, there wealth had increased, and there pub- lic order was maintained. Much of all this benefit must be referred to the recent Liberal legislation respecting that countrj'. The speaker next noticed some late publications that had been made relative to the purposes of the government, and in particular with regard to himself It was charged that he had yielded to the influence of the Ultra- montane party (that is the Italian-Romanist party), and was currying favor with Rome. Such intimations were without foundation in fact. The gov- ernment, he said, had not been consulting with the bishops of Ireland or with anybody especially concerned in the higher education in that country. The measure which he was about to propose rested on other foundations. It rested on truth, on equity, on justice. He was well aware of a disposition in England to attribute any legislation that might favorably affect Roman Catholics to an Ultramontane influence. It was natural that the prejudices of a great portion of the English people should be aroused by charges of this kind. For his part, said the prime minister, there appeared only one of two courses to be taken at the present juncture; only one decision to be reached with respect to the Roman Catholic subjects of Great Britain. The plain question, said he, is this : " Do we intend, or do we not intend to extend to them [meaning the Roman Catholics] the full benefit of civil equality on a footing exactly the same as that on which it is granted to members of other religious persuasions.? If we do not the conclusion is a most grave one; but if the House be of opinion, as the government are of opinion, that it is neither generous nor politic, whatever we may think of this ecclesiastical influence within the Roman Church, to draw distinctions, in matters purely civil, adverse to our own Catholic fellow-countrymen — if we hold that opin- ion, let us hold It frankly and boldly ; and, having determined to grant measures of equality as far as it may be in our jjower to do so, do not let us DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 489 attempt to stint our action in that sense when we come to the execution of that which we have announced to be our design." The prime minister in the next place touched upon denominational endowments in educational institutions, and said that the government were precluded by their pledges and by their opinions from interfering therewith. In the next place he launched boldly into the question of the abuses that existed in the university system of Ireland. In that country the Roman Catholics were not able to avail themselves, or at least they could not, under the rule of their religious opinions, avail themselves of the privileges of col- leges and universities — unless it were such as they created and supported for themselves. The Presbyterians of Ireland were in the same category. This condition of affairs was a deep-seated religious grievance which the government now wished to remove in the interest of equity and justice equally dispensed to all subjects of the crown. Mr. Gladstone then proceeded to lay before the House certain statis- tics. There were in Dublin University and the Queen's Universities only one hundred and forty-five Roman Catholic students in the arts. The total number of such students in Ireland was one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine. Yet the Roman Catholics were nearly three fourths of the whole Irish population. Here, then, was the grievance. Nor was the griev- ance tending to abatement. On the contrary, it was becoming worse from year to year. The disproportion in the numbers of Catholic and Protes- tant students in Ireland was then greater than ever before. The Catholics were availing themselves of the university privilege in a less degree than at any former time. There were pro rata of the population almost ten times as many students in Scotland as there were in Ireland ! This state of facts was a national scandal. There had been efforts made to remove the reproach — to increase the attendance at the Irish universities. The endow- ments had been improved. New colleges had been provided, and yet there were fewer students in the arts in the Irish universities than there had been forty years ago ! In the next place Mr. Gladstone entered upon a sketch of the history of the Irish universities. He called attention to the fact that at Dublin Trinity College had got out of all relation with the university of which it was logically a part There had been several colleges there, but only Trinity survived. And yet the University of Dublin was the legitimate university of Ireland. This condition of affairs called loudly for a reform. Trinity College ought to be brought into its true historical relations with Dublin University. It was a part of the bill proposed to do that. It was also proposed that the Queen's Colleges at Belfast and Cork should be made parts of a university system. As to the Galway College, that institution, he thought, ought to be closed within a period of two years. 490 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. . 7^ o ;j > V o DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 49I The so-called Queen's University should be merged with the University of Dublin. As to these institutions — all of them — religious tests should be abol- ished. The university should be freed from the unnatural domination of the colleges. Members should be admitted into the university, whether they belonged to anj- of the colleges or not, according to fitness. The colleges should be made contributory to the university, and not it to them. Owing to the peculiar religious condition of Ireland the premier thought that a limit should be laid on the teaching of certain academical branches. There should be constituted a governing body, under the authorit)- of the crown and Parliament, to which the university should be subject. Within two years the prerogatives of the present Provost and the seven Senior Fellows, who together constitute the governing body of Trinity College, should be surrendered to the new organization. Between the years 1875 and 1885 a transformation should be effected from the old system to the new, and after the latter date the new should wholly prevail. The University of Dublin should be incorporated. The theological faculty of Trinity College should be separated from that institution and should be subject to the governing body of the Disestablished Church. Not only the Queen's Colleges of Cork and Belfast, but the Catholic University and Magee College, should become integral parts of the new university ; and other institutions of academical erade mioht do the same. The new eov- erning body of the University of Dublin should consist of twenty-eight members, who should be nominated in the Act which the prime minister was explaining. Vacancies should be filled in such and such a manner. The University Senate should be composed of the Doctors and Masters of Arts who remained in affiliation with the institution. The Senate would include the present senators of Dublin and Queen's Universities. In the new institution there should be both teaching and examinations ; and as to securities for freedom of conscience, Mr. Gladstone recommended that there should be in the university no chairs in theology, in moral philosophy, or in modern history.* In the last two studies no student should be examined against his will or be excluded from other university examinations on that account. In the further exposition of his plan he showed that the colleges of Cork and Belfast, as well as Magee College and the Roman Catholic *The American reader may well be surprised at this part of the Gladstonian scheme. It is not difficult to understand how Roman Catholic and Episcopal students in an Irish university cannot be taught the same l/h'ologv. Hut why should the moral philosophy be administered to the two kinds with different utensils and in different measure? It might well appear that moral philosophy is moral philosophy the world over, from the Vistula to Finisterre ; from the Congo to Puget .Sound. And as to modern history, why should that be taught to please either Catholic or Protestant, or indeed any other son of the human race forever? History is not taught to please, but to instruct ! 492 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILUAM E. GLADSTONE. university, would become parts of the larger university, and that other like institutions would be affiliated in the same manner. He proposed that the new governing body of Dublin University be constituted of twenty-eight members, who were to be nominated in the Act. Of these four were to retire annually, and the crown and the corporation were to act together in the appointment of successors to all vacancies. The bill provided that each college having as many as one hundred and fifty students might elect two members of the governing body. Etc., etc. The financial arrangements presented features of particular difficulty. Mr. Gladstone said that it would be necessary to take from the existing revenues of Trinity College an annual contribution of about twelve thousand pounds for the benefit of the new university. This was a large sum to be withdrawn, but he thought the reduction might be made ; for Trinity College would still remain the richest institution of the kind in existence. He thought it might be expedient to withdraw in like manner certain sums from the revenues of Oxford and Cambridge. As to the sum required for the new university, the premier placed the amount at fifty thousand pounds. This sum he would divide in halves ; one half he would reserve strictly for the encouragement of learning. He would establish ten annual fellowships of two hundred pounds each. These would hold for a period of five years. There should be twenty-five exhibitions given annually, at an expense of fifty pounds each. There should be one hundred bursaries annually, of twenty-five pounds each ; these should be established for four years. For the professors proper twenty thousand pounds should be set aside. The expense of the examinations, together with the cost of maintaining build- ings, etc., should be at a maximum of five thousand pounds. In order to meet the sum of these expenditures Trinity College should furnish, as said above, twelve thousand pounds ; the Consolidated Fund, ten thousand pounds; while five thousand pounds should be secured from fees and from the residue of the proceeds of the ecclesiastical property of Ireland. The premier next pointed out the method for the establishment of self- government at Trinity College. This scheme was to extend also to the other institutions constituting a part of the new university. Each institu- tion should divide its powers between the laity and the Church authorities, according to its own preference. Legislation in this particular should be open and impartial. Having concluded the outline of his plan Mr. Glad- stone brought his speech to a close with a eulogium on Trinity College, in which he expressed the hope that that institution would remain forever in dispensation of unmeasured blessings to mankind. The power of the col- lege, he believed, would be increased for good under the new system which he presented. The subordinate institutions should enjoy perfect freedom as it respected themselves. Etc., etc. DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 493 The great measure thus proposed by the prime minister for the recti- fication of the higher educational system of Ireland was of precisely the kind to evoke the hottest opposition. Certainly in the British Parliament such a measure will never pass unassailed. In the present instance the shrewd Mr. Disraeli asked that the bill, that is, the second reading of the measure, should be postponed for three weeks in order that her majesty's opposition might consider it. The bill was accordingly laid over until the 3d of March. The first impression produced on the House and on the country was favorable, but it was not long until this impression was replaced with another of an opposite character. The first outbreak of antagonism was on the part of the Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland, and indeed of England, who, with the full per- suasion and manner of their kind, grabbed for the concession which the government seemed to make, and at the same time raised an outcry for more than any British government could possibly concede. The fact was — and is — that the bishops wanted to construct the whole scheme of education in their own interest and from the Church point of view. Nothing short of this would ever satisfy them. The Gladstonian scheme was secular. It provided for the equal rights of Catholics, but did not concede to Catholics or any other denomination the" right to create a system of education wholly in its own interest. This, we think, was the real rock on which Mr. Glad- stone's educational ship w^as destined to be wrecked. At any rate the Roman Catholic bishops, whom, as we think, Mr. Glad- stone expected to recognize the generosity and coming benefit of the pro- posed measure, raised an outcry; and such was their influence that the Irish members of Parliament took up the hue and followed in the train. This of itself produced a large defection in the Liberal ranks. Another objection came from Mr. Bourke, who complained that the bill provided for the appointment of a governing body of twenty-eight members, without indi- cating who they were to be. The gentleman gave notice that he would move an amendment demanding to know the ministerial nominees for mem- bership in the governing board. Jealousies now broke out all around the horizon. The advanced Liberals would not support the bill, for in it they thought they discovered a purpose to retain Church influence in a paramount way in the university system and management. They for their part were anxious that the uni- versity should be secularized completely — that it should not be a system in which the concurrent influences of Episcopalianism, Presbyterianism, Roman Catholicism, and what not besides, should flow together and mingle as best they might, but a true system of independent, secular control, rising above all the religious factions that were warring in Ireland. And indeed this was a valid objection to the bill. As for the Protestant Conservatives in Parlia- 494 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. ment, they opposed it because it conceded to the Catholics the common rio-ht with others to be educated in the public institutions of learning. Mr. Gladstone found himself thus hemmed in and badgered with a number of antagonisms and antagonists upon which and whom he had rather counted for support. But he proceeded in his usual manner to defend the pending measure, speaking in particular to the objection offered by Mr. Bourke. He showed that it would not only be improper but absurd to present the names of the proposed governing body in a bill the second readincr of which had not vet been ordered in the House. The nomination of such members would follow at the proper stage of the proceedings, and the House, he did not doubt, would be ready to ratify the action of the government in naming the members of the governing board. Nevertheless Mr. Bourke presented his amendment and Lord Fitz- maurice seconded it, making a denunciatory speech against the bill as calcu- lated to destroy the Protestant system of education. The debate broke out all along the line. The representatives of the Catholic establishment declared that they would have a separate Catholic university or nothing. It was denominational education which they demanded, in accordance with a system to be controlled by themselves. Mr. Fawcett delivered a tirade saying that the effect of such a bill as that now proposed would be to make the educational confusion in Ireland still worse confounded. Moreover, the plan of reorganization here presented was in the nature of a patchwork compromise the design of which on the part of its creators had been to curry favor with everybody, when in point of fact the measure, as soon as it was revealed, displeased everybody, satisfying none. Already the bill was hard pressed by its enemies. The erratic Mr. Horsman entered the arena with his usual vehemence and began to declaim, whereupon Mr. Lowe, chancellor of the exchequer, drew a letter on the gentleman which he had recently written in high praise of the very bill which he was now denouncing! The letter said that Mr. Gladstone had introduced a measure of university education that did him great honor, and that it would take its place on the statute book as the crowning work of the present Parliament. " We must all resume its consideration," continued the writer, "with an earnest desire to acknowledge the large and generous spirit with which the government had addressed itself to the subject, and cooper- ate with the high purposes it has in view," etc., etc. In the face of this Mr. Horsman was now saying, " Why does not the government withdraw the bill } Nobody wants it — nobody accepts it — it settles nothing, but unsettles everybody." This retort on Mr. Horsman was certainly sufficient to extinguish him so far as the pending discussion was concerned. Mr. Lowe continued to speak with great cogency and effectiveness in favor of the bill. He called DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 495 attention to the fact that a good deal of the trouble before the House arose from the confusion of the words "university" and "college." It was the purpose of the bill to gather a number of colleges, that is, teaching institu- tions, into a single organic whole which was also a teaching institution, but having the power to confer degrees and exercise a general control over the whole system. The speaker pointed to the necessities out of which the measure had arisen, namely, the imperfect constitution of Trinity College, the inadequacy of the instruction at the Queen's Colleges, and more especially the refusal of the Roman Catholics of Ireland to avail themselves of either the one or the other. As to the opposition w^hich the Catholic bishops now showed to the bill which was intended to favor them and their follow- ing, that opposition, said Mr. Lowe, ought to be regarded as a sort of natural calamity like an earthquake, which, while it was disastrous, could not well be avoided ! The University Bill as a whole, the speaker contended, was well calcu- lated to alleviate the distresses of the Roman Catholic pojDulation of Ireland, and, in general, to improve the whole educational condition. The bill came in friendly guise. It was the design of its promoters that the measure should be a friend indeed. "And," said the speaker, with another crushinsf blow at Mr. Horsman, "there are Abdiels who will not leave their friend. There is one member of the House whose sympathy with us I feel unequal to express, and would therefore for that purpose take the liberty of resorting to the words of a bard of Erin : & ' Come rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer, Though the herd have all fled, thy home is still here; Here still is a smile that no cloud can o'ercast, And a hand and a heart thine own to the last.'" Than this, satire and wit could go no further ! Near the close of the discussion Mr. Cardwell, the war minister, spoke in favor of the bill, but said in his remarks that if there were serious objec- tions to it these might be removed by amendments when the measure should come before the House in committee. This conciliatory statement was seized upon by the opposition as an admission of weakness. It looked to them as thouoh the crovernment was about to recede. For four nights the debate continued, and Mr. Disraeli was reserved to conclude for the opposition. He said that Mr. Cardwell's concession was in the nature of a surrender. That gentleman had held up the w'hite flag; but the prime min- ister had not supported the discretion of his lieutenant. At the present stage there w^as no evidence that the government would yield anything, and he, the speaker, would be constrained to discuss the bill as it had been presented. 496 lAVV. AM) TIMKS UF \V1L1.1A.M E. ULADSTU.NE. The first criticism of Mr. Disraeli was that the university which was contemplated was noi a university, for it was not universal. The next objec- tion was that the measure provided that the theological faculty of Trinity Collc<'e should be detached and handed over to the Disestablished Church. In the next place, it was proposed to exclude moral philosophy and modern history from th(j curriculum. This proposition must be regarded as astound- ing. The o-overning body, provision for which was dimly outlined, was to be cdntemplated as a despotic and anonymous council. All experience had DlbKAELI ENTEKTAINING THE HOUSE VVTIH A bXUKY. shown that parties would spring up in such a body, the balance between which would be held by a few " incapable trimmers ;" and these would really be the governing body of the new Irish University! As to the Roman Catholics, the speaker was sorry for them, but their condition was the legitimate consequence of their own action. Mr. Disraeli reverted to the time when he, as prime minister, had ineffectually negotiated with the Catholic bishops on the subject of a concurrent endowment. But that measure was now dead and could not be revived. Mr. Gladstone in presenting the measure before the House had followed his usual policy of confiscation. If the Catholics had followed him at all it had been with a DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 497 view, not of obtaining university privileges, but of destroying a Protestant Church. The country had had enough of confiscation already. There was a satiety of that kind of feeding. For his own part he did not wish to annoy the prime minister, but he should oppose the present bill because he thought it a measure at once futile, pernicious, and monstrous. It was now Mr. Gladstone's turn to do what he could to stay the fight which he perceived to be going against the government. He began by say- incr that thouo-h Mr. Disraeli had acknowledged before the House that the project of concurrent endowment was a dead issue, yet his very reference to it showed that it still survived in his memory, and, perhaps, in his affections. Did not this imply that that project might revive under the magic touch of the right honorable gentleman.? Mr. Gladstone went on to say that he was sorry that religious heat and party spirit had obtruded themselves in the discussion of the question before the House. He would again go over the truisms of the situation. The Roman Catholics of Ireland had a real grievance, and there was a prime necessity for reforming the academical system of that country. He said that the bill had been attended with strange misfortunes. Those who had at first received it with applause had now renounced it. And for what ? The present question was, " Should the House go into committee on this bill.?" To refuse to do so would be an act of future regret to the authors of the refusal. Mr. Gladstone next referred to the argument that the standard of edu- cation was to be lowered by the method proposed. Had that been true in the creation of the London University.? That institution was not an instructing, but an examining body ; and yet under its influence the standard of education had been advanced. It was objected that the people of Ireland were opposed to the pending measure. For his part he was sure that this opposition had been fanned and exaggerated. Besides, it was not the busi- ness of the House of Commons to decline to go into committee on a bill because it was opposed, even by some of those to whom its benefits were directed. It was very proper, as Mr. Cardwell had suggested, that the pro- visions of the bill should be fully discussed in committee ; but the govern- ment did not concede that that involved a surrender of any of the principles essential to the measure. If amendments should appear to be of real advantage they would be welcome, and, if not, they would be rejected. Mr. Gladstone wished the House to bear in mind the bottom assumption from which the bill had been evolved, and that was that the religious grievances admitted to exist among the Irish people should be removed by opening degrees to that people under the administration of men of all opinions, impartial and unsectarian. Another principle was that Trinity College should be reduced to its proper functions, and this included the separation of the faculty of theology there- 32 498 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. from. These evils could not be met and would not be met by the policj- of concurrent endowments. The system of introducing separate endowments for separate academical institutions of different religious control in Ireland would not and could not prevail. In this measure there should be a con- currence of Catholics and Protestants. The present momentary union of the former with the Conservati\es ought to be dissolved. Moreover, what would be the policy in case the present bill should be rejected.? What was to be the policy adopted instead for Ireland.-* " Per- haps," said the prime minister, " the bill of my honorable friend, the member for Brighton, will find favor which leaves the Universit)' of Dublin in the hands of Trinity College, and which, I presume, if passed, will only be the harbinger of an agitation fiercer still than that which we are told would fol- low the passage of the present bill. It will still leave the Roman Catholic in this condition, that he will not be able to obtain a degree in Ireland with- out going either to the Queen's College, to which he objects, or placing him- self under examinations and a system of discipline managed and conducted by a Protestant board — a board composed of eight gentlemen, of whom si.\ are clergymen of the Disestablished Church of Ireland. The other alterna- tive will be the adopting for Ireland of a new set of principles, which Par- liament has repudiated in Ireland and has disclaimed for Great Britain, not only treating the Roman Catholic majority in Ireland as being the Irish nation, but likewise adopting for that Irish nation the principles which we have ourselves overthrown even within the limits of our own eeneration. " I know not with what satisfaction we can look forward to these pros- pects. It is dangerous to tamper with objects of this kind. We have pre- sented to you our plan, for which we are responsible. We are not afraid, I am not afraid, of the charge of my right honorable friend that we have served the priests. [Mr. Horsman : 'I did not say so.'] I am glad to hear it. I am ready to serve the priests or any other man as far as justice dic- tates. I am not ready to go an inch farther for them or for any other man ; and if the labors of 1869 and 1870 are to be forgotten in Ireland —if where we have earnestly sought and toiled for peace we find only contention ; if our tenders of relief are thrust aside with scorn — let us still remember that there is a voice which is not heard in the crackling- of the fire or in the roaring of whirlwind or the storm, but which will and must be heard when they had passed away — the still small voice of justice. " To mete out justice to Ireland, according to the best view that with human infirmity we could form, has been the work, I will almost say the sacred work, of this Parliament. Having put our hand to the plow let us not turn back. Let not what we think the fault or perverseness of those whom we are attempting to assist have the slightest effect in turning us even by a hair's breadth from the path on which we have entered. As we DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 499 have begun, so let us persevere even to the end, and with firm and resolute hand let us efface from the law and the practice of the country the last — for I believe it is the last — of the religious and social grievances of Ireland." The end of the debate brought matters to the crisis of a vote. The government were confident of a majority, but did not reckon the majority at a large figure. The Conservatives rallied all their forces, and the result showed in their favor. The bill was rejected by a majority of three. Forty- five of the Liberal members voted against the measure, of whom thirty-five were Irish members. While the result could not be regarded as a thunder- clap from a clear sky it was nevertheless fatally indicative of the end of the Liberal administration. No government in Great Britain can long survive such a verdict of the House of Commons on an essentia! question. Mr. Gladstone at once offered to the queen his resignation as prime minister, recommending her majesty, as was customary, to call the leader of the opposition. This was done; but Mr. Disraeli unconditionally refused to accept the responsibility. He had organized and directed the movement which led to the overthrow of the government ; but his forces were made up of scattered cohorts, agreeing in one thing only, namely, the desire to humiliate the extant ministry. Mr. Disraeli showed the queen that he could not successfully organize a new Conservative government with the forces at his command. They were not sufficient. For this reason her majesty invited Mr. Gladstone and the cabinet as a whole to remain in office, which he agreed at least for a time to do. These matters were explained by the prime minister and by Mr. Disraeli in the House of Commons. Both gentlemen read extracts from the letters which they had written on the subject to the queen. It appeared that her majesty had offered to appoint Mr. Disraeli with the priv- ilege of dissolving Parliament and appealing to the country; but that astute politician had declined to adopt this policy on the ground that there was at that time no question of sufficient moment upon which to arouse the senti- ment of the country and thereby obtain a sufficient Conservative majority. The situation that ensued was an interreenum. A modicum of leeisla- tion was effected during the remainder of the session. Lord Selborne, the chancellor, succeeded in securing the passage of the Judicature Bill, a measure of considerable importance to the administration of justice. Mr. Forster had an amendment adopted to his Education Bill, by which the question of paying the school charges of indigent children was referred to the guardians of the poor, instead of to the school boards, as hitherto. Mr. Lowe, chancellor of the exchequer, brought in a bill on the subject of local taxation, which, though supported by Mr. Gladstone, was defeated, and this led to the resignation of Mr. Lowe from office. Mr. Fawcett, who had opposed the Irish University Bill, now presented 500 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. a simple measure of his own for abolishing the religious tests for admission of students to Dublin University, and this proposition was carried. The Radical, Mr. Miall, offered a resolution for the abolition of the English Church, that is, the Church in England, and secured for it sixty-one votes. This was about the measure of the Radical strength in Parliament at that time. To all this was added a successful proposition of the decaying gov- ernment that the usual grant be made as a marriage portion to the Duke of Edinburgh, who was about to take for his wife the Grand Duchess Marie Aiexandrovna of Russia. Thus, through vicissitude and decline, the parlia- mentary session of 1873 came to an end. It was now manifested in no uncertain way that a strong political reac- tion was on in Great Britain. The country had tired of reform. It appeared that the great reformatory movement had dwindled to a slender thread of influence, that might be cut at any moment. The confidence of the Con- servatives rose, and although the Liberals presented a bold front the tide was against them. The leaders of the opposition adopted the policy of taunting the government with the assertion that it was utterly discredited before the country, that its own party support had fallen away, and that the prime minister did not dare to appeal to the nation. This was precisely what he durst do, and did do, with promptitude, at the beginning of 1874. On the 23d of January of that year he sent his manifesto to the electors at Greenwich, saying that Parliament was dissolved, and that a new body should be chosen in its place. This proclamation pro- duced great excitement. It was a matter of no small moment to extinguish a government which beginning six years previously had accomplished so great a transformation in Great Britain. There was the disestablishment of the Irish Church. There also was the passage of the Irish Land Bill. There also was the great Act for the Abolition of Purchase, and for the Reorgan- ization of the Army. There was Mr. Forster's Elementary Educational Bill. There was the Ballot Bill, and there was not the Irish University Bill. It might well seem that the record would suffice, and that the verdict of the country would be in favor of a government that had accomplished so much in the way of reform. Perhaps it had accomplished too much ; that is, too much according to ' the estimation of Great Britain. At any rate the nation had concluded to pause. Mr. Gladstone in his manifesto said : " In the month of March last the government were defeated in their effort to settle upon just and enlarged principles the long-disputed question of the higher education in Ireland, if not by a combined, yet concurrent effort of the leader of the opposition and of the Roman Catholic prelacy of Ireland. Upon suffering this defeat the government, according to the justice of our Constitution, placed their resig- nation in the hands of the sovereign. Her majesty, in the just and wise DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 5OI exercise of her high office, applied to the leader of the opposition. He, however, declaring that he was not prepared with a policy and could not govern in the existing Parliament, declined to fill the void which he had made. Under these circumstances we thought ourselves bound by loyalty to the queen not to decline the resumption of our offices. " But this step we took with an avowed reluctance. We felt that, in consequence of what had happened, both the crown and country were placed at a disadvantage, as it was established that during the existence of the present Parliament one party only could govern, and must therefore govern without appeal. We also felt that a precedent had been set which both diminished our strength and weakened the general guarantees for the responsibility and integrity of parliamentary opposition. Of this diminution of strength we w^ere painfully and sensibly reminded during the session by the summary and rapid dismissal, in the House of Lords, of measures which had cost much time and labor to the House of Commons. But we remem- bered that in the years 1868 and 1870, when the mind of the country was unambiguously expressed, the House of Lords had, much to its honor, deferred to that expression upon matters of great moment ; and I cannot doubt that it would have continued in this course had the isolated and less certain, but still frequent and fresh indications of public opinion at single elections continued to be in harmony with the powerful and authentic, but now more remote judgment of 1868." Mr. Gladstone continued at great length to show and to justify the policy of the Liberal party and to discredit the policy of the Tories. He also foreshadowed conditions that might be expected in case the former should be continued in power. He hinted at relief from taxation, and in particular at the extinction of the income tax. He advocated economy. He declared that the policy of the government since the accession to power of the Liberal party was now on trial before the country. That policy involved the financial and commercial legislation of Great Britain as far back as 1842. He disclaimed all intention on the part of the Liberal government to worry the country or imperil its institutions. It was not true that the country had been harried by the existing administration or that any essential interest had been endangered. It was now the duty of the nation, continued Mr. Gladstone, to pass judgment on both men and principles. " I am confident," said he, "that if the present government be dismissed from the service of their gracious mistress and of the country the Liberal party which they represent may at least challenge contradiction when they say that their term of forty years leaves the throne, the laws, and the institutions of the country, not weaker, but stronger than it found them. Such, gentlemen, is the issue placed before you and before the nation for your decision. If the trust of this adminis- 502 LIKE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. tration be by ihe effect of the present elections virtually renewed, I, for one, will serve you, for what remains of my time, faithfully; if the confi- dence of the country be taken from us and handed over to others whom you may judge more worthy, I, for one, shall accept cheerfully my dis- missal." To this effective pronunciamento Mr. Disraeli appeared with a counter address to the electors of Buckinghamshire. This paper also was marked with much ability and with the usual wit. Of the recent dissolution of Par- liament he said : " Whether this step has been taken as a means of avoiding INCIDENT OF GLADSTONE'S CAMPAIGNING. the humbling confession by the prime minister that he has, in a fresh viola- tion of constitutional law, persisted in retaining for several months a seat to which he was no longer entitled, or has been resorted to by his govern- ment in order to postpone or evade the day of reckoning for a war carried on without communication with Parliament, and the expenditure for which Parliament has not sanctioned, it is unnecessary to consider." Such was the tone of Mr. Disraeli's manifesto at the beginning, and the remainder was in similar vein. Nor need we in this connection summarize the various charges which the leader of the opposition brought against the Liberal government, or the subtile reasons which he gave why the administration should be transferred to the Conservatives. The issue was joined between the two great leaders, and the decision was remanded to the country. DECLINE OF THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT. 5O3 On the 26th of January, 1874, Parliament was dissolved. The new House was called to meet on the 5th of March. The political canvass was opened hotly by both parties. At every corner the Liberals were met with opposition, and in nianv places it was unexpected. The Nonconformist fac- tion required of their candidates a pledge against the whole policy of denom- inational support for schools, or rather of public support in any form for denominational institutions. This was a blow at the theory of the Episcopal Establishment. As for Mr. Gladstone, he went courageously into the campaign. Two days after the dissolution he appeared before his constituents at Black- heath. There he answered the recent address of Mr. Disraeli and defended the policy of the government. He charged that the opposition were trying to divert the attention of the people from domestic concerns and policies of great importance to foreign trivialities. Mr. Disraeli was fixing his atten- tion on the Straits of Malacca, and raisino- an issue as to the breadth of those straits, and necrlecting the creat concerns of the British nation. It was much more important to attend to the affairs of Ireland and to remove the scandals from British administration in that country than to be hunting the world over for small interests and disputed trifles in foreign lands. It was the policy of the Liberal party to relieve the people of their burdens, and in particular to extinguish the income tax ; but Mr. Disraeli, according to recent declarations, was willing that the income tax should under certain conditions be continued. The canvass of 1874 was conducted with great ability, but the tides set in the other way, and the Liberals were overwhelmed. The result was a disaster. Of the six hundred and fifty-two members of the House of Com- mons to be returned the Conservatives elected three hundred and forty- nine, and the Liberals three hundred and three. This was a gain to the former of fifty-six seats — a sufficient increment to throw the majority strongly against the recent government. Mr. Gladstone himself was well-nigh dis- charged from service by his Greenwich constituents. The workmen of the dockyards, the farmers, and the Church following were all combined for the overthrow of the prime minister and for the installation in his place of Mr. Disraeli. Mr. Gladstone of course accepted the verdict. He at once resigned his office, and after a service of six years fell back to the place of leader of the opposition. The first great ascendency of the Liberal party was at an end, and the foremost man of that great division of the British public retired to the ranks. 504 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE, CHAPTER XXV. Out of Office. HE preceding chapters have been greatly extended because they cover one of the most remarkable periods in the life and work of William E. Gladstone. Not that other parts are of minor importance, but that the epoch of the first Liberal ascendency ^ is of prime importance may be assigned as the reason for de- voting relatively a smaller space to the period upon which we now enter. That period considers Mr. Gladstone in retirement, of half-retirement, from his active duties in the House of Commons. Mr. Disraeli was now for the first time in unequivocal conduct of the government. He had a clear Conservative majority in his support. The House and the whole nation had become accustomed to his manners and methods. Certainly England and all the world were now acquainted with his abilities. With little reserve we may regard him intellectually as the most brilliant Prime Minister of Great Britain, but his other powers were not equal to his intellect. He prevailed by force of mind, by wit, by long-head- edness, sometimes by subtlety. There was in his constitution the capacity of a fox — a great fox, but nevertheless a fox. That he was a true English- man none can any longer doubt. That he had confirmed his reputation with the aristocracy of Great Britain and with the reigning house cannot be doubted. It is always difficult and critical to begin. In fact, there was not at this juncture much to begin with. The Conservative victory hardly implied action, but rather rest from action. As for Mr. Gladstone, though he gave no sign, he must have felt deeply the late reverse. That political disaster had come by the defection of his friends. The solidarity of the Liberal party had been broken. Some of the leaders had gone over to the enemy. There was much ribald jesting about Mr. Gladstone's downfall. As for the Liberal party, the situation was quite serious. It was virtually without a leader. Mr. Gladstone wished to retire. Nor may we suppose that this desire was the result of personal considerations. In the interval between the late election and the assembling of Parliament he had expressed his wishes in a letter to Lord Granville, stating that he had sent to the members of Parliament a circular bearing upon such matters as related to the opening of the parliamentary session. He said that, while regarding it as his duty to do this, he had not expressed in the circular what was personal to himself or defined his individual position. Then Mr. Gladstone went on to say : " For a variety of reasons personal to myself I could not contemplate any unlimited extension of active political OUT OF OFFICE. 505 service, and I am anxious that it should be clearly understood by those friends with whom I have acted in the direction of affairs that at my age I must reserve my entire freedom to divest myself of all the responsibilities of leadership at no distant time. The need of rest will prevent me from giving more than an occasional attendance in the House of Commons during the present session. " I should be desirous, shortly before the commencement of the session of 1875, to consider whether there would be advantage in placing my serv- ices for a time at the disposal of the Liberal party or whether I should then claim exemption from the duties I have hitherto discharged. If, however, there should be reasonable ground for believing that, instead of the course which I have sketched, it would be preferable, in the view of the party gen- erally, for me to assume at once the place of an independent member, I should willingly adopt the latter alternative. But I shall retain all that de- sire I have hitherto felt for the welfare of the party, and if the gentlemen composing it should think fit either to choose a leader or make provision ad interim, with a view to the convenience of the present year, the person des- ignated would of course command from me any assistance which he might find occasion to seek and which it might be in my power to render." The views of the great leader as outlined in this letter were accepted by his following rather because he wished it so than from preference. There was thus a quasi-Liberal leadership at the ensuing session of Parlia- ment. Mr. Gladstone was frequently absent from the House, and this fact gave opportunity to the victorious Conservatives for much satirical comment about the condition of her majesty's opposition. The situation was not pleasing to Mr. Disraeli, who knew well enough that the strong bracing of a well-organized and well-led opposition is one of the essentials of brilliant and successful grovernment in Great Britain. He wanted his rival to be always in his place. Perhaps he recognized the fact that his own powers were brought into the highest efficiency by that kind of political antagonism by which he had so long been trained. The first event of a new Parliament is the address from the throne and the formal debate thereon. On the occasion of the opening of the session of 1874 Mr. Gladstone appeared and spoke to the address. In doing so he offered a justification of the late government in dissolving Parliament and appealing to the country while that government still held a nominal majority in the House. Mr. Gladstone said that the majority ought to be unequiv- ocal. It was his duty to know whether the country would make it so. The question had been submitted, and the majority had declared for the other side. A new government had thus been constituted, and that government in its turn was entitled to a fair opportunity for carrying its principles into action. It was because he deemed it right for the country to decide upon 5o6 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. the question of the correctness of the policy of the late government that he had declared a dissolution. It now appeared that though the Conservatives were completely vic- torious they had little to do. There was certainly no further progress to be promoted. If anything should be done it must be simply in a confirma- tory, or possibly a reactionary, way. One member, a certain Mr. Smollett, sought to produce the requisite parliamentary heat by offering a resolution of censure on Mr. Gladstone for having dissolved the late Parliament. This motion was not supported by the government, and Mr. Gladstone himself waved it aside without effort. Meanwhile, among the first facts revealed was this, that the disputed figures of Mr. Gladstone relative to revenue and sur- plus, presented to the House about a year previously, were now shown to be correct. According to these figures the Conservative government found itself at the very outset in the possession of the almost uncomfortable sur- plus of five and a half million pounds. Now it was that Conservatism must try its hand at some mild-man- nered legislation on the religious, or rather ecclesiastical, question. The House of Lords began to stir, and in that body a bill was brought forward by the Duke of Richmond relative to the Church patronage in Scotland. In that country the Established Kirk was supported by a system of lay pat- ronage, and it was the purpose of the Duke of Richmond's bill to change the lay system for another, to be controlled by the congregation. The terms of the bill were such as to abolish all Church patronage, from that of the crown to that of the laity, and at the same time to create an ecclesiastical or kirk constituency, having the prerogative of selecting ministers, etc. The patronage was to rest henceforth with the male communicants, and those who were to be legislated out of their rights were to receive compen- sation therefor. It was a mild-mannered and easy-going sort of reform in which there was as little virtue as danger. There was, however, some opposition to the measure, and Mr. Gladstone spoke against it. He expressed his regrets at having to enter upon the discussion of a subject in ecclesias- tical controversy. He reviewed the measure before the House, and also an amendment proposed declaring it inexpedient to legislate without further inquiry on the subject of patronage in the Church of .Scotland. Mr. Gladstone wished to know what the orovernment was eointj to do for that numerous class that had been driven out of the Established Kirk. Such people had been obliged to organize for themselves and to support their own Church system without aid. Was it the intention of the bill to return such Scotch Dissenters to the Church from the privileges of which they had been excluded.? If so, he had nothing further to say; but the bill in its present aspect was not fair, and was not generous. OUT OF OFFICE. 507 Besides, there had not been in Scotland, as there had been in Ireland, a cry for disestablishment. The presentation of the bill, said the speaker, had forerun any demand for it. Nevertheless, since the bill had been prepared a demand had sprung up for disestablishment. An immense majority of the Scots had in the General Assembly declared in favor of such a policy. The speaker did not wish to be responsible for raising the question of disestablishment in Scotland. Then the speaker added, " I am not an idolater of establish- ments " — a remark which created much excitement and cheering in the House. Then the speaker continued to the effect that he did not wish to raise a controversy on the subject of disestablishments unless there should be the strongest justifying circumstances. "If the cheer," said he, " we have just heard — and it was, perhaps, a very fair, natural, and legitimate cheer- — was intended to imply that I am a great enemy of establishment because I used every effort in my power to put an end to an establishment in Ireland, I must say, in answer to that cheer, that I do not repent the part I took. So far from repenting it, if I am to have a character with posterity at all — supposing posterity is ever to know that such a person as myself existed in this country — I am perfectly willing that my character should be tried simply and solely by the proceedings to which I was a party with regard to the Irish Church Establishment. " I would, however," said Mr. Gladstone, " in this case recognize distinc- tions that are founded in the nature of things. In Scotland there has been no general movement of principle toward disestablishment ; and although an Established Church in a minority is an anomaly, it is an anomaly which I was well content to tolerate, and which the masses of the people of Scot- land were justly and wisely prepared to tolerate, and not to be guided by abstract principles, but by a careful regard to the state of facts. But when in that state of things the government throws down the challenge before them ; proposes to invest this ecclesiastical body, or even the committee or commission of it, with powers never before intrusted to an ecclesiastical body, but which will infallibly be quoted in support of high clerical preten- sions in other quarters ; and when in doing that it does it, as the right hon- orable and learned lord says, in the sense of strengthening the Established Church, but declining to recognize, for every practical purpose, the existence of those great Presbyterian communities whom you drove out and com- pelled to become Dissenters, entirely declining to recognize them, except as bodies from whom you make a certain profit by withdrawing one adherent from them here, and another from them there — that is a challenge, I think, to them to take up a question of the public and national endowment of religion such as was never before issued by a government under any circumstances, and such as, in my opinion, it is totally inconsistent with prudence and 2o8 LIKE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM £. GLADSTONE. wisdom to issue. If we have been rash — which I do not admit — our rash- ness will certainly fade into utter insignificance by the side of the gratuitous hardihood of the government, which, as it appears to me, determines to initiate a relitrious war in Scotland under the influence of the best motives, o but under circumstances the most slippery and dangerous." Notwithstanding this able speech it could but be evident that the Duke of Richmond's bill would be passed. It was a government measure, and no power at that juncture could prevail against it. Indeed, Mr. Gladstone was able to command only one hundred and nine votes in his favor. The prime minister did not deem it important to debate the question with his antag- onist, but contented himself with saying something of a flattering character about Mr. Gladstone's reappearance in the House, with the expression of a hope that he might be often there, to aid with his presence and influence the proper balance of her majesty's government. It might be noted at this time that the lords of the upper House were unusually active. The Conservative triumph was for them a matter of great encouragement. Even our lords the bishops arose from the fog and pro- posed something. He of Canterbury brought forward a bill for the Regula- tion of Public Worship. What was proposed is difficult of apprehension by the American reader. In a country and among a people where worship is supposed to be a matter of heart and sentiment, and not a thing of form, it may not be easily apprehended in what sense a government may enact a law for the regulation of that which in the nature of the case is not subject to statutory regulation. The bill of the Archbishop of Canterbury provided that a directory power over the forms of worship should be given to the bishop of the dio- cese, in order that he mieht enforce the ritual accordingf to the canon and prayer book of the English Church. It was alleged at this time that the people of England, though belonging to the Establishment, had departed scandalously in this direction and in that from the exact forms of the ritual. The departure had been in both directions. On the one side there was a move- ment toward the simple methods of worship in use among the Evangelicals. On the other side there was an approximation to the splendor and formality of Rome. A good deal of local freedom in these matters had supervened, and the Archbishop of Canterbury introduced his measure in order to estab- lish conformity and against that principle of Frederick the Great, whose fun- damental notion was that in his kingdom every man should be saved as he pleased ! The bill proposed provided for the organization of a board of assessors with the bishop for president. When any grievance existed respect- ing the forms of worship a parishioner might report the same with complaint to the bishop, and the latter might, at his option, call together his board and submit the matter to them. The bottom idea of it was, however, that the OUT OF OFFICE. 5O9 bishop himself should have the right of holding the forms of public worship strictly to the canon and the prayer book. This measure came down in an amended form to the House of Com- mons, and Mr. Gladstone made a speech thereon which was said to have moved the House not a little. He referred to the fact that the presentation of this measure had brought him from his retirement, and that he came to point out the false issues that were herein presented to Parliament. He wished to do something to scatter what appeared to be a corrimon delusion and a prevailing ignorance relative to the subject-matter covered by this bill. He called attention to the fact that the measure, instead of having been evolved by the concurrence of the representatives of the Church and the leader of the State (meaning the prime minister), had been announced to the public in a neivspaper! Even this great impropriety might be passed over but for the essential badness of the thing proposed. The speaker then said that ritualism was one of the smallest matters at issue. He declared that if the privilege of enforcing uniformity was conceded to the bishops as provided in this bill then any officious bishop would have the power to eradicate all the local usages, the time-honored customs and traditions which had grown up with respect to public worship in Great Britain. These customs and traditions were a part of the undoubted rights of the people. These rights could not be interfered with by any power e.xcept a despotic power. He went on to show that the existing canon law required many things to be performed which the experience of worshipers had discarded as either useless or impracticable. It was not convenient to catechize children at every afternoon service. It was not necessary to read the Athanasian Creed thirteen times a year. The hymns of the Church even were not in accordance with <"he rubrics, and in many other particulars usage had departed for the sake of convenience and propriety from forms which were now a dead letter. The speaker then went on to say that he had no objection to expend- ing time and effort in the discussion of the question before the House. It was in principle a question of vast importance. He would not be the man to plead difficulty or inconvenience in considering it. For his part he would from stage to stage, as far as he might, point out the real nature of the thing proposed. He would endeavor to assist the House in sifting to the bottom the hurtful elements of the measure, and would try to dispel some of the gross illusions that prevailed in the country. Then he continued in the following eloquent strain: " I think I have shown the House that incon- venience must arise from the very first slip of judgment on the part of a bishop who may allow an improper suit to proceed. Well, then, the House may say fairly, 'Do not you think something ought to be done.?' and I think the idea that something ought to be done is what weighs upon the 5'o LIFE AND TIMES UF WILLIAM L. GLADSTONE. "f*i; \ i BISHOP OF CANTERBURY DELIVERING AN ADDRESS AT ALBERT HALL. OUT OF OFFICE. 5 I I minds of most men. I will tell you what I think ought to be done in prin- ciple. The House can do nothing without acknowledging how much we owe to the great mass of the clergy of the Church of England for their zeal and devotion. " For eighteen years," continued the speaker, " I was a servant of a very large body of them. My place is now most worthily occupied by another; but I have not forgotten, and never can forget, the many sacrifices they were always ready to make and the real liberality of mind which upon a thou- sand occasions they have shown. But even that is a thing totally insignifi- cant in comparison with the work which they are doing. You talk of the observance of the law. Why, sir, every day and night the clergyman of the Church of England, by the spirit he diffuses around him, by the lessons he imparts, lays the nation under a load of obligation to him. The eccentrici- ties of a handful of men, therefore, can never make me forget the illustrious merit of the services done by the mass of the clergy in an age which is beyond all others luxurious, and, I fear, selfish and worldly. These are the men who hold up to us a banner on which is written the motto of eternal life and of the care for things unseen which must remain the chief hope of man through all the vicissitudes of his mortal lite." Mr, Gladstone did not conclude with this bit of peroration on the pend- ing bill, but proceeded to the constructive side, and offered a series of reso- lutions covering the ground under discussion. The first of these was as follows : " That in proceeding to consider the provisions of the bill for the regulation of public worship this House cannot do otherwise than take into view the lapse of more than two centuries since the enactment of the present rubrics of the common prayer book of the Church of England ; the multi- tude of particulars embraced in the conduct of divine service under their provisions; the doubts occasionally attaching to their interpretation, and the number of points they are thought to leave undecided ; the diversities of local custom which under these circumstances have long prevailed, and the unreasonableness of proscribing all varieties of opinion and usage among the many thousands of congregations of the Church distributed throughout the land." In the next resolution there was a declaration that the House would be reluctant to place in the. hands of every single bishop powers such as those contemplated in the Archbishop of Canterbury's bill. The third resolution acknowledged the general indebtedness of Great Britain to the clergy for their influence and devotion to the welfare of the people and their stand with respect to public order. The fourth section declared will- ingness to provide remedies against any neglect or departure from strict law which might show a design to alter, without national consent, the spirit or substance of the national religion. The fifth clause declared that the 512 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. members of the Church should receive adequate protection against pre- cipitate and arbitrary changes of established customs ; and the sixth stated the high value of concurrence in such matters between her majesty's gov- ernment and the ecclesiastical authorities in the initiative of all legislation affecting the Established Church. Here, then, was a scheme much more comprehensive than that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was constructed on precisely the opposite theory of what ought to be done relative to the given subject-matter. The debate continued for several days — not that anyone supposed that Mr. Gladstone would be able to force the substitution of his resolutions for the pending bill. That was, politically speaking, impossible. Not even the Liberals would solidly support the Gladstonian theory. There appeared a distinct purpose in the House to stand by the government measure, and by that policy to prevent the further extension of the ritualistic tendency. Mr. Gladstone, seeing the inevitable, withdrew his resolutions, and the bill for the regulation of public worship was passed by a large majority. The next measure was an amendment to what was called The Endowed Schools Act. The endowed schools had been under the control since 1869 of a body called the Endowed Schools Commissioners. The object of the amendment was to transfer the government of such institutions to the Charities Commissioners, and also to change the sense of the former Act. The bottom intent was to reconfirm the Church of England in the powers and prerogatives which she had hitherto enjoyed to administer authority over those schools which had been founded with a recognition of a bishop as the head of the institution. The whole measure was a covert proceeding against the educational legislation which had been obtained in the Liberal epoch under the management of Honorable William E. Forster. The bill of amendment was distinctly reactionary. The anti-Church party in England, made up of all the refugees of religion, were alarmed and angered at the proposition to put back numerous schools, which had been emancipated within ten years past, under an ecclesiastical despotism. Of course Mr. Forster himself spoke against the bill, denouncing it as reac- tionary and unjust. It was an attempt, he said, to reestablish the old claim of the Established Church to primacy in the matter of controlling the edu- cational system of Great Britain. Mr. Gladstone followed in like argument. He showed that for a period of a hundred and thirty years (1530-1660) the Church had had 7io title to such endowments as those considered in the pending measure. The fact that Church instruction was to be given in schools did not imply Church management of them. The legislation now proposed was retrogressive. It was intended to undo the beneficent work of the recent Parliament. He called attention of the House to the fact that for fifty years the initiative of every progressive policy, whether in legisla- OUT OF OFFICE. 513 tion or administration, had been taken by the Liberal party. This done, the Conservative party had been wont to move up and occupy the advanced positions. He gave citations of several instances in which this had been done. Some of these examples went back to the close of the seventeenth century. In conclusion the speaker broke into an unusual strain, asking and demanding to know what the pending bill or amendment really amounted to. He referred to the statement of a member that the present matter was a legacy from the Liberal government. The speaker admitted that many legacies had been left by the Liberal government. In fact, every feature of current policy in every part of the State was a legacy from the Liberal government. " What," said the speaker, "are we now asked to do .-^ The majority of this Parliament is invited to undo the work of their predeces- sors in office, in defiance of precedent, which should weary the House by enumerating, so great are their numbers and uniformity. It is rather remarkable that what is now the majority is about to undo an act which they never opposed in its passage. I believe that the conditions with ref- erence to schools before the Toleration Act and before the Reformation were carried in this House without a division. I believe I am even strictly correct in saying that this provision was not only agreed to without a divi- sion, but without an adverse voice, when the question was put from the chair. Yet they now avail themselves of the first opportunity they have to attempt to repeal what they did not object to when it was before Parlia- ment. Is this wise? Is it politic.? Is it favorable to the true interests of the Established Church.?" Mr. Gladstone went on to inquire what judgment had been passed upon the English nation by men of the highest character and intelligence in foreign countries. He asserted that such men had uttered truths with regard to England, her people, and her policies which it would be well to consider. "What have they told us," said he, "of their judgment of the course and conduct of the British legislature.? If you consult any one of those great political writers who adorn the literatures of their own coun- tries you will find their language respecting us uniform. When they look at our political constitution they are struck by the multitude of obstructions which, for the defense of minorities, we allow to be placed in the way of legislation. They are struck by observing that the immediate result is great slowness in the steps we take ; but when they refer to the consequences of this slowness they find one great and powerful compensation, and it is that in England all progress is sure. Vestigia mclla retrorsum. Whatever has been once decided, whatever has once taken its place in the statute book or has been adopted in our administration, no feelings of party and no vicissitudes of majorities or minorities are allowed to draw the 33 :^I4 1 II-'K AND IIMES oF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. nation into the dangerous, though they may be the seductive, paths of retrogression. " That is the principle," said Mr. Gladstone, "to which we appeal ; and even were the rights of the case less clear, even were it equitable instead of inequitable, for the Cluirch to make the claims which are made in her behalf by the government, most unwise would it be on the part of any administra- tion — and, of all others, most unwise on the part of the Conservative admin- istration — to give a shock to one of the great guiding principles and laws which have governed the policy of this country throughout a course of many generations, and the solidity and security of which is one of the main guarantees of the interests we possess and the liberty we enjoy." The effect of this strong presentation was noticeable in the result. The bill was passed by a majority of ninety-two, and the motion for going into committee on the measure prevailed. Mr. Disraeli, however, more shrewd than his following, perceived the danger that was abroad on the score of such a measure, and consented in committee to a considerable mod- ification in the bill, whereby it was limited to a simple transfer of the gov- ernment of the endowed schools from the commissioners to the Charity Board. He did this with the allegation that the parts of the bill for the withdrawal of which the government gave consent were so complicated as not to be easily understood. This concession gave opportunity to Mr. Gladstone to attack the government with more than his usual energy; but we need not here repeat the polemics of the occasion. The episode which we have just described was the beginning of a gen- eral inquiry on Mr. Gladstone's part into the fundamental principles of an educational polity for Great Britain. Indeed, before the period at which we have now arrived he was engaged in this useful and important study. It was known abroad that the ex-prime minister was an adept in educational controversies, antl he was frequently invited to deliver public addresses on the subject. One of these was spoken just after the adjournment of the parliamentary session of 1872, being addressed to the public on the occa- sion of the annual distribution of prizes to the students in Liverpool College. The address on this occasion was in its main theme a plea tor the higher education ; but the speaker concerned himself not a little with those forms of e.xtreme unbelief which had arisen in connection with the scientific evolu- tion. He noticed in particular the great work of David Friedrich Strauss, Der Altc tind dcr Ncjic GUiubc (" The Old Belief and the New"), just then issued. He also spoke of the divisions and disagreements in belief among Christians, and denied that the existence of such divisions rendered it difficult to know what real Christianity is. He held that Christians, though disagreeing in belief, have nevertheless a substantial unity in fundamental doctrine. He called attention of the students to the fact that fifteen hun- OUT OF OFFICE. 515 dred years had elapsed since the great controversies respecting the Deity and the Godhead had been determined. Since that remote period there had been a fundamental agreement of nearly all Christians on the cardinal doc- trines of religion. Then the speaker continued as follows : " It is the opinion and boast of some that man is not responsible for his belief Lord Brougham was at one time stated to have given utterance to this opinion, whether truly I know not. But this I know, it was my privilege to hear from his own lips the needful and clue limitation of that proposition. ' Man,' he said, ' is not responsible to man for his belief.' But as before God one and the same law ap[)lies to opinions and to acts, or rather to inward and to outer acts, for opinions are inward acts. Many a wrong opinion may be guiltless because formed in ignorance, and because that ignorance may not be our fault ; but who shall presume to say there is no mercy for wrong actions also when they, too, have been due to ignorance, and that ignorance has not been guilty ? The question is not whether judgments and actions are in the same degree influenced by the condition of the moral motives. It is unde- niable that self-love and passion have an influence upon both ; then, so far as that influence goes, for both we must be prepared to answer. Should we, in common life, ask a body of swindlers for an opinion upon swindling, or of gamblers for an opinion upon gambling, or of misers upon bounty.-' And if in matters of religion we allow jjride and perverseness to raise a cloud between us and the truth, so that we see it not, the false opinion that we form is but the index of that perverseness and that pride, and both for them, and for it as their offspring we shall be justly held responsible. " Who they are upon whom this responsibility will fall it is not ours to judge. These laws are given to us, not to apply presumptuously to others, but to enforce honestly against ourselves. Next to a Christian life, my friends, you will find \our best defense against reckless novelty of specula- tion in sobriety of temper and in sound intellectual habits. Be slow to stir inquiries which you do not mean particularly to pursue to their proper end. Be not afraid to suspend your judgment, or feel and admit to yourselves how narrow are the bounds of knowledge. Do not too readily assume that to us have been opened royal roads to truth which were heretofore hidden from the whole family of man ; for the opening of such roads would not be so much favor as caprice. If it is bad to yield a blind submission to authority it is not less an error to deny to it its reasonable weight. Eschewing a servile adherence to the past, regard it with reverence and gratitude, and accept its accumulations in inward as well as outward things as the patrimony which it is your part in Hie both to preserve and to improve." After the parliamentary session of 1875 was well under way Mr. Glad- 5l6 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Stone attended the Mouse of Commons but infrequently. He busied him- self in retirement with his intellectual pursuits. Quite different these were from the pursuits of Mr. Disraeli under like circumstances. The latter when politically undone was wont to retreat to imaginative literature, and to occupy his faculties with the writing of fiction. Like his father before him, he achieved in the world of polite letters a wide and lasting reputation. It was under such circumstances that he composed his novels, nearly all of them political in their motif. His l^ijidication of the British Constitution was written when he was thirty years of age. Vivian Grey was published in 1S26; The Voting Dtike, in 1831 ; the Wondrous Tale of Alroy,'\x\ 1833 ; the Revohdionary Epic, in 1834 ; Henrietta Temple, in 1837 ; Coningsby, in 1844 ; Sybil, in 1845 ; Tattered, in 1847 S the Life of George Betititick, in 1852 ; Lothair, in 1870; and Endyttiioti, in 1880, the year before his death. Very different from these employments of Mr. Disraeli were those of Gladstone. His serious, almost saturnine mind, could but be occupied with heavier themes. To him the condition of societv, the tendencies of religious thought, the circumstances of progress, and the evolution of governmental principles appeared more worthy of literary consideration. In 185 i, as we have seen, he published his celebrated Letters oti the State Persectttions of the Neapolitan Governtnent. His Studies on Homer and the Hotneric Age was published in 1858; the fuvetitus Mutidi,\n 1869; his great essay in review of John Robert Seeley's Ecce Homo, in 1868 ; his pamphlets on The J\iticati Deerees, in 1874-75; his Btilgarian Horrors, in 1876; and his Homeric Sytichronism, in 1S76. These works were by no means all that he produced ; but the)' were topical of much more in the same serious and elevated sphere of literature. The reader will observe from the dates just given how the time of Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden was occupied in the interval of his rest after the overthrow of the Liberal ministry in 1874. Nor may we pass from this subject without noticing the fact that the friends of Mr. Gladstone felt them- selves frequently justified in contrasting the literary avocations of Glad- stone with those of his rival. Capital was sometimes made out of the contrast. The Liberal newspapers were not slow to use such a circumstance to the detriment of the "Asian Mystery"' and the glorification of their favorite. On a certain occasion the Pall Mall Gazette found reason to draw the contrast referred to in a memorable manner, saying, " Like the psalmist, the Liberal leader may well protest that verily he has cleansed his heart in vain and washed his hands in innocency ; all day long he has been plagued by Whig lords and chastened every morning by Radical manufacturers. As blamelessly as any curate he has written about Ecce Homo, and he has never made a speech, even in the smallest country town, without calling out with David, ' How foolish am I, and how ignorant f ' For all this what does he OUT OF OFFICE. 5 I 7 see ? The scorner [meaning Mr. Disraeli] who shot out the lip and shook the head at him across the table of the House of Commons last session [this was written in 1868] has now more than heart could wish ; his eyes, speak- ing in an oriental manner, stand out with fatness, he speaketh loftily, and pride compasseth him as with a chain. . . . That the writer of frivolous stories about 'Vivian Grey' and ' Coningsby' should grasp the scepter be- fore the writer of beautiful and serious thinofs about Ecce Homo — the man who was epigrammatic, flashy, arrogant, before the man who never perpe- trated an epigram in his life, is always fervid, and would as soon die as admit that he had a shade more brain than his footman — the Radical corrupted into a Tory before the Tory purified and elevated into a Radical — is not this enough to make an honest man rend his mantle, and shave his head, and sit down among the ashes inconsolable 1 Let us play the too underrated part of Bildad the Shuhite for a space, while our chiefs have thus unwelcome leisure to scrape themselves with potsherds, and to meditate upon the evil way of the world." This may certainly suffice as a specimen of the Liberal estimate of the superiority of the sober, unwitty Gladstone to the flam- boyant, coruscating Disraeli. Several years after his address to the Liverpool students Mr. Glad- stone delivered another of like, but superior, character in aid of the Buckley Institute. This address was also given in a recess of Parliament, namely, in the summer of 1878. His theme was that of the benefit of the brotherly societies among workingmen. To this class he addressed himself with sym- pathetic interest. In the first place he insisted that such organizations should be founded on enduring principles — such principles as must not be abandoned under chanoingr circumstances. Otherwise the workingmen who might enter the brotherhoods in early life would be obliged as they grew older to abandon their favorite halls on account of vicious or vitiated prin- ciples underlying the organization. Mr. Gladstone said that he hoped the retail dealers of the country, coming to transact their business on the basis of money payments instead of credits, would be at length the friendly competitors of the brotherly societies. These societies might be extended to many industrial pursuits — some to manufacturing, some to farming, some to this, and some to that — for the immediate benefit of themselves and the general benefit of all. The trades unions ought to be conducted on the principles the speaker had out- lined. He said that it was difticult to carry large and liberal ideas into such organizations and to control them thereby. Certainly such principles ought to control on the question of the employment of women and boys and girls, who were often held down by a narrow and selfish policy. That this should be so was bad for the unions themselves. The labor of women and children ought to be put on the highest and most generous plane, and :;i8 LIFE AND TI.MKS OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. th<: reoulation of their labor oiioht to be humane to a decree. There O '^ •-* should be a provision for recreation, for games, for refreshments. Every- thing generous and liberal should be provided by the unions for their mem- bership, and such a policj' would be found to be most beneficial even from a selfish point of view. In particular the speaker would urge upon his hearers the necessity of providing opportunities of intellectual development for the working classes. He was glad to believe that such opportunities were then more abundant than they had ever been before. The instruction of the common people was easier and more ample than at any former period. Publishers, by dissemi- nating means of information to the millions, had performed the part of Socrates, who was said to have brought down philosophy from heaven to earth. In the time of the speaker's boyhood books and all literature had been beyond the reach of the working- people. As a boy he used to go to the stalls of the booksellers and find there nothing that was within the reach of the common man. He had himself paid two pounds sixteen shil- lings for his first copy of Shakespeare, but such a copy could now be bought for three shillings — less than one eighteenth of the former price. All man- ner of books had become accessible. " We may be told," said Mr. Gladstone, " that you want amusement ; but that does not exclude improvement. There are a set of worthless books written now and at times which you should avoid, which profess to give amuse- ment ; but in reading the works of such authors as Shakespeare and Scott there is the greatest possible amusement in its best form. Do you suppose that when \ou see men engaged in study they dislike it .'' No. There is labor, no doubt, of a certain kind — mental labor — but it is so associated with in- terest all along that it is forgotten in the delight which it carries in its per- formance, and no people know that better than the working classes. I want you to understand that multitudes of books now are constantly being prepared and placed within reach of the population at large, for the most part e.xecuted by writers of a high stamp, having subjects of the greatest in- terest, and which enable you at a moderate price, not to get a cheap litera- ture which is secondary in its quality, but to go straight into the very heart, if I may say so, into the sanctuary of the temple of literature, and become acquainted with the greatest and best works that the men of our country have produced. It is not to be supposed that workingmen, on coming home from labor, are to study Euclid and works of that character, and it is not to be desired unless in the case of very special gifts; but what is to be desired is that some effort should be made by men of all classes to, and perhaps by none more than by the laboring class, to lift ourselves above the level of what is purely frivolous and to endeavor to find our amusement in making ourselves acquainted with things of real interest and beauty." OUT OF OFFICE. 519 From these examples of Mr. Gladstone's public utterances the reader is able to judge of the lines on which his mind was making its excursions in the period just after the overthrow of the Liberal ministry. It was more than four years from that event, namely in June of 1879, that he delivered another address in similar vein on the occasion of the distribution of prizes at the school of Mill Hill. The various institutions were anxious to gain the services of the statesman on such occasions. It might be noted that the more popular the school the more Mr. Gladstone's presence was desired. The institution at Mill Hill was under the patronage of the Nonconformists, who were as proud of their local interest as were they of the Church Estab- lishment of theirs. On the occasion referred to Mr. Gladstone began with the very obvious exhortation to his young hearers that they should not make their prizes the be-all and the end-all of their exertions. Neither should those students who had failed to receive prizes feel on that account a loss of inspiration. Everything depended upon the future exertion of the young people, without much retrospective consideration of what they had or had not accomplished at school. The mind of the speaker reverted to the circumstances of his own education nearly sixty years previously. He declared that he had not renounced his fidelity to those time-honored schools to which he was per- sonally indebted. He told the youth of Mill Hill that though they had not the advantages that were so abundantly offered at the noble and ancient seats of learning, they should not for that reason feel themselves disparaged. Those institutions themselves were once fresh and new. " If you are not sustained," said he, addressing the students, " by ancient traditions, neither are you hampered by any prejudices which in certain cases may prevail. All that you have achieved is before you. Their great experiences are at your service and command. You have power to appro- priate to yourselves every good rule they have made, and you have the power, where you are not satisfied with the results, to correct them. . . . These are great advantages ; and that which others possess because their fathers handed it down to them, you, I hope, are gradually and progressively accumulating, in order to hand it over to those who may come after you. However, it was a great and bold undertaking to establish a school of this kind in a field which was already occupied by those great institutions so well known as the public schools of England. " I need not say I pay them [meaning the founders of Mill Hill .School] the highest honor for determining to eive this advantage of a public school education, not on a basis merely neutral or negative with regard to religion, but on a basis which would supply all their wants and enable the pupils, according to the conscientious convictions their parents entertained, and in which they have been reared, to prepare themselves for that Christian life 520 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. on which they are about to enter. I earnestly hope that upon that basis on which you have begun you will continue to stand. As you have not been ashamed or afraid to face the difficult enterprise of founding this public school, so I trust you will never be ashamed or afraid of recognizing, not a generalizing and neutralizing religion, but a religious teaching fully equal to all the honorable purposes of life." It was in this vein that Mr. Gladstone was w^ont to address young people on the occasions when he was called to deliver formal speeches to them. This, as we see from the dates, happened frequently in the interval of his retirement. We have not yet recounted the circumstances which led to his resignation of the Liberal leadership. After his first letter to Lord Granville he addressed to that nobleman a second under date of January 6, 1875. In this he referred to his former- communication, expressive of his personal desires. He said that the time had arrived, as he thought, when he ought to revert to the subject of his letter of March 12, 1874. " Before determining," said he^ " whether I should offer to assume a charge which might extend over a'length of time, I have reviewed with all the care in my power a number of considerations, both public and private, of which a portion, and these not by any means insignificant, were not in existence at the date of that letter. The result has been that I see no public advantage in my continuing to act as the leader of the Liberal party, and that at the age of sixty-five, and after forty-two years of a laborious public 'life, I think myself entitled to retire on the present opportunity. This retirement is dictated to me by my personal views as to the best method of spending the closing years of my life. I need hardly say that my conduct in Parliament will continue to be governed by the principles on which I have hitherto acted ; and whatever arrangements may be made for the treat- ment of general business, ancl for the advantage or convenience of the Liberal party, they w^ill have my cordial support. I should, perhaps, add that I am at present, and mean for a short time to be, engaged on a special matter which occupies me closely." (This referred to his preparation of the pamphlets on TIte Vatican Decrees?) Discussion not a little ensued as to who should fill, or rather occupy, Mr. Gladstone's place as leader of the Liberals. There was much confusion among them on the subject. They had two men, upon either of whom, so far as their abilities were concerned, the honor and responsibility might have been well conferred. These were Mr. Robert Lowe and Mr. John Bright. Either would have made a leader of which no party would have had occasion to blush so far as the intellectual force of the one chosen might be concerned ; but many other elements were needed in a successful leader. Mr. Lowe was in several particulars one of the most brilliant men in Parliament ; but he was powerful in only a few particulars. He was not OUT OF OFFICE. 52 I altogether discreet. His record on questions of prime importance was not wholly consistent. He was capable of losing his balance under provocation, and not very capable of regaining it. As for Mr. Bright, all the world is acquainted with the sterling qualities of that great and honest man. If the Liberal party had required a leader who was simply great and honest, those who were in search would on com- ing to Mr. Bright have had to exclaim, Scck-no-farthcr ! But it was neces- sary then, as it has been always necessary, that a great political leader should have the ability of putting his conscience suddenly in his boot and clapping on a mask through which to utter platitudes. The faculty of doing this work adroitly has ever been regarded as a prime essential. It was precisely the faculty that John Bright never had. In fact, Mr. Gladstone himself had it in so small a measure that his deficiency in this particular was always remarked by the subtle politicians with whom he had to deal. Hence neither Mr. Lowe nor Mr. Bright could answer the call. There were four others who were canvassed, namely, Mr. William E. Forster, Sir Wil- liam Vernon Harcourt, Mr. George Joachim Goschem,and Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquis of Hartington. After much discussion the choice fell on the last named statesman, who, notwithstanding his titles in the nobility was, for his substantial qualities and undoubted liberalism, cheerfully accepted by the party. The 2 1st of April in this year saw Mr. Gladstone again in the House of Commons. On that date Mr. Osborne Morgan introduced a measure known as the Burials Bill. It was proposed that in case of burial in the grounds of a parish church the friends of the dead should have a right to choose what service soever they would have rendered on the occasion. Here again we strike a question the like of which could not arise in the United States. For why should not the friends of the dead have a right to bury them with any services or no services at all, according to their liking.'' Strange indeed that the State should ever presume in any age or country to prescribe the partic- ular reliofious form with which the bodies of the dead should be consig;ned to the windowless chambers ! But in England such presumption existed. Mr. Gladstone, learning of the pending of this bill, came into the House and spoke in its defense, say- ing that he was not willing to stop with supporting the measure with a silent vote. He admitted that it was a hardship that clergymen of the Establish- ment should be obliged to perform burial services where neither they nor the friends of the dead desired to have it done. This was certainly a truism of the contention ! He agreed with Mr. Morgan that those who were not communicants of the Church of England had serious cause of protest when they were debarred from the privilege of having their own religious forms observed at the funerals of their deceased friends. This was a real 522 LIFE AND TIMi;S (ll WIIJ.IAM E. GLADSTONE. grievance. There was one feature of the case, said the speaker, in which the clergyman of the parish had rights in case of the burial of persons not beloneintr to the communion. The clers^yman was responsible for the safe keeping of the churchyard. He might properly see that the same was not trodden down by unrul)- crowds. Otherwise, the burial in the parish yard SIR WILLIAM VERXON H.\RCOURT. might well be conceded to Nonconformists, the ceremony being conducted in their own manner. Mr. Bright took up the theme with his accustomed ability, and when it came to a vote the ministerial majority against it was reduced to fourteen. It was now Mr. Gladstone's privilege as a member of the opposition to criticise the budgets of his Conservative successor, Sir Stafford Northcote. This he did on the presentation of the chancellor of the exchequer's report for the year 1875. He spoke on the reading of the budget, and criticised OUT OF OFFICE. severely the proposition of Sir Stafford relative to reducing the national debt. The chancellor of the exchequer proposed to create in a novel man- ner a sinking fund, to the amount of the interest on twenty-eight million pounds annually. By this means he hoped according to his calculations to pay off within a period of thirty years two hundred and thirteen million pounds of the public debt. Mr. Gladstone assailed this project both destructively and construct- ively. He said that Sir Stafford Northcote's estimates for revenue, involv- ing his ability to create the sinking fund, were incorrect. On the other side, he said that there were three methods by which the national debt might be reduced. The first of these was by a surplus of revenues over expenditures. The second was by converting the debt into terminable annuities, and the third was by fixed appropriations. Much, he contended, had already been accomplished ; but he was sure that the plan now proposed would not work out the expected results in the ensuing thirty years. Certainly there was not at the present time a farthing of surplus to justify the estimates of the chancellor of the exchequer. A new sinking fund, continued Mr. Gladstone, could not be produced by enacting a tax for its production. No finance minister in the world would have the hardihood to propose such an undertaking. Such a minister of finance as that had not yet appeared among the nations. " History," said Mr. Gladstone, with more than his accustomed humor, "has not produced any such creation ; no such hisus iiattira has as yet appeared ; and I do not think that the government of a party which justly prides itself on an adherence to the traditions of the past, on learning lessons from antiquity, on avoiding vain theories and keeping to the lessons of experience, ought to be the people to delude us by projects such as this into the marshes in which we shall be plunged, instead of remaining upon the safe highroad by which we have hitherto traveled." In this encounter Sir Stafford Northcote was able to turn the tables at one point on his distinguished antagonist. He showed that what Mr. Glad- stone said about terminable annuities was quite inconsistent w^ith one of his former utterances on the same subject. For the rest the chancellor of the exchequer was obliged to iall back upon the government majority to carry the adoption of the budget against the criticisms of the ex-prime minister. We have here reached a period in the history of Great Britain and of Mr. Gladstone's life when the public mind was profoundly agitated on eccle- siastical questions. The future, we think, will be surprised at the nature of these questions, or rather at the fact that the highest thought of Great Britain was earnestly concerned about them. It is probable that the reli- gious and ecclesiastical history of the British nation is the most complicated of any in the world. Without being at the bottom a really religious race 524 I-II'E AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. the English family has made a tremendous display of activity and concern about Church matters. At the first England was a Catholic country; but English Catholicism had its roots in a subsoil of profound paganism. With the Reformation England was broken off from Rome, but was not otherwise much reformed. The great spiritual concern that broke over Germany and Switzerland and France was virtually unfelt in the cold British Isles. But the people of England must needs reform the Church to the extent of getting an estab- lishment of their own. Romanism retreated into Ireland, while a really Reformed Kirk, perhaps the most stony-hearted in the world, established itself in Scotland. By and by there came in England the dissenting insur- rections, with the resultant effect of creating a whole brood of earnest sects, each of which, without knowledge of history or any large view of mankind, sincerely regarded itself as the center and first fountain of pure Christianity, all the rest being false centers and false fountains, spouting bitter waters, the streams whereof, instead of refreshing, made miasrriatic all lands and islands where they flowed. Rome scorns to be called a denomination ; and the Church of England scorns it almost as much. Indeed, there is hardly any sect that relishes beinof designated as a denomination. Each one, according to its own con- sciousness, is the be-all and the end-all of the matter. Rome has her ritual, vast and splendid, uniform and elaborate, spectacular and sacred. The Church of England has hers also, not so vast and splendid, not so uniform or elaborate, not so spectacular or sacred. In fact, the vague hint of free thought in the English Establishment showed itself somewhat from the first in the disposition to employ variant forms of worship. The sects, in the beginning, were nearly all rebels against ritual in what forms soever. But as soon as they got themselves severally established — with perhaps the exception of the Quakers — each proceeded to get for itself a poor, humble ritual and meager hint of forms ; for man, being human, must have his forms for everything. The thing without a form in human matters seems to be merely nebulous. Ever since the beginning of the dissenting insurrections the orgranizations resulting from such movements have more and more enlarged and strengthened their forms, so that from the extreme democracy of Quakerism, up through all the lean concerns by way of Pres- byterianism to the Episcopal Establishment, and through it to Rome, the tendency has been to reestablish with greater or less elaboration and splen- dor those very ritualistic conditions that were cast off by the great German rebellion against the mother Church. Now, at the time of which we speak, namely, the years 1875-79, the epoch of Mr. Gladstone's first retirement, the question of how much ritual, precisely, came, as we have said, to be regarded in the English Establish- OUT OF OFFICE. 525 ment as a matter of the greatest moment. There was a Romeward draught, and a draught toward the Evangelicals. The two forces pulled asunder, and the English Church was distraught thereby. So came the ritualistic contro- versy in which Mr. Gladstone bore a conspicuous part. Just after his retire- ment from office he began in a spirited manner to compose essays on ritualism and the Romanist complications that had thrust themselves so powerfully upon his attention. Mr. Gladstone was capable of being surprised. Rome had surprised him. In the great Irish legislation of 1869-71 he had thought himself to be legislating in the interest, or at least according to the desires, of the Roman Catholics. Nearly seven eighths of the Irish people were of this faith and order. Mr. Gladstone thought that he would please them greatly with his Disestablishment Bill and Irish Land Bill ; but he found, as we suppose, to his amazement, that he had pleased them not at all. The Irish bishops and the Romanist party in general turned about and assailed their benefactor. Meanwhile the ultra-Protestant party denounced him and slandered him for his alleged treason to his own countr^^and league with Rome. We may admit that the treatment to which he was subjected might well justify the high spirit, if not positive animosity, with which he now assailed the Romanists and Romanizing tendencies of the age. His first essay on ritualism was published in the October number of the Contcmpo- 7'ary Reviciv for the year 1874. In this article he defined the thing about which he was writing by saying that ritualism " is unwise, undisciplined, reac- tion from poverty, from coldness, from barrenness, from nakedness ; it is overlaying purpose with adventitious and obstructive incumbrance ; it is departure from measure and from harmony in the annexation of appearance to substance, of the outward to the inward ; it is the caricature of the beau- tiful ; it is the conversion of help into hindrances ; it is the attempted sub- stitution of the secondary for the primary aim, and the real failure and paralysis of both." This paragraph, in addition to being a clear exposition of Gladstone's views relative to the subject-matter of the contention, is a happy example of his unconquerable disposition to employ the general and the abstract, to the exclusion of the concrete and the direct in the forms of speech. From the above point of departure the writer soon reached the essence of the dispute, and charged home upon the opposite party with the greatest spirit. He gave utterance In the part we are about to quote to sentiments that stung the Roman Catholics to the quick. In his general statement the statesman said: "There Is a question which It Is the special purpose of this paper to suggest for consideration, by my fellow-Christians generally', which Is more practical, and of greater importance, as it seems to me, and has far stronger claims on the attention 526 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. of the nation ami of the rulers of the Church tlian the question whether a handful of the clergy are or are not engaged in an utterly hopeless and visionary effort to Romanize the Church and people of England. At no time since the sanguinary reign of Mary has such a scheme been possible. But, if it had been jxissible in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, it would still have become impossible in the nineteenth; when Rome has sub- stituted for the proud boast of semper eaeieiii a policy of violence and change in faith ; when she has refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused ; when no one can become her convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another ; and when she has equally repudi- ated modern thought and ancient history. I cannot persuade myself to feel alarm as to the final issue of her crusades in England, and this, although I do not undervalue her great powers of mischief" This part of Mr. Gladstone's essay had the effect of angering the Roman Catholics not a little. He went on to contend that the ultimate ritual of the Christian Church must be found in the teaching of the apostles. The scriptural origin and character of religious forms he had endeavored to express in the series of resolutions which he had offered in the House ot Commons not long ago, during the debate on the bill for the Regulation of Public Worship. These resolutions he now incorporated in his article. The appearance of the treatise aroused the religionists of all views to heated controversy. Many replies were published, some of them exceed- ingly intemperate. The contention extended so far that Mr. Gladstone published a second article in the same periodical for July of 1875. ^'^ '^'"''^ he carried the war into Africa, and rose to a measure of belligerency which he did not often display. In the course of his review he said that in order to remove the grounds of misapprehension respecting his arguments he would express them all in the form of theses, and w^ould make these the basis of whatever he should say. His propositions, five in number, were as follows : " I. The Church of this great nation is worth preserving, and for that end much may well be borne. " 2. In the existing state of minds and of circumstances, preserved it cannot be, if we now shift its balance of doctrinal expression, be it by any alteration of the prayer book (either way) in contested points, or be it by treating rubrical interpretations of the matters heretofore most sharply con- tested on the basis of ' doctrinal significance.' " 3. The more we trust to moral forces, and the less to penal proceed- ings (which are to a considerable extent exclusive one of the other), the better for the Establishment, and even for the Church. "4. If litigation is to be continued, and to remain, within the bounds of OUT OF OFFICE. 527 safety, it is highly requisite that it should be confined to the repression of such proceedings as really imply unfaithfulness to the national religion. " 5. In order that judicial decisions on ceremonial may habitually enjoy the large measure of authority, finality, and respect, which attaches in gen- eral to the sentences of our courts, it is requisite that they should have uni- form regard to the rules and results of full historical investigation, and should, if possible, allow to stand over for the future matters insufficiently cleared, rather than decide them upon partial and fragmentary evidence." This second article, so strongly controversial, did not pour oil on the waters. The author found it necessary to carry on his ecclesiastical cam- paign against Rome, and this he did in his celebrated pamphlets on The Vat- ican Decrees, to which publication we have already referred. He had been challenged to produce proof of the truth of the several theses, and this he proceeded to do. He dwelt in particular upon the second and the third proposition ; that is, that the Church of Rome had " refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused ; and that no one could now become her convert without renouncino- his moral and men- tal freedom and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another." These propositions j\Ir. Gladstone proceeded to elaborate and to fortify with arguments that were highly edifying to those who were of his opinion, and equally annoying to those against whom they were directed. Nor should we fail to keep in mind the gravamen of recent offending on the part of Rome which was the issuance five years previously of the dogma of infallibility — a doctrine which must needs be morally offensive to all adherents of the Church of England, and indeed of every other Church, save only Rome herself Mr. Gladstone attacked the dogma in a mem- orable way. One of his principal paragraphs on this subject was as follows: "Absolute obedience, it is boldly declared, is due to the pope, at the peril of salvation, not alone in faith, in morals, but in all things which concern the discipline and government of the Church. Thus are swept into the papal net whole multitudes of facts, whole systems of government, prevailing, though in different degrees, in every country in the world. Even in the United States, where the severance between Church and State is supposed to be complete, a long catalogue might be drawn of subjects belonging to the domain and competency of the State, but also undeniably affecting the government of the Church ; such as, by way of example, marriage, burial, education, prison discipline, blasphemy, poor relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious endowments, vows of celibacy, and obedience. " In Europe the circle is wider, the points of contact and of interlacing almost innumerable. But on all matters respecting which any pope may think proper to declare that they concern either faith, or morals, or the gov- ernment, or discipline of the Church, he claims, with the ai)i)ro\-al of a council 528 LIFE AND TIMKS OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. undoubtedly ecumenical in the Roman sense, the absolute obedience, at the peril of salvation, of every member of his communion. It seems not as yet to have been thought wise to pledge the council in terms to the Sylla- bus and Encyclical. That achievement is probably reserved for some one of its sittings yet to come. In the meantime it is well to remember that this claim in respect of all things affecting the discipline and government of the Church, as well as faith and conduct, is lodged in open day by and in the reign of a pontiff who has condemned free speech, free writing, a free press, toleration of nonconformity, liberty of conscience, the study of civil and philosophical matters in independence of the ecclesiastical authority, marriage, unless sacramentally contracted, and the definition by the State of the civil rights (Juj-a) of the Church ; who has demanded for the Church, therefore, the title to define its own civil rights, together with a divine right to civil immunities and a right to use physical force; and who has also proudly asserted that the popes of the Middle Ages, with their coun- cils, did not invade the rights of princes; as, for example, Gregory VII, of the Emperor Henry IV'.or Pius V, in performing the like paternal office for Elizabeth." In the further prosecution of his argument Mr. Gladstone came to close quarters with his enemies. He made for them a sort of dilemma, which, indeed, it would have been difficult for them then or ever to meet. He demanded, first, a demonstration (from the Church of Rome) that neither in the name of faith, nor in the name of morals, nor in the name of the gov- ernment or discipline of the Church, is the Pope of Rome able, by virtue of the powers asserted for him by the Vatican decree, to make any claim upon those who adhere to his communion, of such a nature as can impair the integrity of tlicnr civil allegiance; or else, secondly, that, if and when such claim is made, it will, even although resting on the definitions of the Vati- can, be repelled and rejected ; just as Bishop Doyl, when he was asked what the Roman Catholic clergy would do if the pope intermeddled with their religion, replied frankly, "The consequence would be that we should oppose him by every means in our power, even by the exercise of our spiritual authority." Such was the alternative, or rather the dilemma, in which Mr. Gladstone placed his antagonists. Of course no assurances could be given by them under either proposition; from which Mr. Gladstone proceeded to make cer- tain deductions : " First, that the pope, authorized by his council, claims for himself the domain of faith, of morals, of all that concerns the government and discipline of the Church ; second, that he, in like manner, claims the power of determining the limits of those domains ; third, that he does not sever them, by any acknowledged or intelligible line, from the domains of civil duty and allegiance ; and fourth, that he therefore claims, and claims OUT OF OFFICE. 529 from the month of July, 1870, onward, with plenary authority, from every convert and member of his Church, that he shall ' place his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of another,' that other being himself" INIr. Gladstone went on with great earnestness to demonstrate that these hurtful deductions relative to the policy of the papacy were material considerations of the greatest importance. He said that he himself for thirty years, under changing conditions and in many relations of life, had labored to promote and establish the civil rights of the Roman Catholics in the British empire. He and his party had labored to this end. Up to the time of the publication of the \ atican decrees the opinions of Roman- ists in matters of civil liberty had been free. Now they were free no longer. Up to that time he had felt that the government of Great Britain ought to secure equal rights to Ireland, that country being Catholic. Hence the Irish legislation which he had promoted. And for what good.? How had the Liberal party been treated in repayment for its acts of justice and liberality } In the next place the writer showed that the only progress made by Roman Catholicism had been a certain extension of its influence among the upper classes of society. Probably the women were more than ever subject to the influence of the Catholic Church. The Pope of Rome did not of late control more souls than formerK', but he controlled more acres. As for himself, Mr. Gladstone said that he should hereafter be guided, as thereto- fore, by the principle of equal rights for all — this without regard to religious differences. He desired the government to do the same, and hoped that the members of the Roman communion would come under the benefit of this liberal policy. He was in hopes that the State would, as theretofore, leave the domain of religious conscience free and restrict its activities to its own sphere. Let the State allow no private caprice or any foreign arrogance to dictate to it in matters affecting the proper discharge of its duties. " Eng- land expects every man to do his duty," said he, and he thought that none were better able than the Liberal party to exact the performance of duty from all. Then Mr. Gladstone continued: "Strong the state of the United Kingdom has always been in material strength, and its moral panoply is now, we may hope, pretty complete. It is not then for the dignity of the crown and people of the United Kingdom to be diverted from a path which they have deliberately chosen, and which it does not rest witli all the m)r- midons of the apostolic chamber either openly to obstruct or secretly to undermine. It is rightfully to be expected, it is greatly to be desired, that the Roman Catholics of this country should do in the nineteenth century what their forefathers of England, except a handful of emissaries, did in the sixteenth, when the)- were marshaled in resistance to the Armada, and in 34 530 LIKE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. the seventeenth, when, in spite of the papal chair, they sat in the House of Lords under the oath of allegiance. That which they are entitled to desire we are entitled also to expect ; indeed, to say we did not expect it would, in my judgment, be the true way of conveying an ' insult ' to those con- cerned. " In this expectation we may be partially disappointed. Should those to whom I appeal thus unhappily come to bear witness in their own per- sons to the decay of sound, manly, true life in their Church, it will be their loss more than ours. The inhabitants of those islands, as a whole, are stable, though sometimes credulous and excitable ; resolute, though sometimes boastful ; and a strong-headed and stout-hearted race will not be hindered, either by latent or by avowed dissents due to the foreign influence of a caste, from the accomplishment of its mission in the world." The general effect of this publication, made in the years 1874-75, was to arouse the Romanist party to a high degree of antagonism. Mr. Glad- stone's pamphlet was a challenge thrown down to the oldest and most powerful Christian organization in the world. Replies began to be made on every hand. Cardinals Manning and Newman entered the lists against the ex-prime minister. Archbishops and bishops published their answers galore. In England, on the Continent, even to the gates of Rome, the echoes of the controversy were heard. In a few instances defenders of Mr. Gladstone's publication were found in the enemy's ranks. This is equivalent to saying that there were Roman Catholics of high estate and character who did not support the decree of infallibility. Not a few pointed out the dangerous extremes and ultimate catastrophe to which the promulgation and accept- ance of that dosfma would lead. Mr. Gladstone for his part returned to the controversy and published a second paper, under the title of Vaticanism : A71 Answer to Reproofs and Replies. In this he said that it had not been his purpose to traduce the Roman Catholic Church, but merely to show that the Vatican decrees did presume to claim for the pope the right of supreme dominion over the loyalty and civil duty of the citizenship of all countries. This claim must be resisted. He admitted that in the hearts of men the papal decrees were received with varying degrees of submissiveness, but that they were received at all was a just cause of alarm and of opposition on the part of patriots throughout the world. He next referred to the secession of Cardinal John Henry Newman from the Church of England and its calamitous results to Protestantism. He thought that the defection of the pious and scholarly Newman was a more serious thing to the Church of England than the evangelical insurrection of Wesley and his followers. Nevertheless he could not accept Dr. Newman's answer, though he admitted that the answer was honestly given. The fact that such an answer had been prepared by one OUT OF OFFICE. 53I who had been the lio;ht and ornament of the Enolish Church was sufficient cause for anxiety. Mr. Gladstone then continued by the reassertion and further develop- ment of the doctrines announced in his former pamphlet. He set forth the proofs to establish certain general conclusions at which he had arrived. These were, first, that the position of the Roman Catholics had been altered by the decrees of the Vatican on papal infallibility and in obedience to the pope; secondly, that the extreme claims of the Middle Ages had been sanc- tioned, and had been revived without the warrant or excuse which might in those ages have been shown for them ; thirdly, that the claims asserted by the pope were such as to place civil allegiance at his mercy ; and, fourthly, that the State and people of the United Kingdom had a right to rely on the assurances they had received, that papal infallibility was not and could not become an article of faith in the Roman Church, and that the obedience due to the pope was limited by laws independent of his will. These propositions the author sustained with great ability and in a manner much more temperate than had been shown by many of his opponents. The period here before us in Mr. Gladstone's life was occupied in a great measure with intellectual activities. The statesman spent the greater part of his time on his estate of Hawarden. It was at this time that he ac- quired his character of a rusticated philosopher among the nations. Hawarden began to be already a place to be visited and admired, not for itself, but for the sturdy genius of a man old in years, but not old in bodily or intellectual vigor. Gladstone at this time began to be a woodchopper in public report. He was more than ever admired for his democratic manners, for the sim- plicity of his character, for his stalwart personality. It was known hence- forth that the sacje of Hawarden rose with the mornino; lisrht ; that he was often abroad in shirt sleeves, with his ax, felling a tree or chopping wood, more for the exercise than for the pursuit. A temperate, cool-headed man this, who had little thought of ending his activities at so early a period in his life, and no thought at all of even the possibility of consuming his remaining energies in idleness and the dissipations of great old men. As we have said, this was a time of vigorous intellectual activity. The larger part of the statesman's energy was now devoted to his writings. One great essay followed another. The greater part of them had for their themes some phase of the religious controversy that was on in the country. Be- sides the pamphlets on " The Church of England and Ritualism," which ap- peared in the Contemporary Review for October, 1874, and July, 1875, ^^■'• Gladstone soon afterward — namely, in October, 1875 — contributed to the CJnirch of England Qjiarierly Review an article on Italy and her Church, which, like its predecessors, evoked several controversial papers in answer. LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM F. GLADSTONE. WILLIAM E. GLAUbTUNE IN HIS STUDY AT HAWAKDEN. OUT OF OFFICE. 533 Then, in the Contemporary Rcviciu for June of 1876, came another remark- able study on " The Courses of ReHgious Thought." In March of 1877 the author followed with a remarkable article on the " Influence of Authority on Matters of Opinion," which first appeared in Tlie Nineteenth Century. To this also several replies were published, and the author returned to the theme with what he called a " Rejoinder on Authority in Matters of Opinion." This appeared in The Nineteenth Century for July, 1877. In the following year he published one of his strongest reviews, under the title of "The Sixteenth Century Arraigned Before the Nine- teenth : A Study of the Reformation." This contribution appeared in the Contemporary Review for October, 1878. Finally, in July of 1879, Mr. Glad- stone published in the British Quarterly Review an able study, entitled " The Evangelical Movement: Its Parentage, Progress, and Issue." The mere enumeration of these. great studies may serve to show the American reader the extent and persistency of Mr. Gladstone's inquiries into the religio-civil questions of the times. But the reviews to which we have referred did not by any means include all of the literary work of Mr. Gladstone during the time of the Conserv- ative ascendency (1875-80). He prosecuted his work in other directions, as well as along the lines of religious controversy. In the Quarterly Reviezu for October, 1874, appeared an article on " Bishop Patteson," which was from the pen of Mr. Gladstone. In July of 1876 he published in the Church of England Quarterly Review a contribution on the " Life and Work of Dr. Norman .Macleod," and in the same month appeared, in the Quarterly Re- vieiv, his celebrated critique of Macaulay, to which we shall hereafter refer. In the following December there appeared in the Contemporary Review Mr. Gladstone's article on "The Hellenic Factor in the Eastern Problem," and this was followed in May of 1877, by an able study which appeared in The Nineteenth Century, und&r the title of " Montenegro, or Tsarnagora : A Sketch." Then came, in August of the same year, a great paper on "The Aggression of Egypt, and Freedom in the East," which was published in The Nineteenth Century. To these historical studies we must add, as be- longing to this period, the " Life of the Prince Consort," which appeared in the Church of England Quarterly Revieiv for January, 1878. In the pre- vious November Mr. Gladstone had published in The Nineteenth Century his political article on "The County Franchise, and Mr. Lowe Thereon." This was followed by another on the same subject, entitled " Last Words on the County Franchise," which appeared in The Nineteenth Century for Jan- uary, 1878. But the last zvords did not prove to be the last, for in July fol- lowing Mr. Gladstone contributed to " A Modern Symposium," in the same magazine, what he called " Postscriptum on the County Franchise," of which, or for which, tlie author, in his published works, offers the following apology : 534 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. "It was an inconsistency to write this postscript after my 'Last Words.' But the soft and silken cord with which the editor of Tke'Nineteentk Cen- tury guides his contributors usually draws them whithersoever he will. — \Y. E. G., 1878." Nor did the statesman, in the midst of his intellectual indus- tries, forget America and the Americans. In September of 1878 he pub- lished in the North American Review his article entitled " Kin beyond Sea." This was devoted to ourselves and our institutions. The temper of it may be understood from the poetical quotation with which it begins: ■' When Love unites, wide space divides in vain, And hands may clasp across the spreading main." Out of all this may be gathered an adequate general view of the Glad- stonian activities at that period which is covered by the greater number of his general essays, namely, the years 1875-80, inclusive. These essays con- stitute the major part of the seven volumes which were subsequently gath- ered by the author and republished, with notes and additions, under the title of Gleanings of Past Years. It was during the Conservative ascendency — which might almost be defined as the reign of Benjamin Disraeli — corresponding, of course, with the epoch of Mr. Gladstone's retirement, that the Eastern Question again appeared as a disturbing force in the affairs of Europe. It showed itself in several conspicuous forms. Now it was declared as an element of discord underlying the outrages and turbulence in Herzegovina. Now it showed itself in a war in Afghanistan. Now it declared itself still more distinctly in the Turco-Russian War of 1877-78. The whole of Europe was concerned in these matters, and England, in particular, had a part in them. The question was, in a word, what it is to- day, and that is, what Europe shall do with the unspeakable Turk. Mr. Gladstone held and expressed the view that the Turk ought to be expelled from Europe bag and baggage — the last three words passing into a colloquial proverb expressive of a policy. Great Britain, as a government, however, was a party to the compact for upholding the Ottoman power in Europe, and the Conservative party was especially committed to this method. If Mr. Disraeli found cause to complain of Gladstone that the latter, in 1868, threw suddenly upon him the Irish question, seven centuries old, he had again, in 1875, cause to complain that history had brought to the door the Eastern Ouestion once more in a bas: out of Herzeeovina. In that country there was an insurrection against the Turkish government. Her- zegovina was under the dominion of Turkish pashas who were so many Mohammedan despots. The trouble began in 1875, and by the beginning of the following year culminated in actual war. Count Andrassy, State representative of Austria, thereupon drew up a scheme of reform and sent the OUT OF OFFICE. 535 same to the powers, by whom it was ratified and submitted to the sultan, who accepted it. But in a few months a revolt broke out in Bulgaria, where the Bashi-bazouks loosed themselves and committed horrors unspeak- able in civilized lancruage. Before the middle of the year the Emperor of Russia and his prime WILLIAM I, EMPEROR OF GERMANY. minister went to Berlin, whither Emperor William of Germany and Bis- marck had come, to discuss the Eastern Question, and where they did dis- cuss it in a manner looking to hard terms for Turkey. But Great Britain dissented, and the Bulgarian insurrection was suppressed. At this juncture Abdul Aziz, Sultan of the Turks, was deposed and assassinated. Mr. Dis- raeli, when interrogated in the House of Commons, said that, owing to the end of the Bulgarian revolt, the oovern mental memorandum of disagree- 536 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. ment would not be presented, and that a result would be reached in the way of settlement which would be honorable to England. It was at the opening of Parliament in 1876 that the remarkable per- sonacre at the head of the crovernment was enabled to rise and announce that Victoria, by the grace of God Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, had added to her royal titles that of Empress of India. There was opposition from the Liberal side, and particularly from the radical ranks, to the proclamation, and it was agreed that the new honor and title of the queen should not be employed in the home kingdom of Great Britain, but only abroad; that is, in India itself About this time the newspaper reports which were sent from Bulgaria to London aroused the country to a pitch of e.xcitement. It appeared that the ravages in that country were beyond description. Such horrors had not been committed in modern times. One of the stories was to the effect that fort}' innocent girls had been confined in a straw loft and there burnt to death. Possibly the reports were exaggerated ; but the disposition of Mr. Disraeli to put them aside and to perpetrate witty sayings on such a subject in the House of Commons was well calculated to arouse public indignation and to contribute to his o\erthrow. The Bulgarian trouble extended into Servia, and then into Montenegro. Nor need we here repeat the story of the war that ensued. Mr. Gladstone reappeared at this juncture in the House of Commons and interrogated the government about the sending of a fleet to Besika Bay. The prime minister replied that the fleet was not intended to uphold the Ottoman power, but to protect British interests. He also said that the Berlin memorandum could not be justly condemned as the cause of war. He alleged that the other powers were at one with Great Britain, and that the policy of neutrality would be upheld. He thought that the reports about the atrocities in the East had been exaggerated. He said that the government had no official information respecting them, and that in any event Turkey was not the especial protege of England. Finally, it was the business as well as the policy of Great Britain to maintain the British empire, and that the government would do, whatever conditions might arise. This speech was delivered on the nth of August, 1876, and on the follow- ing day it was announced in the English newspapers that Benjamin Disraeli was to be immediately raised to the peerage, with the title of the Earl of Beaconsfield ! The prime minister was in favor with the crown. It was on the 27th of August, 1876, that Mr. Disraeli received the overwhelming honor to which no Houbt he had looked forward for years. He had already, on a previous occasion, accepted the title of duchess for Mrs. Disraeli, but as for himself his time had not then come. Now, at the age of seventy-two, with onlv a few remaining years before him and with OUT OP' OFFICE. )0/ international fame beliind, he accepted the title of Earl of Beaconsfield, Avhich was equivalent to announcing- his retirement from the heated arena of British politics. He issued to his constituents on the occasion a farewell address in which he said : " Throughout my public life I have aimed at two chief results. Not insensible to the principle of progress, I have endeavored EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. to reconcile change with that respect for tradition which is one of the main elements of our social strength, and in external affairs I have endeavored to develop and strengthen our empire, believing that combination of achievement and responsibility elevates the character and condition of a people." This last expression of the statesman is to be read and understood in the light of the fact that it was under his auspices, and somewhat against the prejudices of the progressive party in England, that Queen Victoria was made Empress of India. e;3S life and times ok WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. :)0 As to the complications in eastern Europe, news from that quarter of the world grew more and more portentous. Mr. W. Baring, an agent of the British government, made an official report in which the stories about the outrages in Bulgaria were authenticated. Mr. Baring showed that as many as twelve thousand people had perished miserably by fire and sword in the single province of Philippopoiis. At Batak a massacre had been perpe- trated the like of which had hardly been known since the Crusades. More than a thousand people took refuge in a church, where they were shut up by the Bashi-bazouks, who climbed to the roof and fired the building above and within. The horror that ensued may never be described. The victims of the atrocity were burned to death and left in a blackened mass in the ruins. The story of these deeds created a shudder of detestation in Great Britain, and the anger of the nation was kindled not a little against the Turks. In Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet, Bulgarian Hori'ors and the Ques- tion of the East, he set forth the three principal objects which Great Britain should follow in bringing the Turkish atrocities to a speedy end. These were, first, to put a stop to the anarchical misrule and abominable intrigues and lawlessness of the Turks in Bulgaria ; second, to make provision against the recurrence of such outrages by e.Kempting Bulgaria, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the further rule of the Turkish government; third, to redeem by such measures the compromised honor of Great Britain, who had demanded much and pledged much, but thus far obtained nothing in the way of protection for the Christian subjects of the porte. Mr. Gladstone ureed that the British crovernment, which had been working in one direction, should now work in another, and that other should look to the total extinction of the executive power of the Ottoman empire in Bulgaria. He added: "Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zap- tiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbachis, their Kaima- kams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned." Mr. Gladstone after- ward explained that his demand for the total retirement of the Turks "bag and baggage" from the scene of their crimes had respect only to the civil, the executive, and the political machinery of government, and not to the Turkish people themselves. They had a right to remain, but not to govern, or rather misgovern, any longer. What we here describe happened in the year 1876. While our Cen- tennial Exposition at Philadelphia was on in full grandeur Mr. Gladstone, following up his war cry, made a great speech to his constituents at Black- heath. He compared the atrocities of modern history with those recently committed by the Turks, making it appear that the former were no more OUT OF OFFICE. 539 than a cupful of crime to the horrid deluge of the latter. He said that it was the duty of the powers to prescribe at once to the Turks under what conditions they should hereafter exercise their rights in the suffering prov- inces. Speaking as if to the offenders, he said : " You shall receive a rea- sonable tribute; you shall retain your titular sovereignty; your empire shall not be invaded; but never again while the years roll their course, so far as it is in our power to determine, never again shall the hand of violence be raised by you ; never again shall the dire refinements of cruelty be devised by you for the sake of making mankind miserable in Bulgaria." Mr. Gladstone was insistent that all civilized Europe should act together in enforcing these demands. He thought, however, that of all the powers Russia and England were called in particular to support the cause of the suffering Christians in the Turkish provinces. He said that he did not suppose Russia to be more e.xempt than other countries from the influences of selfishness and ambition ; but he was sure she, like the others, had the pulse of the common humanity which was throb- bing in all. This pulse was beating strongly, almost ungovernabl}', among the Russian people. Then he continued: "Upon the concord and hearty cooperation — not upon a mere hollow truce between England , and Russia, but upon their concord and hearty, cordial cooperation — depends a good settlement of this question. Their power is immense. The power of Russia by land for acting upon these countries as against Turkey is perfectly resistless ; the power of England by sea is scarcely less important at this moment. For, I ask you, what would be the condition of the Turkish armies if the British admiral now in Besika Bay were to inform the government of Constantinople that from that hour until atonement had been made — until punishment had descended, until justice had been vindicated — not a man, nor a ship, nor a boat should cross the waters of the Bosporus, or the cloudy Euxine, or the bright .-Egean, to carry aid to the Turkish troops.'*" This speech at Blackheath may be regarded as the reappearance of Mr. Gladstone in public life after more than two years of obscuration. He per- ceived that another struggle was coming, and that a governmental policy had to be determined. Mr. Disraeli (now Lord Beaconsfield) also understood this fact, and found himself on the defensive. He tried to ward off the conse- quences of Mr. Gladstone's attack and of the rising sentiment of the country ABDUL HAMID-RHAN" H, THE NEW SULTAN OF TURKEY. 540 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. ao-ainst his policy. He went so far as to intimate that the utterances and general course pursued by the Liberals were as anarchical and withal as bad as the Bulgarian atrocities— an expression belonging to the sphere of political pcrsiJIagL- and falsehood rather than to the sphere of statesmanship and truth. Meanwhile Russia stood impatiently with drawn sword, menacing the Turkish borders. The porte, on the ist of November, 1876, agreed to an armistice of eight weeks, and the czar, on the following day, agreed with the Enelish ambassador at Constantinople to maintain the status quo, except so far as the occupation by Russian forces of a part of Bulgaria. Meanwhile, a week later. Lord Beaconsfield at a ministerial banquet gave utterance to sentiments which encouraged the czar to believe that he would be permitted by the powers to proceed independently to the chastisement of the Turks. The powers had sent their representatives, or at least nominated them, to a conference at Constantinople, and thither the ambassadors repaired, arriving in the early part of December. The representative of Great Britain was the Marquis of Salisbury. The Liberal party in England was now abroad by its representatives discussing the condition of Eastern affairs, and urging the government to unite with the powers in suppressing the Turkish outrages. In pursuance of this plan a great meeting was held in St. James's Hall, on the 8th of December, 1876, at which several of the most distinguished publicists of Great Britain delivered addresses. Among these was Mr. Gladstone, who made on the occasion a remarkable speech, saying, in the first place, that it was not his intention or the intention of those whom he represented to embarrass the government, but rather to con- vince the government that it was acting, and had for a year been acting, in direct opposition to the will of the English people. The prime minister, in his public utterances, had seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that England had any duties to perform with respect to the Christians of the Turkish provinces. More recently Lord Beaconsfield had admitted that there tverc such duties to be performed. Sir Stafford Xorthcote had made a similar admission. The speaker said that he hoped the instructions of Lord Salisbury at Constantinople were not accordant with the sentiment which had generally been expressed by her majesty's government. He also greatly hoped that the conference at Constantinople would demand the future independence of the Turkish provinces and the security for their exemption against further injustice and outrage. All this was no longer a privilege to England, but her solemn duty. " It is a case," said ]\Ir. Gladstone, "of positive obliga- tion, and, under the stringent pressure of that obligation, I say that, if at length long-suffering and long-oppressed humanity in these provinces is OUT OF OFFICE. 54I lifting- itself from the ground, and beginning to contemplate the heavens, it is our business to assist the work. It is our business to acknowledge the obligation, to take part in the burden, and it is our privilege to claim for our country a share in the honor and in the fame. This acknowledgment of duty, this attempt to realize the honor, is what we at least shall endeavor to obtain from the government ; and with nothing less than this shall we who are assembled here be, under any circumstances, persuaded to say ' content.'" The conference at Constantinople began its sittings on the 23d of December. Apian of reform was prepared and was about to be announced, when on the 30th of the month the sultan made known to the ambassadors of the powers that he was about to promulgate a new constitution, which would include reform in the matters complained of So there was a suspen- sion of proceedings for three weeks. When the conference finally closed, the proposals which it had prepared for an international commission, and also for the appointment of governors general for the provinces by the sultan for a term of five years, under the approval of the powers, were both rejected by the porte, and matters were left in virtually the same condition as they had been before — except the announcement of the new constitution of the Turkish empire. Such was the condition of affairs when, on the 8th of February, 1877, Parliament convened. Mr. Gladstone was in attendance and spoke on the address from the throne. A few days afterward he again addressed the House more at length on the Eastern Question and the duties of England with respect thereto. Those duties did not involve a war with Turkey, but did involve the maintenance of good faith and the principle of protection to the Christian populations of Bulgaria, Herzegovina, Servia, and the rest. The speaker showed himself to be deeply in earnest, and his address was in the nature of a challenge to the ministerial policy. Mr. Chaplin spoke in reply, accusing Mr. Gladstone and his followers of having attempted with their speeches and pamphlets to force a policy upon Great Britain in opposition to the policy of the executive government. Warming- up to the occasion, Mr. Chaplin said that the right honorable gen- tleman (meaning Mr. Gladstone) must do one of two things : either he must make good the statements which he had published and uttered, or else withdraw them, as there was no other course for an honorable man to pursue / This seemed to imply that if Mr. Gladstone did not prove or disavow his publication he was not an honorable man. Hereupon the speaker called Mr. Chaplin to order for unparliamentary language, and he was obliged, not indeed to prove, but to disavow ! The House was astonished at what followed. Mr. Gladstone had, of course, no notice of the challenge which was to be given him on the occasion. The challenge involved a wide range of discussion ; but he immediately 542 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. arose and replied to Mr. Chaplin in a memorable manner. He said that the honorable gentleman had not attended the public meetings of which he com- plained. He should have done so, and there challenged him (Mr. Glad- stone) for his proofs. In the beginning of the speech there were signs of interruption, but this aroused the statesman to the proper e.xcitement for a great address. He put down first one interlocutor, and then another, but did not lose sight of the original offender. Referring to Mr. Chaplin, Mr. Gladstone continued : " He says, sir, that 1 have been an infiammatory agitator, and that, as soon as 1 have got into this House, I have no disposition to chant in the same key. But before these debates are over — before this question is settled — the honorable gen- tleman will know more about my opinions than he knows at present, or is iikelv to know to-nieht. I am not about to reveal now to the honorable gentleman the secrets of a mind so inferior to his own. I am not so young as to think that his obliging inquiries supply me with the opportunities most advantageous to the public interest for the laying out of the plan of a cam- paign. By the time the honorable gentleman is as old as I am, if he comes in his turn to be accused of cowardice by a man of the next generation to himself, he probably may find it convenient to refer to the repl)- I am now making, and to make it a model, or, at all events, to take from it hints and suggestions, with which to dispose of the antagonist that may then rise against him." This certainly was sufficient to dispose of the rash gentleman who had aroused the old parliamentarian of whom he might well beware. Mr. Gladstone in the next place replied to the assertion that he had himself by his pamphlet on the "Bulgarian Horrors" and by his Blackheath speech become the fomentor of the mischief that was abroad in Europe. If this were so, why did not some member of the government reply with a pamphlet to the contrary, and with a speech denying and confuting his own ? That would have been the proper method of extinguishing a false agitation. The speaker went on to show that other patriotic Englishmen, such as Lord Derby, had done their part to arouse the just resentment of England on the score of the Turkish outrages. Then Mr. Gladstone, still unAvillIng to let Mr. Chaplin pass from view, continued : " I will tell the honorable gentleman something in answer to his questions, and it is that I will tell him nothing at all. I will take my own counsel, and beg to inform him that he shall have no reason whatever to complain, when the accounts comie to be settled and cast up at the end of the whole matter, of any reticence or suppressions on my part." As for the policy of the government, the speaker said it had become necessary to watch that policy lest it should conflict with the sentiment and purpose of England. As to Lord Salisbury, he had confidence in that states- man to uphold the honor of his country ; but he had fears that there might OUT OF OFFICE. 543 be two policies in the government councils. As for Parliament, there was before that body a great and solemn question to be determined. It was the question of the East. This question had returned, and must be met with all its absorbing interests. In the original entrance of the Turks into Europe, it might be said there was a turning point in human history. " To a great extent," said he, " it continues to be the cardinal question, the question which casts into the shade every other question, and the question which is now brought before the mind of the country far more fully than at any period of our history, far more fully than even at the time of the Crimean War, when we were pouring forth our blood and treasure in what we thought to be the cause of justice and right. And I endeavored to impress upon the minds of my audience at Taunton, not a blind prejudice against this man or that, but a great watchfulness, and the duty of great activity. " It is the duty of every man to feel that he is bound for himself, accord- ing to his opportunities, to examine what belongs to this question, with regard to which it can never be forgotten that we are those who set up the power "of Turkey in 1854; that we are those who gave her the strength which has been exhibited in the Bulgarian massacres ; that we are those who made the treaty arrangements that have secured her for twenty years from almost a single hour of uneasiness brought about by foreign interven- tion ; and that, therefore, nothing can be greater and nothing deeper than our responsibility in the matter. It is incumbent upon us, one and all, that we do not allow any consideration, either of party or personal convenience, to prevent us from endeavoring to the best of our ability to discharge this great duty, that now, at length, in the East, has sprung up; and that in the midst of this great opportunity, when all Europe has been called to collect- ive action, and when something like European concert has been established — when we learn the deep human interests that are involved in every stage of the question — as far as England at least is concerned, every Englishman should strive to the utmost of his might that justice shall be done." The Eastern Question soon dratjged itself into the Turco-Russian War. The powers trifled with the question until Russia, within the limits of her opportunity, went to the task of punishing the Turks by herself On the 24th of April, 1877, war was declared ; the conference of Constantinople was acknowledged as a failure; the protocol which had been prepared at Lon- don became of no effect, and proclamations of neutrality were issued by England, France, and Italy. On the 7th of May the question of the conduct of the government with regard to these great matters came up in the House of Commons, and Mr. Gladstone, reappearing in that body, offered the following resolutions : " First, That this House finds just cause of dissatisfaction and complaint in the con- duct of the Ottoman porte with regard to the dispatch written by the Earl 544 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. of Derby on September 21, 1876, and relating to the massacres in Bulgaria. Second, That until such conduct shall ha\e been essentially changed, and guar- antees on behalf of the subject populations other than the promises or osten- sible measures of the porte shall have been provided, that government will be deemed by this House to have lost all claim to receive either the mate- rial or the moral support of the British crown. Third, That in the midst of the complications which exist, and the war which has actually begun, this House earnestly desires the influence on the British crown in the coun- cils of Murope to be employed with a view to the early and effectual devel- opment of local liberty and practical self-government in the disturbed prov- inces of Turkey, by putting an end to the oppression which they now suffer, with the imposition upon them of any other foreign dominion. Fourth, That, bearing in mind the wise and honorable policy of this country in the proto- col of April, 1826, and the treaty of July, 1827, with respect to Greece, this House furthermore earnestly desires that the inlluence of the British crown to the promoting [of] the concert of the European powers in exacting from the Ottoman porte, by their united authority, such changes in the govern- ment of Turkey as they may deem to be necessary for the purposes of humanit)- ami justice, for effectual defense against intrigue, and for the peace of the world should be upheld. Fifth, That a humble address, setting forth the prayer of this House, according to the tenor of the foregoing reso- lutions, be prepared and presented to her majesty." In this case it appeared that Mr. Gladstone had overdrawn the mark. It was feared by man\- that the resolutions if adopted would lead to an offensive-defensive alliance with Russia. A considerable part of the Liberal contingent held this view, and would not follow the leader. The third reso- lution was modified into a simpler form, and the other three were expedi- ently abandoned by Mr. Gladstone. But the statesman rallied all his force for the defense of his third resolution. To this he spoke with great cogency. He criticised the government, which he accused of following only an ambig- uous policy. It was not enough that England should give a moral support to the cause of right in the East. The remonstrances of the eovernment had not prevailed with the porte. It was not possible to fix the guilt of what had occurred in the Turkish provinces on any party or parties except on the Turkish government itself The Christian subjects of the Ottoman empire had had ground to expect defense and protection from Great Britain as well as from Russia. When the Liberal party was in power it had acted vigorously and consistently in suppressing the outrages in Syria. Ever since the Crimean War the Christians under the Mohammedan sway had not been properly safeguarded. The great battle for freedom throughout the world had not been fought to a successful conclusion. Great Britain ought to ask herself whether she had well performed her duty. There had OUT OF OFFICE. 545 been times in the past when England was the hope of freedom. There had been times when every high aspiration of mankind had been answered with another in England, when every blow struck for emancipation was rein- forced with another blow struck by a Briton. People who enjoyed freedom under British institutions ought to desire the diffusion of freedom to others. "You talk to me," said he, "of the estab- lished tradition and policy in regard to Turkey. I appeal to an established tradition older, wider, nobler far — a tradition, not which disregards British interests, but which teaches you to seek the promotion of these interests in obeying the dictates of honor and justice. . . . There is now before the world a glorious prize. A portion of those unhappy people [meaning the Christians of the Turkish provinces] are still as yet making an effort to retrieve what they have lost so long, but have not ceased to love and desire. I speak of those in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Another portion — a band of heroes such as the world has rarely seen — stand on the rocks of Montenegro, and are ready now, as they have ever been during the four hundred years of their exile from their fertile plains, to sweep down from their fastnesses and meet the Turks at any odds for the reestablishment of justice and peace in those countries.' Another portion still, the five million Bulgarians, cowed and beaten down to the ground, hardly venturing to look upward, even to their Father in heaven, have extended their hands to you. " But, sir, the removal of that load of woe and shame is a ereat and noble prize. It is a prize well worth competing for. It is not yet too late to try to win it. I believe there are men in the cabinet who would try to win it if they were free to act on their own beliefs and aspiration. It is not )Lt too late, I say, to become competitors for that prize, but be assured that whether you mean to claim for yourselves even a single leaf in that immortal chapter of renown which will be the reward of true labor in that cause, or whether you turn your backs upon that cause and upon your own duty, I believe for one that the knell of Turkish tyranny in these provinces has sounded ; so far as human eye can judge it is about to be destroyed. The destruction ma)' not come in the way or by the means that we should choose ; but, come this boon from what hands it may, it will be a noble boon, and as a noble boon will gladly be accepted by Christendom and the world." The debate was thus on in full force. The party of the government declared that the idea of acting in concert with the other powers to obtain the desired ends in the East could be no longer entertained. The Liberals generally held the opposite view. Mr. Gladstone was insistent that com- bined Europe ought to act against Turkey and enforce a satisfactory reform. He did not believe that under such compulsion the porte would go to war with the combined powers. It was the duty of Europe to send an interna- tional fleet of sufficient strength to neutralize that of Turkey. 35 546 LIFE AXD TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTOiXE. The speaker then compared the efforts of civilization against the Turk- ish power to the work of Sisyphus rolling the stone up the mountain slope. " Time," said the speaker, " is short ; the sands of the hourglass are run- ning out. The longer you delay the less in all likelihood you will be able to save from the wreck of the integrity and independence of the Turkish empire. If Russia should fail her failure will be a disaster to mankind, and the condition of the suffering races, for whom we are supposed to have labored, will be worse than it was before. If she succeeds, and if her con- duct be honorable, nay, even if it be but tolerably prudent, the performance of the work she has in hand will, notwithstanding all your jealousies and all your reproaches, secure for her an undying fame. When that work shall be accomplished, though it be not in the way and by the means I would have chosen, as an Englishman I shall hide my head, but as a man I shall rejoice. Nevertheless to my latest day I will exclaim, Would God that in this crisis the voice of the nation had been suffered to prevail ; would God that in this great, this holy deed, England had not been refused her share ! " Mr. Gladstone was correct at this juncture in believing that the British nation was with him ; but the Conservative majority in the House pre- vailed, and his resolution was rejected. This was done b}- a general vote on party lines, though the Home Rulers were about evenly divided. Though he was thus thwarted in the effort to obtain a declaration from the House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone continued to agitate throuofh the remainder of the year and down to the close of the Turco-Russian War. Of that great and bloody conflict we need not here give any extended account. We have already indicated the relations of Mr. Gladstone to the war policy in the East. Suffice it to say that the general plan of Russia in the great campaign of 1877 was to cross the Danube, traverse the Balkans, beat the Turks in battle, possibly capture Constantinople, and thus, accord- ing to the declaration of Prince Gortchakoff, " fulfill the duty imposed upon him [the czar] by the interests of Russia, whose peaceable development was impeded by the constant troubles in the East." A large Russian army, collected in the South, traversed Roumania and crossed the Lower Danube on the 22d of June. Another division crossed the Middle Danube about two weeks later. The czar himself took the field and made a proclamation to the Bulgarians. The Turkish outposts were broken in. The Grand Duke Nicholas, with his division, reached Tirnova. General Gurko pressed on toward Shipka Pass, but was seriously resisted. A battle was fought at Tundja Brook on the i6th of July, which resulted in the first victory for the Russians. The Turks then concentrated at Shipka Pass. Grand Duke Nicholas, on the i6th of July, captured Nikopolis, and then marched against the town of Plevna, which became one of the strategic points of the war. OUT OF OFFICE. 547 Here, however, the Russians were impeded and broug-ht to a halt. Osman Pasha, one of the greatest of Turkish generals, planted himself in the way, with an army of fifty thousand men, for the defense of Plevna. Suleiman Pasha checked the progress of General Gurko, and Mehemet AH gathered an army of sixty-five thousand men at Rasgrad. For the time the Russian invasion was brought to a dead pause ; but the invaders gathered force, and Shipka Pass was taken. The efforts of the Turks to reeain it were unsuccessful. About the middle of August bloody battles were fought for the possession of the pass. From the 6th to the 9th of September the Russians made one desperate assault after another on Plevna, in the course oi which they lost in a principal charge no fewer than eighteen thousand men. Then followed a siege of five months' 'duration, when Osman Pasha, reduced by starvation rather than by military force, was obliged to capitu- late. By the surrender the country was opened for two hundred and fifty miles in the direction of Constantinople. Meanwhile the Grand Duke Michael, eldest brother of the czar, was conducting a great campaign in Asia. He proceeded first to the capture of the fortress of Batoum,and afterward against Ardahan, Kars,and Erzeroum. At Kars there was a memorable siege, which lasted until the 17th of Novem- ber, when the place was carried by assault, and only three hundred Turks were found alive within ! The siege of Erzeroum was not concluded until the 31st of January, 1878, and was then terminated by an armistice. At last the Russians in the European field issued from Shipka Pass and fell upon the Turkish armv at Shenovo, carried the place by storm, captured a division of twelve thousand, and compelled another division of about twice that number to capitulate. Thus in a war of about seven months' duration the military power of the Turks was completely broken down. The Russians advanced and took possession of Adrianople. The last shot of the war was fired on the 20th of January, in an unimportant engagement, at Tehorlu. By this time the alarmed sultan sent his commissioners to confer with the agents of the czar, and the conditions of peace were quickly agreed upon. The sultan con- ceded the following terms: That Bulgaria should be erected into an inde- pendent principality; that Montenegro, Roumania, and Servia should also become independent ; that the Turkish government in Bosnia and Herze- govina should be thoroughly reformed ; that Viddin, Rustchuk, and Silistria should be surrendered to the Russians ; that several Turkish fortresses should be evacuated ; and that a war indemnity should be paid to Russia. It was on the 3d of March, 1878, at the town of .San Stefano, that a treaty between Russia and Turkey, on the basis here indicated, was signed. It appeared that the Ottoman empire was about to be ground into powder under the victorious wheels of the autocratic car. 54^ LIFE AND TIMKS OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. "PEACE WITH HONOR." Return of Beaconsfield from the Berlin Conference. OUT OF OFFICE. 549 When matters had proceeded thus far, however, the great powers of Europe suddenly put forth the hand and arrested the proceedings. They declared, under the leadership of England, that the questions included in settlement by the treaty of San Stefano were European questions and could not be determined except by the concurrence of the European powers. The settlement imposed by the czar on the sultan should be reviewed by a con- gress of the powers to be held in the city of Berlin. Accordingly, on the 13th of July, 1878, such congress was convened — perhaps the most mem- orable of its kind in the after third of the nineteenth century. England was represented by the Earl of Beaconsheld ; Austria, by Count Andrassy ; the German empire, by Prince Bismarck ; Russia, b)- Prince Gortchakof and General Shuvaloff All of the States sent their ablest men to the confer- ence, which, indeed, included at its sittings the finest international talent of the worlil. Among the ambassadors the Earl of Beaconsfield was conspicuous. That statesman was here in his glory. Not one of the ambassadors pos- sessed a more penetrating and comprehensive genius. With this were blended also a kind of subtlety and an element of wit peculiarly favor- able to success in diplomacy. The earl succeeded in leading the game. Twenty sessions of the Congress were held, and the provisions of the treaty of San Stefano were thoroughly reviewed and greatly modified before they were accepted. Russia was obliged to yield several important points, but she yielded with good grace, and the peace which was concluded was comparatively acceptable to all, with the exception of the humiliated Turk. The Earl of Beaconsfield returned in high fame to England, where he was received with great applause as the champion of the British empire who had brought home " peace with honor." Meanwhile, however, affairs in the British empire went forward on their own lines of evolution. Mr. Gladstone and his following mi^ht well claim the honor of having instigated the government to greater activity in asserting itself in European matters. No doubt the prime minister did avail himself of the policy of his adversaries, who were all the time endeav- oring to force upon the government the duty of recognizing the claims of oppressed peoples. In the meantime the sentiment of England, near the close of the Turco- Russian War, veered around to one of distrust of Russia. It was feared that that power would plunge down on Constantinople and thus make it neces- sary for Great Britain to take up the cause of the very Turk for whom the international contention had prevailed. A war party sprang up in Eng- land — a party wanting to go to war on general principles — a party that was positively disappointed when it was known that Russia had kept faith with the powers by refusing to march on Constantinople. The Earl of Beacons- 550 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLI \M E. GLADSTONE. field found himself in a sort of national whirlpool. He could not identify himself with the arrogant leaders of the war party, and at the same time he must, as prime minister and chief representative ot Great Britain, "uphold" as he himself expressed it, "the character and prestige of Eng- land." This situation produced what has been called the Jingo party in Eng- land. The Jingoes were that class who were determined by war to make Great Britain cock of the walk. No difference what the war might be or with whom, [jrovided it was war. The adherents of this class, especially the younger and louder leaders, went about singing and yelling a bit of precious doggerel, to this effect : "We don't want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money, too." This beautiful effusion w-as heard nightly in the streets of London, and many took up the chorus from which they got their name of Jingoes. They chose to make themselves the chief enemies of Mr. Gladstone, who, though he strongly urged the government to espouse the cause of the oppressed in the Turkish provinces, held always to the doctrine of accomplishing the reform without a resort to war. The reader understands full well that peaceable element in his character which led him ever to regard war as the prime horror of human history — something to be resorted to only in times when no other remedy could avail. At the period of which we speak Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone were on a certain occasion crrosslv insulted in a West End street by a band of half-drunken Jingoes, who were making night hideous. The statesman and his wife were obliged to find shelter in the hallway of a house until the hooting hoodlums disappeared. At least two honors should be noted as having- been awarded to Mr. Gladstone in this year. One of these was especially significant. The time of Lord Beaconsfield as lord rector of the University of Glasgow expired in November, 1878, and Sir Stafford Xorthcote was nominated as the Con- servative candidate for the position. The Liberals chose Mr. Gladstone as their candidate, and he was elected over Sir Stafford by a majority of nearly two to one. Two months afterward the formation of a Liberal Palmerston club at O.xford was celebrated by the undergraduates, and Mr. Gladstone was invited to speak. In the course of his remarks he took up the Eastern Question (for the treaty of San Stefano had not yet been concluded), and criticised the policy of the government for sending the British fleet into the Dardanelles. This act, he thought, was a violation of international law. The -Statesman defended himself against the charge generally circulated by the Conservatives that he had become in his old age a reckless agitator. He admitted that for the last eighteen months he had been an acritator. OUT OF OFFICE. 55 I He had agitated for what he considered to be the cause and interest of his country. He avowed that his course had been inspired with the hope of prevailing against what he considered the evil policy of Lord Beacons- field. A vote of credit just then pending in Parliament he thought the most indefensible measure ever presented. The remarks of Mr. Gladstone — as, indeed, everything that he now said in a public way — were widely circulated, and this case provoked the Earl of Beaconsfield to one of his severest retorts. In a speech which he delivered at a banquet at Knightsbridge he used the strongest terms of rid- icule and denunciation, describing Mr. Gladstone as " a statistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign his opponents and to glorify him- self." Indeed, we may note the present crisis as the most unpleasant that ever existed between the two statesmen. Mr. Gladstone was now within a few months of completing his seven- tieth year, and the Earl of Beaconsfield was already seventy-four. It hardly became them to quarrel, and we may admit that their intercourse hardly stooped to quarreling. But Mr. Gladstone felt called upon to write to his rival a request that he furnish references to such "personalities" as he (Mr. Gladstone) was accused by the noble lord of having used toward him. To this the Earl of Beaconsfield replied in a general way that he could not be expected to search out the ej^ithets of Mr. Gladstone's speeches delivered in the last two and a half years and to specify the particular things complained of He said, however, that he would withdraw the term "devilish" which he had ascribed to Mr. Gladstone as one of his expressions regarding him- self We pass from the controversy as unpleasant and unbecoming. If the international complication in Eastern Europe had been satisfac- torily adjusted, not all of the foreign troubles of Great Britain were yet ended. Others of a serious character remained behind. The possessions of Great Britain in the East were a source of constant apprehension. It was said that the Congress of Berlin had shut the front gate to India, but that the backdoor had been left open. This signified that India was still menaced by Russia from the direction of Afghanistan. If Russia seemed to be impeded in her pressure southwestward she was not so impeded in her southeastward course. Afghanistan might well appear to Russia as a passage into India. She gravitated in the direction of the Punjab. Time and again Great Britain had suffered alarm lest the Afghans should be pressed, as if by the Russian pestle, through the passes of the Hindu-Kush. One difficulty had already occurred of late, during the reign of Dost Mohammed, Prince of Cabul. In that country the government had been transmitted to Shere Ali, a son of 55- LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Dost Mohammed, and at his court a British embassy was maintained to keep the- home government informed of what was done in that direction by Russia. The latter power would also put Its embassy in Cabul to report to the czar what was done ; but when the Russian embassy came to the frontier it was warned away by the authorities ; and this was regarded as an insult. Hereupon British soldiers were sent into Cabul to occupy Kandahar. At this juncture Shere Ali died and was succeeded by his son Yakoob Khan, who immediately made terms w'ith Great Britain in a treaty which was signed on the 5th of May, 1879. New boundary lines should be granted to British Intlia, and the Khan shoukl receive a compensation of sixty thousand pounds. Moreover, Cabul should be regarded henceforth as under a British protectorate. Thus w^as the " backdoor " also shut and barred against the pressure of the Russian autocrat ; Great Britain is capable of such things ! The troubles in Afghanistan were a source of constant agitation in Great Britain. Mr. Gladstone spoke upon the complication on several occasions. He discussed the question of the right of the government to force upon the Ameer a foreign embassy. He threw the responsibility for the difficulties at issue and for the Afghan war wholly upon the cabinet. He said that the Executive Department had gone on with this great busi- ness without consulting Parliament. In an address which he delivered on the .30th of November, 1878, he spoke at length to his constituency of Greenwich. It was the occasion of his relinquishing his claim to their sup- port and before his appeal to Midlothian. Toward the end of his address Mr. Gladstone said that the recent policy of the government had been a total departure from that pursued by the fathers. He said that the question at issue could not be settled by Conservative injunctions to be dumb. Neither could it be settled by the issuance of garbled reports to the public. It could not be settled by a chorus of newspaper articles, and not even by parliamentary majorities. The responsibility for the state of affairs in the far East rested upon the ten or twelve men who constituted the British cabinet. By and by the people of England would have somewhat to say about their share in the responsibility. In that event it would be seen that the share of the people would be the largest of all. "The people," continued the speaker, " are the tribunal of final appeal. Upon them, upon every constituency, upon every man in every constitu- ency, who gives his sanction to an unjust war, the guilt and the shame will lie. No ; there is something a great deal higher than all those external manifestations by which we are apt to be swayed and carried away ; some- thing that is higher, sornething that is more inward, something that is more OUT OF OFFICE. 553 enduring. External success cannot always silence the monitor that lies within. You all know the noble tragedy of our great Shakespeare, in which Lady Macbeth, after having achieved the utmost external success, after having waded through blood to a crown, and that crown at the moment seemingly undisputed, yet is so troubled with the silent action of conscience residing within the breast that reason itself is shaken in its seat, and she appears at night wandering through the chambers of her castle. What does she say ? There she has nothing to warn her from without, nothing to alarm her. Her success had been complete. She had reached the top of what some think to be human felicity, and what all admit to be human authority. What does she say in that condition .? ' Here's the smell of the blood still ; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.' And the physician appointed to wait on her, in the few simple, pregnant words of the poet, says, ' This disease is beyond my practice.' " Yes, gentlemen, the disease of an evil conscience is beyond the prac- tice of all the physicians of all the countries in the world. The penalty may linger ; but, if it lingers, it only lingers to drive you on further into guilt and to make retribution, when it comes, more severe and more disas- trous. It is written in the eternal laws of the universe of God that sin shall be followed by suffering. An unjust war is a tremendous sin. The question which you have to consider is whether this war is just or unjust. So far as I am able to collect the evidence it is unjust. It fills me with the greatest alarm lest it should be proved to be grossly and totally unjust. If so, we should come under the stroke of the everlasting law that suffering shall follow sin ; and the day will arrive — come it soon or come it late — when the people of England will discover that national injustice is the surest road to national downfall." When Parliament again convened Mr. Gladstone was in his place when a motion was made by Mr. Whitbread, "That this House disapproves the conduct of her majesty's government, which has resulted in the war with Afghanistan." The speaker traversed the whole question of the relations of Great Britain w'ith the Ameer, and showed that the conduct of the govern- ment w^as indefensible. The government in that matter had first hectored Russia and had then acquiesced in a new and groundless claim of that coun- try to send a mission to Cabul. He charged home upon the Conservatives their responsibility for the war. " You have made this war," said he, " in concealment from Parliament, in reversal of the policy of every Indian and home government that has existed for the last twenty-five years, in con- tempt of the supplication of the Ameer, and in defiance of the advice of your own agent, and all for the sake of obtaining a scientific frontier. We made war in error upon Afghanistan in 1838. To err is human and par- donable. But we have erred a second time upon the same ground and 554 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. with no better justification. This error has been repeated in the face of every warning conceivable and imaginable, and in the face of an unequaled mass of authorities. May Heaven avert a repetition of the calamity which befell our army in 1841 !" Then, adverting to the Whitbread resolution which was pending, and to VICTORIA, EMPRESS OF INDIA. the vote about to be taken, Mr. Gladstone continued : " I should have hope of this division if I really believed that many honorable members had made themselves individually masters of the case which is disclosed in the recesses of these two volumes of parliamentary papers. . . . The responsibility, which is now yours alone, will be shared with you l)\- the majority of this House ; but many who will decline to share in it will hope for the ultimate disap- proval and reversal of your course by the nation." Mr. Gladstone's appeal, however, was futile, and the pending resolution was rejected. Not only in the far East, but also in the Dark Continent, did En-jland OUT OF OFFICE. 555 have her troubles. We shall not here recount the military operations of the British in South Africa at this period ; for they do not directly concern the life and work of Mr. Gladstone. There was the war in Transvaal, with the consequent determination on the part of Great Britain to annex that country. There was also the e.xpedition into Zululand, which became a British poses- sion in 1887. In general the course of the empire at this epoch was to enlarge and confirm itself in every part of the world. Nor may we omit to mention again the influence of the Earl of Beaconsfield, who deemed it his greatest honor to have tjlorified somewhat, with the addition of new o-ems, the already resplendent crown of his imperial mistress. We here arrive at the great political transformation which began with the year 1879. The Liberals, though long in eclipse, had no notion of being remanded to eternal darkness, to wander forever rayless and pathless. On the contrary, they began to muster in great force and with great spirit, to regain control of the government. The septennial parliamentary system of Great Britain is especially favorable to perpetual reaction and rebounding from one ascendency to the other. In a period of seven years, or even five years, a dominant party will always lay up wrath against the day of wrath. There will come a revelation of righteous judgment. The party out of power is always virtuous and patriotic ! The party in power is always cor- rupt and selfish ! So runs the jargon of political utterance in all countries having free institutions and public discussion of policies. Certainly the Conservative party in England had now had its reign. That reign was drawing to a close. There was considerable time yet to run before Parliament would expire of its own limitation. It had become cus- tomary, however, to dissolve at the end of the sixth session. To this con- tingency the Liberals now looked forward. Mr. Gladstone, whose age seemed not at all to weigh upon his spirits, though he had the common weakness of referring to his years, as though his course were nearing its end, eagerly challenged the ministry to justify itself by an appeal to the country. Conditions favored him in making such a challenge; for com- merce had ebbed, and there was much industrial distress. Besides, in Ireland there was a suppressed volcano. However, the government held on, as though it would live out its constitutional period ; but it was a time of surprises. Late in the year a dissolution was suddenly declared for the 24th of March, 1880. The elections were to be held imme- diately, and the political excitement rose to a high pitch. Mr. Gladstone for his part availed himself of a popularity which had spread on his behalf in Scotland. His recent election as rector of the University of Glasgow showed plainly the esteem in which he was held. In arranging his own campaign he chose Midlothian as the scene of battle. There the statesman conducted one of the most remarkable campaigns 556 LIFE A\D TIMES OV WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. of recent times. It was on the 29th of December, 1879, that he began the canva.ss in his chosen field. He had now passed his seventieth year, but he was a rugged man, with an unbroken constitution, a powerful voice, and capable of enduring without fatigue great toil and without danger serious WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE IN I SSo, TIME OF THE MIDLOTHIAN CAMPAIGN. exposures. The Midlothian campaign was really wonderful, for the addresses delivered by Mr. Gladstone and for the throngs that followed in his wake. The Consers'ative candidate was the son of the Duke of Buccleugh, whose title was Lord Dalkeith, native and to the manner born. But Mr. Glad- stone's popularity bore down all opposition, and he triumphed over his competitor by a majority of several hundred votes. His success was height- OUT OF OFFICE. 557 ened by the fact that the constituency of Leeds had also offered to support Mr. Gladstone for reelection, and stood ready to catch him it he should be thrown in Midlothian. And as if to heighten the gratification, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, youngest son of the statesman, who had failed of election in Mid- dlesex, where he was defeated by Lord George Hamilton, was substituted for his honored father by the constituency of Leeds. The question of the leadership of the Liberal party was now on in earnest ;' for that party was overwhelmingly victorious in the elections. Three hundred and fifty-one Liberals were chosen against two hundred and forty Conservatives, whereas in the last Parliament there had been three hundred and fifty-one Conservatives against two hundred and fifty-one Liberals. The eleven votes lost to the Conservatives under the number recently held by their adversaries went to the Home Rulers, whose numbers now rose from fifty to sixty-one. It is interesting to note at this juncture the sentiment of Mr. Gladstone in the political contest. In one of his addresses at Edinburgh, speaking ot his opponents, he said : " I give them credit for patriotic motives ; I givr them credit for those patriotic motives which are so incessantly and gratui- tously denied to us. I believe that we are all united, gentlemen — indeed, it would be most unnatural, if we were not — in a fond attachment, perhaps in something of a proud attachment, to the great country to which we belong — to this great empire, which has committed to it a trust and a function given from Providence as special and remarkable as ever was intrusted to any portion of the family of man. Gentlemen, I feel when I speak of that trust and that function that words fail me ; I cannot tell you what I think of the nobleness of the inheritance that has descended upon us, of the sacredness of the duty of maintaining it. I will not condescend to make it a part of controversial politics. It is a part of my being, of my flesh and blood, of my heart and soul. For those ends I have labored through my youth and manhood till my hairs are gray. In that faith and practice I have lived; and in that faith and practice I will die." Great was the discomfiture of the Conservatives in the parliamentary election of the spring of iS8o. The tables were completely turned upon them. As for the Earl of Beaconsfield, that statesman, now in the last year of his life, might look on unmoved from his rest in the House of Lords. But the rank and file of Conservative politicians were in dismay. The blow they had received reached as high as the throne. For the* queen, although not permitted under the British Constitution to have political sentiments, was at heart with the Conservatives, and her majesty no doubt felt the woman's mortification and the queen's grief at the Liberal triumph. It was necessary that she should send for a Liberal statesman to bfecome prime minister. 558 LII-E AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. As to calling Mr. Gladstone, the queen would fain obviate that neces- sity, and to this end she sent for the Marquis of Hartington ; but that noble- man could not accept the responsibility. Lord Granville was called, but he also declined the heavy trust. It only remained for her majesty to summon again William E. Gladstone and to commission him first minister of the crown. When the true leader was thus discovered the cabinet was quickly THE MIDLOTHIAN CAMPAIGN. constituted of able and progressive men, and behind the cabinet was the largest party majority that had ever been known in recent times. As for the new prime minister himself, his triumph was complete. He might well survey the field with the feelings of one who, having safely passed his threescore years and ten, and having arrived at the highest honors which his country can possibly bestow, still in the enjoyment of perfect health, has little with which to reproach himself and much for which to be grateful. Doubtless his feelings and sentiments were softened in the event. His rival sat for only a few days in the House of Lords, enjoying his well-won honors. But the last sands of his life were falling fast, and his end was at hand.' On the 21st of April, 1881, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, passed away, leaving a great fame to the keeping of his country. FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 559 CHAPTER XXVI. First Battle for Home Rule. HE second ministerial ascendency of AVilliam E. Gladstone was characterized by a yreat battle for Home Rule in Ireland. The Liberal triumph of iS8o had as one of its concomitants the election of an increased Home Rule contingent to the House of Commons. A Home Rule party made its appear- ance as a positive factor in political history. It was a party of a single idea, and that idea varied in intensity according to the temperament of the indi- vidual members composing the party. Nor was the faction any longer a mere handful. Sixty-one members of this faith appeared in the House at the opening of the parliamentary session ot iSSi. In a general way the Home Rulers were in sympath)" with the policies and purposes of the Liberal party. That party lay ne.xt to themselves in the scale of political development ; the Conservatives were further off. But Mr. Gladstone found from the very start that he could not depend upon the support of the Irish contingent except in so far as that support was consistent with the one thing which the party desired to promote, and that was a system of Home Rule government for Ireland. In the course of events the Home Rule contingent was bent around until it seemed to attach itself to the extreme right, or Conservative end of the political plattorm. It was at this juncture that the Irish Land League, organized in 1879, with Charles Stewart Parnell as its president, became a social and political force in the drama. Mr. Parnell was one of the most capable and, withal, straightforward leaders that recent history has revealed. He was at the time of which we speak only thirty-five years of age. He had been in Par- liament since 1875, and had acquired a thorough political education. In 1879 he visited the United States, and in the following year succeeded Mr. Shaw as the leader of the Home Rule party. He was a man whose courage was equal to his ability, and whose ability was as great as the exigency of his country. Such a leader, with more than threescore capable men in his following, must be considered by any ministry, however well fortified in pub- lic opinion and supported by however strong a majorit}'. Of the Home Rule party the new Liberal government took at first no notice. It is always the plan of the two leading parties in a country to ignore the third as long as possible. Finally the remnants of the two com- bine against the one, and then there is a sudden change of scene. At the opening of Parliament in January of 1881 it was soon found difficult to deal with these men of one idea. And yet they must be dealt with ; for a state of affairs had now supervened in Ireland which could no longer be .s6o LIFE AND TIMES OK ^\•ILL1AM E. GLADSTONE. overlooked in the administration. We may suppose that Mr. Gladstone did not desire to overlook it, but his temper was always to proceed with caution and by tentative stages. The situation in Ireland tlid not admit of this method. In that country suffering, want, distress, resentment, rebellion, hatred, and every specter that arises under the wand of oppression had come to the huts of the lowly. It was under these conditions that the great Land League of 1879 was formed. FENIAN DISORDERS IN IRELAND — ATTACK ON A POLICE VAN. That socio-political compact had for its object, in a word, the alleviation of the hardships of the Irish tenants. We must say that the methods to be employed did not much regard the existing laws. Those laws had been made for the most part by the landlords in their own interest. The result was at last the outbreak of crime and outrage. .Such was the situation that the new Liberal government -was given no option in the matter of taking im- mediate cognizance of the condition of Ireland. Under such circumstances it is always the method to try force first. The e.xisting order sounds an alarm and publishes a declaration to the effect that, whatever may have been the antecedents, the first thing to be done is to restore order to society and to punish crime. This was accord- FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 56 1 ingly undertaken by the government. A Coercion Act was prepared and introduced into the House of Commons, the object of which was to put down with a strong hand the disturbers of the peace in Ireland. Construct- ively the disturbers of the peace were the Land League and its abettors. The first principle of the Coercion Bill was a suspension of the habeas corpus. This done, the officers of any district in Ireland might proceed under designation of the lord lieutenant to arrest and imprison without judicial processes those who were alleged to be disturbers of the peace. At the time of brinmno- in this bill a new Land Bill was announced, which also was in the nature of an amendment and extension of the Irish Land Act of 1870. It was now proposed in amendment to make the law of tenant right in Ulster the standard for the whole of Ireland. Certainly the Liberal majority was sufficient to enable the government to carry through whatever measure it might propose. For the moment the Home Rulers saw themselves, in the matter of the Coercion Act, about to be over- whelmed, and their cause destroyed, as they believed, by the hand of power. In this emergency they adopted the policy of obstruction. They might at least systematically impede the consideration and passage of the odious bill through Parliament. The British Constitution relative to the House of Commons gave great liberties in this respect. In that body the freedom of debate was fully conceded. There was no rule for closure such as that practiced in the French Assembly, or for the previous question, as employed in our House of Representatives. There was, true enough, a motion for closing the debate; but this motion might in its turn be debated. There- fore it could not avail against a systematic policy of obstruction. It was on the 6th of January, 1881, that the Coercion Bill was intro- duced. The debate was to have been soon concluded ; but it could not be done. The Home Rulers continued to debate it. They were able and per- sistent. They divided themselves into contingents, and a number were always prepared to continue the debate. No vigilance could surprise them. Day or night, it was always the same. January went by, and February ; and the end seemed as far off as ever. At length, however, toward the end of February, the speaker announced that on the 2d of March he would by sheer prerogative close the debate and call the vote. This proposal was resisted to the bitter end. When the 2d of March came there was an up- roarious opposition to the speaker's effort to close the discussion. The House was for a time a scene of the greatest confusion, and the cry of " Privilege!" " Privilege !" was heard on every hand; but the majority, under the lead of the speaker, had its way, and the Home Rulers were overrun. The vote was taken, and the Coercion Bill was carried. This was only the beginning of war. On the day following the passage of the Coercion Act the leaders of the Irish party were forcibly expelled 36 562 LIFE AXD TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. from tlie House of Commons. Charles Stewart Parnell and William O'Brien were arrested and thrown into prison, where they remained until the following year. It was believed, for the time, that this method of pur- ijation and suppression would end the Land League and silence its leaders; ijut not so. No sooner had the hand of force been applied than a strong WILLIAM O'BRIEN. sympathy was created for the oppressed and their cause. A reaction came on in their favor. The triumph of the government was seen to be no triumph, and the imprisoned leaders of the Land League got as much sympathy from the public as the ministry itself. The composition of the Liberal party was peculiar. It was graded all the way up from conservatism to radicalism. The radicals of the party were in so close sympathy with the Home Rulers that party discipline was necessary in order to restrain their insurgent dis- position. Aye, more than this; Mr. Gladstone himself inclined from the FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 563 perpendicular in the direction of Ireland. His tendencies were toward reform. A prudent conservatism was necessary as a policy ; but his drift was toward the principles of the verj- men who had been expelled from the House and imprisoned! The lull that followed the coup of the 2d of March was elusive and transient. It gave the government, however, an opportunity to proceed with its enactments bearing on the Irish question. The Land Bill was taken up and passed. With this it was hoped to stop the throat of Irish clamor; but not so. The sop was thrown to Cerberus too late. He would now have more. Ten years before the Land Bill of 1881 would have been taken by the Irish as the greatest boon. Now it was regarded as little better than an insult. Their great leaders and champions were imprisoned. Progressive ideas had sprung up with the agitation, and the cry was now raised for the absolute nationalization of the Irish land. This cry signified, of course, should it prevail, the destruction of the very principle of English landlordism. The system of toreign land tenure became more and more precarious. The poverty of the people was such that they could no longer pay rents if they would, and their temper was such that they would no longer pay them if they could. There was almost universal refusal to pay, and a consequent reign of violence and outrage ensued. Life and property were alike imperiled. Evictions began on the one side and resistance on the other. At the close of 1S81 and the beginning of 1882 there was a condition of general revolt. In a single month in the following summer no fewer than five hundred and thirty-one outrages were reported against the system of foreign landlordism and those who were trying to uphold it. For a while the government sought to stay the tide, but without much avail. On the 20th of October,. 1 88 1, a proclamation was issued declaring the Irish Land League to be an illegal and criminal association per se. This declaration gave opportunity to the authorities to proceed against the adherents of the League where and whenever found. The Coercion Bill, at the time of its adoption, was recognized by the government as a temporary expedient. It was limited in the time of its operation and was to expire with October of 1882. The years we are here considering were marked with several hitherto unknown social expedients which the contending parties adopted in their battles. One of these we have just noticed in the assumption by the Speaker of the House of Commons of the right to declare the end of debate against the wishes of an obstructive minority. It was at this time *that Irish wit and necessity invented the boycott. The expedient so called was a sort of social and industrial persecution directed against those who should incur the displeasure of the masses. The boycott was discovered in 5^^4 LIFE AND TIMES C)E WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. the fall of 1880. A certain Ca[)tain Bo\cott, agent of Lord Erne, near Lough Mask, on the borders of Galway and Mayo, was a collector of rentals for his superior. In this relation he got the animosity of the tenants and of the Land League. The word was given by the League that Boycott's servants should leave him; that no laborer should remain in his employ- ment ; that the shopkeepers of the neighborhood should suppl)- him with nothing, not even necessaries; and these orders were enforced with threats Irom the Invisible Empire against any who should disregard them. Captain Boycott and his family found themselves unexpectedly cut off FIGHT BETWEEN LAND LEAGUERS AND POLICE. from intercourse with the people around them. Their domestics, except two or three, quit their service, and those who hesitated were threatened. The sisters of the captain were obliged to drive with arms in their hands to considerable distances in order to secure the necessaries of life. A contin- gent of police at length arrived, but these were about to be overpowered when a body of troops came with artillery to put down violence. The vio- lence, however, was of a kind not to be reached. It was simpl}' negative' and intangible. Captain Boycott held out courageously until late in the year, when he was obliged to give up the unequal contest and leave the FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 565 neio-hborhood. This peculiar Irish discovery soon diffused itself as both a fact and a name to many parts of the disturbed country, and afterward to nearly all countries where like situations existed. The life of William E. Gladstone was adorned with a thousand pleasant incidents. He was made the recipient of many favors and testimonials. His home at Hawarden Castle was a museum of the tokens of regard which he had received in the course of his long life from his fellow-citizens and from friends and societies in foreign lands. In August of 1 88 1 a testimonial was made to the prime minister by his constituents of Greenwich. The electors of New Cross, Dept- ford, and Woolwich combined in the presentation of achairto their favorite leader. It is customary in England, on occasions of ex- citement and enthusiasm, for the electors to " chair" their represent- atives ; that is, to put them in a chair and bear them aloft in pro- cession. Mr. Gladstone at this time was in his seventy-second year, and it was doubtful whether the usual "chairing" would be appropriate for one of his years and dignity. To change the pro- gram a fish dinner was given at the Hotel Trafalgar, in Green- wich, on August 1 7, and a magnifi- cent chair was presented to the prime minister as his seat at the feast. The wood was of heart of oak and the chair was upholstered with light-brown morocco and bands of blue. The carving was emblematical and was beautilully executed. The Inscription was set in a wreath of carved roses, thistles, shamrocks, and leeks, these being the symbols of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The inscription on the back of the chair was as follows: " Presented to the Right Honorable William Ewart Gladstone, M.P., First Lord of the THE CREEXWICH MEMORIAL CHAIR. 566 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Treasury ; together with an address by the Liberals of the Borough of Greenwich and the Liberal clubs of the neighborhood, in testimony of their high appreciation of the priceless services rendered by him to the country, and in remembrance of the proud distinction he conferred upon the borough as its representative in Parliament from 1868 to 1880. August, 1881." Mr. Gladstone in these troublous years spoke frequently to the ques- tions of the day. His position was that violence and lawbreaking in Ireland should first be suppressed at all hazards, and afterward suitable legislation undertaken to relieve the distresses of that country. Mr. Forster,. Chief Secretary for Ireland, was assailed in unmeasured terms for what appeared to the government to be the honest discharge of duty, but which seemed to the Irish part)' to be outrageous tyranny. They gave the chief secretary the name of " Buckshot " Forster, and held him up to popular contempt. Mr. Gladstone, speaking at Leeds in October of 1881, said: "Amidst difti- culties which rarely have been equaled, and with the recollection of splendid services personally rendered to the people of Ireland from pure, disinter- ested, individual philanthropy in the early days of his youth, Mr. Forster represents in Ireland that cause which I hope will triumph. I hope it will triumph. I have not lost confidence in the people of Ireland." Then continuing, the prime minister denounced the Land League and Mr. Parnell, saying of the latter that he who had " made himself the head of the most violent party in Ireland, and who had offered the greatest tempta- tions to the Irish people, desired to arrest the operation of the act — to stand as Aaron stood, between the living and the dead ; but to stand there, not as Aaron stood, to arrest, but to spread the plague. . . . If the law, purged from defects and from every taint of injustice, is still to be repelled and refused, and the first conditions of political society are to be set at naught, then I sa^■, without hesitation, the resources of civilization aarainst its ene- mies are not yet exhausted." Among the bitterest opponents of the government at this time was the Irish leader, John Dillon, who repaid the government speakers for their strictures with whole volleys of detractions and anathema. His speeches at this period are marked with such vituperation as could hardly be equaled even in the day of ancient cursing. Mr. Dillon cursed Mr. Forster. He cursed Mr. Cjladstone as the father of the Coercion Act. He defied the government to arrest him. He urged the Irish to leave nothing undone that might be done in resistance to the hateful legislation. Finally he said, " If you want earnestly and like men to carry out the policy of the League, you must learn to know that the only way in which you have got to revenge yourselves or to protect yourselves against such acts of tyranny is to attack the men whom you have the power to attack; and whenever you see a man, no matter what his profession in life, helping a landlord who does a thing FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 567 like that, let the Land League of Tipperary follow him through every turn- ing of his life, let them, if they can, ruin him, as he sought to ruin you in your difficulties." For the utterance of these sentiments Mr. Dillon was arrested on the next day, and was imprisoned for several months, until his health was ruined. Thus if we view the field at the close of 18S1 and the beginning of 1S82 we find almost universal discontent and rebellion among DISTRESS IN IRELAND — EVICTION OF TENANTS. the Irish, and their leaders under arrest and in prison, with the suspension of Iiabcas coTpus. It was in this manner that the great battle for Home Rule in Iceland was begun. The government was greatly embarrassed. The legislation which was devised to meet the emergency did not meet it. An Arms Bill was passed, which provided for the disarmament of the Irish people; but it could be enforced only against the better classes, and with them there was no neces- sity for its enforcement. The underman simply concealed his gun and con- tinued lawless. There was in all Ireland and throughout many of the pop- ulous districts of Eng-land a (ground swell favorable to the Irish cause. It appeared probable that that cause would triumph under the Liberal leader- 568 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. ship ; but in order that it miyht be successful there must be a bringing together of the Home Rulers and the Liberals in the common cause. Early in 1882 Mr. Gladstone undertook the difficult feat of getting the Home Rule leaders into his following. It must be confessed that the situation was not auspicious; for those very leaders were now imprisoned under the provisions of the Act which the prime minister himself had pre- pared. Besides, he had many times denounced both them and their cause. Nevertheless, in April of 1882 he opened negotiations with Mr. Parnell, who was still imprisoned. It was said that a secret understanding was reached between the two, and the compact was designated in the jargon of the times as the "Treaty of Kilmainham." The report got abroad that the Irish leader would be satisfied with a bill abolishing arrears of rent in Ireland and with a just extension of tenant rights. Under these simple conditions he and his following would join the government in the effort to restrain the Land League with its penumbra of lawlessness from further harm. However this may be Mr. Gladstone at this time dropped a hint in the House of Commons of a new policy that might be expected. It would be found expe- dient, he intimated, to pacify the Irish by releasing the prisoners. This signified much, for the Irish jails were literally filled with persons who had been arrested on suspicion under the provisions of the Coercion Bill and the suspension of habeas corpus. Hundreds of men of excellent character were imprisoned. It was well known that it was futile to bring these prisoners to trial ; for no Irish jury would convict one of them. Cer- tainly the government could not keep them imprisoned always, and some- thing must be done to break the crisis. There had been times within the year when the crisis was about to break itself The women of Ireland, under the leadership of Anna Parnell, sister of Charles Stewart Parnell, formed a Land League of their own, making such publications that the Archbishop of Dublin issued a pastoral letter denouncing the movement. Hereupon no less a personage than Bishop Croke arose in defense of the Ladies' Land League, and was recognized in a triumphal procession which he made through Ireland as holding the aegis of the Church over the heads of all them who w^ere organized against the landlords. Certainly a movement of this kind could no longer be despised. The Land Leaguers, Home Rulers, and Irish faction in general took the name of the National party; all of which brought the government to see that there must be a new deal on the whole issue. ' The proposition to concede much to Parnell and his party was taken with many wry faces, and it was evident that the Liberal party as such was loath to surrender to those whom it had recently imprisoned. Just at the time when it appeared that they must surrender an unfortunate circumstance occurred which came near changing the history and tendency of the times. FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 569 There had been already many murders and other crimes perpetrated in Ire- land. One of the measures adopted to conciliate the Irish was the appoint- ment of Lord Frederick Cavendish to succeed William E. Forster in the office of chief secretary. Mr. Forster had shown great antipathy to the Irish, or at least to their organized effort for Home Rule. With Lord Cavendish was appointed as under secretary Mr. Thomas Henry Burke. Both the new officials were men of distinction, and were thougfht to be in the sympathies of the Irish people. On the evening of the 6th of May, 1882, Lord Cavendish and Mr. Burke were driving in Phcenix Park, Dublin, when they were attacked by four murderers, partly disguised. It seems that the attack was first made on Burke, whom Lord Cavendish souo^ht to defend ; but in the mclce both gentlemen were stabbed to death. Many persons were sitting or walking near by ; but the assassins were permitted to escape, or at least did escape from the park. A quantity of gold coin, bank notes, and many valuables were found on the bodies of the murdered men, and it was seen at a glance that it was a case of political assassination pure and simple. The event was followed by an indescribable sensation. Nearly all the political leaders in England found opportunity to turn the horrible event to good account by charging it to the Land League. The real leaders of that organization at once published authoritative disclaimers, and denounced the crime In patriotic terms. But the mischief was done, and the Home Rule party was made to bear the odium. Of course the Land League had drawn after it the very draff and offal of Irish discontent. Crime, as it is ever wont to do, had become a penumbra around the body of reform. The liberation of Parnell from prison restored that remarkable person- age to the House of Commons, and there he was assailed with violent denun- ciations. He was made the bHe noire of the hour by those w^ho were anxious by that means to check the reformatory tendency. The small partisans attacked him, and he stood like a boar against them. Indeed, he scarcely deigned to make answer when they demanded that the hands of the Irish Land League and his own hands should be washed of the crime of murder. Parnell said in answer that all defense of himself and his party was impossi- ble in such a court as the English House of Commons. His cause was pre- judged. His judges were his enemies and the enemies of the Irish people. He was not anxious to justify himself at such a bar. Certainly crime was crime, by whomsoever committed. For the rest, he stood for the cause of an oppressed people. He had suffered an unjust imprisonment for that cause ; and now he and his party were maligned and slandered. This condition of affairs tended greatly to weaken the Liberal ascend- ency. Hardly could any party steer safely through such a maelstrom. The government had a good working majority through the whole of 1882-83 ; 570 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. '''4S^'.rk'M ^^mMwwm^^m^^ /Ifnmi ^'iilll'' .viiyiiui'iiiiiiiiii' f lifl" ■ 11 LIBERATION OF PRISONERS FROM IRISH JAILS. FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 57 1 but whenever a by-election occurred it resulted invariably in Ireland in a gain of a Home Rule member, and in England generally in a gain for the Conservatives. This tendency continued without variation in its results, until the government was at length reduced to the necessity of going to the Conservatives for incidental support of its measures, or else appealing to the Home Rulers themselves. The latter had now in view one definite object, and that was the nationalization of Ireland. Whatever promoted this end was a part of their policy. Whatever opposed it was opposed by them. The immediate sequel of the murder of Lord Cavendish and Mr. Burke was the bringing in of a measure called the Prevention of Crimes Bill. Such was the temper of the House that the government made the bill much more severe than it ought to have been. It was proposed to carry the means of repression to the utmost. In fact, the measure was made so cruel that it could not in any event be carried into full operation. Nevertheless, a greater number of the Home Rulers voted for it than voted against it. Mr. Gladstone saw the defects in the Crimes Bill, but defended it on the ground that it did not put down such an organization as the Land League, provided the Land League was an organization of the kind indicated in its code of prin- ciples. He said also that the Crimes Bill would have been brought for- ward if the Dublin assassinations had never occurred. He claimed that there was a vague and yet undeniable sympathy abroad for the assassination. The government was not unwilling to hear objections that might be brought against the measure and consider the same in committee. Besides, the Crimes Bill was joined with the Arrears of Rent Bill, intended for the relief of Ireland. These arguments of course prevailed, and the two measures were carried by a great maiority. Just after this event an incident occurred in the House of Commons tending to show the slow movement of Mr. Gladstone's mind in the certain direction which he was taking. Mr. Dillon delivered a speech on the actual condition in Ireland, very truthful and very bitter. He went so far as to contemplate a scene of universal warfare in his country, and in summing up the whole situation declared that it was useless to legislate against Irish crimes and outrages so long as eviction continued to work its horrible results among the tenants. To this Mr. Gladstone replied. He said that Dillon's declarations were heartbreaking; but he thanked him for his frankness. The honorable gen- tleman had raised an issue which was now clear. On one side was the Brit- ish government, and all law-obeying and law-abiding men ; on the other side was the honorable gentleman who had just spoken. He had told the House that it was useless to denounce outrage until eviction was denounced also. But what were evictions.? Eviction was a legal right. It might involve 572 LIFE AXU TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. UNIOXIST DEMONSTRATION IN BELFAST. FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 573 prejudice to a neighbor, or even moral guilt. He did not deny that one for the exercise of the right of eviction might be held guilty in the sight of God ; but the right existed, and was a legal right. Mr. Dillon had placed the landlord who exercised the right of eviction on the same level with the perpetrator of crimes. Strange it is that just such a condition as that here depicted by the prime minister is always necessary in Great Britain before a reform against an e.xisting abuse can be promoted ! Nevertheless Mr. Gladstone was himself moving steadily in the direc- tion of reform, and would arrive at that end before the majority of his countrymen. The Crimes Bill proved to be worse for Ireland than for Great Britain. Its enactment was followed b)' the perpetration of several murders. Perhaps there was for the time a more orderly administration of affairs ; but it was that kind of order which sprang from terrorism. Punish- ment was the order of the day, and executions were not infrequent. The Arrears of Rent Bill was limited in its provisions to holdings of thirty pounds a year, and under. Certain conditions were requisite before tenants could avail themselves of the provisions of the measure. A tenant must establish his inability to pay. In certain cases the State should jDay one half the arrearage and the tenant be quit of the rest. Tenants who had been evicted up to a certain date should be privileged to take advantage of the new law, etc. The year 1883 was a trial of the situation under the two bills just described ; but the trial was of little value to the cause of peace and qui- etude. Fresh outrages followed in Dublin. On the 25th of November a body of detectives was attacked in that city, and one of them killed. Soon afterward a juror was assassinated for performing his duty in a trial. Mean- while, on the 17th of October, an Irish National Conference was held in Dublin for the purpose of consolidating all factions and organizations into one, to be called the Irish National League. The objects of this new organ- ization were defined by Mr. Parnell as being national self-government, land- law reform, local self-government, extension of the parliamentary and munic- ipal franchises, and the development and encouragement of the labor and industrial interests of Ireland. In that country the new organization of political society was accepted, but among the Irish in America there was a division on the question. The year 1S83 was otherwise uneventful in Mr. Gladstone's life, and indeed in the history of England ; but toward the end of the year the attention of the government was drawn to the consideration of a very serious state of affairs in Egypt. In that countr)- war had broken out and English and French fleets had been ordered to the bay of Alexandria. A party of Nationalists in Egypt set up a provisional government and suc- ceeded in deposing Khedive Tewfik from power. Great Britain espoused 574 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. the cause of Tewfik, and an Anglo-Indian army thirty thousand strong, under command of Sir Garnet Wolseley, was brought over from India and pitched against the National army, under command of the great leader, Ahmed El Arabi. The forces of the latter were routed and he himself deported to Ceylon. Financial control of Egypt was taken jointly by England and France, and in 1883 the Khedive was restored. At this junc- ture, however, the popular cause was taken up by the Prophet El Mahdi, and a war was carried into the Soudan ; but the history of the contlict there, to the death of Gordon and finally to the suppression of the insur- rection, is so remote from our immediate subject that we need not follow it further. It must not be supposed, however, that the war in Egypt was not a distressful circumstance to the administration. Mr. Gladstone had least strength on the side of war. He had his greatest strength on the side of economics, and more generally of political sociology. The management of affairs in the East was subjected to bitter criticism by the opposition. The ministry was not spared by high or by low. The great newspapers thun- dered against the current management. Moreover, a Russian army was on the frontiers of Afghanistan, menacing the peace again in that far quarter of the world. To all this must be added the universal commotion and distress in Ireland. Such conditions might well embarrass the strongest adminis- tration. Mr. Gladstone did not quail before the difficulties that conh-onted him, but went boldly forward to do the best he could. He first directed his attention to the question of again reforming the franchise. This question, however, had to be approached by stages. The reader will remember that under the old regime the rights of the landlord to all improvements except the most transient, made on the landed estates, were absolute. The tenant had no right to anything he produced in the way of improvement on the soil, farm, barn, or homestead. All the while he was subject to a notice to leave, and this involved the loss of all his improvements. In 1875 the Agricultural Holdings Act had given permis- sion to landlords to contract themselves out of their rights to improvements, but this Act was of only small benefit. Being simply permissive, it enjoined nothing, demanded nothing for the tenant. For eight years the Act con- tinued in force, and was then swept away by the Act of 1883, which provided that a tenant on quitting his estate, but not before, should be paid by the landlord such sum as fairly represented the value of the improvements; that is, their value to the succeeding tenant. This Act was to become operative on the ist of January, 1884. As soon as this question of tenant right seemed to be fairly out of the way Mr. Gladstone, anxious to take up some measure that might be of universal advantage and at the same time restore the waningf influence of FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 575 the administration, brought forward his Franchise Bill, and on the 29th of February, 1884, offered it in the House of Commons. His speech on the occasion was commended for its clearness and force. The question at issue, he said, had advanced so far in public opinion that he thought it unneces- sary to make a general argument in support of the proposed bill. The bill had been brought forward under the double motive of fulfilling a pledge and of obeying a public demand. It was calculated for many reasons to add strength to the State. It would hardly be necessary to argue the expediency of such a measure to those who had themselves been enfran- chised within the last fifteen years. The advocates of an enlarged franchise in Great Britain had grown bold Avith experience. " I am not prepared," said Mr. Gladstone, " to discuss admission to the franchise now as it was discussed fifty years ago, when Lord John Russell had to state with almost bated breath that he expected to add in the three kingdoms half a million to the constituencies. It is not now a question of nicely calculated less or more. " I take my stand," he continued, " upon the broad principle that the enfranchisement of capable citizens, be they few or be they man)' — and if they be many so much the better — is an addition to the strength of the State. The strength of the modern State lies in the representative system. I rejoice to think that in this happy country and in this happy constitution we have other sources of strength in the respect paid to the various orders of the State, in the authority they enjoy, and in the unbroken course which ha.=; been allowed to most of our national traditions. But still, in the main, it is the representative system which is the strength of the modern State in general and of the state of this country in particular." The American reader must understand that up to this time a serious discrimination in the suffrage had existed against the county electors and in favor of the borough electors. Householders in towns had enjoyed a great advantage over those of the country. Artisans, miners, tradesmen of the rural towns, and those whom we designate as farmers, were all disparaged, and to these it was now proposed to extend the same advantages and rights which were enjoyed by householders in towns. All previous legislation in favor of these classes had worked well. Each enlargement of the right of suffrage had been attended with distinct advantages, In America it is difficult to understand the British prejudice against the agricultural laborer, of whom Mr. Gladstone said on this occasion, " If he has one defect it is that he is too ready to work with and under the intlu- ence of his superiors." The prime minister went on to describe what he called the affirmative provisions of the Franchise Bill. These were, in the first place, to extend the ten-pound rate to the occupation of land, whether with houses or without them, and, secondly, the creation of a service 576 . LIFE AND TIMES ()]•' WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. franchise, givino; to every man in a dwelling house, by virtue of any ofifice, service or employment, the right to vote. The speaker explained that the former provisions, under the bill of 1867, were not to be disturbed except where the same right be in conflict with the new law. County franchises of fift\' pounds were to be abolished. What was known as the salable-value franchise would be reduced from twelve pounds to ten pounds limit. The changes proposed should be extended to Scotland and Ireland, so that the right of suffrage should rest henceforth on virtually the same conditions in all three kingdoms. We need not here enter into the details and applications of the proposed measure or cpiote further from the debates relative thereto. The usual opposition was offered to the bill, which was before the House during the spring of 1884. On the 26th of June the third reading was ordered, without a division of the House. On going to the House of Lords the bill was rejected, except upon the condition of a redistribution of parliamentary seats. The majority in the Lords was emphatic. An effort was made at compromise, the proposition being that the Lords would accept the Fran- chise Bill under pledge that at the next session a measure should be passed for a redistribution of seats. This was not accepted by the ministry because, as Gladstone said, to do so would be to bring in a Redistribution Bill with a rope around his neck. The question was now whether the House should be prorogued with an appeal to the country or whether the government should recede from its chosen ground on the Franchise Bill. Tlie contention broke out bitterly in Parliament and in the country. The popular leaders denounced the House of Lords, Mr. John Morley going so far as to say, " Be sure that no power on earth can separate henceforth the question of mending the House of Commons Irom the question of mending or ending the House of Lords!" Mr. Chamberlain said in a speech at Birmingham : " During the last one hundred years the House of Lords has never contributed one iota to popular liberties or popular freedom, or done anything to advance the common weal, and during that time it has protected every abuse and sheltered every privilege. It has denied justice and delayed reform. It is irresponsible without independence, obstinate without courage, arbitrar)- without judg- ment, and arrogant without knowledge." In this condition of affairs the bill went over until the autumn, when it was again brought up and discussed. No alterations had been made in the measure. Nor were anv suo^o-ested. Mr. Gladstone, however, was concilia- tory in his manner. He invited the Conservatives to join in support of the measure, and stated that as soon as the same should become a law a bill for the redistribution of parliamentary seats would be introduced. The Conservatives en masse voted against the measure, which, however, became FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. )/ / a law ; and on the 5th of December the Redistribution Bill went to the second reading in the House of Commons. This measure, like its prede- cessor, called for long debates. It was carried beyond the holidays and into W *!•' ^f % if**'^;''f JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. the following year, not being passed until after the change in government, in June of 1885. The general effect of the bill was to disiVanchise many small boroughs and to distribute the seats which they had possessed to the larger boroughs and to the counties. The voters of the disfranchised boroughs were absorbed in the larger districts in which they were situated. All boroughs having a population of less than fifteen thousand were denied separate representa- 37 578 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. tion, and those between fifteen thousand and twent)- thousand should have only a sini^le representative each. The result of the measure was the disfranchisement of eighty-one English boroughs, two Scotch, and twenty-two Irish boroughs, while thirty- si.\ of the English and three of the Irish boroughs lost each one representa- tive. There were some other disfranchisements and a number of undistributed seats to be added, so that the government found itself in possession of no fewer than a hundred and seventy-eight seats for redistribution. These Avere to be given to the counties and to the large towns of the United Kingdom. The total membership of the House of Commons was raised from six hundred and fifty-two to six hundred and seventy. Of the gain England eot six seats, Scotland twelve, and Ireland none. The whole effect was to enlarge the representation of the counties and of the larger towns and cities. No doubt this salutary measure of reform would under favorable cir- cumstances have brought to the Liberal govefnment an accession ot strength and popularity; but this seems not to have been the result. The ministry was constantly attacked on the score of its foreign policy. Affairs abroad had hardl)' gone well anywhere. Mr. Gladstone was evidently annoyed with the condition. It was believed by many that after the passage of the Redis- tribution Act of 1885 he was rather willing than unwilling that the Con- servatives should ha\-e their wa)' antl take the saddle. By the beginning of summer the opposition was riding high. Matters came to a crisis in June, when Sir Michael Hicks-Beach opposed with an amendment a financial scheme introduced by Mr. Childers on the behalt of the government to increase the dutj- on distilled spirits and beer. There was also a ministerial measure for equalizing what were called the death duties in such a way as to make the same rest equally on land and personal property. Landed property had hitherto been exempt from this rate, and the landed interest rose in arms against the ministerial proposition. The amendment offered by Sir Michael was carried against the government by a majority of twelve votes. Nor does it appear that Mr. Gladstone was unwilling to be beaten. The majority was small and the issue not so important as to compel a resignation ; but the prime minister chose to regard it otherwise, and immediately resigned. Thus in June of 1885, after a five years' term of service in the highest and most responsible oflice to which a subject of Great Britain may aspire, Mr. Gladstone brought his second term as prime minister to an end, thus devolving upon his opponents the necessity of constructing for her majesty a new Conservative government. A short time before his retirement from office Mr. Gladstone had a pleasing personal duty to perform. On the 8th of January, 1885, Prince FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 579 Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, heir to the crown in direct succession, being the oldest son of the Prince of Wales, reached his majority. The event was noted with interest by the British public, by whom the young jjrince, as well as his brother George, Duke of York, was highly esteemed. Mr. Gladstone as prime minister thought it proper to express to the prince his sentiments and congratulations on the occasion, which he did in the fol- lowing letter : " Hawarden Castle, January 7, 1885. " Sir : As the oldest among the confidential servants of Her Majesty, I cannot allow the anniversary to pass without notice which will to-morrow bring your Royal Highness to full age, and thus mark an important epoch in your life. " The hopes and intentions of those whose lives lie, like mine, in the past, are of little moment, but they have seen much, and what they have seen suggests much tor the future. "There lies before your Royal Highness in prospect the occupation, I trust at a distant date, of a throne which, to me at least, appears the most illustrious in the world, from its history and associations, from its legal basis, from the weight of its cares it brings, from the royal love of the people, and from the unparalleled opportunities it gives, in as many ways and in so many regions, of doing good to the most countless numbers whom the Almighty has placed beneath the scepter of England. " I fervently desire and pray — and there cannot be a more animating prayer — that your Royal Highness may ever grow in the principles of con- duct and may be adorned with all the qualities which correspond with this great and noble vocation. " And, Sir, if Sovereignty has been relieved by our modern institutions of its burdens, it still, I believe, remains true that there has been no period of the world's history at which successors to the Monarchy could more efficaciously contribute to the stability of a great historic system dependent even more upon love than upon strength, by devotion to their duties, and by bright example to the country. This result we have happily been per- mitted to see, and other generations will, I trust, witness it anew. " Heartily desiring that in the life of your Royal Highness, every pri- vate and personal may be joined with every public blessing, I have the honor' to remain, Sir, your Royal Highness's most dutiful and faithful servant, W. E. Gladstone. " H. R. H. the Prince Albert Victor." The responsibility of forming a Conservative government was uneasily borne. After the death of the Earl of Beaconsfield, on the 19th of April, 1 88 1, the leadership of the Conservative party had been assigned to the 58o LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. Marquis of Salisbury. To him, according to tlie custom which had now become virtually constitutional, the queen must appeal. He was accord- in 592 LIFE AND TliMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. should remain as at present until some other order should be established. The viceroy should have his privy council, and should not be subject to chanije with the legislative oovernment. If the present judges should re- tire they might be pensioned. The present constabulary should be con- tinued under the existing authority. Ultimately the police regulations of Ireland should be determined by the legislature of that country. The finan- cial aspects of the question were then discussed, and a demonstration offered that the new arrangement would be equitable to all concerned. In presenting this great, almost revolutionary, scheme of reform, Mr. Gladstone stood boldly to his colors. The interest was great ; but there were many signs that the plan proposed would not be acceptable to a ma- jority of the House. The defection from the Liberal ranks continued. Many went off with Mr. Chamberlain, on the ground that the measure proposed tended to disintegrate the British empire. Public meetings began to be held. Some members of the government took part in them, and many of the Liberal following became timid in the support of the Home Rule Bill. The tone of the Liberal newspapers was uncertain, and the general alarm was no doubt heightened by the triumphant and outspoken gratula- tions of the Home Rulers and Radical Liberals. Mr. Gladstone made haste to follow up the Home Rule Bill with his Land Purchase Bill which had been promised. This was presented in the House of Commons on the i6th of April. It was set forth as a necessary part of the general scheme of reform. It contemplated the compensation of absentee landlords, to whose tyrannous exactions the greater part of the evils of Ireland must be referred. For nearly two centuries this tribe of landlords had become more and more detached from their tenants. They hardly ever visited their own estates. They managed them by agents who conducted the rent offices without regard to the interests of any but their masters. Mr. Gladstone set forth in full the provisions of the Land Purchase Bill, so that the whole question was now before Parliament and the people. On the loth of May the prime minister moved the second reading of the Home Rule Bill, and the debates became excited and prolonged. The Irish leaders announced their adhesion to the scheme, and declared that they and the Irish people would faithfully observe the letter and the spirit of the proposed Act. The opponents of the bill still held to the main point that the measure would impair the imperial union. Lord Harrington, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Goschen were of this following, and their party grew. The debate continued until the 7th of June, and was concluded by Mr. Glad- stone. The question then went to a division, and the bill was defeated by a majority of thirty. The analysis of the vote showed that the Liberal Unionists had gone over in a body to the Conservatives, thus putting the government in almost a hopeless minority. It remained either to resign or FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 593 go to the country. The latter course was adopted, and on the 25th of June Parliament was dissolved. Her majesty's message said that the dissolution was declared "in order to ascertain the sense of my people upon the impor- tant proposal to establish a legislative body in Ireland for the management of Irish as distinguished from imperial affairs." So the two parties, or rather the four parties, appealed to the country. It was an epoch of Gog and Magog. On the 14th of June, Mr. Gladstone sent his address to the electors of Midlothian, saying among other things: " Some method of crovernino- Ireland other than coercion ougfht, as I thought, to be souo-ht for and mieht be found. I therefore viewed without regret the fall of the late cabinet, and when summoned by her majesty to form a new one I undertook it on the basis of an anticoercion policy, with the fullest explanation to those whose aid I sought as colleagues that I proposed to examine whether it might be possible to grant to Ireland a domestic legis- lature, under conditions such as to maintain the honor and consolidate the unity of the empire. Two clear, positive, intelligible plans are before the world. There is the plan of the government and there is the plan of Lord Salisbury. Our plan is that Ireland should, under well-considered conditions, transact her own affairs. His plan is to ask Parliament for new repressive laws and to enforce them resolutely for twenty years, at the end of which time he assures us that Ireland will be ready to accept any gifts in the way of local government or the repeal of coercion laws that you may wish to give her." All classes of political ideas were now advanced with vehemence and many of them supported with great ability. On the whole the tide set against the Liberals, or at least against the Gladstonian Liberals, and the result showed the defeat of the government and its overthrow. Three hundred and sixteen Conservatives were returned, against one hundred and ninety-one Gladstonians. Seventy-eight Liberal Unionists were chosen, and eighty-five Parnellites. The combined force of the latter and the Gladstonians was only two hundred and seventy-six. Of those who had voted for the Home Rule Bill, numbering two hundred and thirty-one, thirty-eight failed of reelection. The decision was emphatic, and Mr. Glad- stone at once resigned his office, advising the queen to appoint Lord Salis- bury in his stead. This was accordingly done, though not without some shuffling. A movement was made to have Lord Hartington named as prime minister, with the intention of forming a coalition cabinet. It is said that Lord Salisbury offered to take office in such a government, but Lord Hartington declined the proposal, and Lord Salisbury became for the second time premier. Sir Stafford Northcote (afterward Lord Iddesleigh) was appointed Foreign Secretary; Mr. William Henry Smith, Secretary for War ; Lord 38 594 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. George Hamilton, First Lord of the Admiralty; Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Secretary for Ireland; the Marquis of Londonderry, Viceroy of Ireland; Lord Ashbourne, Irish Chancellor; Mr. Henry Matthews, Home Secretary; and Lord Randolph Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Parliament was again convened in August of iS86. The Conservatives had the government, but they hardly knew what to do with it. Presently, /''.■' " *' LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL. however, the purpose was openly advanced of reducing Ireland to submission by coercive measures. A military force was sent into the west and south of that country to put down what was called the reign of terror. It was given out as a supposed panacea that the government would expend a con- siderable sum in improving the drainage of the country! Thus the Irish whale was to be satisfied with a tub ! Mr. Gladstone reappeared in the House and spoke a few words FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 595 seriously and temperately on the attitude of the government, and then took no further part for the present in what was done. He decided on a short vacation, and soon set out with his family for a tour in Bavaria. Before leaving the country, however, he made two additional publications, which were written wath his accustomed vigor and patriotism. The first was entitled The History of an Idea. In this pamphlet he recited the story of the growth and development of the notion of local self-government for Ireland. The second publication was entitled Lessons of the Election. In this he sought to show — and did show — by analysis the exact character of the verdict recently rendered by the British nation. He demonstrated that the vote in Scotland was in the ratio of three to two in favor of the Home Rule policy. In Ireland the same verdict was rendered in the ratio of four and a half to one, and in Wales by five to one. In England, how- ever, the decision was the other way, the opponents of Home Rule having three hundred and thirty-six representatives against one hundred and twenty-nine in favor of that measure. Mr. Gladstone held stoutly to the correctness of his policy and predicted that the same would ultimately be approved by public opinion, not only in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, but in England also. At this time there were many public expressions in Mr. Gladstone's favor. It was seen that the election had turned upon fear, the fear of the English voters, which had been aroused by the appeals of the Conserva- tives. In many public assemblies the Gladstonian policy was enthusiastically approved, so that it may be said that Mr. Gladstone retired from his third ascendencj' enveloped in the good will oi the people. The year 1887 completed the fiftieth year of the reign of Victoria. Such an event was not likely to go by unobserved. Not often had it hap- pened in English history that the fiftieth year of a sovereign's reign could be celebrated. The reigning queen was jDopular with her subjects, particu- larly with the upper third of English society. Her semicentennial was duly celebrated wherever the banner of St. George is the ensign of authority. The acme of the fHes was on the 21st of June, that being the anniversary of the queen's accession. The principal scene of the home celebration was in the Abbey of Westminster. Thither on the appointed day came the queen, under conduct of her sons, her sons-in-law, and her grandsons as a guard of honor. About ten thousand persons participated in the ceremonies at the Abbey. Representatives were present with con- gratulations from all the reigning houses in Europe and from most of the governments in the New World. London was splendidly decorated, as were all the principal cities of the United Kingdom. The poet laureate, who had now been raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Tennyson, honored the occasion with a personal poem addressed to her majesty. From London 596 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. ?» O > M a & a FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 597 as a center the jubilee spirit extended to all the British colonies of the world. From the foothills of Burmah to the mountains of British Columbia, lookinsf down to the Pacific, the queen's name and reign were commemorated with congratulations and festivals. The government party in Parliament was now made up of the Conserv- atives proper plus the Liberal Unionists. That party was opposed by the Liberals proper plus the Parnellites. But the government was strong enough to carry out its polic}- with a strong hand. No protests could prevail against it. Some members of the cabinet refused to follow in the wake and resigned. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was of this number, and his place was assigned to Mr. Arthur James Balfour, who became Secretary for Ireland in 18S7 and remained in office for four years. It was under his reign that the policy of repression was carried out. A series of measures was now enacted, one of the principal of which was the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, introduced by Mr. Balfour, on the 2 1st of March, 18S7. The general intent of the bill was to confer on the authorities extraordinary powers of suppression, as it respected persons, asso- ciations, and public meetings. In fact, the proposed law was inimical to civil liberty, and this fact was pointed out in the debates. In the month of April a great demonstration was held in Hyde Park, in remonstrance against the bill, and a hundred thousand people were said to have been present. By the time the measure came to a vote Mr. Gladstone had returned from the Continent, and was in the House on the occasion. He did not speak, but when the vote was taken he arose and walked out to be counted with the Home Rulers. His appearance and his vote were loudly cheered by his fol- lowers. The government measure was carried, and in the July following eighteen counties in Ireland were put under the severe provisions of the Act. On the 31st of ]vlarch in this year the Conservative Irish Land Bill was brought before the Commons. A commission had been sent out to inquire into the condition of Ireland, and this commission had made its report, which was used as the basis of the proposed law. Mr. Parnell declared when the measure was read that the scheme of the enemies of Ireland was now revealed in all of its native dishonesty. The debate was hot, but the gov- ernment measure was put through the House and became a law. We may remark that such bills were never seriously questioned in the House of Lords. As soon as the Land Bill was passed Mr. Balfour made a proclamation to the effect that the National Leacjue was itself a dangrerous association, coming under the provisions of the Crimes Bill, and might therefore be sup- pressed. The veteran Gladstone was at this time on the alert for what he regarded as the dangerous movements of the government. On the 25th of 598 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. August, 1S87, he moved an address to the crown, praying for the withdrawal of Air. Balfour's proclamation. He said that before such a proclamation could be justified the evidence of such justification must be laid before Par- liament. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had failed to present such evidence. In the absence of it the proclamation amounted to the destruction of all the safeguards of liberty. The proclamation w^as not by its own terms against ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR. crime in Ireland, but it was directed to combinations of the people, as though all such combinations were in themselves criminal. Trial by jury and the habeas corpus w-ere both proclaimed away by Mr. Balfour. Every- thing was left to the irresponsible will of the Irish executive. To this Mr. Balfour made answer, bringing forward the report of the late commission, as though that partial document were the justification of his proceedings. He openly declared that it had not been deemed expedi- FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 599 ent to denounce the Land League until after the passage of the Land Act. Now it was expedient to declare the National League itself a dangerous association. Mr. Gladstone's protest was without avail, and the govern- ment measure was sustained. We here enter the epoch when the Irish leaders were subjected to the greatest persecutions. Not one of them was spared. Every pretext was eagerly sought to arrest them and get them into prison or exile. Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Dillon, Mr, Mandeville, and indeed every leader against whom any pretext of prosecution could be devised, was arrested or driven from the country. Mr. Parnell was the object of the bitterest hatred. His abili- ties were preeminent above the rest. His patriotism was unblemished, his influence great and increasing. Just after the passage of the Crimes Act and the Irish Land Bill of 18S7 the Conservative powers concentrated their fire on Parnell, and the acme was reached by the publication in the London Times of a series of articles entitled " Parnellism and Crime." The purpose of the publications was to prove that Parnell had been connected with the assassins of Lord Cavendish and Mr. Burke, in Phoenix Park. In order to establish this monstrous conclusion a letter was pub- lished in facsimile, bearing Mr. Parnell's signature, in which it was clearly indicated that he was connected with the crimes referred to and in sympa- thy with the perpetrators. The letter was addressed to Patrick Egan, well known in America, who was at that time in Nebraska. Mr. Egan at once sent a telegram declaring that he had never received such a letter. Mr. Par- nell in the House of Commons denounced it as an atrocious falsehood. Nevertheless, the Times persisted in indorsing the letter and the charges it contained. The document was of such a character as to bear its own brand of infamy ; but this was overlooked by those whose interest it was to hound down the great Irish leader. The letter, that is, the body of the letter, occupied the first page of a sheet of note paper, and was crowded at the bottom, as though there were want of space to complete what the writer was saying. Then at the top of \.\\&/o2iri/i page of the note paper were the words, "Yours very trul)', Chas. S. Parnell." The letter in this form would not have been admitted in any court in Christendom as substantial evidence against a dog ; but no denial on Mr. Parnell's part could stay the tide of vituperation and slander. Not to be thus destroyed, Mr. Parnell brought suit against the London Times for damages in the sum of a hundred thousand pounds, the charges being malicious libel. The cause came on for trial before Lord Chief Jus- tice Coleridge and a special jury in the Queen's Bench. Meanwhile the man, Richard Pigott, from whom the Times had obtained the forged letter, was brought to London to testify. An examination into his character proved that he was an unmitigated scoundrel. The fact was presently brought out 6oo LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM K. GLADSTONE. that the Times had/azV/him for the letter two thousand five hundred and thirty pounds ! Presently, in the house of jMr. Labouchere, Pigott confessed, in the presence of witnesses, that he had forged the letter himself. Fearing CHARLES STEWART PARXELL. to come to cross-examination, he fled to Madrid, where, on the loth of March, 1889, he rid the world of a monster by killing himself It was quite useless to try .such a cause before Lord Chief Justice Cole- ridge. On the 3d of February, 1890, when the cause was called, the counsel for the Times indicated to the judges that it was not necessary to argue the question of damages. They told their honors that ]\Ir. Parnell had agreed to accept five thousand pounds as damages, the Times to pay all the costs FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 6oi of the proceedings. A verdict was rendered accordingly, and Mr. Parnell went out in triumpli. Nor may we pass from this episode and dismiss from consideration Charles Stewart Parnell without an expression of profound regret for the domestic difficulties in which he was presently involved, and the advantage which was taken thereof to effect his political ruin. In November of 1890 Captain O'Shea was granted a divorce from his wife on allegations affecting Mr. Parnell's relations with her. The circumstances were of the kind most available in political warfare, and at the instance of the Liberal leaders Mr. Parnell was deposed from the leadership of his own party, although he refused to accept that verdict and received the support of a large and faithful minority unto the date of his death, October 6, 1S91. Between the years 1888 and 1891 Mr. Gladstone appeared from time to time in the House of Commons, where he was always received with those marks of distinction which are the due of recocrnized orreatness. Occasion- ally he spoke, always with moderation and always with his accustomed force and eloquence. When the report of a commission which had been appointed to investigate the accusers of Mr. Parnell and his friend, but had turned about to investigate the complainants, was made in Parliament Mr. Glad- stone spoke emphatically on the subject, demanding that the entries on the books of the House should contain expressions of regret for the groundless and scandalous charges which had been made against the Irish members. His demand, however, was refused, and the report of the partial commission was accepted by the usual majority, not, however, until Lord Randolph Churchill had flared up and denounced the course of the government as tor- tuous and iniquitous. In DecemT^er of 1889 Mr. Gladstone completed his eightieth year. The event was celebrated at Hawarden and was observed at many other places. He was still sound in mind and body. He exhibited in his public and private intercourse the manners which he had borne for more than half a century, showing, however, a measure ot care and prudence which were quite necessary at that advanced period of his life. He was still able, out at Hawarden, to go abroad on his estate, to gather flowers, of which he was always fond, and to chop wood. His ability in this respect was remarked upon in a tradition almost as universal as that relating to Abraham Lincoln as a splitter of rails. The aged statesman meanwhile kept up an unabated interest in public affairs, and whenever an issue of importance was on in Parliament there was William E. Gladstone in the midst. The administration of the Marquis of Salisbury extended from August of 1886 to August of 1892, a period of six years. It was a long government, not wanting in ability. Its policy was throughout reactionary; the whole force of the administration was directed to the obliteration, as far as possible, of the Irish cause. It may not be 6o2 LIFE AXD TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. denied that this course was in a large measure successful. The policy of repression prevailed. The condition of the Irish tenants was hardly less deplorable when order was restored by force than it had been before. In "THE WOOUCHOPPER OF HAWARDEN." fact, the crovernment of Lord Salisbury, according to the old proverb, made a waste in Ireland and called it peace. The immigration of the Irish people to America seemed to be about the only remaining remedy. Landlordism was reestablished in almost its pristine abusiveness and injustice. Eviction flourished again, and the con- stable was reinforced with the battering ram. The power of Great Britain, exercised by a Conservative ministry in full accord with the crown, and FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 603 administered for the greater part of the period by Mr. Balfour, was meas- ured out in Ireland with rod and cord. The protests of the aged states- man of Hawarden and his fellow-Liberals were disregarded — though not disregarded in America. It cannot be doubted that in our own country a great part of the popularity which William E. Gladstone always enjoyed must be attributed to the fact that he was the conspicuous champion of Home Rule in Ireland — a cause that has always appealed to our people, and not in vain. By the year 1890 Mr. Gladstone, now for more than three years in op- position, had strong hopes of recovering the reins from the hands of the Conservatives. Doubtless he was no longer actuated by personal ambitions, but the failure of the Home Rule Bill in 1886 was a thorn in his flesh. It began to be seen that the by-elections were favorable to the beaten cause. The majority of one hundred and thirteen which the Conservatives had been able to muster at the beginning of the Salisbury ascendency was now seen to crumble away little by little. Moreover, the Liberal Unionists began to lose ground. Sir George Trevelyan, Mr. Caine, and other leaders returned to the Liberal fold. Everything seemed to be going well when that unfor- tunate affair of Parnell's was blown abroad, and the suit of Captain O'Shea was instituted, naming the Irish leader as co-respondent. Parnell hereupon put himself in the attitude of saying that his domestic difficulty was not the concern of those who were associated with him in public life ; but such is the temper of the British nation that Parnell's dilemma was precisely the thing to be used ad odinin, not only against him- self, but also against his political associates. It was of course very becoming in the London Times, which had recently paid more than two thousand pounds for what was on the face of it a forged communication, had published it as genuine, and had then paid five thousand pounds damages for the crime, now to proclaim that Parnell, for his sin, should be driven from the Irish leadership, and that Gladstone, the Liberal leader, could no longer associate with him in public affairs. This hollow cant was taken up with great effect by all the Conservative organs and reuttered by the speakers of that following. It was so effective that on the 24th of November, 1890, Mr. Gladstone deemed it prudent to write a letter to Mr. John Morley, saying that he had arrived at the con- clusion that Mr. Parnell should resign the leadership of the Irish party, and indicating Mr. Justin McCarthy as his successor. The letter was not intended to be public, but through some bungling it got to the public and precipitated on Parnell the necessity of resigning or of breaking with the Liberals, upon whom his hopes for the success of his cause depended. He would not resign, but was deposed by a majority. A large part of the Irish party stood with him in the day of his downfall, and, as we have said, to the 6o4 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. clay of his dcalh. The Irish party was thus rent in twain, and one of those forces upon which Mr. Gladstone had depended was almost destroyed by the schism. Such was the discouragement of the situation that it was be- lieved he himself would retire finally from the conflict. But he had other opinion of his duty, and still hoped for success. It was at this juncture, when Mr. Gladstone was in his eighty-first year. JUSTIN MCCARTHY. that a bill was brought into the House of Commons to remove the restric- tion by which Roman Catholics were interdicted from the offices of Lord Chancellor and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. This was the last remnant of the ancient discriminations against adherents of the mother Church, and Mr. Gladstone came to the support of the measure as a part of the policy to \yhich he had devoted the greater part of his public life. When it was known that he would speak, the House, although it was in the afternoon, FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 60: was crowded, as it always was when Gladstone was to be the central figure On this occasion he spoke for more than an hour, with no symjotoni of weak- ness or indication of that break in logical power that frequently conies to the aged. It was declared at the time that the speech in question would have made an ordinary parliamentary reputation sufficient for a lifetime. The appeal, however, could not prevail against the large Conservative majority. At the close of this year the Liberal leaders were for the most part ELECTION SCENE OF It discouraged, but Mr. Gladstone was not of that number. He still waited for the reaction of public opinion which he felt sure would soon arrive. The incidental elections continued to indicate a failure of the Conservative strength. The year 1S91 was the epoch of the decline of that party. Mr. Balfour for one thing wearied at last of beating down the Irish, and resigned his place as chief secretary. Hereupon he was made, as if in reward, the first lord of the treasury and Conservative leader of the House of Commons. Meanwhile, the Liberals, Mr. Gladstone included, began to challenge the ministry on an appeal to the country. Lord Salisbury seemed to fear such a movement. He persisted in his policy, but could hardly conceal from himself the reaction that was coming on. 6o6 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. The reaction worked in both ways: It was positive as it regarded a more favorable estimate of the Gladstonian project of Home Rule for Ireland. It was negative in that it no longer sustained the repressive policy of the government. It was not, however, until the 28th of June, 1892, that the dissolution of Parliament was finally declared and a general appeal made to the people. Mr. Gladstone himself went into the contest. His constituency of Midlothian had never abandoned him. Nearly all the leading Liberals were again in the field and waged an aggressive campaign. It was a win- ning fight. The election went against the Conservatives, who were able to return only two hundred and sixty-nine members. This was only eighteen more than they had elected fifteen years previously. The Liberal Unionists were now reduced to forty-six representatives, making the whole ministerial strength only three hundred and fifteen. The Liberals elected two hundred and seventy -four members, and the Home Rulers eighty-one, making a total in this combination of three hundred and fifty-five, or a majority of forty against the crovernment. This signified the return of the Liberals to power and the final ascend- ency of Mr. Gladstone. It could not be doubted that he would soon again be summoned to the head of the government. Some symptoms of weak- ness, however, had to be noted. The Irish party was rent in twain as the result of the deposition of Mr. Parnell. By this schism the cause of Home Rule was greatly weakened. There was a want of unity among those who had been the champions of that cause. Besides, a new party, known as the Independent Labor party, with Mr. Keir Hardie — destined after three years to create by his presence and speeches a sensation in labor circles in America — at its head, appeared in the House, commanding a few determined votes. It was on the 5th of August that the new Parliament was opened. The Conservative ministers had not yet resigned, and appeared loath to do so. When the address from the throne was delivered, and the usual motion made for adopting it, a vote of no confidence was sprung from the Liberal benches, and was debated with much vigor for three days, when the House divided, and the vote of no confidence was carried by a majority of forty! It was the end of the Salisbury government. The ministry at once resigned, and William E. Gladstone was for the fotirth time called to be prime minister. The business of the session was speedily brought to a close, and Parliament was prorogued until the ist of Feb- ruary, 1893. The disruption of the Irish party and the weak-heartedness of many Liberals led to a vague belief that the cause of Home Rule would be aban- -doned, and that the new Liberal government would take some other tack. Not so, however, thought Mr. Gladstone. He regarded the recent elections as decisive of the course which he should pursue. He spent the interval of FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 607 the prorogation in considering and maturing the measure concernmg which he knew well enough the last great battle of his life was to be fought. After the usual preliminaries at the opening of the session the prime WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. FOR THE FOURTH TIME PRIME MINISTER. minister brought forward his second Home Rule Bill, and presented it in the House on the 14th of February, 1893. The scene was the repetition of the like event of 1886. Mr. Gladstone entitled his new measure "A Bill 6o8 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. for the Better Government of Ireland." The occasion was likely to be long remembered. History could hardly omit this hour in the life of the states- man now in his eighty-fourth year. For years and years, through evil report and good, he had struggled on, and had now come to the hour of apparent triumph. The hall of the House of Commons was packed to its utmost capacity. The galleries were occupied, and the corridors, and throngs were thrust back who had no hope of gaining entrance. The Prince of Wales sat in the peers' gallery, with the young Duke of York on his left. The peers were out in full force. The diplomatic gallery was crowded. When Mr. Gladstone made his appearance the Liberal and Irish forces sprang to their feet. There was fear that the aged premier could not be heard; but his magnificent voice rang out as usual. His speech occupied more than two hours; but he showed no signs of failure. In one respect there was cause for an.xiety. His eyesight had failed. One of his eyes was almost useless. Although such a proceeding was out of order, and indeed positively against the rules, Mr. Gladstone had Mr. John Morley as his assistant to read his notes, to which he made reference at intervals. Neither the speaker nor any member objected. It would have required a hard heart to do that. ]\Ir. Gladstone began by saying that the bill of 1886 had been founded on five principles, and that the new bill which he was now to intro- duce would adhere to the same principles, subject only to certain important chanees in detail. One of these changes was the retention of the Irish members in the imperial Parliament. Again the prime minister recommended the establishment of an Irish legislature, authorized to legislate for Ireland in all matters relating exclu- sively to that country. Again he pointed out those elements of authority which should be reserved for the imperial Parliament. All questions relat- ing to the crown, to the viceroyalty, to war and peace, to the national de- fenses, to treaties, to the coinage, and to general commerce, should be reserved as matters for the imperial government. The Viceroy of Ireland should hold his office for six years, and should not be dependent on the in- coming and outgoing of cabinets. There should be a privy council in Ire- land, to assist the viceroy, who should have the right to give or withhold assent to bills of the Irish Parliament.* Over this the veto of the sovereign should. remain in full force. The Irish legislature should consist of two bodies, a council and an assembly, and the speaker defined the numbers in each, their qualifications and the qualifications of electors. The existing constabulary should be * The Tories of the period made every effort to cast odium upon the project for an independent Irish Parlia- ment. As usual in such cises, caricature came to the rescue of argument. The prints of the day presented many cartoons at the expense of the hapless Irish, whose alleged weakness in temperate statesmanship was fre- quently the theme of witty pencils. One picture of unusual force and pith was entitled " A Dream of an Irish Parliament." FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 609 '^1 f^ ^ir^iTw'^' 39 THE BRIlIbH NUTIUN UF AN IRISH PARLIAMENT. 6lO 1-IF1-: AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. replaced in time by a new police, to be appointed by the legislature. The Irish members in the imperial Parliament should be reduced to eighty, and should be precluded from taking part in the divisions on such bills or reso- lutions as affected only Great Britain or things or persons therein. The remainder of the bill differed not much from the provisions of the Home Rule bill of 1886. Mr. Gladstone concluded his address with an eloquent peroration. He hoped that the controversy between the two countries would here and now be ended. He could himself never be a party to the transmission to the generations following of the heritage of discord — a discord that had run through seven centuries almost without cessation. Then he concluded with these words : " Sir, it would be a misery to me if I had omitted in these closing years any measures possible for me to take toward upholding and promoting what I believe to be the cause, not of one party nor of another, not of one nation nor another, but of all parties and all nations inhabiting these islands. . . . Let me entreat you — if it were with my latest breath I would entreat you — to let the dead bury its dead. Cast behind you every recol- lection of bygone evils ; cherish, love, and sustain one another through all the vicissitudes of human affairs in the times that are to come." The bill was allowed to pass the first reading without a division of the House. Then followed four nights of debate, when the bill was formally presented, with great enthusiasm. Twelve nights more were consumed before the debates were ended, and the bill went to its second reading and 7uds carried by a 7najority of forty-three votes. Then the measure went into committee and was there cletained lor a considerable period, the opponents of the bill resorting to every expedient to prevent its passage. Finally the closure was ordered, and the " Bill for the Better Government of Ireland" was passed. This was on the ist of September, 1893. The final majority for the government was thirty-tour, which, though it indicated a slight' weakening here and there, was sufficiently emphatic; but the question was now. Would the House of Lords ratify the decision of the Commons.' and that question remained to be answered in the negative. The House Bill was at once taken up by the Lords, and after a debate which extended over three nights was rejected by the tremendous majority of three hundred and seventy-eight, only forty-one votes being cast in favor of the bill. The decision was reached on the 8th of September, 1893 ; the great work of William E. Gladstone's latest hope was suddenly swung into the air. The effect of this action of the Lords on the Liberal party, and on Mr. Gladstone in particular, may well be imagined. It was the reversal of victory won. It was the undoing of the supreme labor of a great life. It was counting of no effect the voice of the British nation. It was, perhaps, of itself the strongest argument ever adduced for the total abolition of the FIRST BATTLE FOR HOME RULE. 6ii House of Lords, with the consequent remandintr of the whole eovernment of Great Britain to the hands of the people and their representatives. Mr. Gladstone continued for a short time at the head of the eovern- o ment. On the 21st of September the House adjourned for a recess, nothing having resulted from its labor. The prime minister was hopeful that some- thing might yet be accomplished, and when the House reconvened on the ARCHIBALD PHILIP PRIMROSE, EARL OF ROSEBERY. 2d of November he brought in the En^-lish Local Government Bill and the Employers' Liability Bill. Both of these measures were adopted by the House of Commons during the winter session ; but the first was w'eighted down with amendments by the Lords and the latter so mutilated that it was cast aside without further action. So the session dragged along, with little valuable work, until the ist of March, 1894. By this time Mr. Gladstone's health (he had now passed his 6l2 LIFE AND TIMKS OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. eio"hty-fifth birthday) was considerabh- impaired ; the strain of the last session had been too great, even for his iron constitution. His eyesight in particular had failed to a remarkable degree, and it became imperative for him to retire from public responsibility, and, indeed, from public life. His decision in this regard was made on the ist of March in the year just named, and two days afterward he and Mrs. Gladstone drove down to Osborne, where for \\\^ fojirth and last time he delivered to her majesty his seals of office as Prime Minister of Great Britain. The queen for her part — according to common report — again offered to raise Mr. Gladstone to the peerage, with the title of earl ; but he declined to be thus honored. He contented himself with recommending to her majesty that she send for Sir Archibald Philip Primrose, Fifth Earl of Rosebery, and commission him as prime minister. This was accordingly done, and the Liberal government was reorganized with Lord Roseberv at its head. Xor may we pass from this dramatic conclusion of a great public life without noticing Mr. Gladstone's last utterance in the House of Commons. It was on the day when his own retirement was first formally announced. On that subject, however, Mr. Gladstone said nothing. A measure called the Parish Councils Bill was before the House, with an amendment which had come down from the House of Lords. Mr. Gladstone spoke briefly against the amendment, and in defense of the rights of the representatives of the people against the encroachments and obstructions which came from the hereditar\- chamber. He warned the House of Lords that their course with respect to the House of Commons, and the legislation proceeding therefrom, had reached such a point as to create an issue on which the people of Great Britain nuist soon be called to sit in jiidgiueiit ! With this warning fiung at hereditarv privilege William E. Gladstone, the great Liberal leader, whose voice had been heard for so many years in the people's cause, in the advocacy of every progressive measure, and in the promotion of every movement in British society that looked to the enlargement ot human rights and the confirmation of civil liberty, retired from the scene of his triumphs to lift his voice in those halls no more forever. RETIREMENT AND LAST YEARS. 613 CHAPTER XXVII. Retirement and Last Years. !?s:^ !^^ .^ VA\- f?^ Gi"l P ^ Wf^ ^ FTER Mr. Gladstone's retirement from the House of Commons Lord Hartington became the Liberal leader. As we have intimated, Mr. Gladstone took no formal leave of the body in which he had for so long been the leading actor. In this there is a striking similarity between his conduct and that of his ri\al, the Earl of Beaconsfield. Neither, on his going, delivered a farewell address to the House of Commons. Each made his last speech as prime minister in that body in the usual manner and walked away without a w^ord of farewell. In neither case was it known at the moment that the scene w^as over, that the curtain had fallen to rise no more. It was remembered that the Earl of Beaconsfield's conduct on the occasion of his going forth had been significant. The last thought and almost the last word of his last speech was " Empire." Taking his seat, he remained for a brief time with folded arms, his head bent forward. The bell struck midnight. He then arose and passed the full length of the floor, turning and bowing to the speaker. At the bar he paused for a moment and surveyed the House; then passed on to return no more. Mr. Gladstone, as we have seen, uttered for his last words a challenge to the House of Lords, telling that body that there was an appeal to something stronger and greater than themselves; that is, the British nation. Mr. Balfour, leader of the opposition, said in answer that "behind the dignified language of the speech there lurked nothing less than a declaration of war against the ancient Constitution of these realms." Mr. Gladstone made no answer. He sat holding his ministerial box on his knees. He talked for a few minutes with his colleagues, who were in the secret that the hour had come when they should see him there no more. Then he arose and with quick steps, in his usual manner and by the usual passage, went behind the speaker's chair and disappeared. The veteran ex-prime minister repaired to his home at Hawarden. No man in his eighty-fifth )'ear can be regarded as strong or as having the prom- ise of long life before him. If it had not been for the failure of Mr. Glad- stone's eyesight he might yet have remained in the House of Commons for a season. He was, however, getting almost blind. One of his eyes was seri- ously affected with incipient cataract, and the other was affected by sympa- thy. It became necessary to have surgical treatment, and this was success- fully given a short time after the statesman's retirement. He bore the surgery with great fortitude, and his sturdy constitution brought him safely through. His eyesight began to improve from the operation and from the 6i4 LIFE AND TIMES OK WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. rest which he now enjoyed ; and he was soon able to resume his reading and correspondence. His general health improved, and he began to be seen abroad about his estates as usual. His step, however, had now become deliberate and his shoulders were bent somewhat with the accumulation of years. The happy surroundings at Hawarden favored the restoration of the Grand Old Man to as full a measure of strength as one of his great age might hope to enjoy. Mr. Gladstone had during his long public career several haunts which were favorite places with him. While on parliamentary duty his residence MRS. GLADSTONE. (From a late photograph.) was generally at " lo Downing Street." Sometimes he lived at Carlton House Terrace ; sometimes at the Lion Mansions, at Brighton ; sometimes at Mr. Armistead's home in the North, and in vacations frequently at Biar- ritz, in Brittany. But of all the places none was as his home at Hawarden. That was his Mecca. It is not without note of memory and praise that the universal tradition respecting the happiness of Mr. Gladstone's home life is no more than a record of indubitable fact. RETIREMENT AND LAST YEARS. 615 The biographers of great men are in the habit of glorifying them at all hazards, particularly as it relates to their domestic bliss. This has been done in several notable cases with the great men of America, when as a matter of fact exactly the opposite was true. In Mr. Gladstones case the home life was as happy as the public life was famous. Mrs. Gladstone has been through a long life his comibrt and support. She is known the world over as a woman of extraordinary virtue, good taste, charitable dispositions, social accomplishments, and religious character. She has kept ever by Mr. Gladstone's side, watching over him as a guardian angel, and ministering to his wants and tastes with a constancy worthy of the highest praise. All the members of the family have in like manner held honorable and affectionate relation to the father. The eldest daughter is Mrs. Wickham, and the second, Mrs. Drew, wife of the Rev. Harry Drew, whose duties have been at the church of Hawarden. The third is Helen Gladstone, un- married. The Drews have remained residents of the castle, and the chil- dren of Mrs. Drew are especially dear to their grandfather. The little granddaughter, Dorothy Mary Drew, or, as she is called in her own lisp- ing, " Dorsy " Drew, has been the favorite of the old veteran, and nearly always his companion and playmate in the late years of his life. With her, of course, the Grand Old Man became again a boy and a poet. To her he addressed the following poem, which has been regarded as one of the best e.xamples of his art in verse : "AD DOROTHEAM. "I know where there is honey in a jar. Meet for a certain little friend of mine, And, Dorothy, I know where daisies are That only wait small hands to intertwine A wreath for such a golden head as thine. "The thought tliat thou art coming makes all glad.' The house is bright with blossoms high and low, And many a little lass and little lad Expectantly are running to and fro. The fire within our hearts is all aglow. "We want thee, child, to share in our delight On this high day, the holiest and best, Because 'twas then, ere youth had taken flight. Thy grandmamma, of women loveliest, Made me of men most honored and most blest. "That naughty boy who led thee to suppose He was thy sweetheart has, I grieve to tell. Been seen to pick the garden's choicest rose And toddle with it to another belle. Who does not treat him altogether well. 6l6 LIKE AND TIMES OF Wll.l.IA.M E. GLADSTONE. " But mind not that, or let it teacli thee this — To waste no love on any youthful rover. All youths are rovers, I assure thee, miss. No, if thou wouldst true constancy discover, 'I'hy grandpapa is perfect as a lover. "So, come, thou playmate of n y closing day. The latest treasure life can offer me, And with thy baby laughter make us gay. Thy fresh young voice shall sing, my Dorothy, Songs that shall bid the feet of sorrow flee." Once safely in the haven of his old aye Mr. Gladstone by no means forgot the world he had left behind. His mind, however, was more occu- pied with the affairs of humanity in general than with the political affairs of Great Britain. Occasionally he continued to give utterance to his opin- ions and hopes on great questions affecting the welfare of mankind. For e.xample, when the Armenian outrages began to distress the world in the early part of 1895, Mr. Gladstone became deeply interested in the subject, and used his influence in accordance with his lifelong policy in favor of the oppressed. In the latter part of July, in the year just mentioned, he was induced by the Duke of Westminster and the general voice to make an address on the Armenian atrocities. On the 25th of the month the aged statesman and his wife had celebrated the fifty-sixth anniversary of their mar- riage. There had been a family gathering at Hawarden, which was not yet dissolved, when the Town Hall of Chester was procured, and Mr. Gladstone was announced to speak. A throng gathered which the hall could by no means accommodate. The Duke of Westminster presided. Many distinguished men sat on the platform. The members of the family, including the Hon. Herbert Gladstone, M.P., and the Rev. Stephen Gladstone, were present. The vet- eran orator came to his task in full spirit and spoke for more than an hour. Mrs. Gladstone sat immediately in front, watching her boy-husband, to see that his oration was an fait. The human heart loses not its buoyancy of hope even to the last day ! " Such things m;iy show How far into the arctic region of our lives The Gulf Stream of our youth may flow." Mr. Gladstone's speech was up to his usual standard of excellence. It was described by the London Times as "an effort unparalleled, even as a mere physical achievement, by a man advanced in his eighty-sixth year." In the course of his speech the orator said : " In ordinary circumstances, when we have before us cases of robber}-, of crime, perhaps of very horrible RETIREMENT AND LAST YEARS. 617 WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE AND HIS GRANDDAUGHTER, DOROTHV DREW. 6l8 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. crime — for example, the sad case mentioned in the papers to-day of the massacre of persons in a part of China — we at once assume, ' O, yes, in all countries, unfortunately, there are malefactors, there are plunderers, there are murderers ; and these are the people whose deeds we are going to con- sider.' It is not so here. Here you will find nothing of that kind. We have nothing to do with what are called the dangerous classes of the com- munity. It is not their proceedings which you are asked to consider. It is the proceedings of the government at Constantinople and of its agents. There is not one of those misdeeds for which the government at Constan- tinople is not morally responsible." It was just before the event last referred to that Mr. Gladstone sent his final communication to the House of Commons. This was done under date of July 5, 1895. The Irish cause had continued to obtrude itself ever and anon upon the attention of the government. The short-lived ministry of Lord Rosebery had in the meantime been overthrown, and the Marquis of Salisbury had enabled the Conservatives to reestablish themselves in power; but, like the ghost of Banquo, the Irish specter would not down. Mr. Gladstone's letter had the double purpose of promoting the cause of Home Rule and of indicating his fixed dislike of the inlluence of the House of Lords in thwarting the purposes of the nation. The letter was as follows : Hawarden Castle, Chester, July 5, 1S95. "Above all other present purposes vindicate the rights of the House of Commons as the organ of the nation, and reestablish the honor of England, as well as consolidate the strength of the empire, by conceding the just and constitutional claims of Ireland. W. E. Gladstone." This is the letter the facsimile of which we have set in the place of a dedication to this volume. It was written just after Mr. Gladstone's return from a summer voyage to the north of Europe. An event of European im- portance had occurred there in June of 1895, attracting Mr. Gladstone's attention and inducing him to make a voyage to Denmark and the German coast. The event referred to was the completion and dedication of a great ship canal extending from Kiel to Brunsbuttel. The channel thus opened for commerce extended from the Baltic to the North Sea. Hitherto, the only means of transit by water between the North Sea and the Baltic had been far around the peninsula of Jutland, b\- way of the Cattegat and the Skager Rack. The old Eider canal had given passage to small ships only. Such were the difficulty and the danger of the all-water way around, that an annual loss of two hundred vessels was entailed on the commerce of the world. The new canal was safe and direct and capacious. RETIREMENT AXD LAST YEARS. big The occasion of the opening was honored with an international pageant of magnificent character. The formal dedication was on the 20th of June. The Kaiser Wilhelm II was present and presided at the principal ceremony. Distinguished visitors and representatives gathered from nearly all the leading nations. Mr. Gladstone, with his family and a company of friends, took ship from Southampton to Kiel as an observer and honored guest. His coming and reception were heralded as a matter worthy of his- torical note. Nor might it be observed that his influence and fame were GLADSTONE AND GROUP OF FRIENDS. lessened by the fact that he was no longer responsible for the conduct of the British government. The leading men of Europe gathered round him, and it was conceded that his presence at the opening of the canal greatly heightened the event in the estimation of not only the Germans and the Danes, but also of the representatives of other nations. During the years 1895-96 Mr. Gladstone in his retirement inveterately agitated the question of British interference in behalf of the Armenians His constitutional and acquired dislike of the Ottoman empire, and in par- ticular of the policy of the sultan and his subordinates in Armenia, increased the acerbity of his attacks on the conduct of the government. He wrote letters and published articles in which the national animosity toward the Turk was fanned to a white heat. His assaults and those of other liberal leaders on the mild-mannered policy of Lord Rosebery told so strongly on 620 LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. that statesman that he determined to resitjn from the head of the eovern- ment. This he did on October 7, 1895, assigning as a reason that he could not accept the course suggested by Gladstone, and that he must therefore "resume his liberty of personal action " in the House. To this he added that the acceptance of the Gladstonian policy would, in all probability, plunge England into war, and would almost certain])- bring down a whole- sale destruction on the Armenians. It was one ot the spectacles of the year that an infirm old man, nearly eighty-six years of age, half blind and living in retirement away from the central scene of parliamentary agitation, should be able to compel the resignation of the British ministry ! The agitation of the Armenian question, led by Mr. Gladstone, extended into literature. Conservatism and liberalism appeared in poetry. A series of powerful sonnets, entitled The Piirpie East, by William Watson, pub- lished at this juncture, were read and applauded wherever the English language is spoken. One of these sonnets, entitled " Abdul the Damned," gave to the sultan a new name, which could hardly be regarded as Chris- tian. On the other side a weaker champion arose in a feeble attempt to uphold the conservative policy of the empire as represented by the incom- ing Salisbury government. This was Alfred Austin, who, on New Year's Day, 1896, was appointed to the office of Poet Laureate. That post had been vacant since the death of Lord Tennyson in 1892. The appointment of Austin, whose rank as a poet was not above the level of formal respecta- bility, was a part of the odium which Lord Salisbury took upon himself just after assuming office. ]\Ir. Gladstone signalized the beginning of the year 1896 by the con- tribution of a series of articles under the title of " The Future Life and the Condition of Man Therein," to the North American Rcviczu. In these he showed at once the unabated force of his intellect and the stronsf o;round- work of his old-time conservative education. It is remarkable that while Gladstone as a statesman advanced from Conservatism to Liberalism, and that while as a philosopher on ecclesiastical policies he made much progress and accomplished much in the way of freeing his country from Church thraldom, in his fundamental religious concepts and doctrine he progressed not at all. This fact was strongly revealed in his series of articles on " The Future Life." He took as the basis of the discussion Bishop Butler's ^;/(z/(9^j)' ^/^ Nat7iral and Revealed Religion, a work which in the early part of the cen- tury exercised a powerful influence on religious thought, but which no longer satisfied the conditions of philosophical inquiry. As an example of Gladstone's analysis and method we may note the six following distinctions which he draws as necessary to the discussion of the question of immortality : RETIREMENT AXD LAST YEARS. 62 1 " I. A vitality surmounting the particular crisis ol death is one thing; an existence without end is another. " 2. We may speak of an immortality of the disembodied spirit, and may combine it with or disjoin it from a survival or resurrection ot the body. In the second case it is of the entire man ; in the first it is ol part only of man, although of the chief part. " 3. The new life to which death is to introduce the human being may be active, intelligent, moral, spiritual, and may be placed in an environment accordant with all these ; or it may be divested of any of these character- istics or of them all. " 4. The life of the unseen world may be conceived as projected into the future, as it is presented to us by divine revelation, or it may be pro- jected also into the past, and viewed there in association with a past eternity. " 5. It was when Butler saw personal identity, as he thought, in danger that he undertook to deal with the question of our existence in the unseen world. This identity is in truth the very core of the whole subject. An immortality without identity is of no concern to us, and the transfiguration of souls is a virtual denial of the doctrine. " 6. We have to distineuish between a condition of deathlessness into Avhich we grow by degrees, and an immortality which, ingrained (so to speak) from birth, is already our absolute possession. This distinction is a A'ital one for those who do not accept any dogma of immortality belonging to nature, but who look upon It as a gift resulting from union Avith Christ and Avith God." It was in literary work such as this, and such as his strength and impaired vision would permit, that Mr. Gladstone spent the remainder of 1896 and the earl)- part of the following year. In this period he arranged his papers, perfected his published works, and prepared the documents for his biography. It were hardly a metaphor to say that all the world looked on with Interest as this great life In the hours of sunset busied itself with preparation for the last long flight. When the completed product of this strono- and efficient intellect shall be criven to mankind in its linal form as it came from his hands, it will be worthy of a place in the immortal collec- tion where are set the works of the leading statesmen, publicists, thinkers, philanthropists of the human race. In March of 1897 Mr. Gladstone was aroused to unusual indignation on account of the aggression of the Ottoman empire on the patriot Greeks, and on the score of the merciless war which the Turks made on the weaker party. True, as the event showed, the Greeks in that war presented a sorry figure; but the righteousness of their cause nevertheless appealed power- fullv to the veteran statesman, and he issued, at the time stated, an address 62: LIFE AND TIMES UF WILLIAM 1-:. GLADSTONE. on the Eastern crisis, in which he denounced in quite unmeasured terms the so-called "concert of Europe" in supporting the Ottoman empire as ao-ainst the Greek, whom he characterized as " the modern David among the nations who has dared to defy six Goliaths." The address was a fierce philippic directed in chief against the policy of the German empire and ao-ainst the weakness of the British empire in being dragged subserviently in the wake of the Kaiser Wilhelm II. As the fall of 1897 verged to winter JMr. Gladstone was in his usual health with the exception of the increasing severity of the facial neuralgia IHE LASr PICTURE TAKKX (jl-' MR. AND .\U-IS. GLALiSTONE. with which he had been afflicted for the past eighteen months. His physi- cian found that all of his vital organs were in healthy condition, nor might it be easily discovered to what circumstances the facial neuralgia was due. Acting under advice, Mr. Gladstone, with Mrs. Gladstone and other atten- dants, went to Cannes, in southern France, and thence to the Riviera to take advantage of the mild air during the winter months. His stay on the Mediterranean, however, produced no good results, and in midwinter the aged sufferer returned to London. He went thence to Bournemouth, but could find little relief and the news went abroad that he was in a dying condition. At Bournemouth he remained for a month, and was then RETIREMENT AND LAST YEARS. 623 taken to his beloved Hawarden, where he arrived on February 19, 1898. From that haunt of peace he never expected to go forth again. Meanwhile it was discovered by the physicians that the source of his suffering was a necrosis of the nasal bones. Nor was the belief wanting that the disease was of a cancerous character. Nevertheless, Mr. Glad- stone's improvement was manifest after his return to Hawarden. As late as the 9th of April he was able to walk about the grounds, but he had to be supported by an attendant. The pain in his face subsided in a measure ; but he was not able to write further, and his biography, on which he had been Ions' enrased, was remanded to other hands. In the after part of April the intelligence was given forth that Mr. Glad- stone had come to the last scene. This, however, proved to be a premature report. Nevertheless the disease with which he was afflicted had now set a fatal limitation to his career. The heroic patient suffered greatly. At in- tervals he suggested the performance ot an operation, but the surgeons decided otherwise. At last, his vital or^rans beran to fail. The strontr heart that had beaten the march of life for more than eight^'-eight years began to perform its work in an irregular and spasmodic manner. The month of May found him still alive, but steadily going down the shadowy way into the obscurity of the oncoming night. Mr. Gladstone faced the ordeal without fear and without hesitation. On the 1 7th of May his physicians. Dr. Dobie and Sir Thomas Smith, notified the family and friends that the last hour was near at hand. The dying man's mind remained comparatively clear to the close. On the i8th he took leave of all his servants and attendants. He eave to his erand- daughter, Dorothy Drew, an affectionate farewell. He gave up Mrs. Glad- stone and his .children. Meanwhile correspondents representing the newspaper press of nearly the whole world had gathered at the little railway station a short distance from Hawarden Castle. During the night Mr. Gladstone sank into uncon- sciousness. He continued to breathe until five o'clock on the morning of the 19th of May, when life departed, and the soul of the great British states- man went to its place in the eternities. At the date of his death William Ewart Gladstone's age was eighty- eight years four months and twenty days. We are thus able to contemplate one of the few finished and well- rounded lives. Gladstone had, as all men have, imperfections and weak- nesses, but he also had, in a measure, surpassing the measure of men, his perfections and his strengths. His years were more than threescore years and ten ; aye, they were well-nigh fourscore years and ten, and yet their strength was not, as the preacher saith, weakness and sorrow. Out of the final wreck of this ereat manhood a "new and immortal 624 1-Il't; AXD TIMES OF WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. manhood sprintjs up and survives. Yet we contemplate him for a moment as he was in the serenity of his old age. We dwell with delight upon the example which the veteran gave to all mankind, even in the years of his twilight and setting. An heroic old man, he kept himself in hand to the last hour. His physical imperfections did not appall him. In his last earthly retreat we still hear him speak at intervals. We follow each day and note each vicissitude. We mark with inexpressible sympathy his threatened blindness, and rejoice at the result of the skillful surgery that gives him back his sight. We note with admiration the challenges w'hich he sends forth at intervals to his countrymen. We hear him speaking for the Armenians. We applaud his denunciations of the Turk. We note with pleasure the philan- thropic e.xpressions of the old hero in behalf of the downtrodden among all nations. We admire the vigor of his extreme old age. We surround the woodchopper, a group of boys and )oung men gathered from all nations, and shout as the bareheaded veteran swings his ax. We read and republish his exquisite bit of little song addressed to his granddaughter, Dorothy Drew. We join a little space in the play with her kittens and spitz on the big rug, in the halls of Hawarden Castle. We mark the tottering step, the slow incoming of decrepitude, the deepening wrinkles on the furrowed face, the blossom of the almond tree, the obscuration of the light, the settling of the darkness, the incoming of the final night, not unrelieved, however, by the benignant star of hope hanging luminous in the western sky. Death has taken the Grand Old Man out of the world. The drama is concluded. The last act is done. There is a funeral across the sea ; the nations are the mourners. Humanity has lost a friend, and the nations have lost a leader. William E. Gladstone, by the victorious battle of a long life ; has earned a serene repose for his exhausted body in the silent house to which they have borne him, and for his spirit some elevated sphere out oi which he may look well pleased on the results of his labors. He has gone to Burke and Wellington and Palmerston ; he is reconciled with Beaconsfield. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles ; I>'? on the last date stamped below. 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