The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume II Part 42

The Greenwich seat, the cause of such long perturbation, was saved after all, but as Mr. Gladstone wrote to a defeated colleague, "In some points of view it is better to be defeated outright, than to be pitched in like me at Greenwich." The numbers were Boord (C.) 6193, Gladstone (L.) 5968, Liardet (C.) 5561, Langley (L.) 5255.

(M155) The conservative reaction was general. Scotland and Wales still returned a liberal majority, but even in these strongholds a breach was made-a net loss of 3 in Wales, of 9 in Scotland. From the English counties 145 tories were returned, and no more than 27 liberals, a loss of 13. In the greater boroughs, hitherto regarded as staunchly ministerial, some of the most populous returned tories. The metropolitan elections went against the government, and 7 seats were lost-three in the city, one in Westminster, in both cases by immense majorities. The net liberal loss in the English boroughs was 32. In England and Wales the tory majority was 105; in Great Britain it stood at 83. When all was over, the new House contained a conservative majority of 48, or on another estimate, of 50, but really, in Mr. Gladstone's words, "of much greater strength."

Numbers, as Mr. Gladstone said afterwards, did not exhibit the whole measure of the calamity. An extraordinary portent arose in that quarter from which so many portents spring. "The liberal majority reckoned to have been returned from Ireland was at once found to be illusory. Out of the 105 members the liberals were little more than a dozen. The period immediately following the Church Act and Land Act had been chosen as one appropriate for a formal severance of the Irish national party from the general body of British liberals. Their number was no less than fifty-eight, an actual majority of the Irish representation. They a.s.sumed the name of home rulers, and established a separate parliamentary organisation. On some questions of liberal opinion co-operation was still continued. But, as regards the party, the weight of the home rulers clearly told more in favour of the conservative ministry than of the opposition; and the liberal party would have been stronger not weaker had the entire body been systematically absent."(306) Before the election was over, Mr. Chichester Fortescue had warned him that he expected defeat in the county of Louth, for which he had sat ever since 1847; the defeat came. Mr. Gladstone wrote to him (Feb. 11):-

I receive with great concern your dark prognostication of the result of the Louth election. It would be so painful in a public view with regard to the grat.i.tude of Irishmen, that I will still hope for a better result. But with reference to the latter part of your letter, I at once write to say that in the double event of your rejection and your wish, I consider your claim to a peerage indisputable. It would be hard to name the man who has done for Ireland all that you have done, or any man that knew the greatest Irish questions as you know them.

Mr. Parnell, by the way, was not elected for Meath until April 1875.

V

As the adverse verdict became more and more emphatic, Mr. Gladstone stated to the Queen (Feb. 13) what was the bias of his mind, on the question whether the expiring government should await its sentence from parliament.

He had no doubt, he said, that this course was the one most agreeable to usage, and to the rules of parliamentary government; any departure from it could only be justified upon exceptional grounds. He was not, however, clear that this case, like that of 1868, was to be treated as exceptional, partly by reason of prevalent opinion, partly because it should be considered what is fair to an incoming administration with reference to the business, especially the financial business, of the year. Lord Granville from the first seems to have been against waiting for formal decapitation by the new House of Commons. To him Mr. Gladstone wrote (Feb.

7):-

I presume you will answer Bismarck's kind telegram. Please to mention me in your reply or not as you think proper. As to the impending crisis of our fate, one important element, I admit, will be the feeling of the party. I have asked Peel (whose first feeling seems rather to be with you) to learn what he can. I tend to harden in my own view, principle and precedent seeming to me alike clear. There are four precedents of our own time-1835, 1841, 1852, 1859, under three ministers. The only case the other way is that of 1868 of which the circ.u.mstances were altogether peculiar.

But I admit it to be very doubtful whether we should get beyond the address. On the other hand I admit freely that I have no t.i.tle to press my view beyond a certain point.

(M156) "It is parliament," he argued, "not the const.i.tuencies, that ought to dismiss the government, and the proper function of the House of Commons cannot be taken from it without diminishing somewhat in dignity and authority." There would be reproach either way, he said; either it would be clinging to office, or it would be running away. To run away was in every circ.u.mstance of politics the thing to Mr. Gladstone most unbearable.

According to Sir Robert Phillimore (Feb. 8) "Gladstone would have met parliament but his colleagues objected, though it seems they would have stood by him if he had pressed them to do so; but as he did not mean, or was not going, to fight in the van of opposition, he thought it unfair to press them."

_Feb. 16, '74._-Cabinet dinner 8-12. It went well. I did something towards snapping the ties and winding out of the coil.

Conversation afterwards with Granville, on the flags up and down.

Then with Wolverton. To bed at 1-3/4, but lay three hours awake (rare with me) with an overwrought brain. ... 17.-12--6. Went to Windsor, and on behalf of the cabinet resigned. Took with me _Merchant of Venice_ and _Thomas a Kempis_, each how admirable in its way!(307) 20.-Went by 5.10 to Windsor, final audience and kissed hands. Her Majesty very kind, the topics of conversation were of course rather limited. 21.-I cleared my room in Downing Street and bade it farewell, giving up my keys except the cabinet key. 28.-Set aside about 300 vols. of pamphlets for the shambles.

_March 3._-I have given up all my keys; quitted Downing Street a week ago; not an official box remains. But I have still the daily visit of a kind private secretary; when that drops all is over.

5.-Hamilton paid me his last visit. To-morrow I encounter my own correspondence single-handed.

The Queen repeated a former proposal of a peerage. In returning some submissions for her approval, she wished "likewise to record her offer to Mr. Gladstone of a mark of her recognition of his services which, however, he declines from motives which she fully appreciates." Mr. Gladstone writes to his brother Sir Thomas (Feb. 13):-

Accept my best thanks for your kind note of yesterday. My reply to the Queen was first made twelve months ago when we proposed to resign simply from the failure of a great measure in H. of C. I repeated it this year with similar expressions of grat.i.tude, but with the remark that even if my mind had been open on the question, I did not think I could have accepted anything while under that national condemnation which has been emphatically enough p.r.o.nounced at the elections. I may be wrong in my view of the matter generally; but I can only judge for the best. I do not see that I am wanted or should be of use in the House of Lords, and there would be more discrepancy between rank and fortune, which is a thing on the whole rather to be deprecated. On the other hand, I know that the line I have marked out for myself in the H. of C. is one not altogether easy to hold; but I have every disposition to remain quiet there, and shall be very glad if I can do so.

VI

Letters from two of his colleagues explain the catastrophe. The shrewd Lord Halifax says to him (Feb 12):-

As far as I can make out people are frightened-the masters were afraid of their workmen, manufacturers afraid of strikes, churchmen afraid of the nonconformists, many afraid of what is going on in France and Spain-and in very unreasoning fear have all taken refuge in conservatism. Ballot enabled them to do this without apparently deserting their principles and party. Things in this country as elsewhere are apt to run for a time in opposite directions. The reaction from the quiet of Palmerston's government gave you strength to remove four or five old-standing abuses which n.o.body had ventured to touch for years. The feelings of those who suffer from the removal of abuses are always stronger than those of the general public who are benefited. Grat.i.tude for the Reform bill and its sequel of improvements hardly gave a liberal majority in 1835, and grat.i.tude for the removal of the Irish church, purchase, etc., has not given us a majority in 1874.

(M157) Mr. Bright wrote to him that as things had turned out, it would perhaps have been wiser first to secure the budget; with that and better organisation, the result might have been better three or six months later.

In Lancashire, said Bright, publicans and Irishmen had joined together, one for delirium tremens and the other for religious education. The 25th clause and Mr. Forster's obstinacy, he added, had done much to wreck the ship. Mr. Gladstone's own diagnosis was not very different. To his brother Robertson he wrote (Feb. 6):-

For many years in the House of Commons I have had more fighting than any other man. For the last five years I have had it almost all, and of it a considerable part has been against those "independent" liberals whose characters and talents seem to be much more appreciated by the press and general public, than the characters and talents of quieter members of the party. I do not speak of such men as --, who leave office or otherwise find occasion to vindicate their independence, and vote against us on the questions immediately concerned. These men make very little noise and get very little applause. But there is another and more popular cla.s.s of independent liberals who have been represented by the _Daily News_, and who have been one main cause of the weakness of the government, though they (generally) and their organ have rallied to us too late during the election. We have never recovered from the blow which they helped to strike on the Irish Education bill.

But more immediately operative causes have determined the elections. I have no doubt what is the princ.i.p.al. We have been borne down in a torrent of gin and beer. Next to this has been the action of the Education Act of 1870, and the subsequent controversies. Many of the Roman catholics have voted against us because we are not denominational; and many of the dissenters have at least abstained from voting because we are. Doubtless there have been other minor agencies; but these are the chief ones. The effect must be our early removal from office. For me that will be a very great change, for I do not intend to a.s.sume the general functions of leader of the opposition, and my great ambition or design will be to spend the remainder of my days, if it please G.o.d, in tranquillity, and at any rate in freedom from political strife.

When a short idle attempt was made in the new parliament to raise a debate upon the date and circ.u.mstances of the dissolution, Disraeli used language rightly called by Mr. Gladstone "generous." "The right honourable gentleman's friends," he said, "were silent, and I must confess I admire their taste and feeling. If I had been a follower of a parliamentary chief as eminent, even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed rather to exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism. I should remember the great victories which he had fought and won; I should remember his ill.u.s.trious career; its continuous success and splendour, not its accidental or even disastrous mistakes."(308)

One word upon the place of this election in our financial history. In 1874, the prosperity of the country and the movement of the revenue gave an opportunity for repeal of the income-tax. That opportunity never recurred. The election of 1874 was the fall of the curtain; the play that had begun in 1842 came to its last scene. It marked the decision of the electorate that the income-tax-introduced in time of peace by Peel and continued by Mr. Gladstone, for the purpose of simplifying the tariff and expanding trade-should be retained for general objects of government and should be a permanent element of our finance. It marked at the same time the prospect of a new era of indefinitely enlarged expenditure, with the income-tax as a main engine for raising ways and means. Whether this decision was wise or unwise, we need not here discuss.

BOOK VII. 1874-1880

Chapter I. Retirement From Leadership. (1874-1875)

"??? ??, ??a?, p?es?te??? te ?d? e?? ?a? a??? ?e??es?a?; s? d?

t??a t??de t?? ?e?t???? ???e?e ta?ta p???e??."-HERODOTUS iv. 150.

"I am too old, O king, and slow to stir; so bid thou one of the younger men here do these things."

A member of the great government of 1868, in a letter to one of his family, gave an account of the final meeting of the cabinet:-

_Feb. 17, 1874._-I doubt-he says-whether I ever pa.s.sed a more eventful evening than yesterday. The whole cabinet was a.s.sembled.

We resolved after full discussion of pros and cons, and some slight difference of opinion, to resign at once. After which came the startling announcement that Gladstone would no longer retain the leadership of the liberal party, nor resume it, unless the party had settled its differences. He will not expose himself to the insults and outrages of 1866-8, and he has a keen sense of the disloyalty of the party during the last three years. He will sit as a private member and occasionally speak for himself, but he will not attend the House regularly, nor a.s.sume any one of the functions of leader. He does this not from anger, but because he says that it is absolutely necessary to party action to learn that all the duties and responsibilities do not rest on the leaders, but that followers have their obligations too. As a consequence of this Cardwell retires to the House of Lords. He will not take the leadership, nor will he consent to serve under any one but Gladstone. He is too old, he says. Lowe protests against the anarchical experiment, and talks of Hartington as leader. As neither Lowe, nor Bright, nor Goschen, nor Forster is in a position to act as leader, it may come to this, so that the liberal front benches of the two Houses will be entirely remodelled.(309)

Here is Mr. Gladstone's own account, written twenty-three years later, and confirmed by all other accessible papers of the moment:-

I was most anxious to make the retirement of the ministry the occasion of my own. I had served for more than forty years. My age-65-was greater than that of Sir Robert Peel at his retirement in 1846, or at his death in 1850, and was much beyond that at which most of the leading commoners of the century had terminated their political career, together with their natural life. I felt myself to be in some measure out of touch with some of the tendencies of the liberal party, especially in religious matters.

Sir A. Clark, whom I consulted, would give me on medical grounds no encouragement whatever. But I deeply desired an interval between parliament and the grave. In spite of the solicitations of my friends I persisted. For 1874 there was a sort of compromise "without prejudice." As having a t.i.tle to some rest I was not a very regular attendant, but did not formally abdicate.