The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume II Part 21

Clarendon had already held with credit and success for a lengthened period the seals of the foreign office, and his presumptive t.i.tle to resume them was beyond dispute. He was a man of free and entertaining and almost jovial conversation in society, and possibly some remark culled from the dinner hour had been reported to the Queen with carelessness or malignity. I do not know much, of the interior side of court gossip, but I have a very bad opinion of it, and especially on this ground, that while absolutely irresponsible it appears to be uniformly admitted as infallible. In this case, it was impossible for me to recede from my duty, and no grave difficulty arose. So far as I can recollect the Queen had very little to say in objection, and no keen desire to say it. Clarendon was the only living British statesman whose name carried any influence in the councils of Europe. Only eighteen or twenty months remained to him; they were spent in useful activity. My relations with him were, as they were afterwards with Granville, close, constant, and harmonious.

(M76) Of this cabinet Mr. Gladstone always spoke as one of the best instruments for government that ever were constructed.(174) Nearly everybody in it was a man of talent, character, and force, and showed high capacity for public business. In one or two cases, conformably to the old Greek saying, office showed the man; showed that mere cleverness, apart from judgment and discretion is only too possible, and that good intention only makes failure and incapacity in carrying the intention out, so much the more mortifying. The achievements of this cabinet as a whole, as we shall see, are a great chapter in the history of reform and the prudent management of national affairs. It forms one of the best vindications of the cabinet system, and of the powers of the minister who created, guided, controlled, and inspired it.

"And so," Manning, the close friend of other years, now wrote to him, "you are at the end men live for, but not, I believe, the end for which you have lived. It is strange so to salute you, but very pleasant.... There are many prayers put up among us for you, and mine are not wanting." At an earlier stage sympathetic resolutions had been sent to him from nonconformist denominations, and in writing to Dr. Allon who forwarded them, Mr. Gladstone said: "I thank you for all the kind words contained in your letter, but most of all for the a.s.surance, not the first I am happy to say which has reached me, that many prayers are offered on my behalf. I feel myself by the side of this arduous undertaking a small creature; but where the Almighty sends us duties, He also sends the strength needful to perform them." To Mr. Arthur Gordon, the son of Lord Aberdeen, he wrote (Jan. 29, 1869):-

As regards my own personal position, all its interior relations are up to this time entirely satisfactory. I myself, at the period of the Aberdeen administration, was as far as the world in general could possibly be, from either expecting or desiring it. I thought at that time that when Lord Russell's career should end, the Duke of Newcastle would be the proper person to be at the head of the government. But during the government of Lord Palmerston, and long before his health broke down, I had altered this opinion; for I thought I saw an alteration both in his tone of opinion, and in his vigour of administration and breadth of view. Since that time I have seen no alternative but that which has now come about, although I am sensible that it is a very indifferent one.

On December 29 he enters in his diary: "This birthday opens my sixtieth year. I descend the hill of life. It would be a truer figure to say I ascend a steepening path with a burden ever gathering weight. The Almighty seems to sustain and spare me for some purpose of His own, deeply unworthy as I know myself to be. Glory be to His name." In the closing hours of the year, he enters:-

This month of December has been notable in my life as follows: _Dec. 1809._-Born. 1827.-Left Eton. 1831.-Cla.s.ses at Oxford.

1832.-Elected to parliament. 1838.-Work on Church and State published. 1834.-Took office as lord of the treasury.

1845.-Secretary of state. 1852.-Chancellor of exchequer.

1868.-First lord. Rather a frivolous enumeration. Yet it would not be so if the love of symmetry were carried with a well-proportioned earnestness and firmness into the higher parts of life. I feel like a man with a burden under which he must fall and be crushed if he looks to the right or left or fails from any cause to concentrate mind and muscle upon his progress step by step. This absorption, this excess, this constant ??a? is the fault of political life with its insatiable demands, which do not leave the smallest stock of moral energy unexhausted and available for other purposes.... Swimming for his life, a man does not see much of the country through which the river winds, and I probably know little of these years through which I busily work and live.... It has been a special joy of this December that our son Stephen is given to the church, "whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose."

BOOK VI. 1869-1874

Chapter I. Religious Equality. (1869)

In the removal of this establishment I see the discharge of a debt of civil justice, the disappearance of a national, almost a worldwide reproach, a condition indispensable to the success of every effort to secure the peace and contentment of that country; finally relief to a devoted clergy from a false position, cramped and beset by hopeless prejudice, and the opening of a freer career to their sacred ministry.-GLADSTONE.

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Anybody could pulverise the Irish church in argument, and to show that it ought to be disestablished and disendowed was the easiest thing in the world. But as often happens, what it was easy to show ought to be done, was extremely hard to do. Here Mr. Gladstone was in his great element. It was true to say that "never were the wheels of legislative machinery set in motion under conditions of peace and order and const.i.tutional regularity to deal with a question greater or more profound," than when the historic protestant church in Ireland was severed from its sister church in England and from its ancient connection with the state. The case had been fully examined in parliament. After examination and decision there, it was discussed and decided in the const.i.tuencies of the United Kingdom. Even then many held that the operation was too gigantic in its bearings, too complex in the ma.s.s of its detail, to be practicable. Never was our political system more severely tested, and never did it achieve a completer victory. Every great organ of the national const.i.tution came into active play. The sovereign performed a high and useful duty. The Lords fought hard, but yielded before the strain reached a point of danger. The prelates in the midst of anger and perturbation were forced round to statesmanship. The Commons stood firm and unbroken. The law, when at length it became law, effected the national purpose with extraordinary thoroughness and precision. And the enterprise was inspired, guided, propelled, perfected, and made possible from its inception to its close by the resource, temper, and incomparable legislative skill of Mr. Gladstone.

That the removal of the giant abuse of protestant establishment in Ireland made a deeper mark on national well-being than other of his legislative exploits, we can hardly think, but-quite apart from the policy of the act, as to which there can now be scarcely two opinions-as a monument of difficulties surmounted, prejudices and violent or sullen heats overcome, rights and interests adjusted, I know not where in the records of our legislation to find its master.

(M77) With characteristic hopefulness and simplicity Mr. Gladstone tried to induce Archbishop Trench and others of the Irish hierarchy to come to terms. Without raising the cry of no surrender, they declined all approaches. If Gladstone, they said, were able to announce in the House of Commons a concordat with the Irish clergy, it would ruin them both with the laity of the Irish establishment, and with the English conservatives who had fought for them at the election and might well be expected, as a piece of party business if for no better reasons, to fight on for them in the House of Lords. Who could tell that the Gladstone majority would hold together? Though "no surrender" might be a bad cry, it was even now at the eleventh hour possible that "no popery" would be a good one. In short, they argued, this was one of the cases where terms could only be settled on the field of battle. There were moderates, the most eminent being Bishop Magee of Peterborough, who had an interview with Mr. Gladstone at this stage, but nothing came of it. One Irish clergyman only, Stopford the archdeacon of Meath, a moderate who disliked the policy but wished to make the best of the inevitable, gave Mr. Gladstone the benefit of his experience and ability. When the work was done, Mr. Gladstone wrote to the archdeacon more than once expressing his sense of the advantage derived from his "thorough mastery of the subject and enlightened view of the political situation." He often spoke of Stopford's "knowledge, terseness, discrimination, and just judgment."

Meanwhile his own course was clear. He did not lose a day:-

_Dec. 13, 1868._-Saw the Queen at one, and stated the case of the Irish church. It was graciously received. 24.-At night went to work on draft of Irish church measure, feeling the impulse.

25.-Christmas Day. Worked much on Irish church _abbozzo_. Finished it at night. 26.-Revised the Irish church draft and sent it to be copied with notes.

The general situation he described to Bishop Hinds on the last day of the year:-

We cannot wait for the church of Ireland to make up her mind. We are bound, nay compelled, to make up ours. Every day of the existence of this government is now devoted to putting forward by some step of inquiry or deliberation the great duty we have undertaken. Our principles are already laid in the resolutions of the late House of Commons. But in the mode of applying them much may depend on the att.i.tude of resistance or co-operation a.s.sumed by the Irish church. It is idle for the leading Irish churchmen to think "we will wait and see what they offer and then ask so much more." Our mode of warfare cannot but be influenced by the troops we lead. Our three _corps d'armee_, I may almost say, have been Scotch presbyterians, English and Welsh nonconformists, and Irish Roman catholics. We are very strong in our minority of clerical and lay churchmen, but it is the strength of weight not of numbers. The English clergy as a body have done their worst against us and have hit us hard, as I know personally, in the counties. Yet we represent the national force, tested by a majority of considerably over a hundred voices. It is hazardous in these times to tamper with such a force.

The preparation of the bill went rapidly forward:-

_Hawarden, Jan. 13, 1869._-Wrote out a paper on the plan of the measure respecting the Irish church, intended perhaps for the Queen. Worked on Homer. We felled a lime. 14.-We felled another tree. Worked on Homer, but not much, for in the evening came the Spencers [from Dublin], also Archdeacon Stopford, and I had much Irish conversation with them. 15.-We felled an ash. Three hours conversation with the viceroy and the archdeacon. I went over much of the roughest ground of the intended measure; the archdeacon able and helpful. Also conversation with the viceroy, who went before 7. Worked on Homer at night. 19.-One hour on Homer with Sir J. Acton. Whist in evening. 20.-Further and long conversations on the Irish church question and its various branches with Granville, the attorney-general for Ireland, and in the evening with Dean Howson, also with Sir J. Acton. 21.-Wrote a brief abstract of the intended bill. Woodcutting. 23.-Saw the Queen [at Osborne] on the Irish church especially, and gave H.M. my paper with explanation, which appeared to be well taken. She was altogether at ease. We dined with H.M. afterwards. 24.-Saw her Majesty, who spoke very kindly about Lord Clarendon, Mr. Bright, Mr. Lowe, the Spanish crown, Prince Leopold, Mr. Mozley, and so forth, but not a word on the Irish church. _Feb. 4._-A letter from H.M. to-day showed much disturbance, which I tried to soothe.

In February Lord Granville thought that it might do good if the Queen were to see Bishop Magee. Mr. Gladstone said to him in reply (Feb. 7, '69):-

The case is peculiar and not free from difficulty. On the whole I think it would be wrong to place any limit upon the Queen's communications to the Bishop of Peterborough except this, that they would doubtless be made by H.M. to him for himself only, and that no part of them would go beyond him to any person whatever.

(M78) On Feb. 12, the Queen wrote to Mr. Gladstone from Osborne:-

The Queen has seen the Bishop of Peterborough according to the suggestion made by Lord Granville with the sanction of Mr.

Gladstone, and has communicated to him in the strictest confidence the correspondence which had pa.s.sed between herself and Mr.

Gladstone on the subject of the Irish church. She now sends Mr.

Gladstone a copy of the remarks made by the bishop on the papers which she placed in his hands for perusal, and would earnestly entreat Mr. Gladstone's careful and dispa.s.sionate consideration of what he says. She would point especially to the suggestion which the bishop throws out of the intervention of the bench of English bishops. The country would feel that any negotiation conducted under the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury would be perfectly safe, and from the concessions which the Bishop of Peterborough expresses his own readiness to make, the Queen is sanguine in her hope that such negotiations would result in a settlement of the question on conditions which would entirely redeem the pledges of the government and be satisfactory to the country. The Queen must therefore strongly deprecate the hasty introduction of the measure, which would serve only to commit the government to proposals from which they could not afterwards recede, while it is _certain_ from what the bishop says, that they would not be accepted on the other side, and thus an acrimonious contest would be begun, which, however it ended, would make any satisfactory settlement of the question impossible.

He replied on the following day:-

_Feb. 13._-First the bishop suggests that the endowments posterior to the Reformation should be given to the church, and those preceding it to the Roman catholics. It would be more than idle and less than honest, were Mr. Gladstone to withhold from your Majesty his conviction that no negotiation founded on such a basis as this could be entertained, or, if entertained, could lead to any satisfactory result. Neither could Mr. Gladstone persuade the cabinet to adopt it, nor could the cabinet persuade the House of Commons, nor could cabinet and House of Commons united persuade the nation to acquiesce, and the very attempt would not only prolong and embitter controversy, but would weaken authority in this country. For the thing contemplated is the very thing that the parliament was elected not to do.

_Osborne, Feb. 14._-The Queen thanks Mr. Gladstone for his long letter, and is much gratified and relieved by the conciliatory spirit expressed throughout his explanations on this most difficult and important question. The Queen thinks it would indeed be most desirable for him to see the Archbishop of Canterbury-and she is quite ready to write to the archbishop to inform him of her wish and of Mr. Gladstone's readiness to accede to it, should he wish it.

"My impression is," Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Granville (Feb. 14), "that we should make a great mistake if we were to yield on the point of time.

It is not time that is wanted; we have plenty of time to deal with the Bishop of Peterborough's points so far as they can be dealt with at all.

Sir R. Palmer has been here to-day with overtures from persons of importance unnamed. I think probably the Archbishop of Canterbury and others.(175) I do not doubt that on the other side they want time, for their suggestions are crude."

(M79) On the following day (Feb. 15) the Queen wrote to the archbishop, telling him that she had seen Mr. Gladstone, "who shows the most conciliatory disposition," and who at once a.s.sured her "of his readiness-indeed, his anxiety-to meet the archbishop and to communicate freely with him." The correspondence between the Queen and the archbishop has already been made known, and most of that between the archbishop and Mr. Gladstone, and I need not here reproduce it, for, in fact, at this first stage nothing particular came of it.(176) "The great mistake, as it seems to me," Mr. Gladstone writes to Archdeacon Stopford (Feb. 8), "made by the Irish bishops and others is this. They seem to think that our friends are at the mercy of our adversaries, whereas our adversaries are really at the mercy of our friends, and it is to these latter that the government, especially in the absence of other support, must look."

Meanwhile the bill had made its way through the cabinet:-

_Feb. 8._-Cabinet, on the heads of Irish Church bill.. 9.-Cabinet, we completed the heads of the Irish Church measure to my great satisfaction. 19.-At Lambeth, 12-1- explaining to the archbishop.

22.-Conclave on Irish church, 3-4- and 5--7-3/4. After twenty hours' work we finished the bill for this stage.

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