The Real Gladstone Part 15

'It became so notorious that foreigners got to suppose that Mr. Gladstone did little else in his spare time but fell timber, and Americans who visited Hawarden Castle were disappointed at not finding the park a desolation of tree-stumps.

'That Mr. Gladstone should often have gone out, axe in hand, to a.s.sist his woodmen was really the most natural thing imaginable. Wood-cutting was just the kind of t.i.tanic exercise in which he delighted to let out the flood of his energy. Again, the park being one of the best timbered in England, it was to be expected that Mr. Gladstone, with a keen eye to the improvement of the property, should take a personal interest in the removal of those trees whose growth, position or decay marred the splendour of their neighbours.

'Mr. Gladstone is now a very old man-older than many who remember him in his vigorous Parliamentary days quite realize. It is many years since his wood-cutting exploits. But, three summers ago, on a special occasion, he went out for the last time on his favourite pastime. The axe that he used-a new one, and lighter than those he usually wielded-is now stored away in a cupboard in Mr. Herbert Gladstone's room at the Castle. "To the end of the handle," says a writer in _Pearson's Magazine_ for March, "is pasted a little label with the brief inscription:

'"Used by W. E. G. on a beech in the North Garden, 1895."

'Mr. Gladstone's favourite implement was the ordinary wedge-shaped American axe. But one that he used a great deal in later days still stands in a corner of his study. Its long, thin blade made it a difficult weapon to handle skilfully; yet the shape or size of the axe made little difference to so experienced a craftsman. In an outdoor room at Hawarden, now chiefly devoted to the storage of bicycles and fishing-baskets, are between thirty and forty axes piled together-long axes and short axes, thick and thin, plain and varnished, new and worn.

These represent only a small portion of the collection that Mr. Gladstone once had. In bygone days admirers were constantly sending him axes as marks of their esteem, and now other admirers quite as constantly smuggle them away as treasured mementoes of their visits.

'Besides these workaday axes one may see several with silver heads, and among them one, especially valued, that was presented to Mr. Gladstone in 1884 by the workmen on the Forth Bridge. There are, too, miniature axes beautifully modelled in solid gold, kept among the jewels in the drawing-room; and a silver pencil, axe-shaped, which was presented to the G. O. M. by the Princess of Wales "for axing questions."'

In 1870 Hayward writes: 'I had an immensity of talk on all subjects with Gladstone. I strolled about with him for some hours yesterday. He takes whatever work he has to do easily enough here, and finds time for general reading into the bargain.' In 1871 the same writer says: 'Gladstone as he always is as a companion-conversation singularly rich and varied.'

Such seems to have been the common testimony of all who had the honour of spending a brief time with Mr. Gladstone at home.

It is idle, and would be tiresome, to give the history of the deputations of working-men who went to Hawarden. As an ill.u.s.tration, let me say that one December day a number of the working-men of Derby went to Hawarden to present Mr. Gladstone with a dessert-service of Derby china, specially manufactured at the Derby Crown Works for the occasion. When in 1882 Mr.

Gladstone celebrated his political jubilee, addresses and telegrams came to him at Hawarden from all parts of the country. When in 1877 Hawarden was invaded by fourteen hundred members of the Bolton Liberal Club, he refused to see them, but quietly informed them that he and his son were about to fell a tree in the course of the day in the park, and thither the crowd repaired, where, after Mr. Gladstone had performed his task, he gave them an address. One of his great wood-cutting feats that year was his felling an enormous beech-tree-a task he performed in three hours.

It was a tough job, considering that it measured thirteen feet in circ.u.mference, and was a good proof of the aged statesman's muscular strength and activity. Hercules alone seems to have been his equal.

Perhaps one of the most enormous deputations ever received at Hawarden was in 1886, when the Irish deputations came over in great strength to Hawarden, one of them bearing an address signed by 600,000 Irish women.

The others brought to him the freedoms of Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and Clonmel. In acknowledging the addresses received, Mr. Gladstone dwelt upon the moderation with which the Home Rule agitation was carried on.

He declared that it would ultimately succeed, and denied that the Irish demand involved separation. Yet at one time there were fears for Hawarden and Mr. Gladstone. In 1882 Lord Houghton, while staying there, wrote to his son:

'DEAR ROBERT,

'You may be easy about my personal security. We have two detectives-one engaged to the cook; and Lord Spencer brought three more yesterday.'

Of the Hawarden Post-office a volume might be written. There could scarcely have been one more filled with important correspondence in all the empire. Everyone deemed it to be his duty to pester Mr. Gladstone with letters, and his replies in the shape of postcards were to be found carefully preserved everywhere. Even illness severe and protracted was no excuse. 'One of the most painful incidents connected with Mr.

Gladstone's illness,' writes the London correspondent of the _Birmingham Daily Post_, 'is the persistence of uninvited spiritual advisers in addressing him. I am told that not a day, and scarcely a post, pa.s.ses without some of these personages intruding themselves.

'Chapters from the Old and New Testaments, the lives of Scriptural personages, isolated texts, hymns and religious books-in some cases the advice coming from the unknown authors themselves-have all been suggested for the veteran statesman's "edification."

'In not a few instances poems on the same theme have been sent for his perusal, and, as the authors have generally put it, for his spiritual comfort and relief. I need hardly say that these effusions have never reached Mr. Gladstone, but they have in not a few instances, by their very suggestiveness of impending disaster, caused distress to his family.'

A representative of the _Daily Mail_ added more on this subject: 'Among people in touch with the Hawarden household it is being discussed with a good deal of indignant comment, and more than one well-known name is mentioned as having been appended to some of this correspondence. It is not so much the gratuitous impertinence of the amateur spiritual consoler which occasions the annoyance Mr. Gladstone's relatives feel.

'Mr. Gladstone has throughout his life loomed so large in the eyes of the religious public that he has always been a favourite target for the controversialists of every sect. He long ago grew accustomed to being bombarded with controversial pamphlets, and to being a.s.sailed with texts of Scripture bearing more or less obliquely upon some political question of the day. And whenever he has been suffering from some trifling indisposition, or has sustained any family loss or affliction, sackfuls of letters quoting texts of Scripture have been sent to him. It occasions neither surprise nor any great amount of annoyance, therefore, now that the sympathy of everyone is turned towards him, that in the case of fervid religionists it should find expression in pa.s.sages of Scripture and extracts from devotional works from which the senders have themselves, in times of sorrow and affliction, derived comfort and consolation.

'But there are other cla.s.ses of correspondents. There are people who urge him for his soul's sake to see the error of his ways while there is yet time; there are people who see occasion in his present illness to hasten to say that they forgive him for holding theological views differing from their own; there are people who invite him to send a subscription to something with a view to insuring to himself posthumous satisfaction, as well as the advantage of grateful prayer and intercession.

'But, worst of all, and most painful to the relatives to bear, are the frantic efforts of the testimonial hunters in a hurry. One patent medicine has made strenuous endeavours to foist itself upon him, with an obvious view to subsequent advertis.e.m.e.nt.

'Of course, there is another side to the picture. The kindly and sympathetic messages and inquiries which have come from people of all ranks, from her Majesty the Queen downwards, have been of great comfort.'

I conclude this rapid survey with a quotation from Mr. G. W. E. Russell's 'Gladstone': 'In order to form the highest and truest estimate of Mr.

Gladstone's character, it is necessary to see him at home. But to do this is a privilege accorded necessarily to the few. The public can only judge him by his public life; and from this point of view it may be that the judgment of one of his colleagues may be accepted when he said: "The only two things Mr. Gladstone really cares for are the Church and finance."' What may be the verdict of history on him as a statesman it is impossible to foretell. In England, at any rate, no man has been a power so long. To most of us, to borrow from Shakespeare, he seems to bestride this narrow world like a Colossus. He has done much to help the advent of the new democracy, but it is as a commercial reformer, apparently, that Mr. Gladstone will be best known to future ages. In that capacity he produced marvellous changes. By making paper cheap he gave an impulse to the publishing trade, of which we have not yet seen the end. By the Methuen Treaty it was deemed a heavy blow was struck at Portugal. Under Mr. Gladstone, with the aid of Richard Cobden, that treaty was got rid of, the light wines of France were introduced, the social habits of the country were changed for the better, and the commerce of the country largely increased. The anomalies of the navigation laws were perhaps more marvellous than those of the commercial treaties. Mr. Gladstone had much to do with removing those anomalies, and the result was a marvellous increase in the growth of British shipping and foreign commerce, and the revenue increased, as Mr.

Gladstone stated, by leaps and bounds; and while the working man has secured better wages, his power of purchase has been largely increased.

Alas! poverty, selfishness, ignorance are still at work in our midst, and Utopia seems as far off as ever.

On May 19 the end came, and all over the world, to the grief of the nation, it was known that Mr. Gladstone was no more.

Parliament unanimously voted him a Public Funeral in Westminster Abbey, where he was laid to rest May 28, 1898.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS. GUILDFORD.