The Real Gladstone Part 4

The Oxford election terminated in Mr. Gladstone's triumph over his opponent. It is curious to note how entirely Mr. Gladstone concurred with Lord John Russell. He worked hard in the Cabinet and in Parliament for his lordship's Reform Bill, and regarded with aversion Lord Palmerston's fortifications. In a letter to Her Majesty we read: 'Viscount Palmerston hopes to be able to overcome his objections, but if that should prove impossible, however great the loss to the Government by the retirement of Mr. Gladstone, it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk of losing Portsmouth or Plymouth.' When his colleague's scruples had been overcome, Lord Palmerston wrote to his Sovereign: 'Mr. Gladstone told Lord Palmerston this evening that he wished it to be understood that, though acquiescing in the step now taken about the fortifications, he kept himself free to take such course as he might think fit upon the subject next year; to which Lord Palmerston consented. That course will probably be the same which Mr. Gladstone took last year-namely, ineffectual opposition and ultimate acquiescence.'

Mr. Gavan Duffy has given us a correct picture of Gladstone as he appeared to him about this time: 'Mr. Gladstone was not yet the official leader of the Peelites, but he was the most noteworthy of them, and attracted close observation. He was habitually grave, it seemed to me, and spoke as if he uttered oracles; yet he left the impression that his speeches were not only improvised, but that the process of adopting a conclusion was not always complete when he rose to speak. But the vigour and grace of his rhetoric put criticism to flight. The House, which relished the persiflage of Palmerston, thought Gladstone too serious, and resented a little, I think, the subdued tone of contemptuous superiority in which he addressed the leader of the House. He was as smooth as silk, but there was manifestly a reserve of vehement and angry pa.s.sion ready to break out when it was provoked.'

In a book just published by Mr. Hogan we get a glance at Mr. Gladstone as Colonial Secretary. In Queensland a town still bears his name. The town of Gladstone, which is now within the limits of North Queensland, has been somewhat overshadowed by Rockhampton, which owes its existence to the gold fever which, at the time when folk began to talk of 'North Australia,' n.o.body foresaw. The period, indeed, seems to us now curiously remote, though it is still fresh in the mind of the statesman whose name was bestowed upon the capital of the intended new colony. So much, at least, appears from the prefatory note addressed to the author:

'DEAR MR. HOGAN,

'My recollections of "Gladstone" were most copious, and are now nearly half a century old.

'The period, December, 1845, when I became Colonial Secretary, was one when the British Government had begun to feel nonplussed by the question of Transportation. Under the pressure of this difficulty, Lord Stanley, or the Colonial Office of his day, framed a plan for the establishment, as an experiment, of a pure penal colony without free settlers (at least, at the outset).

'When I came in, the plan might have been arrested in the event of disapproval; but the Government were, I think, committed, and I had only to put the last hand to the scheme.

'So it went on towards execution.

'In July, 1846, the Government was changed, and Lord Grey succeeded me. He said he would make none but necessary changes in pending measures. He, however, annihilated this scheme. For that I do not know that he is to be severely blamed. But he went on and dealt with the question in such a way as to produce a mess-I think more than one-far worse than any that he found. The result was the total and rather violent and summary extinction of the entire system.

'Here I lost sight of the fate of "Gladstone." It has my good wishes, but I have nothing else to give.

'Yours very faithful,

'W. E. GLADSTONE.'

Mr. Hogan deals with the decline and fall of transportation. It had ceased in New South Wales before Mr. Gladstone came into office. It had broken down also in Norfolk Island, and the hideous practice in Van Diemen's Land, known as 'the probation system,' was causing considerable excitement. It was at this time that Lord Stanley conceived the notion of a new penal colony in North Australia, and it fell to his successor, Mr. Gladstone, to give it form and substance. Mr. Hogan does not spare Mr. Gladstone's political errors; he is, on the contrary, rather given to dwelling upon them with an acerbity which is to be regretted. We all know that the venerable statesman, who has now well-nigh outlived the bitterness of party rancour, had in those days much to learn. He was undoubtedly, at one time, of opinion that the right of the mother country to found penal settlements at the Antipodes was incontestable; but this view was then shared by most politicians outside the thoughtful circle of the Philosophical Radicals. It is clear, moreover, that Mr. Gladstone came to the subject of transportation with a sincere conviction that it was possible to convert criminals into good citizens, whose presence on the soil would be, not a curse, but an advantage. There is a remarkable State paper in the shape of a memorandum addressed to Sir Eardley Wilmot, who had been sent out specially to inaugurate the probation system. In this, after commenting with the enthusiasm natural to a young statesman on the practicability of reformation, he goes on to say: 'Considerations yet more sacred enhance the importance of it, for it is impossible to forget in how large a proportion of cases these unhappy people have every claim on our sympathy which the force of temptation, adverse circ.u.mstances of life, ignorance and neglected education, can afford to those who have incurred the penalty of the law.'

But our colonists, no doubt, saw in such utterances only a pharisaism which overlooks the fact that this is pre-eminently a sort of charity which should begin at home. Mr. Gladstone, as appears from his despatches, was profoundly dissatisfied with the way in which Sir Eardley Wilmot-who was an old man, with probably an old-fashioned aversion to new ideas-performed, or, rather, did not perform, his duties, and finally dismissed him. Unfortunately, at the same time he addressed him in a private or 'secret' letter, in which he referred to certain rumours that had reached him of irregularities in Sir Eardley's private life, which, as they were subsequently disproved, and Sir Eardley died during the controversy, awakened much sympathy. Mr. Hogan gives great prominence to this old scandal, and there can be no doubt that Sir Eardley was unjustly treated; but it is manifest that it was not the malicious rumours, but the neglect of duty, that was the ground of his dismissal. Mr.

Gladstone's complaint is:

'You have under your charge and responsibility many thousand convicts formed into probation parties, or living together at Government depots.

It is only with extreme rarity that you advert in your despatches to the moral condition of these men. You have discussed the economical questions connected with their maintenance or their coercion, and you have even entered into argument, though in a manner too little penetrating, upon their offences against the laws. But into the inner world of their mental, moral and spiritual state, either you have not made it a part of your duty to examine, or else-which for the present issue is, I apprehend, conclusive-you have not placed Her Majesty's Government in possession of the results.'

It is curious to note Mr. Gladstone's unpopularity in the Colonies. When Sir Henry Parkes, the New South Wales Premier, visited England, he writes: 'I had a long conversation with Mr. Gladstone, in the course of which I told him that he had been often charged in Australia, both in the newspapers and in speeches, with being indifferent, if not inimical, to the preservation of the connection between the colonies and England. He was visibly surprised at what I told him, and said I was authorized to say that he had never at any time favoured such view, and that I might challenge any person making the charge to produce proof in support of it.' On another occasion Sir Henry Parkes writes: 'We talked for two hours chiefly on Australian topics, and I recollect very vividly his animated inquiry as to whether many of the young men of the country entered the Church.'

The Budget of 1860 was distinguished mainly for two things-the Commercial Treaty with France, initiated by Mr. Cobden, and the Taxes on Knowledge.

In the debate on this subject in 1852, Mr. Gladstone, then in opposition, intimated that, though he should like to see the paper duty repealed when the proper time had come, if books and newspapers were dearer than they ought to be, the blame was not so much with fiscal requirements as with the trades unionism, which wickedly raised the wages of compositors and others to a level far above their deserts. If the working-cla.s.ses wanted cheap literature, he thought that they had a sufficient remedy in their own hands, as they themselves could cheapen the labour by which the literature was produced (quoted from Fox Bourne's 'History of the Newspaper Press').

In the following year Mr. Gladstone, after the Government had been beaten, as a compromise, proposed to reduce the advertis.e.m.e.nt duty from one shilling and sixpence to sixpence. But he was again defeated, and the tax, in spite of him, was abolished altogether. The final stage was reached in 1861, when the paper duty was abolished, Mr. Gladstone being Chancellor of the Exchequer, after the Bill had been defeated in the House of Lords. 'It entailed,' wrote Mr. Gladstone in the _Nineteenth Century_, 'the severest Parliamentary struggle in which I have ever been engaged.' The repeal of the paper duty was the arrival of a new era in literature-of the penny newspaper, of the popular magazine, of cheap reprints of all our great standard authors.

On February 15 Mr. Greville writes: 'When I left London a fortnight ago the world was anxiously expecting Gladstone's speech, in which he was to put the Commercial Treaty and the Budget before the world. His own confidence, and that of most of his colleagues, in his success was unbounded, but many inveighed bitterly against the treaty. Clarendon shook his head, Overstone p.r.o.nounced against the treaty, the _Times_ thundered against it, and there is little doubt that it was unpopular, and becoming more so every day. Then came Gladstone's unlucky illness, which compelled him to put off his expose, and made it doubtful whether he would not be physically disabled from doing justice to the subject.

His doctor says he ought to have taken two months' rest instead of two days. However, at the end of his two days' delay he came forth and, _consensus omnium_, achieved one of the greatest triumphs that the House of Commons ever witnessed. Everybody, I have heard from home, admits that it was a magnificent display, not to be surpa.s.sed in ability of execution, and that he carried the House of Commons with him. I can well believe it, for when I read the report of it next day it carried me along with it likewise.' The only parties not gratified were the Temperance Reformers, who did not like the cheap Gladstone claret which was immediately introduced at the dinner-tables, nor that clause of the new Bill which was to give grocers licenses to sell the cheap wines of France, and which was to make the fortune of the great house of Gilbey.

Lord Russell became a peer, and left Mr. Gladstone to fight the good fight in the House of Commons, about this time. Gladstone and Disraeli were fully recognised as the leaders of their respective parties. In the life of Mr. Richard Redgrave, under the date of 1860, Mr. Redgrave gives a description of Mr. Gladstone's reply to Mr. Disraeli's attack on the French Treaty. A friend who was present told him: 'Mr. Gladstone was in such a state of excitement that everyone dreaded an attack from him; that his punishment of Mr. Disraeli was most ferocious. He was like a Cherokee Indian fighting; he first knocked down his adversary, then he stamped upon him, then he got excited and danced on him; he scalped him, and then took him between his finger and thumb like a miserable insect, and looked at him, and held him up to contempt.'

Mr. Macarthy's judicious criticism may be quoted here.

'It is idle to contend that between Gladstone and Disraeli any love was lost, and that many people thought it was unhandsome on the part of Mr.

Gladstone not to attend his great rival's obsequies, and to bury his animosities in the grave. In 1862 Disraeli complained to the Bishop of Oxford that he and others kept the Church as Mr. Gladstone's nest-egg when he became a Whig till it was almost addled. At this time Disraeli wrote: "I wish you could have induced Gladstone to have joined Lord Derby's Government when Lord Ellenborough resigned in 1858. It was not my fault that he did not; I almost went on my knees to him. Had he done so, the Church and everything else would have been in a very different position." In 1867 the Bishop of Oxford writes: "The most wonderful thing is the rise of Disraeli. It is not the mere a.s.sertion of talent, as you hear so many say; it seems to me quite beside that. He has been able to teach the House of Commons almost to ignore Gladstone, and at present lords it over him, and, I am told, says that he will hold him down for twenty years." Disraeli, however, did himself no good when, in 1878, he described Mr. Gladstone as a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that at all times can command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign his opponents and to glorify himself.'

Disraeli was never happy in statement. When he had to explain a policy, financial or other, he might really be regarded as a very dull speaker.

Gladstone was specially brilliant in statement. He could give to an exposition of figures the fascination of a romance or a poem. Mr.

Gladstone never could, under any circ.u.mstances, be a dull speaker. He was no equal of Disraeli in the gift of sarcasm, and what Disraeli himself called 'flouts and jeers.' But in his reply he swept his antagonist before him with his marvellous eloquence, compounded of reason and pa.s.sion.

On the breaking out of the American Civil War, Mr. Gladstone was undoubtedly on the side of the South: Jefferson Davis, he said, had made a nation of the South-a speech of which Mr. Gladstone repented a few years after. But it took a long time for the North to forgive or forget his unfortunate speech. Bishop Fraser, writing in 1865, says: 'They have just got hold of about a dozen subscribers to the Confederate Loan, among whom is W. E. Gladstone, down, to my surprise, for 2,000. This, as you might expect, is a topic for excited editorials, and the cry is that the American Government ought to demand his dismissal from the Ministry.'

In time the Americans began to understand Mr. Gladstone better, and to appreciate him and his good feeling towards their country more. Major Pond, the well-known American, for twenty years endeavoured to get the G.O.M.-as he has long been known on both sides of the Atlantic-to cross the Atlantic on a lecturing tour. In 1880 Mr. Gladstone wrote to him: 'I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, with all the kindness it expresses and the dazzling prospects which it offers. Unhappily, my reply lies not in vague expressions of hope, but in the burden of seventy years and of engagements and duties beyond my strength, by desertion of which, even for the time needed, I should really be disent.i.tling myself to the goodwill of the American people, which I prize so highly.'

Notwithstanding this refusal, Major Pond returned to the attack, and offered the Grand Old Man seven thousand pounds for twenty lectures, which Mr. Gladstone declined. As a gentleman, he was bound to do so. It would have been a sorry sight to have seen the G.O.M. carted all over America as a show on a lecturing tour.

'To Americans,' says _Table Talk_, 'the venerable ex-leader of the Liberal Party in the British Parliament is not only a great Englishman, but the greatest of all Englishmen, and his demise, which, it is to be hoped, will yet be long postponed, will be regarded as a calamity to all the English-speaking races. It has always been a matter of keen regret throughout the American continent that Mr. Gladstone has never been able to pay a visit to those whom the Grand Old Man described in his memorable article in the _North American Review_ as "kin beyond sea." In July, 1894, a well-organized attempt was made to induce Mr. Gladstone to cross the ocean. A letter of invitation was sent to him, signed by the then Vice-President of the United States, Mr. Adlai Stevenson, by Mr. Chauncey Depew, by Dr. Pepper, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, by seventy Senators and one hundred Congressmen, by the Governors of a large number of the States, as well as nearly all the members of Mr.

Cleveland's Cabinet and of the Supreme Bench at Washington. It was intimated to the aged statesman that the most extraordinary arrangements would be made for his comfort, including the most luxurious (of course, free) transportation for himself, Mrs. Gladstone, and such companions and attendants as he desired; a special service of private cars on all the railways, and the unlimited use of an Atlantic cable during the time of his absence from England. Mr. Gladstone was also promised immunity from "interviewers, party politicians, advertisers, and hand-shakers." Mr.

Gladstone's reply covered three pages of large size writing-paper, and was written by himself entirely. At that time, it will be remembered, Mr. Gladstone's eyes were giving him great trouble, and he pathetically wrote: "Undoubtedly your letter supplied the strongest motives for an attempt to brave the impossible. But I regret to say it reaches me at a time when, were I much younger, it could not be open to me to consider this question." At the same time, while unable to accept such a flattering invitation, Mr. Gladstone, in concluding his letter, begged that the American nation would remain a.s.sured of "my unalterable interest in your country."'

It was scarcely necessary to write that. In his celebrated article on 'Kith and Kin' Mr. Gladstone had shown how far our American cousins had shot ahead of the old folks at home.

In 1866 Sir Richard Temple wrote of the opening debate: 'Next it was Mr.

Gladstone's turn to speak. I had understood privately that he was going to make some announcement that would imply the resignation of the Liberal leadership. He was known to be disappointed at his failure to obtain a majority at the General Election. . . . In fact, however, he said nothing to imply resignation, but, on the contrary, was evidently prepared to oppose the Government and challenge them to propose a measure in favour of Ireland, if they had one. It was in this speech that, alluding to his reserve on the question of Home Rule until the fit moment for action should arrive, he described himself as an old Parliamentary hand. He had long been a coiner of phrases that have become household words in Parliament, and yet this description became famous among us at once.'

Lord Houghton writes in 1866: 'I sat by Gladstone at the Delameres'. He was very much excited, not only about politics, but cattle plague, china, and everything else. It is indeed a contrast to Palmerston's "Ha, ha!"

and _laissez faire_.' Again in 1868 Lord Houghton writes: 'Gladstone is the great triumph, but, as he owns that he has to drive a four-in-hand consisting of English Liberals, English Dissenters, Scotch Presbyterians, and Irish Catholics, he requires all his courage to look his difficulties in the face, and trust to surmount them.'

In 1849 Lord Malmesbury writes: 'Dined with the Cannings, and met Mr.

Gladstone and Mr. Phillimore. We were anxious to see the former, as he is a man much spoken of as one who will come to the front. We were disappointed at his appearance, which is that of a Roman Catholic priest; but he is very agreeable.' On another occasion Malmesbury speaks of Gladstone as 'a dark horse.' In 1866 Lady Palmerston tells Lord Malmesbury that his lordship had very serious apprehensions as to Mr.

Gladstone's future career, and considered him a very dangerous and reckless politician. About the same time Lord Palmerston said to the Earl of Shaftesbury: 'Gladstone will soon have it all his own way, and when he gets my place we shall have strange doings.' A little later on Lord Malmesbury refers to the zest with which Mr. Gladstone had taken to singing n.i.g.g.e.r melodies.

Mr. Gladstone in 1865, questioned on the subject of the Irish Church, wrote: 'It would be very difficult for me to subscribe to any interpretation of my speech on the Irish Church like that of your correspondent, which contains so many conditions and bases of a plan for dealing with a question apparently remote and at the same time full of difficulties on every side. My reasons are, I think, plain. First, because the question is remote, and out of all bearing on the practical politics of the day, I think it would be far worse for me than superfluous to determine upon any scheme or bases of a scheme with respect to it. Secondly, because it is difficult, even if I antic.i.p.ated any likelihood of being called on to deal with it, I should think it right to take no decision beforehand as to the mode of dealing with the difficulties. But my first reason is that which chiefly sways. As far as I know, my speech signifies pretty clearly the broad distinction between the abstract and the practical views of the subject. And 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 gives promise of satisfactorily settling it. . . . In any measure dealing with the Church of Ireland, I think (though I scarcely expect ever to be called on to share in such a measure), the Act of Union must be recognised, and must have important consequences, especially with reference to the position of the hierarchy.'

A little amus.e.m.e.nt will be created by the following:

Mr. Jerningham, author of 'Reminiscences of an Attache,' met Mr.

Gladstone at Strawberry Hill just after the Liberal defeat on the Reform Bill. Sitting near him at breakfast, Mr. Jerningham asked Mr. Gladstone for his autograph.

'"Certainly," he said; "but you must ask me a question on paper, and I will answer it."

'I was twenty-three years of age-very proud of being in such interesting company at such a time, and therefore most anxious to justify my presence by some clever question.

'I wrote down quickly the following, and, rather pleased with it, gave it to Mr. Gladstone. It ran thus: "What is Mr. Gladstone's opinion of the difference which exists in 1866 between a Liberal and a moderate Conservative?"

'Mr. Gladstone crumpled up the paper, and, apparently much annoyed, said he did not think he could answer such a question.

'I was so concerned by his look of vexation that I went up to one of the ladies and repeated my question to her, so as to gather from her in which way I had offended.

'She nearly screamed-at least, so far as that person could ever utter a sound-and asked how I could ever have been so bold.

'The truth dawned upon me. The moderate Conservatives of 1866 had dissolved a powerful Liberal Ministry, and I had inquired what he thought of them-of the very statesman who had put their moderate principles to the test.'

After this _faux pas_ one is not surprised that Mr. Jerningham rejoiced that a dinner in town obliged him to leave his hosts on that very afternoon. But, after all, the storm soon blew over, and the incident had a pleasant ending. As Mr. Jerningham was on his way to Richmond, whom should he find upon the boat at Twickenham but Mr. Gladstone himself! So ends the tale:

'I very modestly bade good-bye to him without any allusion to my indiscretion of the morning; but with infinite kindness and charm of manner, he said, "I have not forgotten you," and pulled out of his pocket my original question and his characteristic answer to it: