In April, 1870, a party of English travelers in Greece were seized by brigands. The ladies were released and also Lord Muncaster, who was sent to Athens to arrange for ransom and a free pardon. But the Greek Government sending soldiers to release the captives and capture the captors, the English were murdered. The English Minister at Athens was in treaty for the release of his countrymen, but the great difficulty was to procure pardon from the Greek government. This terrible affair created a profound sensation in England, and it was brought before Parliament. Mr. Gladstone pleaded for further information before taking decided steps. But for the arrest and execution of most of the brigands, and the extirpation of the band, the diabolical deed went unavenged.
In July, war broke out suddenly between France and Germany, which resulted in the dethronement of Napoleon III. England preserved neutrality. However, Mr. Gladstone had his opinion regarding the war and thus represented it: “It is not for me to distribute praise and blame; but I think the war as a whole, and the state of things out of which it has grown, deserve a severer condemnation than any which the nineteenth century has exhibited since the peace of 1815.” And later, in an anonymous article, the only one he ever wrote, and which contained the famous phrase, “the streak of silver sea,” he “distributed blame with great impartiality between both belligerent powers.”
Among the business transacted in the session of 1870 was the following: All appointments to situations in all Civil Departments of the State, except the Foreign Office and posts requiring professional knowledge, should be filled by open competition; and the royal prerogative that claimed the General Commanding-in-Chief as the agent of the Crown be abolished, and that distinguished personage was formally declared to be subordinate to the Minister of War. Mr. Gladstone announced the intention of the government to release the Fenian prisoners then undergoing sentences for treason or treason-felony, on condition of their not remaining in or returning to the United Kingdom. The Premier, alluding to the enormity of their offenses, said that the same principles of justice which dictated their sentences would amply sanction the prolongation of their imprisonment if the public security demanded it. The press and country generally approved this decision of the Premier, but some condemned him for the condition he imposed in the amnesty. The religious test imposed upon all students entering at the universities was abolished, and all students of all creeds could now enter the universities on an equal footing. Heretofore special privileges were accorded to members of the Established Episcopal Church, and all others were cut off from the full enjoyment of the universities.
A bill to establish secret voting was rejected by the Lords, but was passed the next session. The House of Lords, emboldened by their success in throwing out the voting bill, defeated a bill to abolish the purchase of commissions in the army, but Mr. Gladstone was not to be turned from his purpose, and startled the peers by a new departure–he dispensed with their consent, and accomplished his purpose without the decision of Parliament. Finding that purchase in the army existed only by royal sanction, he, with prompt decision, advised the Queen to issue a royal warrant declaring that on and after November 1, 1871, all regulations attending the purchase of commissions should be cancelled. The purchase of official positions in the army was thus abolished. It was regarded as a high-handed act on the part of the Prime Minister, and a stretch of executive authority, and was denounced by Lords and Commons, friends and foes. Tories and Peers especially were enraged, and regarded themselves as baffled.
The condition of affairs in Ireland was alarming. The spread of an agrarian conspiracy at Westmeath compelled the government to move for a committee to inquire into the unlawful combination and confederacy existing. “Mr. Disraeli was severely sarcastic at the expense of the government.”
The grant proposed by the government to the Princess Louise on her marriage aroused the opposition of some members of the House, who claimed to represent the sentiments of a considerable number of people. It was proposed to grant £30,000 and an annuity of £6,000. The Premier stated that the Queen in marrying her daughter to one of her own subjects, had followed her womanly and motherly instincts. He dwelt upon the political importance of supporting the dignity of the crown in a suitable manner; upon the value of a stable dynasty; and the unwisdom of making minute pecuniary calculations upon such occasions. It was carried by a remarkable majority of 350 votes against 1.
In 1871 the treaty of Washington was concluded. But the Geneva awards for the damage done to American shipping by the “Alabama,” did much to undermine Mr. Gladstone’s popularity with the warlike portion of the British public and there were various indications that the Ministry were becoming unpopular. There were other causes tributary to this effect. His plans of retrenchment had deprived Greenwich of much of its trade, hence his seat was threatened. Mr. Gladstone resolved to face the difficulty boldly, and to meet the murmurers on their own ground, October 28, 1871, he addressed his Greenwich constituents. The air was heavy with murmurs and threats. Twenty thousand people were gathered at Blackheath. It was a cold afternoon when he appeared bare-headed, and defended the whole policy of the administration. “His speech was as long, as methodical, as argumentative, and in parts as eloquent, as if he had been speaking at his ease under the friendly and commodious shelter of the House of Commons.” The growing unpopularity of the Government was evidenced in the first reception given to the Premier by his constituents. Groans and cheers were mingled, and his voice at first was drowned by the din. Finally he was heard, and won the day, the people enthusiastically applauding and waving a forest of hats. One cause of unpopularity was what is called “the Ewelme Scandal,” and another the elevation of Sir Robert Collin to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Mr. Gladstone said: “I have a shrewd suspicion in my mind that a very large proportion of the people of England have a sneaking kindness for the hereditary 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 prefer the lord.” He detailed the great advantage which had accrued from the legislation of the past generation, including free-trade, the removal of twenty millions of taxation, a cheap press, and an education bill, Mr. Gladstone thus restored himself to the confidence of his constituents, but the ministry did not wholly regain the popularity they once enjoyed. The Gladstone period had passed its zenith and its decadence had already begun.
During the autumn Mr. Gladstone received the freedom of the city of Aberdeen, and made a speech, in which occurred a remarkable reference to “the newly-invented cry of Home Rule.” He spoke of the political illusions to which Ireland was periodically subject, the extremes to which England had gone in satisfying her demands, and the removal of all her grievances, except that which related to higher education. He said that any inequalities resting between England and Ireland were in favor of Ireland, and as to Home Rule, if Ireland was entitled to it, Scotland was better entitled, and even more so Wales.
Ireland had proved the glory of Mr. Gladstone’s administration. Its name had been associated with the most brilliant legislative triumphs of government. But Ireland was also destined to be the government’s most serious stumbling-block, and fated to be the immediate measure of its overthrow. In the session of 1873 Mr. Gladstone endeavored to further his plans for Reform, and consequently vigorously attacked the third branch of the “upas tree,” to which he had referred. He labored to put the universities on a proper basis, that they might be truly educational centres for the whole of Ireland, and not for a small section of its inhabitants alone. This step followed legitimately after the disestablishment of the Irish Church. He introduced to this end a large and comprehensive measure, but although it was favorably received at the outset, a hostile feeling soon began and manifested itself. Mr. Gladstone pleaded powerfully for the measure, and said: “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 hands to the plough, 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 begun so let us persevere, even to the end, and with firm and resolute hand let us efface from the law and practice of the country the last–for I believe it is the last–of the religious and social grievances of Ireland.” Mr. Disraeli made fun of the bill, stalwart Liberals condemned it, and the Irish members voted against it, hence the bill was defeated by a small majority of three votes. Mr. Gladstone consequently resigned, but Mr. Disraeli positively declined to take office with a majority of the House of Commons against him, and refused to appeal to the country. Mr. Gladstone read an extract from a letter he had addressed to the Queen, in which he contended that Mr. Disraeli’s refusal to accept office was contrary to all precedent. But under the extraordinary circumstances he and his colleagues consented to resume office, and they would endeavor to proceed, both with regard to legislation and administration upon the same principle as those which had heretofore regulated their conduct. Mr. Lowe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, having resigned, Mr. Gladstone assumed the duties of the office himself, thus serving in the double offices of Premier and Chancellor. During the recess various speeches were made in defence of the Ministerial policy, but the government failed to recover its once overwhelming popularity.
On the 19th of July, 1873, Mr. Gladstone lost by sudden death one of his oldest and most highly esteemed friends–Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester. He was riding to Holmbury with Earl Granville, when he was thrown from his horse and killed instantly.
The end of Mr. Gladstone’s first ministry was now drawing near. The people no longer desired to keep up with the reforming zeal of the administration. Mr. Disraeli’s strongly exaggerated description of the Premier’s policy had the effect of forming the popular discontent; Liberal members were deserting him. The Bible was in danger of being left out of the schools, and beer was threatened with taxation. The flag of “Beer and the Bible”–strange combination–having been hoisted by clergy and publicans, the cry against the ministry became irresistible. Deserted by the people and by many of his own party, what was to be done unless to appeal to the country and decide by a general election what was wanted and who would be sustained.
January, 1874, Mr. Gladstone issued a manifesto dissolving Parliament. In this document, entitled to be called a State paper for its political and historical importance, Mr. Gladstone stated his reasons for what was regarded by many as a _coup d’ tat_. It is impossible to describe the public excitement and confusion which attended the general election thus unexpectedly decreed. Mr. Gladstone, recovering from a cold, appealed with great energy to Greenwich for re-election. The general election resulted in the defeat of the Liberals, and gave to the Conservatives a majority of forty-six in the House. Mr. Gladstone was elected, but Greenwich which returned two members, placed the Premier second on the poll–below a local distiller. Following the example of his predecessor, in 1868, Mr. Gladstone resigned. “Thus was overthrown one of the greatest administrations of the century; indeed, it may be doubted whether any other English Ministry was ever able to show such a splendid record of great legislative acts within so short a period. There was not one measure, but a dozen, which would have shed lustre upon any government; and the six years of Mr. Gladstone’s first Premiership are well entitled to the epithet which has been accorded to them of ‘the Golden Age of Liberalism.'”
Before the next Parliament met Mr. Gladstone was to give the country another surprise. He was now sixty-four years old, had been forty years in active parliamentary labors, and thought himself justified in seeking rest from the arduous duties of public life, at least the pressing cares as leader of one of the great political parties. When his contemplated retirement had before become known to his friends, they induced him for a while longer to act as leader, but in February, 1875, he finally retired from the leadership and indeed appeared but rarely in the House of Commons during that session.
“The retirement of Mr. Gladstone from active leadership naturally filled his party with dismay. According to the general law of human life, they only realized their blessings when they had lost them. They had grumbled at their chief and mutinied against him and helped to depose him. But, now that this commanding genius was suddenly withdrawn from their councils they found that they had nothing to put in its place. Their indignation waxed fast and furious, and was not the less keen because they had to some extent, brought their trouble on themselves. They complained with almost a ludicrous pathos that Mr. Gladstone had led them into a wilderness of opposition and left them there to perish. They were as sheep without a shepherd and the ravening wolves of Toryism seemed to have it all their own way.”
Between the time of Mr. Gladstone’s retirement from the Premiership and his resignation of leadership in the House, he had quickly reappeared in the House of Commons and vigorously opposed the Public Worship Regulation Bill. Mr. Gladstone attacked the bill with a power and vehemence which astonished the House. The great objection to it was its interference with liberty, and with the variety of customs which had grown up in different parts of the country. To enforce strict uniformity would be oppressive and inconvenient. The bill became law, however, though it has largely proved inoperative, Mr. Gladstone also opposed the Endowed Schools Act Amendment Bill, which practically gave to the Church of England the control of schools that were thrown open to the whole nation by the policy of the last Parliament. So great a storm was raised over this reactionary bill that Mr. Disraeli was obliged to modify its provisions considerably before it could become a law. Mr. Gladstone was also active at this time in delivering addresses at Liverpool College, the Buckley Institute and the well-known Nonconformist College at Mill Hill.
[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE’S MAIL]
CHAPTER XVI
THE EASTERN QUESTION
During his retirement from the leadership of the Liberal Party, Mr. Gladstone employed his great abilities in theological controversy and literary productions. It was during this period that he collected his miscellaneous writings, entitled “Gleanings from Past Years.” A little more than a year had elapsed when he again entered the political arena. “He threw aside polemics and criticisms, he forgot for awhile Homer and the Pope,” and “rushed from his library at Hawarden, forgetting alike ancient Greece and modern Rome,” as he flung himself with impassioned energy and youthful vigor into a new crusade against Turkey. A quarter of a century before he had aroused all Europe with the story of the Neapolitan barbarities, and now again his keen sense of justice and strong, humanitarian sympathies impel him with righteous indignation to the eloquent defence of another oppressed people, and the denunciation of their wrongs. It was the Eastern Question that at once brought back the Liberal leader into the domain of politics. “The spirit of the war-horse could not be quenched, and the country thrilled with his fiery condemnation of the Bulgarian massacres.” His activity was phenomenal. “He made the most impassioned speeches, often in the open air; he published pamphlets which rushed into incredible circulations; he poured letter after letter into the newspapers; he darkened the sky with controversial postcards, and, as soon as Parliament met in February, 1877, he was ready with all his unequalled resources of eloquence, argumentation and inconvenient enquiry, to drive home his great indictment against the Turkish government and its champion, Mr. Disraeli, who had now become Lord Beaconsfield.”
“The reason of all this passion is not difficult to discover. Mr. Gladstone is a Christian; and in the Turk he saw the great anti-Christian power where it ought not, in the fairest provinces of Christendom, and stained with the record of odious cruelty practised through long centuries on its defenceless subjects who were worshippers of Jesus Christ.”
Turkish oppression, which had for a long time existed in its worst forms, resulted in an insurrection against Turkey and Herzegovina, July 1, 1875. This, however, was only the beginning, for others suffering under Ottoman oppression rebelled, and all Europe was involved.
In January, 1876, the Herzegovinians gained a victory over the Turkish troops. The European powers then suggested a settlement favorable to the insurgents, which was accepted by the Sultan. But early in May another insurrection broke out in several Bulgarian villages, which was quickly followed by the most horrible atrocities. A conference on the Eastern question was held at Berlin in May, and soon afterward the English ministers announced in Parliament that they were unable to assent to the terms agreed upon at the Berlin Conference. This announcement caused much surprise and comment in England. Public feeling already aroused, was not allayed when it became known that the British fleet in the Mediterranean had been ordered to Besiki Bay, seemingly for the protection of the Turkish Empire.
June 28th the Bulgarian insurrection was suppressed. On the 10th of July the Sultan, Abdul Aziz, was deposed and was succeeded by Murad V, who declared that he desired to guarantee liberty to all. Mr. Disraeli stated, in the House of Commons, that the steps taken by the Ministry would lead to permanent peace. But within two weeks the _Daily News_ published a letter from Constantinople detailing the massacre in Bulgaria by the Turks, which moved all England with indignation. Innocent men, women and children had been slaughtered by the thousands; at least sixty villages had been utterly destroyed; the most revolting scenes of violence had been enacted; and a district once the most fertile in the Empire had been laid waste and completely ruined. Forty girls were shut up in a straw loft and burnt, and outrages of the most fearful description were committed upon hundreds of defenceless captives.
Mr. Disraeli, in the House of Commons, grew “jocular upon the cruelties and sufferings almost unparalleled in the world’s history,” and expressed his belief that the outrages committed by the Turkish troops had been exaggerated, and sneered at the rumor as “coffee-house babble;” while as to the torture of the impalement, which had caused universal anger and disgust, that an Oriental people have their way of executing malefactors, and generally terminated their connection with culprits in an expeditious manner.
In the official report presented to Parliament by Mr. W. Baring, the reported outrages in Bulgaria were corroborated. No fewer than 12,000 persons had perished in the sandjak of Philippopolis! The most fearful tragedy, however, was at Batak, where over 1000 people took refuge in the church and churchyard. The Bashi-Bazouks fired through the windows, and, getting upon the roof, tore off the tiles and threw burning pieces of wood and rags dipped in petroleum among the mass of unhappy human beings inside. At last the door was forced in and the massacre was completed. The inside of the church was then burnt, and hardly one escaped. “The massacre at Batak was the most heinous crime which stained the history of the present century;” and for this exploit the Turkish Commander, Achmet Agha, had bestowed on him the order of the Medjidie. Sir Henry Elliot, the English Ambassador at Constantinople, was directed to lay these facts before the Sultan and to demand the punishment of the offenders. The demand, however, was never enforced.
Prince Milan issued a proclamation to his people, declaring that, while professing neutrality, the Sultan had continued to send military forces of savage hordes to the Servian frontier. In June, Prince Milan left Belgrade and joined his army on the frontier. The Montenegrins declared war on Turkey and joined forces with Servia. July 6th the Servians were defeated. Thus was Turkey plunged into war with her Christian provinces, and all through her own misrule in peace and her barbarities in war.
Mr. Disraeli in a speech made in the House of Commons, August 11th, explained that he had not denied the existence of the “Bulgarian. Atrocities,” but he had no official knowledge of them. He affirmed that Great Britain was not responsible for what occurred in Turkey, nor were the Turks the special _protégés_ of England. He announced that the special duty of the Government at that moment was to preserve the British Empire, and that they would never consent to any step that would hazard the existence of that empire, This speech, which was distinguished by much of his old brilliancy and power, was his last speech in the House. On the morning after this speech it was publicly announced that Mr. Disraeli would immediately be elevated to the peerage under the title of the Earl of Beaconsfield.
In September, 1876, deeming it high time that the indignant voice of England should be heard in demonstration of the infamous deeds practiced by the Turk, Mr. Gladstone issued his pamphlet, entitled “Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East.” It had an enormous circulation. He called for a stop to be put to the anarchy, the misrule and the bloodshed in Bulgaria, and demanded that the Ottoman rule should be excluded, not only from Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also from Bulgaria. The Turks must clear out, “bag and baggage,” from the provinces they have desolated and profaned. The pamphlet, and the latter expression especially, produced a great sensation.
The pamphlet “brought home to the English people the idea that for these horrors which were going on, they too, as non-interfering allies of Turkey, were in part responsible.” Soon after this Mr. Gladstone addressed a large concourse of his constituents at Blackheath, in which he severely arraigned the Government. This address was one of the most impassioned and eloquent of Mr. Gladstone’s political orations, and at some points the people were literally carried away with their feelings.
November 1st, Turkey was forced by Russia to agree to an armistice of eight weeks. On the 2d the Russian Emperor pledged his word to the English Ambassador that he had no intention of acquiring Constantinople; that if compelled to occupy Bulgaria, it would be only until the safety of the Christian inhabitants be secured; and urged the Ambassador to remove the distrust of Russia prevailing in England. Yet, in the face of all these assurances, Lord Beaconsfield delivered a war-like speech, at the banquet at Guildhall, November 9th. Informed of this speech the Czar declared that if the Porte did not accede to his demands, Russia would then act independently.
On the 8th of December there was a great conference at St. James’ Hall, London, to discuss the Eastern question. The Duke of Westminster presided at the afternoon meeting. At the evening gathering Lord Shaftesbury occupied the chair. Mr. E. Freeman said: “Perish the interests of England, perish our dominion in India, sooner than we should strike one blow or speak one word on behalf of the wrong against the right.” The chief interest of the occasion centered in the speech of Mr. Gladstone who was received with unbounded applause. He declared that there had been no change in public sentiment in England on the question; that the promoters of that meeting had no desire to embarrass the Government; that the power and influence of England had been employed to effect results at variance with the convictions of the country; that Lord Beaconsfield had only recently appeared anxious; and that England had duties towards the Christian subjects of Turkey. Mr. Gladstone continued that he hoped that the instructions given to Lord Salisbury, who had been sent for conference to Constantinople, were not in accordance with the speech at Guildhall, but that he would be left to his own clear insight and generous impulses; that the conference would insist upon the independence of the provinces, or at least would insure them against arbitrary injustice and oppression, and that the work indicated was not merely a worthy deed but an absolute duty.
Mr. Gladstone, during the recess of Parliament, delivered speeches upon the burning question of the day all over England. At Hawarden he pleaded that it was the wretched Turkish system that was at fault, and not the Turks themselves, and hoped for a remedy. To the electors of Frome he spoke of the tremendous responsibility of the Ministers. In a speech at the Taunton Railway Station, he said, in reference to the injunction for himself and friends to mind their own business, that the Eastern question was their own business. And when the Constantinople Conference failed he spoke of this “great transaction and woeful failure,” and laid all the blame of failure on the Ministry. As to the treaties of 1856 being in force, his opinion was, that Turkey had entirely broken those treaties and trampled them under foot.
January 20, 1877, the conference closed. Parliament met February 8, 1877, and the conflict was transferred from the country to that narrower arena. In the House of Lords the Duke of Argyle delivered a powerful speech, to which the Premier, Disraeli, replied, that he believed that any interference directed to the alleviation of the sufferings of the Turkish Christians would only make their sufferings worse. He asked for calm, sagacious and statesmanlike consideration of the whole subject, never forgetting the great interests of England, if it was to have any solution at all.
Mr. Gladstone, upon his appearance in the House, was greeted as a Daniel come to judgment. He was taken to task by Mr. Chaplin, who complained that Mr. Gladstone and others of the Liberal party “had endeavored to regulate the foreign policy of the country by pamphlets, by speeches at public meetings, and by a so-called National Conference, instead of leaving it in the hands of the Executive Government,” and intimated that Mr. Gladstone was afraid to meet the House in debate upon the question. Mr. Gladstone, rebuking Mr. Chaplain, said that it was the first time in a public career extending over nearly half a century, he had been accused of a disinclination to meet his opponents in a fair fight, and promised him that neither he nor his friends would have reason to complain of his reticence. Tories and Liberals knew he had not shrunk from meeting the public on this question. He was glad that there was a tremendous feeling abroad upon this Eastern question. He had been told that by the pamphlet he wrote and the speech he delivered, he had done all this mischief, and agitated Europe and the world; but if that were the case why did not the honorable gentleman, by writing another pamphlet, and delivering another speech, put the whole thing right? If he (the speaker) had done anything, it was only in the same way that a man applies a match to an enormous mass of fuel already prepared. Mr. Gladstone closed with the following words: “We have, I think, the most solemn and the greatest question to determine that has come before Parliament in my time…. In the original entrance of the Turks into Europe, it may be said to have been a turning point in human history. To a great extent it continues to be the cardinal question, the question which casts into the shade every other question.”
April 24, 1877, war was declared by Russia against Turkey. The Czar issued a manifesto, assigning as reasons for this war the refusal of guarantee by the Porte for the proposed reforms, the failure of the Conference and the rejection of the Proteol signed on the previous 31st of March. England, France and Italy proclaimed their neutrality. Mr. Gladstone initiated a great debate in the House of Commons, May 7th, which lasted five days. He presented a series of resolutions expressing grave dissatisfaction with the policy of Turkey, and declared that she had forfeited all claim to support, moral and material. Mr. Gladstone asked whether, with regard to the great battle of freedom against oppression then going on, “we in England could lay our hands upon our hearts, and in the face of God and man, say, ‘We have well and sufficiently performed our part?'”
These resolutions were of course hostile to the Government, and many Liberals refused to vote for them, because they pledged England to a policy of force in connection with Russia. Besides the Government gave assurances to avail themselves of any opportunity of interposing their good offices. The resolutions consequently were lost. Mr. Gladstone was not quite the leader of his party again.
Shortly after this debate, and before the close of the session, Mr. Gladstone addressed a large meeting at Birmingham on the Eastern question and the present condition of the Liberal party. Later on he visited Ireland. On his return he addressed, by their request, the people gathered to receive him. He expressed his belief that Turkey would have yielded to the concerted action of Europe; noticed the change in the tone of the ministry from the omission in the Premier’s speech of the phrase, “the independence of Turkey;” protested strongly against England being dragged into war, and warmly eulogized the non-conformists for the consistency and unanimity with which they had insisted on justice to the Eastern Christians. Political feeling entered into everything at this time, but as an evidence of the hold Mr. Gladstone retained in the Scottish heart, he was in November elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University by a large majority. Lord Beaconsfield was the retiring Lord Rector, and the Conservatives nominated Sir S. Northcote, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as Mr. Gladstone’s opponent.
The war in the East went disastrously for the Ottoman arms. January 23, 1878, the Porte agreed to accept the terms of peace submitted by the Grand Duke Nicholas.
Mr. Gladstone was invited January 30, 1878, to attend a meeting of undergraduates at Oxford, held to celebrate the formation of a Liberal Palmerston Club. He strongly condemned the sending of the British fleet into the Dardanelles as a breach of European law; and confessed that he had been an agitator for the past eighteen months, day and night, to counteract what he believed to be the evil purposes of Lord Beaconsfield.
In February the House of Commons passed a vote of credit, but on the 3d of March a treaty of peace was signed between Turkey and Russia, at Sanstefano, the terms of which in part were: Turkey to pay a large war indemnity; Servia and Montenegro to be independent and to receive accessions of territory; Bulgaria to be formed into a principality with greatly extended boundaries, and to be governed by a prince elected by the inhabitants; the navigation of the Straits was declared free for merchant vessels, both in times of peace and war; Russian troops to occupy Bulgaria for two years; Batoum, Ardahan, Kars and Bayazid, with their territories, to be ceded to Russia, and Turkey to pay an indemnity to Roumania. The terms of the treaty were regarded oppressive to Turkey by the Beaconsfield Ministry, who proposed that the whole treaty be submitted to a congress at Berlin, to meet in June, 1878. The treaty was approved after some modifications. The English Plenipotentiaries were the Earl of Beaconsfield and Marquis of Salisbury, who, for their share in the treaty, received a popular ovation and rewards from the Queen. Thus was Turkey humiliated and Russia benefited, having obtained her demands. To the people assembled Lord Beaconsfield said from the window of the Foreign Office: “Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace, but a peace, I hope with honor, which may satisfy our Sovereign and tend to the welfare of the country.” But at this very time the envoy of Russia, whom the ministry thought to be circumvented, was entering the Afghan capital; so that, although there was peace on the Bosphorus, as a direct result of the Eastern policy, there was war in Afghanistan. The Conservatives were very ready for awhile to use as a watchword the phrase, “Peace and Honor,” but before long it became the occasion of ridicule.
Parliament was called upon to appropriate £8,000,000 to defray the cost of the Afghan and Zulu wars. When Mr. Gladstone’s government retired from office, there was a surplus of over £3,000,000, but the budgets of 1878 and 1879 both showed large deficits. The people had applauded the “imperial policy,” “the jingoism” of Lord Beaconsfield’s administration during the past two or three years, but they were not so appreciative when they found it so costly a policy to themselves. The depression in business also had its effect upon the country. The unpopularity of the Liberal government, which culminated in its defeat in 1873, was now, in 1879, being shifted to their Conservative opponents, whose term of office was fast drawing to a close.
“Mr. Gladstone’s resolute and splendid hostility to Lord Beaconsfield’s whole system of foreign policy restored him to his paramount place among English politicians. For four years–from 1876 to 1880–he sustained the high and holy strife with an enthusiasm, a versatility, a courage and a resourcefulness which raised the enthusiasm of his followers to the highest pitch, and filled his guilty and baffled antagonists with a rage which went near to frenzy. By frustrating Lord Beaconsfield’s design of going to war on behalf of Turkey, he saved England from the indelible disgrace of a second and more gratuitous Crimea. But it was not only in Eastern Europe that his saving influence was felt. In Africa and India, and wherever British honor was involved, he was the resolute and unsparing enemy of that odious system of bluster and swagger and might against right, on which Lord Beaconsfield and his colleagues bestowed the tawdry nickname of Imperialism.”
[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE ON HIS WAY HOME]
CHAPTER XVII
MIDLOTHIAN AND THE SECOND PREMIERSHIP
The leadership of the Liberal party had, upon the retirement of Mr. Gladstone, been turned over to Lord Hartington. His sympathies were upon the right side on the Eastern question, but he was a calm, slow-moving man. At the proper time he would have taken the right measures in Parliament, but the temper of the Liberal party and of the people demanded present action and emphatic speech, then Mr. Gladstone came to the rescue, and Lord Hartington found himself pushed aside. Mr. Gladstone was again in fact the leader of the Liberal party, whose standard he had carried aloft during those stirring times when the Eastern question was the all-absorbing topic of debate in Parliament and among the people of the land. The foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield in 1878 and 1879 found a sleepless critic in Mr. Gladstone.
The day after the Parliament of 1878 had adjourned for the Easter recess, it was announced that the Ministry had ordered the Indian Government to dispatch 7000 native troops to the Island of Malta. The order occasioned much discussion–political, legal, and constitutional. It was warmly debated. It was thought that Lord Beaconsfield had transcended his powers and done what could be done only by a vote of Parliament. In the House of Commons Mr. Gladstone condemned the proceedings as unconstitutional, and pointed out the dangers of the Ministerial policy. Lord Beaconsfield received what he calculated upon–the support of the House. For a member to differ from his policy was almost to incur the imputation of disloyalty to Crown and country. Indeed, Mr. Gladstone was seriously accused of treason by a member of the House for an article in the _Nineteenth Century_.
Mr. Gladstone undauntedly continued the contest. He addressed a meeting of Liberals in the Drill Hall, Bermondsey, July 20th, in which he said that the Dissolution of Parliament could not long be postponed, and urged the union and organization of all Liberals, and prompt measures to secure such representation as the Liberals deserved in the coming Parliament. Speaking of the Anglo-Turkish treaty, he pointed out the serious obligations which devolved upon England under it. He added, regarding the Turkish Convention, that, possibly it was necessary to sustain the credit of the country, but whether that credit should be sustained at such a price remained for the people to determine at the polls. He rejoiced that these most unwise, extravagant, unwarrantable, unconstitutional and dangerous proceedings had not been the work of the Liberal party, but he was grieved to think that any party should be found in England to perform such transactions.
A great debate arose in the House of Commons, extending over the whole range of the Eastern question: The Treaty of Berlin, the Anglo-Turkish Convention, the acquisition of Cyprus, the claims of Greece, etc. It was begun by the Marquis of Hartington, who offered a resolution regretting the grave responsibilities the Ministry had assumed for England with no means of securing their fulfillment, and without the previous knowledge of Parliament. Mr. Gladstone’s speech during this debate is described as “a long and eloquent address, unsurpassable for its comprehensive grasp of the subject, its lucidity, point, and the high tone which animated it throughout.” Mr. Gladstone denied that his strictures upon the Government in a speech made out of Parliament could be construed as Lord Beaconsfield had taken them as a personal attack and provocation. If criticism of this kind is prohibited the doors of the House might as well be shut. He observed that, “Liberty of speech is the liberty which secures all other liberties, and the abridgment of which would render all other liberties vain and useless possessions.” In discussing the Congress at Berlin, Mr. Gladstone said, that he could not shut his eyes to the fact that the Sclavs, looking to Russia had been freed, while the Greeks, looking to England, remained with all their aspirations unsatisfied; that Russia had secured much territory and large indemnity, with the sanction of Europe; that the English Plenipotentiaries at the Congress, Lord Salisbury and Lord Beaconsfield, as a general rule, took the side of servitude, and that opposed to freedom.
With regard to the English responsibilities in Asiatic Turkey put upon England at the Convention, he called them an “unheard of,” and “mad-undertaking,” accomplished “in the dark,” by the present Ministry. Dealing with the treaty-making power of the country, he claimed that it rested with Parliament in conjunction with the Executive. The strength and the eloquence were on the side of the opposition, but the votes were for the Government. The resolutions of Lord Hartington were defeated, and the “imperial policy” of the Ministry was sustained. The _Spectator_ said, that, “Reason, prudence, and patriotism have hardly ever in our times been voted down with so little show of argument, and even of plausible suggestion.”
The next step taken by the Ministry was to undertake war with Afghanistan, in hopes of checking the advances of Russia in that direction and of redressing grievances. England accomplished her purpose in part, but greatly suffered for her exploit. Mr. Gladstone could not remain quiet under the “adventurous policy” of the Premier. He condemned the ministerial policy which had made the Queen an Empress, then manipulated the prerogative in a manner wholly unexampled in this age, and employed it in inaugurating policies about which neither the nation nor the Parliament had ever been consulted. But arguments were of no avail. The Conservative majority in Parliament had imbibed the idea that the honor of England had to be protected. Some thought it had never been assailed, but Lord Beaconsfield declared it was in peril, and men and money were voted to defend it. “So the order was given for distant peoples to be attacked, English blood to be spilled, the burdens of the people, already too heavy, to be swollen, and the future liabilities of this country to be enormously increased.”
In November, at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, Lord Beaconsfield, speaking of Eastern affairs, said that the Government was not afraid of any invasion of India by its northwestern frontier; but the frontier was “haphazard and not a scientific one,” and the Government wanted a satisfactory frontier. Mr. Gladstone, in a letter to the Bedford Liberal Association, asked: “What right have we to annex by war, or to menace the territory of our neighbors, in order to make ‘scientific’ a frontier which is already safe?”
In the autumn of 1879 Mr. Gladstone, having resolved to retire from the representation of Greenwich at the next election, paid a farewell visit to his constituents. At a luncheon given by the Liberal Association he dwelt upon the necessity of a Liberal union. The Liberals had, owing to their dissensions, given twenty-six votes to their opponents in 1874, while the Government had been carried on for years by a Conservative majority of less than twenty-six, showing the importance of organization. At night Mr. Gladstone attended a great public meeting in the Plumstead Skating Rink. On his entrance the whole audience rose and cheered for several minutes. An address was presented, expressing regret at his retirement, and the pride they would ever feel at having been associated with his name and fame. Mr. Gladstone alluded to Lord Beaconsfield’s phrase respecting “harassed interests,” and said he knew of only one harassed interest, and that was the British nation. He protested against the words “personal government” being taken to imply that the Sovereign desired to depart from the traditions of the constitution, yet he charged the advisers of the Crown with having invidiously begun a system intended to narrow the liberties of the people of England and to reduce Parliament to the condition of the French Parliaments before the great Revolution.
Mr. Gladstone threw the whole responsibility of the Afghan war on the Ministry, and maintaining that England had departed from the customs of the forefathers, concluded as follows: “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.”
In December, 1878, the following resolution was offered in the House of Commons: “That this House disapproves the conduct of her Majesty’s Government, which has resulted in the war with Afghanistan.” Mr. Gladstone strongly condemned the war with Afghanistan and the irritating policy towards the Ameer, and concluded his address with the following eloquent responses to the historical and moral aspects of the Afghan difficulty: “You have made this war 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 contempt 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.” This powerful speech greatly impressed, for the moment, both parties in the House, but the vote of censure was defeated, and the policy of the administration was endorsed. During the debate Mr. Latham made a witty comparison. He said that the Cabinet reminded him of the gentleman, who seeing his horses run away, and being assured by the coachman that they must drive into something, replied, “Then smash into something cheap!”
The Ministry presented a motion that the revenues of India should be applied for the purposes of the war. Mr. Gladstone observed that it was the people of England who had had all the glory and all the advantage which resulted from the destruction of the late administration, and the accession of the present Cabinet; and hence it was the people who must measure the _pros_ and the _cons_, and who must be content, after having reaped such innumerable benefits, to encounter the disadvantage of meeting charges which undoubtedly the existing government would leave behind it as a legacy to posterity. England gained her end in the humiliation of Russia, but there were those who felt that the result of the English policy would further the advance of Russia in Europe, and that force would never make friends of the Afghans.
In the sessions of 1879 the Greek question came up in the House of Commons on a motion, “That, in the opinion of this House, tranquillity in the East demands that satisfaction be given to the just claims of Greece, and no satisfaction can be considered adequate that does not ensure execution of the recommendations embodied in Protocol 13 of the Berlin Congress.” Mr. Gladstone hoped that even in the present House there would be found those who would encourage the first legitimate aspirations of the Hellenic races after freedom. The government had given pledges to advance the claims of Greece that had not been redeemed at Berlin. Not one of the European powers was now averse to the claims of the Greek kingdom, whose successful pleadings depended wholly upon England for favorable answer. But the government objected, and the motion was rejected. In July, Sir Charles Dilke called the attention of the House to the obligations of Turkey under the Treaty of Berlin, when Mr. Gladstone again earnestly enforced the claims of “Greece, weak as she may be, is yet strong in the principles in which she rests.”
December 29, 1879, Mr. Gladstone attained the seventieth year of his age. His friends in Liverpool, and the Greenwich Liberal Association presented him with congratulatory addresses. The journals paid him warm tributes for his long and eminent public services. But few thought that the veteran that had so successfully gone through one electoral campaign was destined in a few months to pass through another, still more remarkable, and yet be fresh for new triumphs. In the autumn of 1879 Mr. Gladstone resolved upon a very important, and as his enemies thought, a hopeless step. He had retired from the representation of Greenwich, and he now boldly decided to contest the election for Midlothian, the county of Edinburgh. He consequently proceeded to Scotland, in November, where such an ovation was given him as has never been accorded to any man in modern times. During the period of three weeks he addressed meetings numbering seventy-five thousand people, while a quarter of a million of people, with every exhibition of good-will and admiration, took part in some way in the demonstration in his honor. In this canvass of delivering political speeches he performed an oratorical and intellectual feat unparalleled in the history of any statesman who had attained his seventieth year. Mr. Gladstone addressed large concourses of people. When he reached Edinburgh, “his progress was as the progress of a nation’s guest, or a king returning to his own again.”
Midlothian, the scene of Mr. Gladstone’s astonishing exertions, was one of the Conservative strongholds, under the dominent influence of the Duke of Buccleuch, whose son, Lord Dalkeith, Mr. Gladstone opposed in contesting for the representation in Parliament. Mr. Gladstone said: “Being a man of Scotch blood, I am very much attached to Scotland, and like even the Scottish accent,” and he afterwards said, “and Scotland showed herself equally proud of her son.” He spoke at Edinburgh, November 26th, and on the following day at Dalkeith, in the very heart of the Duke of Buccleuch’s own property to an audience of three thousand people, mostly agriculturists. At Edinburgh he met nearly five thousand persons at the Corn Exchange, representing more than one hundred Scottish Liberal Associations. In the Waverley Market Mr. Gladstone addressed more than twenty thousand people, one of the largest congregations ever assembled in-doors in Scotland, and met with a reception which for enthusiasm was in keeping with the vastness of the audience. December 5th, at Glasgow, he delivered his address as Lord Rector to the students of the University, and in the evening addressed an immense audience of nearly six thousand in St. Andrew’s Hall. He was most enthusiastically received, and he dwelt chiefly on Cyprus, the Suez Canal, India, and Afghanistan. “We had Afghanistan ruined,” he urged, “India not advanced, but thrown back in government, subjected to heavy and unjust charges, subjected to what might well be termed, in comparison with the mild government of former years, a system of oppression; and with all this we had at home the law broken and the rights of Parliament invaded.”
On the 8th of March, 1880, the immediate dissolution of Parliament was announced in both Houses of Parliament, and the news created intense political excitement and activity throughout the land. In his manifesto, in the shape of a letter to the Duke of Marlborough, the Prime Minister referred to the attempt made to sever the constitutional tie between Great Britain and Ireland, and said: “It is to be hoped that all men of light and leading will resist this destructive doctrine. There are some who challenge the expediency of the Imperial character of this realm. Having attempted and failed to enfeeble our colonies by their policy of decomposition, they may now perhaps recognize in the disintegration of the United Kingdom a mode which will not only accomplish, but precipitate, that purpose. Peace rests on the presence, not to say the ascendency, of England in the councils of Europe.”
Mr. Gladstone and Lord Hartington issued their counter-manifestoes. Mr. Gladstone repudiated Lord Beaconsfield’s dark allusion to the repeal of the union and the abandonment of the colonies, characterizing them as base insinuations, the real purpose of which was to hide from view the policy pursued by the Ministry, and its effect upon the condition of the country; and said that public distress had been aggravated by continual shocks from neglected legislation at home, “while abroad they had strained the prerogative by gross misuse, had weakened the Empire by needless wars, and dishonored it in the eyes of Europe by their clandestine acquisition of the Island of Cyprus.”
Mr. Gladstone began the electoral campaign with a speech at Marylebone on the 10th of March, in which he announced Lord Derby’s secession from the Conservative to the Liberal party; and then he left London to enter upon his second Midlothian campaign. At various points on the journey Mr. Gladstone stopped and addressed the people from the cars, and it is a remarkable fact that wherever he delivered an address the Liberals gained a seat.
The first address made by Mr. Gladstone on his own account, was delivered on the 17th of March, in the Music Hall, Edinburgh. After dwelling at great length upon various questions of foreign policy, he concluded with the following references personal to his opponents and himself: “I give them credit for patriotic motives; I give them credit for those patriotic motives which are incessantly and gratuitously 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.”
In his final speech at West Calder Mr. Gladstone drew a powerful indictment against the administration, and placed the issue before the country in a strong light. Throughout all the campaign, as the time for the general election was approaching, only one question was submitted to the electors, “Do you approve or condemn Lord Beaconsfield’s system of foreign policy?” And the answer was given at Easter, 1880, when the Prime Minister and his colleagues received the most empathic condemnation which had ever been bestowed upon an English Government, and the Liberals were returned in an overwhelming majority of fifty over Tories and Home Rulers combined. Mr. Gladstone succeeded in ousting Lord Dalkeith from the representation of Midlothian by a respectable majority. He was also elected at Leeds, but this seat was afterwards given to his son, Herbert Gladstone. At the conclusion of the election all the journals joined in admiring the indomitable energy and vigor of the orator, who could carry out this great enterprise when he had already passed the age of three-score years and ten. Edinburgh was illuminated in the evening, and everywhere were to be witnessed signs of rejoicing at Mr. Gladstone’s victory. The result of the elections throughout the country exceeded the most sanguine expectations of the Liberals. So large a proportion of Liberal members had not been returned to the House of Commons since the days of the first Reform Bill.
Lord Beaconsfield, as soon as the result of the election was known, and without waiting for the meeting of Parliament, resigned. The Queen, in conformity with the constitutional custom, summoned Lord Hartington, the titular leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons, to form a cabinet. But he could do nothing. Then the Queen sent for Lord Granville, who with Lord Hartington, went to Windsor April 23d. They both assured the Queen that the victory was Mr. Gladstone’s; that the people had designated him for office, and that the Liberal party would be satisfied with no other, and that he was the inevitable Prime Minister. They returned to London in the afternoon, sought Mr. Gladstone at Harley Street, where he was awaiting the message they brought from the Queen–to repair to Windsor. That evening, without an hour’s delay, he went to Windsor, kissed hands, and returned to London Prime Minister for the second time.
Mr. Gladstone again filled the double office of Premier and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the new cabinet, which for general ability and debating power was one of the strongest of the century. While some of the cabinet officers were like Mr. Gladstone himself, without title, others were representatives of the oldest nobility of the land. At the very beginning the new administration were confronted by perplexing questions. The Eastern question, chiefly by Mr. Gladstone’s influence, had been settled in accordance with the dictates of humanity and religion. But there were other difficulties to be overcome. “At home, his administration did good and useful work, including the extension of the suffrage to the agricultural laborers; but it was seriously, and at length fatally, embarrassed by two controversies which sprang up with little warning, and found the Liberal party and its leaders totally unprepared to deal with them.”
The first embarrassing question which arose when the new Parliament met was the great deficit of nine million pounds instead of an expected surplus in the Indian Budget, owing to the Afghan war.
Foremost among the difficulties encountered was the case of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, elected a member of Parliament for Northampton. He demanded to be permitted to make a solemn affirmation or declaration of allegiance, instead of taking the usual oath. The question created much discussion and great feeling, and Mr. Bradlaugh’s persistence was met by violence. Mr. Bright contended for liberty of conscience. Mr. Gladstone favored permitting Mr. Bradlaugh to affirm on his own responsibility which was finally done, but Mr. Bradlaugh was prosecuted in the courts. The great difficulty arose from Mr. Bradlaugh’s atheism.
A considerable share of the session of 1880 was occupied in the consideration of the Irish Compensation for Disturbance Bill and other Irish measures. In consequence of the rapid increase of evictions by landlords, this protective measure had become absolutely necessary in the interests of the Irish tenants. After prolonged debate–very prolonged for so short a bill–thirty-five lines only–the bill was passed by the Commons, but defeated by the Lords. The result was “seen in a ghastly record of outrage and murder which stained the following winter.”
Home Rule for Ireland, which movement was started in the “seventies,” was gaining ground, and every election returned to the House more members pledged to its support. Those who were bent upon obtaining Home Rule at any cost used obstructive means against other legislation to gain their object, but as yet the movement was confined to the members who had been elected by Irish constituents.
About the close of the session of 1880 the heavy burdens and responsibilities of public service borne by Mr. Gladstone began to tell upon him. At the end of July, while returning from home for the House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone was taken ill. He was prostrated by fever and great fears for his recovery were entertained by his family, his party and a host of admirers throughout the country. A great outburst of popular sympathy was manifested and frequent messages were received from the Queen and many foreign potentates and celebrities. Distinguished callers and telegrams continued to arrive at Downing Street for ten days while the patient was confined to his bed at home. The President of the United States and the King and Queen of the Belgians were among those who sent messages of sympathy. “Rarely indeed, if ever, has there been witnessed such a general and spontaneous expression of the national sympathy towards a distinguished statesman whose life had been imperilled by illness.”
Mr. Gladstone’s large store of vital energy brought him safely through his dangerous illness and on approaching convalescence he took a sea voyage round the entire coast of England in Sir Donald Currie’s steamer, “Grantully Castle.”
Three years after this voyage around England the Premier visited the Orkneys on a similar trip, in the “Pembroke Castle,” the poet laureate being of the party on this occasion. From the Orkneys he sailed across to Denmark and suddenly appeared at Copenhagen, where Mr. Gladstone entertained the Czar and Czarina, the King of Greece, and the King and Queen of Denmark, and many others of their relatives who happened to be visiting them at that time.
A great meeting was held June 21, 1880, in Her Majesty’s opera house, for the purpose of presenting an address from the Liberals of Middlesex to Mr. Herbert Gladstone, who had made a gallant contest in that country at the general election. The entrance of the Premier some time after the meeting began was the signal for an outburst of enthusiasm. Before Mr. Gladstone appeared, the chairman, Mr. Foster, had paid a high tribute to the Premier for his great abilities and his self-denial in the public service. After his son had received the address, the Premier arose to speak, when the whole audience arose to their feet and welcomed him with immense cheering.
Mr. Gladstone referred at length to the Midlothian campaign, and paid a tribute to the spirit and energy of the Liberals of the whole country. The sound which went forth from Midlothian reverberated through the land and was felt to be among the powerful operative causes which led to the great triumph of the Liberal party.
At the Lord Mayor’s banquet, November 9, 1880, Mr. Gladstone’s speech was looked forward to with much anxiety, owing to the singularly disturbed condition of Ireland. Referring to the “party of disorder” in Ireland, he said that as anxious as the government was to pass laws for the improvement of the land laws, their prior duty was to so enforce the laws as to secure order. If an increase of power was needed to secure this, they would not fail to ask it.
In 1881, at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, Mr. Gladstone said that he was glad to discern signs of improvement in Ireland during the last twelve months; but the struggle between the representatives of law and the representatives of lawlessness had rendered necessary an augmentation of the executive power.
In August, 1881, at Greenwich, the Liberals of the borough presented Mr. Gladstone with an illustrated address and a carved oak chair as a token of their esteem and a souvenir of his former representation of their borough. On the cushion back of the chair were embossed in gold the arms of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, with a motto “Fide et Virtute,” and above, in the midst of some wood-carving representing the rose, the thistle, the shamrock, and the leek, was a silver plate, bearing a suitable inscription.
The Parliamentary session of 1881 was almost exclusively devoted to Irish affairs. Instead of the contemplated Land Act, the ministry were compelled, on account of the disturbed condition of Ireland, to bring in first a Coercion Act, although the measure was naturally distasteful to such friends of Ireland in the Cabinet as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright. Property and life had become very insecure, and there was a startling increase of agrarian crime that such a measure was deemed necessary. But while passing the Coercion Act, Mr. Gladstone accompanied it by a great and beneficial measure–a second Irish Land Bill, which instituted a court for the purpose of dealing with the differences between landlord and tenant.
This bill–one of Mr. Gladstone’s greatest measures–became a law August 23, 1881. Mr. Gladstone in his speech remarked that the complaint was made that the bill was an infringement of liberty in Ireland and was aimed at the Land League, but no person or body could be touched by the bill unless they violated the law, and then could only be arrested upon reasonable suspicion of crime committed or of inciting to crime or of interfering with law or order. There would be the fullest freedom of discussion allowed. Dealing with the Land League he said it had been attempted to compare it with the Corn Laws, but Mr. Bright had completely demolished that miserable argument. It was compared also to the trade unions, but they made an onward step in the intelligence and in the love of law and order among the working classes. They had never tainted themselves by word or deed which would bring them into suspicion in connection with the maintenance of law. The leaders of the Land League were now put forward as martyrs on the same platform as O’Connell; but on every occasion of his life-long agitation O’Connell set himself to avoid whatever might tend to a breach of law and order. Then Mr. Gladstone showed the necessity of the Coercion Act from the condition of Ireland, where during the past year there had been a great increase of crime, and the outrages were agrarian, and not connected with the distress. It was a significant fact that the agrarian outrages had risen and fallen with the meetings of the Land League. Nothing could be more idle than to confound the agrarian crime of Ireland with the ordinary crime of England, or even of Ireland. In regard to general crime, Ireland held a high and honorable place, but how different was the case with agrarian crime! He referred to the miscarriage of justice in Ireland, and said that the bill, if passed, would restore to Ireland the first conditions of Christian and civilized existence. But it “only irritated while it failed to terrify.”
Mr. Gladstone’s was a great speech and showed his mastery of details, and his power of expounding and illustrating broad and general principles. He began his exposition by confessing that it was the most difficult question with which he had ever been called upon to deal. He concluded with an eloquent invocation to justice.
On the 19th of April, 1881, Lord Beaconsfield died. For many years he and Mr. Gladstone had been at the head of their respective parties. “Their opposition, as one critic has well and tersely put it, like that of Pitt and Fox, was one of temperament and character as well as of genius, position and political opinions.” The Premier paid an eloquent tribute to him and proposed a public funeral, which was declined. Mr. Gladstone then moved for a monument in Westminster Abbey to the memory of the deceased Earl.
In October, 1881, Mr. Gladstone made a visit to Leeds, for which borough he was returned in 1880, but for which his son Herbert sat. He delivered several important addresses on subjects which then absorbed the public attention, especially dealing with the land question local government, and Free Trade _versus_ Fair Trade. Mr. Gladstone said:
“My boyhood was spent at the mouth of the Mersey, and in those days I used to see those beautiful American liners, the packets between New York and Liverpool, which then conducted the bulk and the pick of the trade between the two countries. The Americans were then deemed to be so entirely superior to us in shipbuilding and navigation that they had four-fifths of the whole trade between the two countries in their hands, and that four-fifths was the best of the trade. What is the case now, when free trade has operated and has applied its stimulus to the intelligence of England, and when, on the other hand, the action of the Americans has been restrained by the enactment, the enhancement and the tightening of the protective system? The scales are exactly reversed, and instead of America doing four-fifths and that the best, we do four-fifths of the business, and the Americans pick up the leavings of the British and transact the residue of the trade. Not because they are inferior to us in anything; it would be a fatal error to suppose it; not because they have less intelligence or less perseverance. They are your descendants; they are your kinsmen; and they are fully equal to you in all that goes to make human energy and power; but they are laboring under the delusion from which you yourselves have but recently escaped, and in which some misguided fellow-citizens seek again to entangle you.
“I am reminded that I was guilty on a certain occasion of stating in an article–not a political article–that, in my opinion, it was far from improbable that as the volume of the future was unrolled, America, with its vast population and its wonderful resources, and not less with that severe education which, from the high price of labor, America is receiving in the strong necessity of resorting to every description of labor-saving contrivances, and consequent development, not only on a large scale, but down to the smallest scale of mechanical genius of the country–on that account the day may come when that country may claim to possess the commercial primacy of the world, I gave sad offence to many. I at present will say this, that as long as America adheres to the protective system your commercial primacy is secure. Nothing in the world can wrest it from you while America continues to fetter her own strong hands and arms, and with these fettered arms is content to compete with you, who are free, in neutral markets. And as long as America follows the doctrine of protection, or the doctrines now known as those of ‘fair trade,’ you are perfectly safe, and you need not allow, any of you, even your slightest slumbers to be disturbed by the fear that America will take from you your commercial primacy.”
After his return to London Mr. Gladstone received an address from the Corporation, setting forth the long services he had rendered to the country. Mr. Gladstone, in his reply, touched upon Irish obstruction, and announced, incidentally, the arrest of Mr. Parnell. Mr. Parnell, the leader of the Irish party, having openly defied the law, had been arrested and imprisoned without trial, under the Coercion Act, passed at the last session.
On the opening night of the Parliament, of 1882, Mr. Gladstone laid before the House the proposed new rules of Parliamentary procedure. The _clôture_, by a bare majority, was to be established, in order to secure the power of closing debate by a vote of the House.
The House of Lords decided upon the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the working of the Land Act, including the alleged total collapse of the clauses relating to purchase, emigration, and arrears. The Prime Minister in the House of Commons introduced a resolution condemning the proposed inquiry as tending to defeat the operation of the Land Act and as injurious to the good government of Ireland.
Early in May, 1882, the whole country was startled and terrified by the news of the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish, the new chief secretary for Ireland, and Mr. Burke under-secretary, in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. A social revolution was raging in Ireland. Outrages and murders had been fearfully frequent, and such brutal murders as those of Mrs. Smythe and Mr. Herbert had filled England with terror. In the first week of May announcement was made that Earl Cowper had resigned the Viceroyalty. Rather than share the responsibility of releasing Mr. Parnell, Mr. Dillon and Mr. O’Kelly, Mr. Forster left the Cabinet. Lord Spencer was appointed to the Viceroyalty, and Lord Frederick Cavendish succeeded Mr. Forster, and two days thereafter all England was thrilled with sorrow and indignation by the terrible news of the assassination in Phoenix Park. The news shattered the hopes of many concerning Ireland, and fell with special severity upon Mr. Gladstone, because he and Lord Cavendish enjoyed the closest friendship. The government presented a Prevention of Crimes Bill of a very stringent character. In the course of debate warm discussions arose over an “understanding” called, “The Kilmainham Compact,” but Mr. Gladstone successfully defended the government in regard to its supposed negotiations with Mr. Parnell. This bill was directed against secret societies and illegal combinations, and it was hoped that as the Land League party had expressed its horror at the Phoenix Park crime, and charged that it was the work of American conspirators, they would allow the measure speedily to become law. Mr. Bright declared that the bill would harm no innocent person, and explained his own doctrine, that “Force is no remedy,” was intended to apply not to outrages, but to grievances. For three weeks Mr. Parnell and his followers obstructed legislation in every conceivable way, and were finally suspended for systematic obstruction. The obstructionists removed, the bill was then passed, after a sitting of twenty-eight hours. The measure was passed by the Lords July 7th, and the Queen signed the bill July 12th. A crisis nearly arose between the Lords and the Commons over the Irish Arrears Bill, but the Lords finally yielded.
[Illustration: GALLERY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.]
CHAPTER XVIII
THIRD ADMINISTRATION AND HOME RULE
It is our purpose next to trace the events that led to the overthrow of the Second Administration of Mr. Gladstone, and to the formation of his Third Cabinet. The question that seemed to begin the work of weakening the foundations of his existing government was their policy in regard to Egypt, which began with the occupation of Egypt in 1882.
The budget of the session of 1882 was presented by Mr. Gladstone April 24th. It was not expected that anything novel in the way of legislation would be attempted in it. But its main interest was in this, that it proposed a vote of credit for the Egyptian Expedition, which was to be provided for by addition to the income-tax, making it sixpence half-penny in the pound for the year. The financial proposals were agreed to. In the course of the session Mr. Bright resigned his place in the Cabinet on the ground that the intervention in Egypt was a manifest violation of the moral law, that the Government had interfered by force of arms in Egypt, and directed the bombardment of Alexandria. Mr. Gladstone denied that the Ministry were at war with Egypt, and stated that the measures taken at Alexandria were strictly measures of self-defence. In justifying his resignation Mr. Bright said there had been a manifest violation of the moral law; but the Premier, while agreeing with his late colleague generally on the question of the moral law differed from him as to this particular application of it.
The Prime Minister attended the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Mansion House, August 9, 1882. In replying to the toast to Her Majesty’s Ministers, after some preliminary remarks, Mr. Gladstone alluded to the campaign in Egypt, which had been so much discussed, and said: “Let it be well understood for what we go and for what we do not go to Egypt. We do not go to make war on its people, but to rescue them from the oppression of a military tyranny which at present extinguishes every free voice and chains every man of the people of that country. We do not go to make war on the Mohammedan religion, for it is amongst the proudest distinctions of Christianity to establish tolerance, and we know that wherever the British rule exists, the same respect which we claim for the exercise of our own conscientious convictions is yielded to the professors of every other faith on the surface of the globe. We do not, my Lord Mayor, go to repress the growth of Egyptian liberties. We wish them well; for we have no other interest in Egypt, which cannot in any other way so well and so effectually attain her own prosperity as by the enjoyment of a well regulated, and an expanding freedom.”
Mr. Gladstone’s confidence respecting the early termination of the war in Egypt was somewhat justified by Sir Garnet Wolseley’s victory at Tel-el-Kebir, but the future relations of England with Egypt were still left an open subject of discussion and speculation. Again, November 9th, at the banquet at the Guildhall, to the Cabinet Ministers, Mr. Gladstone spoke. He called attention to the settlement of the troubles in the East of Europe, congratulating his hearers on the removal by the naval and military forces of the Egyptian difficulty, and calling attention to Ireland, compared its condition with that of the previous March and October, 1881, showing a diminution of agrarian crime to the extent of four-fifths. This happy result had been brought about, not by coercive means alone, but by the exercise of remedial measures. “If the people of Ireland were willing to walk in the ways of legality, England was strong, and generous, and free enough to entertain in a friendly and kindly spirit any demand which they might make.”
On the 13th of December, 1882, Mr. Gladstone’s political jubilee was celebrated. Fifty years before, on that day, he had been returned to Parliament as member for Newark. A large number of congratulatory addresses, letters, and telegrams complimenting him on the completion of his fifty years of parliamentary service were received by him. He had entered the first Reformed Parliament as a conservative, had gone ever forward in the path of reform, and was yet to lead in greater measures of reform.
The excellent prospects regarding domestic measures with which the session of 1883 was opened were dispelled by prolonged and fruitless debates on measures proposed and on the address from the Queen. But Mr. Gladstone was absent, the state of his health requiring him to pass several weeks at Cannes. He returned home in March greatly invigorated, and at once threw himself with wonted ardour into the parliamentary conflict. Mr. Parnell offered a bill to amend the Irish Land Act of 1887, which was opposed by the Premier and lost.
An affirmation bill was introduced at this session by the Government, which provided that members who objected to taking the oath might have the privilege of affirming. The opposition spoke of the measure as a “Bradlaugh Relief Bill.” Its rejection was moved, and in its defense Mr. Gladstone made one of his best speeches, which was warmly applauded. He said: “I must painfully record my opinion, that grave injury has been done to religion in many minds–not in instructed minds, but in those which are ill-instructed or partially instructed–in consequence of things which ought never to have occurred. Great mischief has been done in many minds by a resistance offered to the man elected by the constituency of Northampton, which a portion of the people believe to be unjust. When they see the profession of religion and the interests of religion, ostensibly associated with what they are deeply convinced is injustice, it leads to questions about religion itself, which commonly end in impairing those convictions, and that belief, the loss of which I believe to be the most inexpressible calamity which can fall either upon a man or upon a nation.” But the measure was lost.
During the session of 1883 the Bankruptcy Bill and the Patents Bill were both passed, and effected reforms which had long been felt to be necessary. The Corrupt Practices Act was designed to remove from British parliamentary and borough elections the stigma which attached to them in so many parts of the country. The Government was checked, however, in its policy in the Transvaal, and Mr. Childers’ action in regard to the Suez Canal.
Mr. Gladstone attended, in March, the celebration of the inauguration of the National Liberal party, predicting for it a useful and brilliant future, if it remained faithful to its time-honored principles and traditions.
Sir Stafford Northcote, in the session of 1884, moved a vote of censure, and vigorously attacked the Egyptian policy of the administration. Mr. Gladstone defended the ministerial action with spirit and effect. He declared that the Government had found, and not made, the situation in Egypt and the Soudan. The Prime Minister “traced all the mischief to Lord Salisbury’s dual control. Though the motive and object had been to secure a better government for Egypt, a great error had been committed. The British Government had fulfilled all the obligations imposed upon them, and they were acting for the benefit of the civilized world. Reforms had been effected in the judicature, legislature, police, and military organizations of Egypt; and they were resolved to see all the vital points recommended carried out by the Khedive’s Government. As to the war in the Soudan, it was hateful to the people of Egypt; and England declined to have anything to do with the reconquest of the Soudan…. General Gordon, whom Mr. Gladstone characterized as a hero and a genius, had been despatched to Khartoum for the purpose of withdrawing, if possible, in safety the 29,000 soldiers of the Khedive scattered over the Soudan. The General’s mission was not the reconquest of the Soudan, but its peaceful evacuation, and the reconstruction of the country, by giving back to the Sultan the ancestral power which had been suspended during the Egyptian occupation. The Government had to consider in any steps which they took the danger of thwarting Gordon’s peaceful mission and endangering his life.” Mr. Gladstone said that the policy of the Government was to “rescue and retire.” Sir S. Northcote’s resolution was rejected by 311 to 292 votes, showing the growing strength of the Opposition.
The pacific mission of General Gordon to Khartoum having failed, there was great solicitude felt for that gallant soldier’s welfare and safety. Sir M. Hicks-Beach offered another vote of censure, complaining of the dilatory conduct of the Government for not taking steps to secure the safety of General Gordon. Mr. Gladstone, in reply, admitted the obligations of the Government to General Gordon, and stated that on reasonable proof of danger he would be assisted. “The nation would never grudge adequate efforts for the protection of its agents, but it was the duty of the Government to consider the treasure, the blood, and the honor of the country, together with the circumstances of the time, the season, the climate, and the military difficulties. Conscious of what their obligations were, they would continue to use their best endeavours to fulfil them, unmoved by the threats and the captious criticisms of the Opposition.” The proposed censure was defeated.
A conference of European powers was held on Egyptian affairs, but was abortive; and Mr. Gladstone while announcing that he wished to get out of Egypt as soon as circumstances would allow, admitted that institutions, however good, were not likely to survive the withdrawal of our troops. Lord Northbrook was next despatched by the government on a mission to Egypt, with the object of rescuing her from her financial embarrassments, and averting the impending dangers of a national bankruptcy.
In February, 1884, Mr. Gladstone introduced the Government Franchise Bill in the House of Commons. It was a great measure and proposed to complete the work of parliamentary reform by conferring the suffrage upon every person in the United Kingdom who was the head of a household. Mr. Gladstone said that the results of the bill would be to add to the English constituency upwards of 1,300,000 voters; to the Scotch constituency over 200,000 voters; and to the Irish constituency over 400,000 voters; which would add to the aggregate constituency of the United Kingdom, which was then 3,000,000 voters, 2,000,000 more, or nearly twice as many as were added in 1832. The Premier appealed for union on this great reform, and observed: “Let us hold firmly together, and success will crown our efforts. You will, as much as any former Parliament that has conferred great legislative benefits on the nation, have your reward, and read your history in a nation’s eyes; for you will have deserved all the benefits you will have conferred. You will have made a strong nation stronger still–stronger in union without, and stronger against its foes (if and when it has any foes) within; stronger in union between class and class, and in rallying all classes and portions of the community in one solid compact mass round the ancient Throne which it has loved so well, and round the Constitution, now to be more than ever free and more than ever powerful.”
The measure was warmly debated. Besides this opposition there were, outside of the House, ominous utterances threatening the rejection of the scheme. Mr. Gladstone, referring to these hostile murmurings, said that hitherto the attitude of the government had been, in Shakespeare’s words, “Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee.” He deprecated a quarrel and declared that the government had done everything to prevent a collision between the two Houses of Parliament on this question, which would open up a prospect more serious than any he remembered since the first Reform Bill.
The House of Lords passed a resolution to the effect that the Lords would not concur in any measure of reform without having the complete bill before them, including the redistribution and registration, as well as an extension of the suffrage. The Premier promised to introduce a Redistribution Bill in the following session, but Lord Salisbury, since the death of Lord Beaconsfield, the leader of the Conservative party, declined to discuss the Redistribution Bill, “with a rope around his neck,” by which he meant a franchise act under which his party must appeal to the country. Negotiations followed between the Liberal and Conservative leaders with fruitless results, and the House of Lords finally passed a resolution that it would be desirable for Parliament to have an autumn session, to consider the Representation of the People Bill, in connection with the Redistribution Bill, which the government had brought before Parliament.
Public meetings were held at various places throughout the country, and the question of the enlargement of the franchise discussed. The policy of the Tories was strongly condemned at many large and influential public gatherings. In August Mr. Gladstone visited Midlothian and delivered a powerful address in the Edinburgh Corn Exchange. He explained that the special purpose for which he appeared before his constituents was to promote, by every legitimate means in his power, the speedy passage of the Franchise Bill. “The unfortunate rejection of the measure,” he observed, “had already drawn in its train other questions of the gravest kind, and the vast proportion of the people would soon be asking whether an organic change was not required in the House of Lords. He, however, did not believe that the House of Lords had as yet placed itself in a position of irretrievable error. He believed that it was possible for it to go back, and to go back with dignity and honor.”
With regard to the foreign policy of the Government, which had been attacked and compared unfavorably with the Midlothian programme of 1879, Mr. Gladstone defended it with spirit. He expressed his satisfaction with the expansion of Germany abroad, and reviewed the policy of the Government in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, India and South Africa. As to the Transvaal, he contended that “they were strong and could afford to be merciful,” and that it was not possible without the grossest and most shameful breach of faith to persist in holding the Boers to annexation, “when we had pledged ourselves beforehand that they should not be annexed except with their own good will.” In reply to the oft-repeated question, “What took you to Egypt?” the Premier said: “Honor and plighted faith.” The covenants they were keeping were those entered into by their Tory predecessors, and most unfortunate and most unwise he considered them to be. The Government had respected the sovereignty of the Porte and the title of the European Powers to be concerned in all matters territorially affecting the Turkish Empire; they had discouraged the spirit of aggression as well as they could, and had contracted no embarrassing engagements. Great improvements had been introduced in the administration of Egypt, but he regretted the total failure of the late Conference of the Powers to solve the problem of Egyptian finance. With regard to General Gordon the Government were considering the best means to be adopted for fulfilling their obligations.
Parliament met in October, 1884. The Franchise Bill was introduced and sent to the House of Lords, and the Redistribution Bill, upon which a compromise with the Conservatives had been reached, was presented in the House of Commons. The measure, as altered, proposed to disfranchise all boroughs with a population under 15,000, to give only one member to towns with a population between 15,000 and 50,000, and to take one member each from the counties of Rutland and Hereford. By this arrangement one hundred and sixty seats would be “extinguished,” which, with the six seats extinguished before, would be revived and distributed as follows: “Eight new boroughs would be created, the representation of London, Liverpool, and other large cities and towns would be greatly increased, while in dealing with the remainder of the seats unappropriated, the Government would apply equal electoral areas throughout the country.” The Franchise Bill–a truly democratic bill—was carried through both Houses, and became a law. The Redistribution Bill was carried, January, 1885, after animated debate. Registration measures were also passed for England, Scotland and Ireland, which received the royal assent May 21st.
January, 1885, Mr. Gladstone wrote a kindly, serious, yet courtly letter of congratulation to Prince Albert Victor, eldest son of the Prince of Wales and heir presumptive to the Crown, on the attainment of his majority.
In the hour of triumph the government was doomed to receive a stunning blow. The news of the fall of Khartoum and the untimely death of General Gordon sent a thrill of horror and indignation throughout England. The government was seriously condemned for its procrastination in not sending timely relief, for the rescue of the imperiled English. But when the facts became fully known it was found that no blame could be attached to Mr. Gladstone, who was himself strongly moved by the death of General Gordon, whose work and character he highly esteemed. The Prime Minister was, however, equal to the emergency, and announced that it was necessary to overthrow the Mahdi at Khartoum, to renew operations against Osman Digna, and to construct a railway from Suakin to Berber with a view to a campaign in the fall. The reserves were called out by royal proclamation.
However, these measures met with opposition. Sir Stafford Northcote brought forward a motion affirming that the risks and sacrifices which the government appeared to be ready to encounter could only be justified by a distinct recognition of England’s responsibility for Egypt, and those portions of the Soudan which were necessary to its security. An amendment was proposed by Mr. John Morley, but regretting its decision to continue the conflict with the Mahdi. Mr. Gladstone replied forcibly to both motion and amendment, and appealed to the Liberal party to sustain the administration and its policy by an unmistakable vote of confidence. The government was sustained.
The Great Powers of Europe, in convention for the settlement of the finances of Egypt, had concluded that it would require a loan of £9,000,000 to save Egypt from bankruptcy. This loan was to be issued on an international guarantee, with an international inquiry at the end of two years into the success of the scheme. This plan of adjustment was agreed to by the House. A short time after this settlement Mr. Gladstone announced a vote of credit to provide against any danger from Russian action, stated that no farther operations would be undertaken either on the Nile or near Suakin, and that General Graham’s campaign would be abandoned, as well as the construction of the new railway.
Great excitement was created in England by the announcement of the advance of the Russians on the Indian frontier. March 13th Mr. Gladstone stated in the House that as the protests formerly made against the advance of Russia had been allowed to lapse, it had been agreed that pending the delineation of the frontier there should be no further advance on either side. In April, however, a conflict occurred between the Russians and the Afghans, which seemed to indicate that General Komaroff had committed an act of unprovoked aggression on the Ameer. Mr. Gladstone moved a vote of credit on the 27th in a speech, whose eloquence and energy greatly stirred both sides of the House. Happily, the difficulty with Russia was adjusted by conceding Pendjeh to Russia in consideration of the surrender of Zulfiker to the Ameer.
The administration of Mr. Gladstone, which had weathered through many storms, was destined to fall in a wholly unexpected way. When the budget for 1885 was produced there was a deficit of upwards of a million pounds, besides the depressed revenue and an estimated expenditure for the current year of not less than £100,000,000. Mr. Childers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed to make the taxation upon land proportionate to that on personal property, and to augment the duties on spirits and beer. But various interests were antagonized, and opposition was aroused. The country members demanded that no new taxes be put on the land until the promised relief of local taxation had been granted. The agricultural and liquor interests were discontented, as well as the Scotch and Irish members, with the whisky duty. Concessions were made, but they failed to reconcile the opposition. A hostile motion was offered by Sir M. Hicks-Beach, and Mr. Gladstone declared that the Cabinet would resign if defeated. Many Liberals were absent when the vote was taken, regarding a majority for the Ministry as certain, but the amendment was carried June 9th by a vote of 264 to 252, and the Premier and his colleagues resigned. The Liberals were desirous of passing a vote of confidence in the administration, but Mr. Gladstone deprecated this, as he felt the situation to be intolerable, and was desirous of being relieved from the responsibility of office. Misfortunes, both in reference to affairs at home and abroad, had fallen heavily upon the Government, for many of which they were not responsible, and the Cabinet had been held together chiefly by the masterly personality of the Premier. Hence it was not without a feeling of personal satisfaction that Mr. Gladstone transferred the seats of office to his successor, Lord Salisbury. On his retirement from office the Queen offered an Earldom to Mr. Gladstone, which he declined. Its acceptance would have meant burial in the House of Lords, and an end to his progressive action.
The events that led to the third administration of Mr. Gladstone will next engage our attention.
The first general election under the New Reform Act was held in November, 1885. Mr. Gladstone again appealed to his constituents, and, although nearly seventy-six years of age, spoke with an energy and force far beyond all his contemporaries. His attitude on the question of Dis-establishment drew back many wavering Scotch votes. He discussed the Scotch question at Edinburgh, and said there was no fear of change so long as England dealt liberally, equitably, and prudently with Ireland, but demands must be subject to the condition that the unity of the empire, and all the powers of the Imperial Parliament for maintaining that authority, must be preserved.
In another address he stated his conviction, that the day had not come when the Dis-establishment of the Church in Scotland should be made a test question. The question pressing for settlement by the next Parliament was land reform, local government, parliamentary procedure, and the imperial relations between Ireland and England; and every sensible man would admit that it was right to direct attention to them rather than to a matter impossible of immediate solution.
At West Calder Mr. Gladstone made an address, in which he “approved Lord Salisbury’s action with regard to Servia, complained of the ministerial condemnation of Lord Ripon’s Indian administration, ridiculed the idea of benefit resulting from a Royal Commission on trade depression, warned the electors against remedies which were really worse than the disease, and defended Free-Trade principles. He furthur advocated comprehensive land reforms, including free transfer, facility of registration, and the uprooting of mortmain.”
[Illustration: GLADSTONE’S STUDY AT EDWARDEN.]
Mr. Gladstone was returned again for Midlothian by an overwhelming majority. The elections resulted in the return of 333 Liberals, 249 Conservatives, 86 Parnellites, and 2 Independents. The Liberals thus secured a substantial triumph. The agricultural districts were faithful to the Liberals, but they lost in the boroughs. The clergy and the publicans, and the Parnellites were found “arrayed” in “scandalous alliance” against the Liberal cause. The Liberal party was just short of the numbers required to defeat the combined forces of Tories and Parnellites. Lord Salisbury was retained in office, but the Conservatives were disunited, and the life of his administration hung by a thread. The Liberals were strong, hopeful, and united. In Mr. Chamberlain they had a popular champion of great ability and industry.
December 17, 1885 England was astonished by the appearance of an anonymous paragraph in the _Times_, affirming that, if Mr. Gladstone returned to power, he would deal with a liberal hand with the demands of Home Rule. The author of the paragraph has never been clearly ascertained, but the atmosphere of mystery with which it was surrounded was not regarded as becoming, either to such an important policy or to the personal dignity of the illustrious statesman. A storm of questions, contradictions, explanations, enthusiasms, and jeremiads followed its appearance. Mr. Gladstone would neither affirm nor deny, but held his peace. The question, he said, was one for a responsible Ministry alone to handle. There was great uncertainty. It was, however, plain that if Mr. Gladstone should favor Home Rule, the Parnellites would support him, and the Tories must leave office. But only twelve months before Lord Shaftesbury wrote: “In a year or so we shall have Home Rule disposed of (at all hazards), to save us from daily and hourly bores.”
The Parliament of 1886 had scarcely opened before the Salisbury government was defeated upon an amendment to the Queen’s address, affirming the necessity for affording facilities to agricultural laborers to obtain allotments and small holdings. Some of the leading Liberals opposed the amendment, but Mr. Gladstone earnestly favored it, as a recognition of the evils arising from the divorce of so large a proportion of the population from the land. The Irish and the Liberals coalesced, and the Government was placed in a minority of seventy-nine, and Lord Salisbury immediately resigned.
Late at night, January 29, 1886, Sir Henry Ponsonby arrived at Mr. Gladstone’s residence with a summons from the Queen for him to repair to her at Osborne. On the 1st of February Mr. Gladstone “kissed hands,” and became for the third time Prime Minister of England. The new Premier was forced to face unusual difficulties, but he finally came to the conclusion that it was impossible to deal with the Irish question upon the old stereotyped lines. He was resolved to treat this subject upon large and generous principles. Accordingly, on the 8th of April, Mr. Gladstone, in the presence of a crowded House, brought forward his Home Rule Bill–his bill for the government of Ireland. With certain imperial reservations and safeguards the bill gave to Ireland what she had long demanded–the right to make her own laws. The interest in the expected legislation was so great that members began to arrive at half-past five in the morning, while sixty of them were so eager to secure seats that they breakfasted at Westminster.
Mr. Gladstone’s new measure was not only opposed by the Conservatives, but it alienated from the Premier some of the most influential of the Liberal party. Among the Liberals who opposed the measure were those who had been the colleagues of Mr. Gladstone only the June before in the Cabinet–Lord Hartington, Lord Shilborne, Lord Northbrook, Lord Derby and Lord Carlingford. Mr. Gladstone’s forces, however, were reinforced by Mr. Morley, Lord Herschell and others. May 10th, Mr. Gladstone denied that he had ever declared Home Rule for Ireland incompatible with Imperial unity. It was a remedy for social disorder. The policy of the opposition was coercion, while that of the government was autonomy.
On the 18th of April the Premier presented the Irish Land Purchase Bill, for the buying out of the Irish landlords, which was intended to come into operation on the same day as the Home Rule Bill. The object of this measure was to give to all Irish landowners the option of being bought out on the terms of the Act, and opening towards the exercise of that option where their rent was from agricultural land. The State authority was to be the purchaser, and the occupier was to be the proprietor. The nominal purchase price was fixed at twenty years’ purchase of the net rental, ascertained by deducting law charges, bad debts, and cost of management from judicial rent. Where there was no judicial rental the Land Court could, if it chose, make use of Griffiths’ valuation for coming to a fair decision. To meet the demand for the means of purchase thus established, Mr. Gladstone proposed to create £50,000,000 three per cents. The repayment of advances would be secured by a Receiver General, appointed by and acting upon British authority.
The Land Purchase Bill was also opposed. It was the final cause which led to the retirement from the government of Mr. Chamberlain, “the able and enterprising exponent of the new Radicalism.” He was soon followed by Sir George Trevelyan, “who combined the most dignified traditions, social and literary, of the Whig party with a fervent and stable Liberalism which the vicissitudes of twenty years had constantly tried and never found wanting.” Mr. Bright also arrayed himself in opposition to the government, and accused Mr. Gladstone of successfully concealing his thoughts upon the Irish question in November. Mr. Gladstone replied that the position of Ireland had changed since 1881.
The debate extended over many nights, and the opposition to the Irish bills of so many Liberal leaders in every constituency, soon led to disaffection among the people. What was lost in some districts, however, was to some extent made up, says an English writer, by “the support of that very broken reed, the Irish vote, which was destined to pierce the hand of so many a confiding candidate who leaned upon it.” While this debate was in progress a bill directed against the carrying of arms in Ireland was introduced and pushed forward rapidly through both Houses, and became a law.
Mr. Gladstone explained the position of the Cabinet on the Home Rule and Land Bills at a meeting of Liberals held at the Foreign Office, May 27th. He stated that the Government at present only asked for an endorsement of the leading principles of the two measures; and in closing the debate afterwards on the second reading of the Home Rule Bill, in the House of Commons, he made an eloquent appeal for Ireland. But all parties were preparing for the conflict, and members of opposite parties were consolidating themselves for opposition. “The Whigs, under Lord Hartington, coalesced with the Radicals, under Mr. Chamberlain, and both together made a working alliance with the Tories. This alliance was admirably organized in London and in the constituencies.”
It seems that the Premier was deceived by his official counsellors of the Liberal party as to the real condition of affairs respecting Home Rule and the prospects for the passage of his bills. He did not dream of defeat, but if by some mischance they would suffer defeat, then he could appeal to the country with the certainty of being sustained by the popular vote. This was what Mr. Gladstone hoped, and what he thought he had the assurance of. But hopes of success began to give way to fears of defeat as the time drew near to take the vote. However, some still hopeful prophesied a small majority against the bill–only ten votes at the most. The Cabinet desperately resolved not to resign if beaten by so small a majority, but would have some adherent move a vote of confidence. This they argued would be favored by some opposed to Home Rule, and the question be deferred to another session, leaving the Liberals still in office. But these hopes were doomed to be blasted. Early in the morning of June 8th the momentous division took place, and it was found that the Government, instead of getting a majority, was defeated by thirty votes. It was found that ninety-three Liberals had voted with the majority.
The Premier at once advised the Queen to dissolve Parliament, and though Her Majesty at first demurred at the trouble of another election within seven months of the last, and begged Mr. Gladstone to reconsider his counsel, yet he argued that a general election would cause less trouble than a year of embittered and fanatical agitation against Home Rule. Besides, as he said to a colleague, “If we did not dissolve we would be showing the white feather.” Mr. Gladstone finally had his way, the Queen yielded and Parliament was dissolved June 26, 1886. June 14th Mr. Gladstone issued an address to the electors of Midlothian, and later paid a visit to Edinburgh and Glasgow, where he made powerful addresses. He then spoke at Manchester, and, passing on to Liverpool, he advocated the cause of Ireland, calling upon the people to “ring out the old, ring in the new,” and to make Ireland not an enemy but a friend.
The result of this appeal to the country was the return of a decided majority of over a hundred against Home Rule, and thus, after a short term of five months in office, the third administration of Mr. Gladstone was brought to a close, and he became again the leader of the Opposition. The dissolution and appeal to the country was a practical blunder, but Mr. Gladstone’s address to the people was skilfully worded. He freely admitted that the Irish bills were dead, and asked the constituencies simply to sanction a principle, and that, too, a very plain and reasonable one in itself. He invited the people to vote aye or no to this question: “Whether you will or will not have regard to the prayer of Ireland for the management by herself of the affairs specifically and exclusively her own?” The separation of the bare principle of self-government from the practical difficulties presented by the bills enabled many Liberals who were opposed to the measures to support Mr. Gladstone, but the majority of voters failed to make this distinction, and hence came defeat. The decision of the people was not regarded as final.
In 1887 the Jubilee of the Queen was celebrated. Fifty years before Queen Victoria had ascended the throne of England. Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone celebrated the Queen’s Jubilee by giving a treat to all the inhabitants of the estates of Hawarden, who were of the Queen’s age, which was sixty-eight and upwards. The treat took the shape of a dinner and tea, served in a large tent erected in front of the castle, and the guests numbered upwards of two hundred and fifty. The principal toast, proposed by Mr. Gladstone, was the Queen. He contrasted the jubilee then being celebrated all over the English-speaking world, with that of George the Third, which was “a jubilee of the great folks, a jubilee of corporations and of authorities, a jubilee of the upper classes.” On the other hand, he continued, the Victorian Jubilee was one when “the population are better fed, better clothed, and better housed–and by a great deal–than they were fifty years ago, and the great mass of these happy and blessed changes is associated with the name and action of the Queen.”
In the year of the Queen’s Jubilee, 1887, Mr. Gladstone addressed many gatherings, and at Swansea, where he was the guest of Sir Hussey Vivian, he spoke to a vast concourse of people, estimated at one hundred thousand.
CHAPTER XIX
PRIME MINISTER THE FOURTH TIME
When Parliament met in 1887 Mr. Gladstone entered upon “a course of extraordinary physical and intellectual efforts, with voice and pen, in Parliament and on the platform, on behalf of the cause, defeated but not abandoned, of self-government for Ireland.” The Tory administration passed a Crimes Prevention Bill for Ireland of great severity. Irish members of Parliament were thrown into prison, but the Act failed of its object–the suppression of the Land League.
In December, 1887, Mr. Gladstone visited Italy and made Naples his headquarters. He was received with joy for the service he had rendered to the Italian people. The University of Bologna, in celebrating the eighth century of its existence, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Arts.
In 1888 the House of Commons appointed a Commission to try the “Times” charges against Mr. Parnell. The charges were found to be false.
Mr. Gladstone visited Birmingham in November, 1888. After paying a glowing tribute to John Bright, and expressing an earnest desire for his recovery to health, he condemned the Coercion Act. Mr. Gladstone received many handsome presents from the workingmen, and Mrs. Gladstone received from the ladies a medallion cameo portrait of her husband. A great demonstration was made at Bingley Hall, in which were gathered over 20,000 persons.
A number of Liberals, who had deserted Mr. Gladstone, returned upon the promise of certain imperial guarantees which were granted, among them Sir George Trevelyan. Mr. Chamberlain, who had asked for these safeguards, did not accept them.
July 25, 1889, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone celebrated their “Golden Wedding.” Among the many to offer congratulations were the Queen by telegram, and the Prince of Wales by letter. A pleasant surprise met them at home. A portrait of Mr. Gladstone, by Sir John Millais, was found hanging in the breakfast-room, “A gift from English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish Women.”
In 1890 trouble came to the Liberal party through the scandal connecting the names of Mr. Parnell and Mrs. O’Shea. Mr. Gladstone announced that the Irish party must choose between himself and Mr. Parnell. In November, 1890, Mr. Parnell was deposed from the chairmanship of the United Irish National Party. This led to a division. Mr. Justin McCarthy was elected leader by the Anti-Parnellites, and the Parnellites selected Mr. John Redmond.
Parliament would soon terminate by limitation, so Mr. Gladstone devoted himself to preparing the people for the coming general election. Besides, in February, 1891, he made an address, at the opening of St. Martin’s Free Public Library, and in March to the boys at Eton College on Homeric Studies. June 28, 1892, Parliament came to an end. Mr. Gladstone’s journey to Edinburgh, in July, was all along the route “a triumphal progress.” He was re-elected. The question of the day was Home Rule, and wherever the people had the opportunity of declaring themselves, they pronounced condemnation upon the policy of Lord Salisbury’s administration, and in favor of Home Rule for Ireland.
The new Parliament met, and, August 12, 1892, a motion was made of “No Confidence” in the Salisbury government. The division was the largest ever taken in the House of Commons, the vote being 350 for the motion and 310 against it–a majority of 40 for Mr. Gladstone. The scene in the House which attended the overthrow of the Salisbury government was less dramatic than that which accompanied the defeat of the Gladstone ministry in 1885, but it was full of exciting episodes. The House was packed to the doors. The excitement was intense, and the confusion great. When the figures were announced, another wild scene of disorder prevailed and there was prolonged cheering. “Ten minutes later the great forum was empty and the excited assembly had found its way to the quiet outside under the stars.”
Monday, August 15, 1892, Mr. Gladstone repaired to Osborne on the Royal Yacht, and became for the fourth time Prime Minister. Since 1868 he had been the undisputed leader of his party. His main supporters in all his reform measures were the Nonconformists, whose claim for “the absolute religious equality of all denominations before the law of the land,” must, in time, it was thought, bring about the disestablishment of the Episcopal Church.
In September, 1892, Mr. Gladstone went to Sir E. Watkin’s _Chalet_ on Mount Snowdon, Wales, where he made his Boulder Stone speech. To commemorate his visit a slab of gray Aberdeen granite was “let into the actual brown rock,” on which is the following inscription in Welsh and in English: “September 13, 1892. Upon this rock the Right Honorable W.E. Gladstone, M.P., when Prime Minister for the fourth time, and eighty-three years old, addressed the people of Eryi upon justice to Wales. The multitude sang Cymric hymns and ‘The Land of My Fathers.'”
December 29, 1892, Mr. Gladstone celebrated his eighty-third birthday. Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone were at Biarritz. Congratulatory telegrams and messages were received in great numbers, besides many handsome presents. The event was celebrated all over England. The Midlothian Liberals sent congratulations upon the return of the Liberal Party to power under his leadership, and the completion of his sixty years’ service in the House. Resolutions were passed deploring the wickedness of the dynamite outrage at Dublin, December 24, and yet avowing the justice of granting to Ireland the right to manage her own affairs.
January 31, 1893, Parliament was opened. In the House of Commons there was a brilliant gathering, and nearly all the members were present, many of them standing. Just before noon the Hon. Arthur Wellesley Peel, Speaker, took his seat, and Archdeacon Farrar, Chaplain, offered prayer. When Mr. Gladstone entered from behind the Speaker’s chair, every Liberal and Irish Nationalist stood up and greeted him with prolonged and enthusiastic cheers; and when he took the oath as Prime Minister, he received another ovation. The members were then summoned to the House of Lords to hear the Queen’s speech, which was read by the Lord High Chancellor, Baron Herschall. The Prince of Wales and his son, the Duke of York, occupied seats on the “cross bench.”
February 13, the excitement in and about the Parliament Houses was as great as that which prevailed two weeks before. Enthusiastic crowds greeted Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. When the doors of the House of Commons were opened, there was a “disorderly rush” of the members into the House to obtain seats, “the members shouting and struggling, several being thrown to the floor in the excitement.” Peers, Commons, and visitors filled the floor and galleries. The Prince of Wales and other members of the royal family were present. When Mr. Gladstone arose he was greeted with applause. He reminded the House that for seven years the voices which used to plead the cause of Irish government in Irish affairs had been mute within the walls of the House. He then asked permission to introduce a “Bill to Amend the Provision for the Government of Ireland,” which was the title of the Home Rule Bill. Mr. Balfour led the opposition to the bill. Mr. Chamberlain declared that the bill would not accomplish its purpose, whereupon Mr. Justin McCarthy, for the anti-Parnellities, replied that the Irish would accept it as a message of everlasting peace, and Mr. John Redmond, for the Parnellites, answered that if disturbances followed in Ireland it would be due to the Conservatives.
The Ulster Unionists opposed the bill. The Scotch-Irish Protestants of the north of Ireland declared that they preferred to stand where they did in 1690, when they defeated James II and his Catholic followers, in the battle of the Boyne, and fought for William of Orange for the English throne and liberty and Protestantism. Their opposition to Home Rule for Ireland grew out of their hostility to Roman Catholicism and the fear of its supremacy.
After six months of earnest debate in the House of Commons, the Home Rule Bill for Ireland was passed, with slight amendments, September 1, 1893, by a vote of 301 to 267, a majority of thirty-four, The struggle was perhaps the most heated in the history of Parliament.
The bill was sent to the House of Lords, where it was defeated, midnight, September 8, by the surprising majority of 419 to 41, after only one week’s discussion. Members that never attended were drummed up to vote against the bill. The usual working force of the House of Lords is from thirty to forty members. The vote was the largest ever taken in the Lords.
At once the cry, “Down with, the House of Lords!” was heard. The National Liberal Federation issued a circular, in which were the words: “The question of mending or ending the House of Lords … displaces for awhile all other subjects of reform.” Mr. Gladstone was probably aware of the contents of this manifesto before it was issued, and the sentiments were in accord with those uttered by him two years before at New Castle.
September 27th, Mr. Gladstone addressed his constituents at Edinburgh. He was received with an outburst of enthusiasm. He said that the People’s Chamber had passed the bill. If the nation was determined it would not be baffled by the Peers. If the Commons should go before the country, then the Lords should go too, and if defeated, should do what the Commons would do–clear out.
The Queen wanted Mr. Gladstone to appeal to the country, and there was an opinion among some that Mr. Gladstone would be defeated at the polls upon the question; but the Premier intimated to the Queen his intention not to appeal, and announced the readiness of the Cabinet to be dismissed by the Queen. However, the Queen would hardly expose the throne to the danger threatening the Peers.
December 29, 1893, Mr. Gladstone attained the eighty-fourth year of his age. When he entered the House of Commons that day his political associates of the Liberal party all rose anta greeted him with cheers. When the applause had subsided, the Conservatives raised their hats and their leader, Mr. Balfour, rose and tendered his congratulations. Mr. Gladstone was much pleased with the demonstrations of his friends, as well as with the graceful compliments of his political opponents. Besides about two hundred congratulatory messages, letters and telegrams were received, those from Queen Victoria, and the Prince and Princess of Wales, being among the first.
July 6, 1893, Prince George of Wales, Duke of York, and Princess Mary of Teck were married. The Prince was by inheritance heir, after the Prince of Wales, to the throne of England. Mr. Gladstone attended the wedding, arrayed in the blue and gold uniform of a brother of the Trinity House, with naval epaulettes, and was conducted to the royal pew reserved for him.
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Among the great measures proposed at this time by Mr. Gladstone were the Employers’ Liability, and the Parish Councils Bills. The latter was as evolutionary and as revolutionary as the Home Rule Bill. Its object was to take the control of 10,000 rural English parishes out of the hands of the squire and the parson and put it into the hands of the people. With its amendments regarding woman suffrage, to which Mr. Gladstone was opposed, it gave to every man and woman in England one vote–and only one–in local affairs. February 21, 1894, when Mr. Gladstone had returned from Biarritz, where he had gone for his health, there was again a notable assemblage in the House of Commons to hear him speak. It was expected that he would make a bitter attack upon the House of Lords, which had attempted to defeat both these bills by amendments. But he calmly spoke of the lamentable divergence between the two branches of the legislature upon the Employers’ Liability Bill, and asked that the amendment be rejected, which was done by a majority of 225 to 6. The bill was therefore withdrawn, and the responsibility of its defeat thrown upon the Lords. The House also rejected all the important amendments of the Parish Councils Bill, but concurred in the unimportant changes made by the Lords. It was sent back then to the lords, and finally passed by them. But Mr. Gladstone greatly disappointed many of his political friends by his mild manner of dealing with the House of Lords. The extreme Radicals were angered and condemned severely the Premier for what they called his “backing down” and his “feeble speech.”
Rumors in reference to Mr. Gladstone’s resignation, which had been started by the _Pall Mall Gazette_, while he was yet at Biarritz, were now renewed. February 28, 1894, Mr. Gladstone informed the Queen of his contemplated retirement, giving as reasons his failing eyesight, deafness and age. March 1st, he made an important speech in the House of Commons. He displayed so much vigor and earnestness in his speech that it was thought that he had given up the idea of retiring. But this was his last speech as Premier. March 2d, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone were summoned to Windsor, where they dined with the Queen, and remained over night. Saturday, March 3, 1894, Mr. Gladstone tendered his resignation as Premier to the Queen, who accepted it with many expressions of favor and regret, and offered him again a peerage, which was declined. On the way to Windsor and return to London, Mr. Gladstone was greeted by a large and enthusiastic crowd. Hundreds of letters and telegrams expressing regret, because of his retirement, were received by the ex-Premier, On Sunday he attended church as usual and was looking well, Mr. Balfour in the Commons, and Lord Salisbury in the Lords, vied with Mr. Gladstone’s political friends in speaking his praise, and referring in the highest terms to his character and labors. The press in all parts of the world spoke in glowing terms of his natural endowments, great attainments, invaluable services, pure character and wonderfully vigorous old age. It was quite evident that Mr. Gladstone’s retirement was not enforced by mental or physical infirmities, or by his unfitness for the leadership of the House and the Premiership, but that as a wise precaution, and upon the solicitation of his family, he had laid down his power while he was yet able to wield it with astonishing vigor. Thus closed the fourth administration of this remarkable man, the greatest English statesman of his time. In all history there is no parallel case, and no official record such as his.
Lord Rosebery was appointed Premier in the place of Mr. Gladstone, and Sir William V. Harcourt became the leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone wrote congratulating Lord Rosebery, and promised to aid him whenever his assistance was required. In assuming office Lord Rosebery eulogized Mr. Gladstone, and announced that there would be no change in the policy of reform of the Liberal party under