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CASSELL'S EEPRESENTATIVE BIOGRAPHIES. 
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
ft 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 07 
 
 MLLIAI EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN M^GILCHRIST. 
 
 ^^.2f v/AS^i- • 
 
 ■ TP F- T, T A TQ^ r» T» 
 
 FELT AND DILLINGHAM, 
 455, BROOME STREET, NEW YOKK. 
 

CONTENTS. 
 
 — ♦ — 
 
 FA&B 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Ancestry and Early Days , , , 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Early Years in Parliament 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Great Administration of Peel , , 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Administration of Lord John Russell , • . , , 46 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Final Abandonment of Toryism . , 61 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Administration of Lord Aberdeen , 75 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Period of the Crimean War 90 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. . 
 Fall of the Palmerston Ministry 98 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Lord Derby's Second Administration . , * . • . . 103 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Commercial Treaty with France . , . . . • 109 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 The Last Whig Administration 116 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 The Irish Church Struggle »,,,..,, 12$ 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 In the following pages the aim of the writer has 
 been to present a view at once summary and impar- 
 tial of the Parliamentary career, political opinions, 
 and practical enactments of the subject of the bio- 
 graphy, from his first return to the Parliament 
 created by the Reform Bill of 1832 down to the last 
 day of the existence of the Whig Parliament of the 
 middle class. The Author has not concealed hisf 
 admiration of Mr. Gladstone in the fields of fiscal ; 
 and electoral reform. For obvious reasons he has 
 apportioned a large portion of his canvas to the 
 history of the great statesman's opinions and utter- 
 ances upon the Church Establishment in Ireland, 
 and upon the general relations of the Church and 
 the State. 
 
 Some ancestral and personal details appear in this 
 little work, in print for the first time. 
 
LIFE OF 
 
 WILLIAM EWAET GLADSTONE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANCESTRY AND EARLY DAYS. 
 
 Shortly before the termination of Mr. Gladstone's last 
 tenure of office, he visited Glasgow, where he was pre- 
 sented with the freedom of that thriving and enlightened 
 city. In the course of an address which he delivered 
 during his visit to a large audience of working men, he ^ 
 stated that he had not a particle of any but Scottish 
 blood in his veins. For many generations the Gladstones 
 have been settled in the small Lanarkshire town of 
 Biggar; and although occupying there mediocre social 
 positions, they trace themselves back to an original stock 
 of lairds. The name of Gladstone, or Gladstanes, as it 
 was spelt until a comparatively recent date, is traced in 
 connection with the holding of land by a tenure analogous 
 to the English fee-simple, to a very remote period, in the 
 counties of Lanark, Peebles, Roxburgh, and Dumfries. 
 The original stock from which the various cadets ramified 
 was the Gladstanes of that Ilk, in the parish of Liberton, 
 in the upper ward of Clydesdale, The title-deeds of the 
 
10 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 estate of Gladstanes, previous to the seventeenth century, 
 have all been lost. It becomes therefore impossible to 
 say when the family either acquired or ceased to possess 
 Gladstanes. The estate of Arthurshiel, however, adjacent, 
 to Gladstanes, and situate in the same parish, became the 
 inheritance of a branch of the family — that branch 
 through which the great English statesman traces his 
 descent. It is probable that Arthurshiel was assigned 
 to a younger Gladstanes, of Gladstanes, about the middle 
 of the sixteenth century. It is a matter of ascertained 
 fact that it was held by William, who died previous to 
 1565. In a legal document, dated the 13th of March, 
 1623, by Robert Chancellor, of Shieldhill, George is de- 
 scribed as "the umquhile (late) George Gladstaines, of 
 Arthurshiel." A William Gladstanes (probably the sou 
 and heir of George) was witness to a tack (or lease), dated 
 June, 1641. John Gladstanes sold the estate of Arthur- 
 shiel to James Brown, of Edmonstoun, and died about 
 the year 1680. 
 
 William, the son of the last-named laird — the last of 
 the Gladstones who held land to any considerable extent, 
 until th*e late Sir John purchased Fasque — removed to 
 Biggar, and commenced business as a maltman (or, Anglice^ 
 maltster). Although at that time the population of the 
 village did not much exceed a thousand, it contained no 
 fewer than fourteen malting establishments in full and 
 active operation. William, the maltster, died in 1728, and 
 his remains lie in the family burying-ground in Liberton 
 churchyard. B} his wife. Christian Brown, who was 
 probably a daughter of the Laird of Edmonstoun, he left 
 three sons and one daughter, Grizzel, who married a dyer 
 named Thomas Cosh. One of his sons beconving unsuc- 
 
ANCESTRY AND EARLY DAYS. 11 
 
 cessful in business, filled, in his old age, the offices of 
 bellman and gx'ave- digger. He died in 1784. 
 
 James, the second son, was, like his father, a maltnian. 
 Of his male issue, one became an officer of excise, and 
 died in 1816. Another rented a small farm, and acted 
 as factor, or agent, on the Biggar estate for Admiral 
 Fleming. He died about forty years ago, leaving a son 
 Robert, born in 1821, who studied for the Church. 
 
 Keverting to the main line of the ancestry of William 
 Ewart Gladstone, his great-grandfather, John, grandson 
 of the last Laird of Arthurshiel, was born about the year 
 1693. Like so many of his kin, he was a maltman, and 
 a burgess of Biggar, keeper of the Baron's Girnel, an 
 active Freemason, and an elder of the kirk. His name 
 very frequently occurs in the annals of the town during 
 the former half of the eighteenth century. By his industry 
 he acquired the means to purchase the small farm of Mid 
 Toftcombs. He died on the 1st of June, 1756, asfed 
 sixty-three. By his wife, Janet Aitken, he had five sons 
 and six daughters. His eldest son, the great-uncle of 
 the subject of our sketch, was educated for the ministry, 
 but not obtaining a living, he became rector of the High 
 School of Leith. Another son died at Coulter Muir, 
 near Biggar, in 1776. Another, John, accepted the patri- 
 mony of Mid Toftcombs, which had been declined by his 
 elder brethren, and further received with his wife. Chris- 
 tian Taverner, a tocher (dowry) of seven thousand merks. 
 He was the leading local spirit in a movement of secession 
 from the Established Church in 1780. His two sons, one 
 a watchmaker in Biggar, who died in 1851, and Alex- 
 ander, landlord of the Beehive Inn, in the Grassmarket 
 of Edinburgh, " were both upright men." 
 
12 "WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Mr. W. E. Gladstone's grandfather, Thomas, fourth 
 son of John Gladstone, of Mid Toftcombs, was born on 
 the 3rd of June, 1732, and died in 1809. He left home 
 early in life, and settled as a corn merchant in Leitli, 
 He married Helen, daughter of Walter Neilson, of 
 Springfield. She bore to him sixteen children, of whom 
 seven sons and five daughters grew to maturity. He 
 was successful in trade, and was enabled to furnish all 
 his sons with a small capit^al to start them in life. His 
 eldest son, John, afterwards Sir John, was born in Leith 
 in 1763. He lived to reach his eighty-eighth year, and 
 after a most prosperous career, died at his mansion at 
 Fasque, in Kincardineshire, in 1851. When John was 
 just of age, he was sent by his father to Liverpool, to 
 sell a cargo of grain which had arrived at that port. 
 He so attracted the attention of a leading corn merchant 
 there, that the latter earnestly entreated his father to let 
 his son settle at that port. After sundry negotiations, 
 the result was the formation of the firm of Corrie, Glad- 
 stone, and Bradshaw, corn merchants; Mr. Corrie taking 
 the two latter young men into partnership. The firm had 
 hardly existed two years, ere its stability was very sorely 
 tried. There came a general failure of the corn crops 
 throughout Europe. Mr. Corrie at once dispatched his 
 junior partner, Mr. Gladstone, to the United States, to 
 buy grain. John Gladstone was then about twenty- 
 four years of age. Having the needful letters of credit, 
 he started upon a mission of which the parties to it 
 entertained the most sanguine hopes. On reaching 
 America, he found that the corn crops had failed there 
 also, and that there was not a single bushel to be pro- 
 cured. To his dismay, by the next advices which Jie 
 
ANCESTRY AND EARLY DAYS. 13 
 
 received from England, he was informed that some 
 twenty-four large vessels had been chartered to bring 
 home the grain which he was supposed to have bought. 
 The situation was most perilous, and it seemed that the 
 prospects of so young a man were fairly shipwrecked. 
 Indeed, when the news became known at Liverpool, it 
 was considered impossible for the house to recover the 
 shock arising from so many vessels returning in ballast 
 instead of bearing the cargoes which they had been 
 chartered to convey. Corrie and Co. were therefore re- 
 garded as a doomed house, and the deepest commiseration 
 was felt for the young absent partner, while the senior 
 was blamed for his precipitancy. But young Gladstone, 
 though strongly impressed with the difficulties of the 
 position in which he found himself, maintained unim- 
 paired his courage and presence of mind. He sought 
 every means by which to lighten, if not to avert the 
 blow. By careful examination of price lists, by ascer- 
 taining what procurable products would best suit the 
 English market, he succeeded, without waste of time, in 
 filling the holds of all the vessels. And when all was 
 sold and realised, the net loss on the large transaction of 
 the house hardly expeeded .£500. 
 
 From that time John Gladstone became a marked 
 man on the Liverpool Exchange, and in the English 
 commercial world. He became the leading spirit in his 
 house, and for some fourteen years more the partnership 
 continued, ending naturally by effluxion of time. The 
 corn dearth had continued, and so widely spread, that 
 the Administratioi* determined to hold stores of grain 
 at the different ports. Corrie, Gladstone, and Brad- 
 shaw were appointed the Government agents at Liver- 
 
14 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 pool, a fact which recognised their holding the leading 
 position in the trade. They were so successful that at 
 the close of the partnership the sum of no less than 
 .£75,000 stood to the credit of the guarantee account 
 alone. Corrie retired wealthy, and Bradshaw returned 
 early in life to his native town, Wigan, where he lived 
 for many years. 
 
 John Gladstone continued in business, taking his 
 brother Robert into partnership, and engaged largely in 
 the trade with Russia. They also became large West 
 India merchants and sugar importers. As Liverpool 
 offered a more enterprising field than Leith, three other of 
 the brothers soon followed John and Robert, and even- 
 tually all the seven were settled there. It was about 
 this time that Mr. Brougham, while going the Northern 
 Circuit, was John Gladstone's guest, and accompanied his 
 host to the Liverpool Theatre. The play was "Macbeth," 
 and Kean played the chief character. When Macduff said, 
 " Stands Scotland where it did ? " a Scotchman in the 
 gallery cried out, " Na, na, sirs ; there's pairt o' 
 Scotland in England noo — there's John Gladstone and 
 his clan." 
 
 The Gladstones were the first to send a private 
 vessel (the Kingsmill) to Calcutta, upon the opening of 
 the East India and China trades to other than East 
 India Company's vessels, in 1814. From that time to 
 the present, the family have been extensively engaged 
 in that trade. The house of Robertson Gladstone 
 (John's second son) is one of the first firms in Liver- 
 pool, having very large relations with every part of the 
 East. 
 
 It was but natural that so energetic a character as 
 
ANCESTRY AND EARLY DAYS. 15 
 
 John Gladstone should take a deep interest in the public 
 affairs of the town in which he lived. As he was always 
 opposed to the close and self-elected municipal corpora- 
 tion of the ante-Reform Bill days, it is not to be won- 
 dered at that he was never elected to any corporate 
 office, but he was the means of removing very many 
 local abuses and restrictive imposts which bore heavily 
 against the interests of the port. A very valuably service 
 of plate was presented to him in recognition of what he 
 had effected, many of the subscribers being his strongest 
 opponents on corporation matters of dispute. At that 
 period Liverpool was like a young giant, though not con- 
 taining one-fifth of its present population. Supported 
 at the back by the great products of manufacture from 
 Yorkshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and 
 Cheshire, with immediate access to coal and salt, it be- 
 came the port of shipment to all parts of the world, and 
 by 1832 the declared value of its exports exceeded that 
 of London itself. 
 
 In political opinion John Gladstone was what would 
 now be termed a Liberal Conservative, and his desire was 
 to have the best men to represent the town, to some extent 
 independently of their being ardent partisans of either 
 of che two great parties. When the celebrated William 
 Koscoe retired from the representation, Mr. Gladstone was 
 desirous that George Canning and Henry Brougham should 
 be returned. They were then in their early prime, and 
 gradually becoming regarded as the two leading men of 
 the day. But Brougham selected Creevey, a very extreme 
 Badical, and a man of little or no public standing, as his co- 
 candidate, and Gladstone declined to support the two in 
 alliance. He therefore threw his weight on the side of 
 
16 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 General Gascoyne, a member of the family of Salesbury, 
 holding large property near the town. A remarkably 
 severe contest, lasting fourteen days, ensued; and the 
 result, niainly through John Gladstone's influence, was 
 the return of Gascoyne and Canning. From this date 
 there existed a very close intimacy between Mr. Canning 
 and Mr. Gladstone, an intimacy which exercised a very 
 important influence upon the mind and career of his 
 distinguished son. Throughout Canning's prematurely 
 shortened life, he consulted Mr. Gladstone on all im- 
 portant mercantile affairs. Ere long, at th^ suggestion 
 of Canning. GJ[adstone solicited return to Parliament, 
 being provided oy the Marlborough family with a seat 
 for their pocket borough of Woodstock. He remained 
 long enough in Parliament to be witness of the earlier 
 triumphs of his youngest son. 
 
 John Gladstone was twice man^flS. He does not 
 appear to have had any issue by his first wife. He 
 married secondly Ann Robertson, of Stornoway, N.B., 
 daughter of Andrew Robertson, who had been Provost of 
 Dingwall. Miss Robertson was a native of Dingwall. 
 One who knew her well testifies that she was " a lady of 
 very great accomplishments, of fascinating manners, of 
 commanding presence and high intellect; one to grace 
 any home and endear any heart." By her he had a 
 family of four sons and two daughters. Of these, three 
 sons — Sir Thomas, Bart.,ofFasque, Robertson, the Liver- 
 pool merchant, and William Ewart — and one daughter, 
 who is unmarried, survive. John Neilson, a captain in 
 the navy, and M.P. for Portarlington, died a few years 
 ago. John Gladstone was made a baronet by Sir Robert 
 Peel in 184o. He died in 1851. Besides the provisioa 
 
ANCESTRY AND EARLY DAYS. 17 
 
 made for his family by will, he gave to each of his sons 
 £100,000 in his lifetime. 
 
 With such parents as John Gladstone and Ann 
 Kobertson, it was most natural that the development 
 of the minds of each of their children should be carefully 
 watched, and any germs of excellence which should 
 appear be as sedulously cultivated. William Ewart was 
 born on the 29th of December, 1809, in the same bedroom 
 as that in which, five years later, his friend Mr. Cardwell 
 first saw the light. The Cardwell family purchased the 
 residence of Mr. Gladstone on his removing from one 
 house to another. In the youth there was soon perceived 
 an uncommon perspicacity and comprehensiveness of 
 mind. Its early characteristic was a firm grasp and 
 encompassment of anything set before it. He was for- 
 tunate in his early preceptors. They still live to be 
 cheered by the growing fame and usefulness of their 
 pupil. One is the Eev. Mr. Bawson, the other the 
 Venerable Archdeacon Jones. At Oxford, to which he 
 was sent, after passing with credit through Eton, he 
 achieved high academic distinction; and also in the 
 Union Debating Society, he gave similar promise of 
 oratorical celebrity. He passed Double Fii'st with com- 
 parative ease. At once his father's wishes and his own 
 inclinations determined him to study for no profession, 
 but to devote himself solely to public life. 
 
 While his education, in the ordinary sense, was going 
 on, there was a course of instruction being imparted of at 
 least an equally valuable character. His preceptor was 
 his father, who strove to communicate to his son, from 
 the period of his earliest childhood, his own stores of 
 natural and extended knowledge. Much of the high 
 
 B 
 
18 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 eminence which Mr. Gladstone, altogether apart from 
 party considerations, has attained as a financier, must be 
 traced to the thorough initiation into the principles of 
 business operations, on the largest scale, which his father 
 imparted. When young Gladstone was but twelve years 
 of age, his father would discuss with him after dinner 
 any leading financial or political question of the day. It 
 was curious for the guests occasionally present, to see 
 experience proposing, and youth weighing, examining, 
 and discussing, questions frequently of a very com- 
 plicated character ; the interest of both talkers being all 
 the keener that England was at the time passing through 
 one of the most exciting epochs of her history. Mr. 
 Canning was invariably a guest at Mr. Gladstone's house 
 at Seaforth, when he went down to Liverpool to meet his 
 constituents, and frequently predicted that a distinguished 
 career was before the youth. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 EARLY YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Shortly after Mr. Gladstone left Oxford, he went for 
 several months on a tour on the Continent, accompanied, 
 we believe, by more than one of his Eton and Christ- 
 church contemporaries and friends. Among the warmest 
 friendships which he had contracted at school and college, 
 were those with Mr. Sidney Herbert and Lord Lincoln, 
 afterwards Lord Herbert of Lea and Duke of New- 
 castle. It was the father of the latter — the then duke — 
 to whom Mr. Gladstone was indebted for his first seat in 
 Parliament. The borough of Newark was largely under 
 the control of the ducal house of Pelham- Clinton ; and 
 although in the momentous and exciting general elec- 
 tion of December, 1832, which succeeded the final passage 
 of the Reform Bill, the Liberals hotly contested the 
 borough, Mr. Gladstone, as a true blue Tory and the 
 duke's nominee, came in at the head of the poll, winning, 
 however, only by some sixty votes out of more than 
 eleven hundred which were recorded. 
 
 During the first year or two in which he enjoyed his 
 seat, he spoke little, and what little he did say is reported 
 ^ with great brevity in contemporary records. Amongst 
 his early speeches were one against the ballot, and an 
 apologetic address for the mayor, corporation, and freemen 
 of his native town, whom a committee of the House of 
 
 B 2 
 
20 . WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Commons had found guilty of the most flagrant bribery at 
 the general election, but in whose behalf, and successfully, 
 Mr. Gladstone deprecated the extreme penal visitations 
 which certain very ardent parliamentary spirits counselled. 
 The line of argument adopted against the ballot — and of 
 his opinion hostile to it Mr. Gladstone has not yet enun- 
 ciated any recantation — was to this effect : — The ballot 
 could be nothing unless secrecy were observed ; but how 
 could it be observed if the public functionaries who were 
 to take the ballot, and who might probably not be always 
 selected for their highly strict and honourable principles, 
 could become acquainted with the votes given by different 
 individuals 1 If they should become acquainted with the 
 votes, they would acquire a power over the voters, which 
 would make them the petty tyrants of the districts in 
 which they resided. But if strict silence were to be 
 observed, it would put an end to all public discussion. 
 Another objection was, that the ballot would make the 
 constitution of the House still more democratic than it 
 now was. He thought that at present it was democratic 
 enough, and, therefore, he openly opposed it on that 
 ground. Another ground of objection was, that after 
 the experiment of last year, it would be too much to 
 carry on the principle of reform so much farther without 
 any experience of the working of what they had already 
 done. 
 
 One of the most sagacious of the many acts of sagacity 
 which distinguished the public life of Sir Kobert Peel, 
 was his attracting to himself the more promising of the 
 youthful members of his own party. In this his policy 
 stood out in strong and favourable contrast to the course 
 adopted by the Whigs, who have ever considered office 
 
EARLY YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 21 
 
 the close borough and prescriptive appanage of the mem- 
 bei'S of a restricted number of noble and, so to speak, 
 professionally official families. With Peel it was quite 
 otherwise. He wished on the one hand to train a school 
 of well-drilled followers ; and on the other, without 
 ignoring the just claims of the veterans who had fought 
 by his side the hard contested combats of the past, to 
 reward youthful promise and endeavour by early pro- 
 motion. Young Gladstone ■ was soon marked out for 
 this distinction. Peel quickly discovered his worth and 
 usefulness ; and the opportunity for recognising it with 
 the laurel wreath of active employment came sooner 
 than either could have anticipated. Meanwhile, the 
 youthful aspirant, while attending diligently to the busi- 
 ness and routine of the noble field of exertion into which 
 his good fortune had permitted him to make entrance at 
 such an almost boyish age, showed by his reticence at 
 once his modesty, his patience, and his excellent sense. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone had been just two years in Parliament 
 when he became a minister of the Crown. In the winter 
 of 1834, changes of various descriptions — changes by 
 death, by resignation, by the elevation of the most 
 popular member of the Reform Administration, Lord 
 Althorp, to the Upper House by the demise of his 
 father, which rendered it impossible that he should 
 longer hold the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer ; 
 but above all, a considerable downfall of the popularity 
 of the Whigs — furnished to the king the opportunity 
 long desired by him, of getting quit of his Whig ministers. 
 He sent for the Duke of Wellington. The duke con- 
 sented to hold the seals of the Premiership only until 
 a despatch could be sent to Pome to summon Sir Pobert 
 
22 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Peel, who, with his wife, had started for a tour in 
 Italy; so little did he imagine the likelihood of any- 
 impending transference of political power. The following 
 extracts from the " Journal " of Mr. Raikes will suffi- 
 ciently indicate the excitement of the occasion : — 
 
 " It is announced that Sir Eobert Peel has accepted the Ministry. 
 His brother, Colonel [now General] Peel, stated the fact at M. Dupin's 
 soiree. . . . Sir R. Peel arrived at the H&tel Bristol [Mr. Kaikes 
 was living in Paris] at eleven o'clock last night. This morning he 
 received the visit of Lord Granville, and at eleven o'clock left Paris for 
 London, 'big with the fate of Caesar and of Kome.' . . . The 
 arrangements of the Ministry are in full train. . . . The Adminis- 
 tration is formed without any coalition, and is of pure Conservative 
 principles." 
 
 When the list of Cabinet and minor ministers came 
 out, Mr. W. E. Gladstone's name appeared as a Junior 
 Lord of the Treasury. Sir Robert Peel found it desir- 
 able and necessary to dissolve Parliament; and in his 
 letter to the electors of Tamworth issued a manifesto, of 
 which this sentence contained the essential purport : — 
 " With regard to the Reform Bill, I will now repeat the 
 declaration which I made when I entered the House of 
 Commons as a member of the Reformed Parliament, that 
 I consider the Reform Bill a final and irrevocable settle- 
 ment of a great constitutional question, a settlement 
 which no friend to the peace and welfare of the country 
 would attempt to disturb, either by indirect or by insidious 
 means." Starting from this as a stipulation and fixed 
 principle, he proposed to govern the country in a spirit 
 of Conservatism (a political term then used for the first 
 time), but expressed a readiness to carry into efiect 
 certain minor reforms in our domestic system. Mr. 
 Gladstone followed suit responsively in his address and 
 
EARLY YEARS IN PARLIAMENT, 23 
 
 speeches to the electors of Newark, where he was again 
 returned at the head of the poll, but with a Whig, Ser- 
 jeant Wilde, for a colleague. Mr. Raikes, reflecting the 
 average Tory opinion, thus wrote of the policy of the first 
 Administration of which Mr. Gladstone was a member : — 
 " Sir Robert Peel's address has arrived. It is a manly and 
 sensible document, calculated to inspire confidence in the 
 country ; expressing readiness to reform real abuses and 
 defects, without seeking for a false popularity by adopting 
 every fleeting popular impression of the day, and promising 
 the instant redress of anything which any one may call 
 an abuse." 
 
 There had unquestionably arisen in the country a 
 strong reaction against Whig rule. The Whigs had been 
 far from realising popular expectation, and the disappoint- 
 ment had been especially felt by the Radicals and 
 " O'Connell's tail ;" nevertheless, the reaction was not so 
 great as to enable Peel's Ministry to stand its ground. 
 When Parliament met. Ministers were beaten by ten in 
 the election of a Speaker. A few days after, an amend- 
 ment to the address from the Throne was carried by a 
 majority of seven. The end was evidently impending; 
 and though Sir Robert Peel remained in office, showing 
 singular patience and tact, until April, he had then no 
 option but to resign, being defeated by a large and deci- 
 sive majority on certain resolutions afiecting the tempo- 
 ralities of the Irish Church, drawn with characteristic skill 
 and astuteness by Lord John Russell. Mr. Gladstone 
 resigned the Under- Secretaryship of the Colonial Office, to 
 which he had been transferred in February, and in which 
 post, by the admission of both sides, he showed remark- 
 able signs not only of administrative ability, but of con- 
 
24 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 ciliatoriness of spirit. The latter qualification was mvicli 
 needed, as several of our colonies then evinced great 
 and just irritation at the policy of the home govern- 
 ment. Mr. Gladstone's name is not to be found recorded 
 in any of the more than usually acrimonious encounters 
 which characterised the short-lived first Ministry of his 
 groat master, Peel. How irritated both parties were, 
 and how much more remarkable was, therefore, his 
 modest and placable reticence, may be gathered from these 
 sentences of Mr. Kaikes, which precisely reflect the 
 temper of the times : — "Monday, 1 6th March. Party spirit 
 rages with great violence throughout society in London. 
 The disappointed "Whigs are ready for any measures which 
 may perplex the duke's government, and are publicly 
 coalescing with the Radicals to turn them out. Though 
 the feeling of the country is daily becoming stronger in 
 favour of the Tories, yet the two other parties form a 
 fearful opposition in the House, and every expedient of 
 threat and ridicule is put in force to keep those who have 
 once voted for the Reform Bill still fettered to their dic- 
 tates. They are betting two to one in their den at 
 Brookes' s, that the Government does not last two 
 months." 
 
 For the next two years Mr. Gladstone spoke but seldom. 
 "We believe that over-exertion had somewhat injuriously 
 affected a constitution which, at that time at least, 
 was by no means robust. When the Canadian troubles, 
 which furnished matter for such prolonged and embittered 
 controversy, arose, he enrolled himself decidedly on the 
 side of the authority of the Crown. From him, at least, 
 Papineau and his rebellious associates received no coun- 
 tenance or sympathy. In 1837 we find him arguing that 
 
EARLY YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 25 
 
 the simple question that lay before the Imperial Legisla- 
 ture, was the support of government and public order on 
 one side, and the absolutism of the popular will on the 
 other. Not a single practical grievance had been sub- 
 stantiated by the Canadian Assembly with respect to the 
 undue preference of the English race. It appeared that, 
 during the administration of the last two governments, 
 of eighteen appointments to the Legislative Council, ten 
 had been given to persons of French origin. This might 
 not seem to represent the proportion of the French popu- 
 lation to the British ; but it should be remembered that 
 the former did not compose so large a proportion of the 
 upper class, from which the members of the Legislative 
 Council were of necessity selected. In this and other 
 speeches delivered on the same and similar themes, during 
 the next few years, discerning men saw a ripening, and 
 possibly an ambition, for the seals of the Colonial Office. 
 
 As is well known, slavery in all British colonies and 
 dependencies was abolished in 183,4, Negro apprentice- 
 ship, as it was called, however, was reserved until 1840, 
 when the last remaining link of enslavement was to be 
 removed. A very strong agitation arose in 1838, to 
 have the period of final emancipation ante- dated by two 
 years. Lord Brougham was the leader of the movement, 
 the pious and humanitarian classes constituted its rank 
 and file, and the most efiective of its .professional expo- 
 nents was Mr. George Thompson. The agitation was 
 soon extended to the floors of both Houses of Parliament. 
 Mr. Gladstone took the unpopular side. He had the 
 honour of winding up one of the most animated of the 
 debates of the year (1838). This, in one sense, may be 
 considered the first great speech delivered by Mr. Glad- 
 
26 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 stone. It was the first which took a thorough and 
 decisive grip of the public mind. It was the first to 
 which the honour of an elaborate two-column report was 
 given in the Times. Lastly, and most important of all, 
 it was the first which Mr. Gladstone himself published in 
 a revised pamphlet form. We therefore reproduce as 
 copious a summary of it as the necessities of our space 
 will allow : — The question, he said, was to the colonists 
 a matter not of property alone, but of character ; and he 
 would prove that they were guiltless of the oppressions 
 imputed to them. The report of the committee of which 
 Mr. Buxton was chairman, and which had continued its 
 sittings to the end of last session, had, with Mr. Buxton's 
 concurrence, negatived the necessity for this change. 
 Perhaps there was no compact in a legal sense, but in a 
 moral one there was. The apprenticeship was a part of 
 the compensation, and the labour due under it had a 
 marketable value, of which it was unjust to deprive the 
 master or his assigns. He deprecated an appeal to mere 
 individual instances. There were cases of abuse, no 
 doubt j but the question was, were the abuses general 1 
 To prove that they were not, he would take, point by 
 point, the public reports of magistrates, and even 
 governors. He then, by a variety of citations, pro- 
 ceeded to prove, that on every one of the heads of com- 
 plaint the satisfactory cases exceeded, four or five times 
 over, the unsatisfactory ones, and showed an improve- 
 ment under the system of apprenticeship, of which this 
 may serve as an example, that in British Guiana, where, 
 in the last year of slavery, the number of lashes in- 
 flicted had been 280,000, the number inflicted, on the 
 average of the years elapsed since the apprenticeship, had 
 
EARLY YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 27 
 
 been only 684. The flogging of females, under any cir- 
 cumstances, was odious and indefensible ; but this motion 
 could not affect that practice ; because, when females are 
 flogged, it is not as apprentices, but as disorderly persons 
 — the same punishment being inflicted on free women. 
 He did not shrink from inquiry ; but with facts such as 
 those he had proved, he could not help thinking that 
 the state of the apprentices had but little to require 
 the attention of humane persons, while such grievances 
 remained unredressed as the condition of the factory 
 children, and the system of the foreign slave-trade. 
 
 The Times, of the day succeeding the delivery of the 
 elaborate address thus summarised, remarked : — '' This 
 speech, which was both candid and accurate, produced 
 considerable efiect, and brought the debate to a satis- 
 factory close." And in a leading article of the day 
 following, the speaker was at once commended, and cer- 
 tain of his conclusions questioned. " Mr. Gladstone's 
 eloquent and able speech was calculated to weaken, not 
 remove, many persuasions, amounting to prejudices, with 
 regard to the extent of those misdeeds and criminal 
 abuses of the Abolition Act which have constituted the 
 cliief materials of the agitation raised by Lord Brougham 
 and his accomplices of Exeter Hall. Still there is much 
 matter of obloquy, from which neither Sir George nor 
 Mr. Gladstone has succeeded in exonerating the West 
 Indian proprietors. There have been complaints of 
 oppression and exaction brought home against planters 
 in Jamaica and other colonies, and although it may be 
 taken for granted that the conduct thus represented forms 
 the exception, not the rule, it cannot be denied that the 
 House of Assembly of Jamaica has not merely omitted, 
 
28 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 but obstinately refused, to pass certain laws and regula- 
 tions which were indispensable to the fulfilment of their 
 portion of the compact framed in 1834, and to the equi- 
 valent required of that Assembly for the benefits secured 
 to the proprietors by the grant of X20,000,000, and the 
 allowance of six years' apprenticeship." 
 
 Our readers will now be able to appreciate our 
 motive in withholding at its proper place Mr. Gladstone's 
 maiden speech. We present it now, as a gloss upon 
 what has just preceded, and as distinctly showing that 
 Mr. Gladstone, from the first day of his appearance in 
 Parliament, although his father and other near kinsmen 
 held slaves, had no love for slavery. He voted for the 
 abolition of slavery ; and the first words he ever uttered 
 in St. Stephen's Hall, were uttered on the occasion of his 
 presenting a petition from inhabitants of the borough of 
 Portarlington in favour of the abolition of slavery. A 
 few days before, Lord Howick (now Earl Grey) had 
 accused Mr. Gladstone, senior, of shortening by hard 
 usage the lives of his field hands in the colony of 
 Demerara. We quote verbatim from the Times of May 
 18, 1833 : — *' Mr. Gladstone presented a similar petition 
 from Portarlington. The hon, member then alluded to 
 certain observations by a noble lord in his speech to the 
 House on Tuesday night. The noble lord had made 
 selection of an estate in Demerara, belonging to some of 
 his (Mr. Gladstone's) nearest relatives, for the purpose of 
 showing what a destruction of human life had taken 
 place in the West Indies, from the manner in which the 
 slaves were worked. The mortality which had taken 
 place in that colony was to be attributed to a totally 
 different cause. In consequence of the falling off which 
 
EARLY YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 29 
 
 had taken place in the coffee trade, and also in the trade 
 in cotton, it was found expedient to apply the slaves to 
 the cultivation of sugar, which was a much more un- 
 healthy employment. The population upon the estate of 
 his father was, however, in a state of increase." 
 
 The repute of Mr. Gladstone was now fairly esta- 
 blished, and he had become a man marked out for high 
 office. True, about the years 1839 and 1840 he to some 
 extent risked his repute with the masses by the strong posi- 
 tion which he took against the claims of the Jews to poli- 
 tical enfranchisement, and against those of the Dissenters 
 for State aid for the education of their children. Take, 
 as a fair specimen, the following summary of a speech 
 against Jewish Emancipation : — Lord Morpeth had de- 
 clared, as long as the State continued to finger Unitarian 
 gold, it could not refuse to extend to those by whom it so 
 profits the blessing of education, and assist those sects 
 which must otherwise remain in intellectual darkness. 
 Now, if the State were to be regarded as having no other 
 fimction than that of representing the mere will of the 
 people as to religious tenets, he admitted the truth of this 
 principle, but not if they were to hold that the State was 
 capable of duties, and that the State could have a con- 
 science. He did not wish to say anything offensive; it 
 was not his habit to revile religion, under whatever form 
 it was presented to him ; but what ground was there for 
 confining the noble lord's reasoning to Christianity ? 
 Mr. Gladstone then read to the House a passage from a 
 petition lately presented from the Protestant Dissenters : 
 *' That your petitioners feel the deepest gratitude for the 
 expression of Her Majesty's most gracious wish that the 
 youth of this country should be religiously brought up^ 
 
30 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 and the rights of conscience respected, while they earnestly 
 hope that the education of the people, Jewi;;h and Chris- 
 tian, will be sedulously connected with a due regard to 
 the Holy Scriptures." How was the education of the 
 Jewish people, who considered the New Testament an 
 imposture, to be sedulously connected with a due regard 
 to the Holy Scriptures, which consisted of the Old and 
 New Testaments ? To force the Jewish children to read 
 the latter would be directly contrary to the principles ot 
 honourable gentlemen opposite. He wished to see no 
 child forced to do so, but he protested against paying 
 from the money of the State a set of men whose business 
 would be to inculcate erroneous doctrines. The propo- 
 sition he held to be very different from that upon which 
 the claims of the Roman Catholics and Dissenters were 
 founded. With them w<e had the same common bonds 
 of belief in the same redemption. There were also con- 
 siderations which broadly distinguished their case from 
 that of the Jews. The one adhered as strongly as our- 
 selves to the text of Christianity, the other did not. 
 The one constituted a large majority in one portion of 
 the United Kingdom — ^the others were scarcely percep- 
 tible on the face of English society. So much as to 
 numbers ; how as to grievances ? He was not aware 
 that the Jews had any special ones to complain of No 
 allegation of this kind had ever been made. It was to 
 be borne in mind that there were still some offices to 
 which the religious test was strictly applied :— to the 
 holder of the Crown, to the Lord Chancellor, and to 
 certain great offices in Ireland. ... In intro- 
 ducing these men to Parliament and other high offices, 
 there existed an absolute tendency to disqualify Par- 
 
EARLY YEARS IN PARLIAMENT. 31 
 
 liament for the performance of any duties connected 
 with religion, and, by easy transitions, to overturn the 
 very principles on which the constitution of this nation 
 is based. 
 
 On the 25th of July, 1839, ere he had completed 
 his twenty-ninth year, Mr, Gladstone entered into the 
 holy bonds of matrimony. All political London knows 
 Mrs. Gladstone's talents ; all fashionable London knows 
 her graces. It is but few of our English readers who 
 need to be informed of her large-hearted benevolence 
 and readiness to engage in all good works. It seems 
 not to us any transgression of good taste to remark that 
 God has blessed the premier Liberal statesman of our 
 times with a partner who has proved herself to be a help- 
 meet in every sense, in the real, as well as in the 
 conventional sense of the term. Mrs. Gladstone was 
 a daughter of Sir Stephen Richard Glynne, of Ha warden 
 Castle, Flintshire. At the same time that Miss Catherine 
 Glynne became Mrs. Gladstone, her sister Mary became 
 the wife of Mr. Gladstone's life-long friend. Lord Lyttel- 
 ton. . Providence has blessed Mrs. Gladstone with seven 
 children, one of whom she has had -the satisfaction of 
 seeing sitting behind her husband in the House of 
 Commons. Miss Catherine Glynne may well have been 
 ' proud of the handsome bridegroom of whom Macaulay 
 had written a few weeks before the celebration of their 
 nuptials, in his well-known review of Gladstone's " State 
 in its Kelations with the Church : " — 
 
 "The author is a young man of unblemished cha- 
 racter and of distinguished Parliamentary talent. His 
 ability and his demeanour have gained for him the re- 
 spect and good- will of all parties. It is his first appear- 
 
32 WILLIAM EWAET GLADSTONE. 
 
 ance as an author. His mind is of a large grasp, nor is 
 he deficient in dialectical skill. . . . ^Ve dissent from his 
 opinion; we admire his talents; we respect his integrity 
 and his benevolence; and we hope he will not let poli- 
 tical avocations so entirely engross him as to leave him 
 no leisure for literature and philosophy." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION OF PEEL. 
 
 " Out of the Cabinet, the mo^t notable man was, perhaps, 
 Mr. W. E. Gladstone, who was Vice-President of the 
 Board of Trade, and Master of the Mint. The character 
 of his mind was not very clearly understood; and the 
 prevalent doubt was whether he understood it himself ; 
 but enough was known of his seriousness, his thoughtfal- 
 ness, and his conscientiousness, to cause him to be regarded 
 with emphatic respect and hope, at a time when earnest 
 men were to be prized above all others." So wrote Miss 
 Martineau in 1850 ; and' her words exactly reflected the 
 esteem in which such earnest thinkers as herself regarded 
 Mr. Gladstone at that period of his life at which we have 
 now arrived. 
 
 In 1841, the people were thoroughly sick of the 
 Whigs. Their disappointment was all the greater that 
 their expectations, but a few years previously, had been 
 so rapturous. No aspect ot their policy was popular. 
 Even so staunch a "Whig as Sydney Smith jeered at them, 
 and expressed an ironical desire that one of the chief 
 members of the Ministry, Mr. Spring Rice, would go into 
 holy orders. They had alienated the rabble by their 
 Poor Law. With their Irish allies they had had a 
 thorough split. The Radicals and the Dissenters, their 
 
 C 
 
34 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 former loyal henchmen, had disclaimed all allegiance 
 with them. And, lastly, they had so mismanaged the 
 finances of the country, as to have gone on increasing 
 the annual deficit in the revenue, until, in 1841, it 
 amounted to the enormous sum of two millions and 
 a half The great cry in the country was for able 
 financiers and business men. The opportunity for Peel 
 and his followers had fairly arrived. He gained, in the 
 summer of 1841, a large majority against Melbourne, 
 upon which Parliament was immediately dissolved. The 
 election was a most stirring and exciting one; bribery 
 was more than usually rife ; each side, as is usual, being 
 about equally culpable. The result was an enormous 
 majority for the Conservatives. In the English consti- 
 tuencies they had a clear preponderance of 104. Against 
 that, the Whigs could show only majorities of nine in 
 Scotland, and nineteen in Ireland. Mr. Gladstone again 
 3tood for Newark ; the colleague of his candidature was 
 his future political antagonist, Lord John Manners ; and 
 they were opposed by a Whig, one of the Hobhouses. 
 Mr. Hobhouse got but 380 votes, while Lord John and 
 Mr. Gladstone polled respectively 633 and 630. 
 
 Shortly after the opening of Parliament, Peel, by a 
 majority of seventy, carried a vote of no confidence. 
 Three days after, on the 30th of August, he was Prime 
 Minister, and in a few days after, Mr. Gladstone was 
 created a Privy Councillor, and made Vice-President of 
 the Board of Trade, and Master of the Mint. The former 
 office was most congenial, and, as we shall see, he dis- 
 charged its duties so admirably, that he fairly earned his 
 promotion to the Presidency of the Board, on the retire- 
 ment of Lord Ripon in 1843. 
 
THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION OP PEEL. . 35 
 
 Peel came in without explicit declaration of his policy. 
 When somewhat peevishly pressed by the Whigs to declare 
 himself, he proudly stated that he could not concoct 
 instantaneously the details of his political programme, 
 and that he claimed the period of the recess in which to 
 mature it. The country thoroughly acquiesced in the 
 justice of this demand. All that he enunciated was his 
 continued preference for a " sliding" over a "fixed duty " 
 on corn, and certain general avowals of minor amend- 
 ments. 
 
 All through the winter the direst distress prevailed. 
 Starvation left her traces on every side. Murders and 
 lesser crimes were terribly prevalent. There were Char- 
 tist murders (at least murders attributed to Chartists), 
 trades' union murders, incendiary murders. Even her 
 Majesty was hooted in London theatres ; and some of 
 the lower Radical papers printed in parallel columns the 
 accounts of the festivities at Buckingham Palace and 
 the accounts of the inquests held on wretches starved to 
 death. 
 
 Meanwhile, as the event proved. Sir Robert Peel and 
 Mr. Gladstone were working hard preparing the fiscal 
 measures w^hich all were so anxiously waiting for. Sir 
 Robert, in the course of his statement, said that he 
 believed the maximum of indirect taxation had been 
 reached, and that the overburdened land could bear no 
 more ; he had no hopes, tlierefore, of getting quit of the 
 deficit which his predecessors had left them, by legislation 
 . in this direction. Direct taxation was the only means 
 of retreat. He therefore bravely proposed to impose 
 an income tax of sevenpence in the pound, for three 
 years, on all incomes of £150 a year and upwards. This 
 
 c 2 
 
36 WILLIAM EWAET GLADSTONE. 
 
 would enable liim to make certain important reductions 
 of indirect taxation. By his income tax he would tem- 
 porarily tax wealth and competence ; but that only 
 seemingly, for the contributors of income tax would 
 be fully reimbursed by the cheapening of their com- 
 modities. The following significant sentence was greeted 
 with rapturous cheers from the Liberal benches : — "I 
 believe that in the general principle of free trade there 
 is now no great difference of opinion, and that all agree 
 in the general rule that we should purchase in the 
 cheapest market and sell in the dearest." The Duke 
 of Buckingham had meanwhile retired from so teachable 
 a cabinet, and from this day the power of Peel waned 
 with the Tories of the old school. In the future triumphs 
 of his great Administration, he was sustained by Glad- 
 stone and his other loyal and well-drilled lieutenants, 
 and by the opposition benches. 
 
 Ere making his comprehensive statement. Peel had, 
 with (doubtless) intentional significance, taken the docu- 
 m.ent from which he quoted his figures and details, from 
 the hands of Gladstone, who sat close beside him. And 
 it was but fitting that he should do so ; for the great 
 revised Customs Tariff of 1842 was, under the general 
 direction of Peel, the sole and unaided handiwork of Mr. 
 Gladstone. It was as admirably executed in details as it 
 was complete in its mastery of principles. At one bold 
 stroke, 750 of the 1,200 duty-paying articles were either 
 entirely relieved of all taxation, or the duty was reduced 
 in the following proportions : — A maximum of five per 
 cent., ad valorem^ on raw materials ; of twelve per cent. 
 on partially, and twenty per cent, on wholly manufac- 
 tured articles. And this gigantic change, so pregnant 
 
THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION OP PEEL. 37 
 
 with immediate and ultimate future good, was effected at 
 an immediate cost to tlie revenue of but £270,000. It 
 devolved on Mr. Gladstone to fight the measure through, 
 clause by clause, in committee. And most assiduously 
 did he discharge his task ; talking now of cassava, to- 
 morrow of onions ; on one night of salted meat, the next 
 of dried herrings. We thus summarise the gist of scores 
 of such speeches. 
 
 The income tax was intended to tax wealth ; the 
 new tariff to relieve manufacturing industry. Thus, 
 take the case of foreign woods. Owing to the high 
 duties, we had not previously been able to keep them, 
 and make them into furniture at home ; but they had 
 been re-imported out of bond into France and Germany, 
 whence they returned to us manufactured into furniture. 
 Now there was hope that we should not only make our 
 own furniture, but become exporters of it. The same 
 prospects applied to the woods used for dyeing. Copper 
 had been sent away on account of the duties, while we 
 had actually to import it back again after it had been 
 smelted with our own coal. As to colonial timber, for 
 building purposes, it would be admitted duty free, and 
 the impost on Baltic timber reduced to the lowest point 
 consistent with our engagements with our colonists. The 
 greatest authority on free-trade subjects, Mr. Deacon 
 Hume, had said, that if we had untaxed timber, as we 
 had untaxed coal and iron, we should be provided with 
 the three great primary materials of employment and 
 consumption. This we were henceforth to have. Our 
 ship-building would increase and improve, and a gi'eat 
 impetus would be given to our fisheries. 
 
 But perhaps the most interesting of the proposed 
 
38 WILLIAM EWAET GLADSTONE. 
 
 changes were those relating to food. Farmers would 
 benefit by the free introduction of clover and other seed, 
 hitherto highly taxed; and the community at large 
 would derive the greatest advantages from the freer 
 ingress of cattle, salted meat, and fish. The agricul- 
 tural and other interests hotly contested the relaxa- 
 tion of these duties ; but large majorities in every case 
 sustained the propositions of the Premier and his truly 
 ejfficient lieutenant. Difficulties innumerable had to be 
 overcome. "Men might differ, and did differ, whether 
 this tariff was valuable only as a move in the right direc- 
 tion, or whether it would also achieve what its authors 
 hoped, in the extension of trade, and the improvement 
 of comfort : but none — unless it were a few bigots in and 
 out of Parliament — doubted the Customs Act Reform to 
 be a good thing. One gentleman would have free trade 
 in everything but herrings ; another in everything but 
 straw plait ; and Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell 
 in everything but corn; but these sepai'ate opinions 
 merged in general satisfaction that, out of 1,200 articles 
 that paid customs duties, 750 were to be reduced ; and a 
 large majority of these to a merely nominal amount." 
 
 The bill passed the Commons, amid loud cheering, on 
 the 28th of June. 
 
 The woi-king out of this measure occupied Mr. Glad- 
 stone nearly the whole of the session, a session thus 
 characterised by Miss Martineau, a most competent 
 authority : — " There was something really refreshing to 
 the country, in the midst of its distresses, in the character 
 and action of this session of Parliament. At the be- 
 ginning, the Opposition was hostile, saucy, active, and 
 united ; and it was curious to see how it changed under 
 
THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION OP PEEL. 39 
 
 the eye of a Minister who could frame measures first, and 
 then carry them. Some of his measures were as un- 
 acceptable to classes and parties as any that had been 
 brought forward for some years ; yet their progress, from 
 their fi.rst conception to their becoming the law of the 
 l&nd, was never delayed. The nation saw and felt that 
 its business was understood and accomplished, and the 
 House of Commons was no longer like a sleeper under 
 nightmare. The long session was a busy one. The 
 Queen wore a cheerful air when she thanked her Par- 
 liament for their effectual labours. The Opposition was 
 sacli as could no longer impede the operations of the 
 next session. The condition of the country was fearful 
 enough ; but something was done for its future improve- 
 ment, and the way was now shown to be open for further 
 beneficent legislation." 
 
 In 1843, "The Condition of England Question" 
 monopolised public attention. "Young England" preaclied 
 its specific, Owen and the Socialists theirs ; the Chartists 
 maintained that a complete political revolution would 
 cure all. Cobden and the League called for free trade in 
 corn, while Lord Ashley prayed for a Commission of In- 
 quiry into the religious and moral state of the lower 
 orders. Mr. Gladstone took a middle course. In justi- 
 fication of his vote against Lord Howick's motion for an 
 inquiry into the condition of the people, with especial 
 reference to the effect of the Corn Laws, he argued that 
 one great object of the measure of the preceding year was 
 to give a stimulus to trade, symptoms of which already 
 appeared, and which he cited with satisfactory variety 
 and copiousness. But suppose Lord Howick were to 
 gain his Committee, and the Corn Law were to be 
 
40 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 repealed, by v/hat measure would it be followed, with 
 the variety of opinions among Opposition Members ? 
 Lord John Russell's fixed duty had met with sorry treat- 
 ment from members behind him ; Lord Palmerston ad- 
 vocated a mere revenue duty; Mr. Cobden argued against 
 such a duty, that an equivalent impost must be laid on 
 home corn. If asked why deal with corn on a differeat 
 principle from that of dealing with other commodities, 
 Mr. Gladstone said that he had a very good temporary 
 answer ; he replied, because it had been so dealt with for 
 centuries, and enormous investments had been made 
 under the faith of such a principle. He still adhered tD 
 the opinion which Lord Howick had quoted, respecting 
 the importation of 50,000 oxen, that exports would be in- 
 creased in a corresponding degree on the relaxation of 
 restrictions on imports ; but the application of such a 
 proposition must be carefully watched. It was a prin- 
 ciple which might be very safe with reference to the im- 
 portation of 50,000 head of cattle (for that would not 
 produce the displacement of British labour) ; in such a 
 case it might be well to trust to the operation of the 
 natural laws of exchange between man and man ; but it 
 did not follow that the law on which the masses of the 
 labour of the country were dependent should be aban^ 
 doned. Let them honestly ask themselves this question — 
 whether or no they were in a condition to repeal the Corn 
 Law without the displacement of a vast mass of labour 1 
 
 He stood up against the "West Indian interest in be- 
 half of admitting Brazilian sugar (under the " favoured 
 nation " maxim) on the same relatively beneficial terms 
 as colonial sugar ; but, with Joseph Sturge and many 
 other good men, he objected to the complete equalisation 
 
THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION OF PEEL. 41 
 
 of the duties, on the plea that such a course would practi- 
 cally involve the payment of a premium to slavery and 
 the slave trade. 
 
 Gradually the fruits of the wise policy of Peel and 
 Gladstone appeared and multiplied. They were admitted 
 by all, save T^y the irrepressible band of croakers never 
 to be extirpated this side of the millennium. The results 
 of the new policy were thus felicitously summarised by 
 a young member, now the Right Honourable Edward 
 Cardwell, in his speech when seconding the Address in 
 answer to the Speech from the Throne, in 1844 : — 
 
 " It would be found in all, or nearly all, the great branches of 
 British manufacture ; symptoms of returning healtli presented them- 
 selves, the same in character, diiferent in degree, but fortunately often 
 found in the highest degree, when from the importance of the article 
 as a staple manufacture of the kingdom, their presence was the most 
 satisfactory and the most encouraging. In regard to cotton, we should 
 say that the stimulus which commenced with the low prices of last year 
 had steadily maintained itself; that, notwithstanding some increase in 
 the price of the raw material, and some (he believed) groundless alarm 
 with regard to the prospects of the future crop, and a partial improve- 
 ment in the rate of wages, the courage of the producer had been 
 sustained ; demand was brisk ; stocks were low ; and all the indica- 
 tions of a healthy trade presented themselves." 
 
 Some idea of the change produced by the new policy 
 may be gleaned from the simple fact that the deficit of 
 the last year of the Melbourne Administration was 
 £2,570,000. The surplus in 1844 was £2,700,000. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was the author of the great Railway 
 Bill of 1844, of which we have heard so much within 
 the last two or three years, and of which we shall 
 hear a great deal more in the years to come. We must 
 content ourselves with summarily saying that its chief 
 
42 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 provisions comprised the legality of Parliament compel- 
 ling companies to reduce their fares when their clear 
 profits exceeded 1 per cent. ; the compulsory running of 
 trains containing seated and covered carriages at least 
 once daily at a maximum fare of a penny a mile j and, 
 last and most important of all, the assumption by the 
 nation of the right to buy all railways constructed sub- 
 sequently to the passing of the Act, at a rate amounting 
 to twenty-one times the annual revenue, calculated on 
 the average of a term of years. 
 
 At the commencement of 1845, to the surprise of all 
 and the consternation of many, it was made public that 
 Mr. Gladstone had resigned his seat in the Cabinet. 
 Some rumoured that the Cabinet was torn by internal 
 dissensions, and that Mr. Gladstone's sudden retirement 
 was only the prelude to other secessions. The mystery 
 was soon explained. On the first night of the session, it 
 was solved. Mr. Gladstone had resigned, simply because 
 Ministers had resolved to bring in measures for the in- 
 crease of the endowment to Maynooth College, and for 
 the establishment of non-sectarian colleges in Ireland, in 
 which young men of various creeds might obtain the 
 advantages of an academic training. Such proposals were 
 in direct contravention of the abstract theories of the 
 mutual relations of Church and State as propounded in 
 Mr. Gladstone's well-known work — a book from whose 
 principles and very cardinal dogma it is hardly necessary 
 to say that Mr. Gladstone's opinions have since completely 
 departed. 
 
 He felt accordingly that it would seem that he was 
 clinging to office for the sake of the various advantages 
 attendant upon its retention, if he, whose published views 
 
THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION OP PEEL. 43 
 
 were so well known, remained in the Ministry. But 
 here it is desirable to quote his own words. We cite a 
 passage which compresses the pith of his speech on the 
 night of the opening of the session : — 
 
 " I held it to be my duty, whenever such a measure came before the 
 House, to apply my mind to its consideration, f i ee from all biassed or 
 selfish considerations, and with the sole and single view of arriving at 
 such a conclusion as, upon the whole, the interests of the country and 
 the circumstances of the case might seem to demand. ... It Avas 
 absolutely due to the public, and due to myself, that I should, so far 
 as in me lay, place myself in a position to form an opinion upon a 
 matter of so great importance, that should not only be actually free 
 from all bias or leaning Avith respect to any considerations whatsoever, 
 but an opinion that should be unsuspected. On that account, I have 
 taken a course most painful to myself in respect to personal feelings, 
 and have separated myself from men with Avhom, and under Avhom, I 
 have long acted in public life, and of whom I am bound to say, 
 although I have now no longer the honour of serving my most gracious 
 Sovereign, that I continue to regard them with unaltered senthnents, 
 both of public regard and private attachment. I do feel it to be my 
 duty also, at the same moment, distinctly to say, that I am not pre- 
 pared to take part in any religious warfare against the measures of my 
 right honourable friend." 
 
 Peel at once rose to his feet, and, while confirming 
 every word uttered by his disciple, with the grace which 
 he knew so well how to display, spoke in the most regret- 
 ful terms of the secession, and avowed for his friend, on 
 public grounds, "an admiration only equalled by regard 
 for his private character." Everybody regretted the 
 rigidly and austerely conscientious line taken by Mr. 
 Gladstone. Nine out of ten said that he was too scru- 
 pulous. But recent experience of Whig tenacity of 
 office had disposed men to value even an undue delicacy. 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Gladstone's personal views were thoroughly 
 with the Ministers, and, as a private member, he warmly 
 
44 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 supported both their proposals. Thus, on the Maynooth 
 question, while supporting the measure, he thought it 
 incomplete and unjust in certain of its reservations. He 
 thought it advisable that the E-oman Catholic bishops of 
 Ireland should be consulted on the subject. He thought 
 that considerable weight ought to be attached to the 
 judgment of the Koman Catholic bishops on the adjust- 
 ment of the principles and details of the measure. He 
 further urged the restoration of direct diplomatic corre- 
 spondence with the court of Kome. While defending the 
 system of religious education enforced at Oxford from the 
 attacks and sneers which had been made upon it, he pro- 
 ceeded to contend that the system of mixed education 
 adopted in University College, London, was much fitter 
 for Ireland than it was for England ; for the dangers of 
 it were more likely to be experienced in England, where 
 religious discipline was lax, than in Ireland, where, from 
 the influence of the Koman Catholic religion, the religious 
 discipline exercised over each individual of that persuasion 
 was personally strict. 
 
 He then justified the principles and details of the 
 measure ; and, in so doing, entered his emphatic protest 
 against the declaration of Sir Robert Inglis, that it was 
 "a gigantic scheme of godless education." The bill con- 
 tained a provision for religious education, so far as it was 
 safe to do so ; for it provided rooms in each of these 
 colleges for theological lectures, which was an explicit 
 admission of the efficacy of religious education. Nay, 
 more, it provided facilities for the voluntary payment of 
 professors to deliver such lectures. He concluded by coun- 
 selling both parties to lay aside their prejudices, and give to 
 the subject a careful, and even a tender consideration. 
 
THE GREAT ADMINISTRATION OF PEEL. 45 
 
 On a subsequent occasion he supported the measures 
 on the ground that, whatever gave ease and comfort 
 to the Professors of the College of Maynooth, would 
 tend to soothe and soften the tone of the College itself. 
 He found arguments in favour of the endowment in 
 the great numbers and poverty of the Roman Catholic 
 people of Ireland, in the difiaculty they experienced in 
 providing for themselves the necessaries of life, and in 
 the still greater difficulty which they found in providing 
 for themselves preachers of their own faith, and in 
 procuring means of education for them. He found addi- 
 tional arguments in the inclination to support it exhibited 
 by all the great statesmen on both sides of the House, 
 and in the fact that those who paid the taxes of a country 
 had a right to share in the benefits of its institutions. 
 Nothing convinced him so much of the validity of the 
 arguments in support of this measure as the paucity and 
 weakness of those urged against it by its opponents. 
 They said that this experiment of Maynooth was an 
 experiment of Mr. Pitt, and that it had been fairly 
 tried, and had signally failed. But they forgot that the 
 original view of Mr. Pitt was, that the Ptoman Catholic 
 clergy of Ireland should not only be trained in the 
 College of Maynooth, but that they should also have a 
 subsequent provision made for their support. No such 
 provision had been made j and it was most unjust to say 
 that Mr. Pitt's experiment had failed, when, in point of 
 fact, it had only been partially tried. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OP LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 
 
 The great year of the enactment of the Repeal of the 
 Corn Laws is a blank as far as Mr. Gladstone is con- 
 cerned. That is to say, it is so in one sense. He took 
 his full share in the responsibility of the measure. As 
 has been seen, he resigned his position as President of 
 the Board of Trade early in 1845, and he remained out 
 of office during the major portion of that year; giving 
 the while a loyal independent support to his former col- 
 leagues. It was in the last days of the year that Sir 
 Robert Peel, who appears by his own published and 
 authorised Memoirs to have meditated the step for some 
 time, announced to his colleagues in the Cabinet that 
 he had finally made up his mind that the Corn Laws 
 must be given up. The result was that he submitted his 
 own and his fellow-Ministers' resignations to Her 
 Majesty. He recommended to the Crown that Lord 
 John Russell, the leader of the Opposition, whose famous 
 "Edinburgh Letter," advocating repeal, had appeared 
 in the previous month of November, should be sent for. 
 Lord John failed to form a Ministry, owing to the 
 determined refusal of Earl Grey to take office in the same 
 Cabinet with Lord Palmerston, whose views on foreign 
 policy he disapproved. Peel was again sent for, and in 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OP LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 47 
 
 a few days his Cabinet was reconstituted, the same peers 
 and gentlemen who had served under him before return- 
 ing to their former posts, with only two exceptions. 
 The place of Lord Wharncliffe, who had been removed 
 during the crisis by death, was supplied by the Duke 
 of Buccleugh ; and a vacancy was created at the head of 
 the Colonial Office by the refusal of Lord Stanley, who 
 had occupied that office, to identify himself with Sir 
 Robert's new policy. The Secretaryship for the Colonies 
 was offered to Mr. Gladstone, and he accepted it, thereby 
 definitely identifying his convictions and his future with 
 the policy of Corn Law Kepeal. Yet he did not utter 
 one word in support of the measure. During the whole 
 of 1846 he suffered from ill health, and was absent 
 from his place in the House. At least, if he were 
 present, he never spoke, and his name does not once 
 occur in any page of any volume of Hansard for the 
 whole year 1846. He resigned office with his colleagues 
 when Peel finally retired from power in the summer of 
 1846, and Lord John Russell, for the first time, was 
 elevated to the position of Premier; and he remained 
 on the benches of the Opposition until, six years later, 
 he became Chancellor of the Exchequer under the Earl 
 of Aberdeen in 1 852. 
 
 His throwing in his lot with the Free-traders cost 
 Mr. Gladstone his seat for Newark. He received an inti- 
 mation from the virtual proprietor of that seat, the Duke 
 of Newcastle, that his support was withdrawn from him. 
 He was at once started, however, as a candidate, by a 
 large and influential body of members of his university, 
 for that Parliamentary blue ribbon, the representa- 
 tion of the University of Oxford. The contest was a 
 
48 WILLIAM EWAUT GLADSTONE. 
 
 remarkably keen one. The crucial point of controversy 
 in very many of the constituencies in the election of 
 1847 was the Maynooth question. Many distinguished 
 men, the most conspicuous being Mr. Macaulay, who 
 was thrown out for Edinburgh, lost their seats in conse- 
 quence of their votes two years previously for an increase 
 in the grant to Maynooth, and its transference from 
 the annual votes to the Consolidated Fund. Candidates 
 were labelled, not only Conservative and Liberal, but 
 "Protestant." The issue at Oxford depended entirely 
 upon this. There were three candidates. Sir Robert 
 Harry Inglis, whose seat was not disputed ; Mr. Glad- 
 stone, and a Mr. Round, an obscurity who had already, 
 like Mr. Gladstone, sat in Parliament for an urban 
 constituency ; and whose only claim on the consideration 
 of his fellow-members of Convocation was the fact of his 
 strong anti- Maynooth convictions and votes. Excepting, 
 perhaps, the City of London, no contest was watched 
 with such intense interest as that for Oxford. It was 
 made a matter of general national speculation. Im- 
 mense efforts were made on both sides. In his address 
 to the electors, Mr. Gladstone thus defined and justified 
 the line he had adopted : — 
 
 " However willing I had been upon, and for many years after, my 
 introduction to Parliament, to struggle for the exclusive support of " 
 the national religion by the State, and to resist all arguments drawn 
 from certain inherited arrangements in favour of a more relaxed 
 system, I found that scarcely a year passed without the fresh adoption 
 of some measure involving the national recognition, and the national 
 support, of various forms of religion, and in particular that a recent , 
 and fresh provision had been made for the propagation from a public 
 chair of Arian or Socinian doctrines. The question remaining for me 
 was, whether, aware of the opposition of the English people, I should 
 set down as ec|,ual to nothing, in a matter primarily connected not with 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUD JOHN IIUSSELL. 4 'J 
 
 our but with their priesthood, the wishes of the people of Irehind ; 
 aud whether I should avail myself of the popular feeliug iu regard to 
 the Roman Catholics for the purpose of enforciug agaiust them a 
 system whicli we had ceased by commou consent to enforce against 
 Ariaus — a system, above all, of which I must say that it never can be 
 conformable to policy, to justice, or even to decency, when it has 
 become avowedly partial and one-sided in its application." 
 
 As specimens of the comments which were elicited 
 by the contest, the following may be taken. The Times 
 wrote : — '* It (Exeter Hall) chooses a candidate with the 
 stature of a pigmy, and then brings all opponents down 
 to his level ;" and, at greater length, it recommended the 
 claims of Mr. Gladstone : — " Mr. Gladstone promises at 
 least better tiling's. His earnest attachment to the 
 Chui'ch is undoubted. He has the advantage of being a 
 man of distinguished talent and industry, who can work, 
 think, and make himself listened to. And he has ob- 
 viously asked himself not merely, ' What shall I say for 
 the Church]' but the more important questions, 'What 
 can be done for her I — what can she safely stand 1 Look- 
 ing at the aotual state of England, and the probable 
 course of national convictions, what are the political 
 relations which she can occupy with the greatest and most 
 lasting advantage to herself?' The consequence has been 
 that Mr. Gladstone has relaxed in the exclusiveness of 
 his politico-ecclesiastical principles. He has admitted 
 to himself — not certainly before it was necessary — the 
 fact that the nation is not the Church, nor Parliament 
 an assembly of Churchmen. He no longer calls on the 
 Legislature to ignore all forms of religion but those 
 established by law, or exactly coincident with his own 
 belief; and thus, creating no exceptional proscription for 
 Koman Catholics, ho lias voted for an increased grant to 
 
 D 
 
50 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Maynootli. Meanwhile, lie seems to be wisely endeavour- 
 ing to retrieve these apparent losses by urging, with 
 increasing anxiety, the internal development of the 
 Church, and the removal of such obstacles to that 
 development as the habits or principles of other days 
 may have left behind them. We think him so far right. 
 His admissions are due to the nation whose affairs he 
 has been already called to administer — his exertions to 
 the Church, of which he is a member. His election, 
 unlike that of Mr. Round, while it sends an important 
 member to the House of Commons, will certainly be 
 creditable, and may be valuable to the University ; and 
 we heartily hope that no negligence or hesitation among 
 his supporters may impede his success." 
 
 The Beverend F. T>. Maurice published a pamphlet 
 on the subject, in which, pleading for toleration, he 
 pungently wrote : — "Protestantism will be regarded as 
 the same thing with Protestant ascendancy; a belief in 
 the Nicene Creed, with an opinion about a certain way 
 of treating the property of Unitarians." Mr. Gladstone 
 was proposed in a speech of admirable Latinity by Dr. 
 Eichards, Rector of Exeter, the only Head of a House 
 who voted for him. Sir Robert Peel came and plumped 
 for him, immediately after he had secured his own 
 election for Tamworth. The result was, that while Sir 
 Robert Inglis came in at the head of the poll with a very 
 large majority, Mr. Gladstone came in second, with 997, 
 and Mr. Round was defeated, with 824 votes. 
 
 The cause of Free Trade was largely advanced in 
 the two or three years immediately succeeding Mr. 
 Gladstone's return for Oxford. He took a leading part 
 in supporting all the measures of fiscal relaxation with 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 51 
 
 which the name of Mr. Labouchere, the Whig President of 
 the Board of Trade, remains chiefly identified. He gave 
 also an independent support to Government on those 
 details of Irish policy which the dire distress and discon- 
 tent across St. George's Channel rendered necessary — the 
 loan of £16,000,000 for railways, the large advances to 
 landlords for improvements, the establishment of the 
 Encumbered Estates Court, and the furnishing to the 
 Lord-Lieutenant powers of a dictatorial character for the 
 suppression of all rebellious movements. In 1848, he 
 thus concluded a very efiective reply to a diatribe of 
 Lord George Bentinck against the policy which he had 
 done so much to establish : — 
 
 *' When tlie noble lord alluded to the importation of foreign 
 goods into this country, he was accustomed to compute the number of 
 individuals to whom the manufacture of such goods would give 
 Employment in this country. The noble lord laid great stress and 
 emphasis on this announcement, and would have a portion of the 
 House believe that, if foreign goods were not imported, some additional 
 thousands of British persons would be employed in the manufacture 
 of sucli articles. For instance, to adopt an illustration of the noble 
 lord, he said, if the half-million in value of foreign silk goods which 
 had been imported into this country since the commencement of the 
 year had not been received, upwards of 64,000 persons would have 
 been employed, but he did not say for how long. [Lord George 
 Bentinck : For a year.] He thought it was rather dangerous to 
 adopt sucb an estimate. It was rather hard to say that half a million 
 sterling would support with wages 64,000 persons for the year. He 
 could not doubt for one moment but that he could expose the fallacy 
 as to the advantage of all goods being produced at home ; for what 
 had been said with respect to silk goods would apply to all kinds of 
 goods. He would take, for instance, the wines of France ; no one 
 could doubt that they could be obtained from grapes produced in 
 a multiplicity of hothouses. So again, sugar, which we now obtain 
 from the tropics, might be produced by means of stores and furnaces ; 
 and how many millions of persons would be employed by resorting to 
 
 D 'J 
 
52 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 such, a course ? The fallacy was so gross that it was hardly possible to 
 deal with it in a serious manner. Why, they could not go along the 
 river or the streets without the absurdity of such a notion being 
 forcibly imposed upon their minds. He did not know whether the noble 
 lord in the course of his commercial peregrinations ever passed up or 
 down the river, for if he had he must have seen the number of steamers 
 which were constantly conveying large numbers of the labouring classes 
 at the lowest fares from the City to Lambeth. One of these steamers 
 probably afforded employment to five or six persons, and it might 
 convey a thousand passengers in the course of an afternoon. The 
 noble lord would, according to his own statement, have good ground 
 for considering how many watermen it would require to convey this 
 number of passengers, and who might thus be employed. He might 
 say that each such boat might give employment to a hundred Avater- 
 men, and might add, this was the way in which they robbed English- 
 men of the produce of their labour. He hoped the noble lord, for the 
 future, would be cautious as to adopting this mode of argument. He 
 did not anticipate any great mischief would result from what had 
 fallen from the noble lord. He thought that there was a bit in the 
 mouth of the noble lord — if he might use such an expression without 
 offence — and of course he only applied the expression to the noble 
 lord's opinions on commercial subjects. He did not think that the 
 opinions of the noble lord would make way ; but if unhappily they 
 should make way, and the Houses of Pai'liament should be induced to 
 listen to the plans of the noble Lord, he feared their proceedings would 
 not receive a check until they had brought disgrace and ruin on the 
 country." 
 
 In continuance of tlie clear line which he had already- 
 taken on the Maynooth question, he advocated in this 
 Parliament the establishment of direct diplomatic rela- 
 tions with the Court of Bome. It was all very well, he 
 urged, that they should be suspended for a period of a 
 century after the Keformation, for which period the 
 Papal See was absolutely and formally in a state of war 
 Avith England. Now that the danger and affront were 
 removed, why continue the prohibition ? He maintained, 
 further, that the indirect and underhand mode which we 
 
THE ADMIN ISTIIATION OF LOUD JOHN RUSSELL. 53 
 
 adopted of commiuiicating with the Papacy was "not 
 altogether compatible with the frankness and ingenu- 
 ousness of the English character." With rare, and, as 
 some thought, indiscreet frankness, he dwelt upon the 
 convenience of having direct and respectful communica- 
 tion with the Pope about the affairs of Ireland, in which 
 the educational and other interests of our Catholic 
 fellow-subjects were concerned. It would have been 
 much better if we could have had direct communication 
 with Rome in the case of the establishment of the 
 Queen's Colleges in Ireland. He held it to be wrong to 
 establish educational institutions of any character for the 
 behoof of Catholics, without consulting the head of their 
 faith. For to take counsel, as had been done, with the 
 Irish Catholic prelates, was as if the commander of one 
 force in time of war were to enter into negotiations 
 with the sergeants and corporals of the 0])posing host. 
 
 No subject was made so completely his own by Mr. 
 Gladstone, during the first half of the Administration of 
 Lord John Russell, as the Navigation Laws. He sup- 
 ported the successive proposals for their repeal, although 
 on grounds differing somewhat from those taken by the 
 Ministry. Thus, in 1848, when the measure was first 
 introduced, he made an able and comprehensive speech 
 on the whole subject, taking a view not exactly in ac- 
 cordance with the sentiments of either party in the 
 debate. The broad question of repeal, as a matter of 
 expediency and reasonableness, he decided in the afiirma- 
 tive; but on the specific Government scheme he ex- 
 pressed a qualified opinion. He should have preferred 
 a more gradual measure. He wished that the Govern- 
 ment had adhered to the usual traditional course of 
 
54 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 precedents, and made large concessions conditional upon 
 reciprocal concessions by other Powers. He objected to 
 the discretionary power proposed to be lodged in the 
 Queen in Council, with a view of extorting reciprocity, 
 which was a discretion too large and too delicate ; and 
 he thought the Government would have acted more 
 safely and wisely by undoing fiscal restrictions piecemeal, 
 rather than by introducing a measure of so sweeping a 
 character. He censured the policy of excluding the 
 coasting trade from this measure : we should have offered 
 to admit the Americans to our coasting trade if they 
 would admit us to theirs. 
 
 The Whigs, who had introduced their bill late in 
 the session of 1848, were compelled to withdraw it, but 
 re-introduced it in the year following, and carried it, 
 after peculiarly protracted struggles, to a successful issue. 
 In an elaborate speech, the last delivered by Mr. Glad- 
 stone on the subject, he finally expounded and justified 
 his scheme of conditional relaxation, which, nevertheless, 
 for reasons given below, he said he would not, as he 
 had intended, press to a division. Had he been prepared, 
 he said, to trouble the House with an amendment, he 
 would have proposed a clause for conditional legislation, 
 and several clauses involving legislative provisions of a 
 direct character. His plan would have been to divide 
 the whole maritime trade of the country into two classi- 
 fications — ^first, that which related to our trade with 
 foreign countries; and secondly, that which related to 
 our domestic trade, including the coastwise and the 
 colonial. He would then have proposed, that when any 
 country was disposed to give a perfect freedom to 
 British ships in regard to its foreign trade, it should 
 
!..* 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 55 
 
 receive in return a perfect freedom in regard to our 
 foreign trade ; and that, when it was disposed to give us 
 a perfect freedom in regard to all its maritime trade, it 
 should enjoy the same, so far as our maritime trade was 
 concerned, foreign and domestic, including in the latter 
 the colonial and coasting trade. He would then have 
 asked the House to deal with the colonial trade, irre- 
 spective of what foreign nations might be inclined to do 
 in the matter. He would also have proposed a clause 
 respecting the importation of tropical produce, after 
 which he would have submitted a provision absolutely 
 repealing every restraint, in the nature of a tax, on the 
 British shipowner. Such, he continued, had been the 
 outline of a plan which at one time it had been his inten- 
 tion to propose ; and he then proceeded to explain to the 
 House why it was that he had abandoned that intention. 
 
 It was his wish to see the Navigation Laws repealed, 
 but repealed in a manner which would have prevented 
 any serious shock to the great interests involved. But 
 it was evidently the resolution of the shipowners to 
 stand at all hazards by the present law, or to permit but 
 few and inconsiderable alterations in it. He could not, 
 therefore, look for any support from them, if he submitted 
 his proposition to the House. Nor had he, until that 
 moment, entirely abandoned the hope that the Govern- 
 ment might have introduced some modifications into 
 their measure, which would to some extent have met the 
 views which he had ventured to submit on the second 
 reading of the bill. But this, it was now evident, they 
 were not disposed to do. Both the Government and the 
 party representing the views of the shipowners seemed 
 to prefer a decisive course upon the whole question ; and, 
 
56 WILLIAM EWAllT GLADSTONE. 
 
 as his intention had never been to propose any plan for 
 the mere purpose of obstruction, he thought that it 
 would not now conduce to the public advantage if, by 
 submitting his j^lan, he wasted the time of the House in 
 fruitless discussions. As the issue, then, to which the 
 matter had been brought was between the continuance 
 of the present law and its unconditional repeal, he would 
 not be responsible for any course which might result in 
 retarding the repeal of the lav/, preferring, as he did, the 
 plan of the Government, with all its defects, to the 
 continuance of the present system. 
 
 A somewhat noteworthy feature of the discussion 
 which followed was a very caustic speech of Mr. 
 Disraeli, in which he adequately represented the chagrin 
 of ther Protectionists at the disappointment of their 
 expectation to have used Mr. Gladstone as a means of 
 defeating the bill in toto. He declared his entire inability 
 to comprehend his rival's conduct. Mr. Gladstone, in 
 terms at once spirited and temperate, vindicated his 
 consistency. He knew, he said, that if he had pressed 
 his amendment, he should have been supported at first, in 
 the early stages of the contest, by the Protectionist body, 
 but not with a bond fide acceptance of his proposition. 
 He knew very well that the wish was merely to make a 
 tool of him against a plan, of the general objects of which 
 he approved, and then to abandon him on the third 
 reading of the bill. He added a few sentences of comment 
 on certain observations made by Mr. Disraeli as to the 
 evil effects of Free Trade, maintaining that it was to Free 
 Trade, under the mercy of God, it was mainly owing that 
 the distress which the country had lately suffered had 
 not been much greater. 
 
THE AD3I1NISTRATI0N OF LOUD JOUN EUSSELL. [) t 
 
 After very fierce and oft-renewed struggles in both 
 Houses, this important bill received the final sanction of 
 Parliament, its operation being fixed to commence on the 
 1st of January, 1850. Mr. Gladstone's position was 
 very considerably advanced b}'^ the independent and 
 prominent line which he had taken at all stages of 
 its discussion. The progress of the debates on this 
 measure had brought Gladstone and Disraeli into closer 
 and closer relations of rivalry, and some people began to 
 speculate as to which should be the future leader of the 
 Tory party; although already others, of clearer vision, 
 predicted Mr. Gladstone's absorption in the Liberal 
 ranks. 
 
 Yet there remained not a few points of importance 
 in which a certain identity of view with Toryism of the 
 truest type continued to characterise Mr. Gladstone. 
 Thus, he made the most elaborate speeches on more than 
 one occasion in. justification of the votes which he, session 
 after session, recorded against the admission of JewA 
 into Parliament; and he continued to advocate a favour- 
 able line of policy towards the West India planters, which 
 was in its very essence Protectionist. When the move- 
 ment arose for granting the rights of constitutional self- 
 government to the colonies, Sir William Molesworth 
 and others, whose names are chiefly associated with that 
 movement, found in Mr. Gladstone a most ready and 
 willing supporter. In his own words, he summarised 
 the whole case in the phrase, " Emancipation of the 
 Colonies from home control, as far as is consistent with 
 imperial interests." He expressed especial abhorrence 
 of the system of making the heads of departments in the 
 Colonial Office the practical administrators and rulers of 
 
58 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 our dependencies, and emphatically urged our getting 
 rid of the machinery of an administrative department 
 which " had of necessity worked in a way to cause pain- 
 ful disputes." He supported aW the measures of the 
 Whigs for establishing local legislative assemblies in 
 our Antipodean and American colonies, and endeavoured, 
 with the assistance of Mr. Walpole, Sir "William Page 
 Wood, and Sir Koundell Palmer, but without success, 
 to legalise independent synodal action by the bishops, 
 clergy, and laity of the Anglican communion in the 
 colonies. 
 
 When Mr, Disraeli brought forward his great motion 
 for an inquiry into agricultural distress, in 1850, Mr. 
 Gladstone ranged himself amongst his supporters. Mr. 
 Pisraeli moved for a committee of the whole House, to 
 consider such a remission of the rural poor-rates, and 
 the imposition of a portion of them on the Consolidated 
 Fund, as would mitigate the prevailing distress. Mr. 
 Gladstone expressed himself ready to go into the con- 
 sideration of the question raised by Mr. Disraeli's 
 motion. So far from believing, as some members of the 
 Government had held, that the motion menaced a return 
 to Protection, he thought it had a tendency to weaken 
 the arguments in favour of a retrograde policy, and to 
 draw off the moderate Protectionists. He voted for the 
 motion on the same ground that Sir James Graham 
 voted against it — the ground of justice. It was impossi- 
 ble to look at the poor-rate without being struck by the 
 inequality of its incidence. The rate was levied locally 
 —first, for the purposes of policy connected with the 
 poor ; and, secondly, for the discharge of a sacred 
 obligation imposed b^ religion; but this was an old 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OP LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 59 
 
 obligation which applied to the community at large. As 
 an abstract proposition, the rate should fall upon all 
 descriptions of property : this might be impracticable, 
 but the objection of impracticability did not apply to the 
 proposition before the House. It had been said that 
 landed property came by inheritance charged with this 
 bufden ; but the burden was accompanied by a system 
 of protection which gave produce an artificial value, 
 contrary, indeed, to abstract justice, but not more so 
 than the inequality of the rate. He was thoroughly 
 convinced that it was the farmers and the independent 
 yeomen, rather than the landlords, who would benefit 
 by the change. Even if the whole benefit, after a time, 
 should be reaped by the landlords, that fact in itself 
 would not be a fatal objection. 
 
 The motion was negatived, by a majority of twenty- 
 one, in a House of 525 Members. Mr. Gladstone was 
 ' one of the minority. 
 
 The famous and now historical debate of 1850, in 
 which the whole foreign policy of Lord Palmerston and 
 the Whigs was so fiercely assailed, gave to Mr. Gladstone 
 an opportunity of making by far the most considerable 
 speech, at once in respect of magnitude and power, to 
 which he had yet given utterance. "With all the other 
 followers of Peel, he was ranged against the Foreign 
 Secretary. He spoke for several hours on the third 
 night of the debate, and thus concluded a speech worthy 
 to rank with those of Palmerston, Graham, Cobden, and 
 Cockburn in the same debate — than which higher praise 
 cannot be given : — 
 
 " There is a further appeal from this House of Parliament to the 
 people of England; but, lastly, there is also an appeal from the 
 
60 WILLIAM EWART GL.VDSTONE. 
 
 people of England to tlie general sentiment of the civilised world ; and 
 I, for my part, am of opinion that England will stand shorn of a chief 
 part of her glory and her pride if she shall be found to have separated 
 herself, through the policy she pursues abroad, from the moral supports 
 which the general and fixed convictions of mankind afford — if the day 
 shall come in which she may continue to excite the wonder and the 
 fear of other nations, but in which she shall have no part in their 
 affection and their regard. 
 
 " No, sir, let it not be so : let us recognise, and recognise with 
 frankness, the equality of the weak Avith the strong ; the principles of 
 brotherhood among nations, and of their sacred independence. When 
 we are asking for the maintenance of the rights which belong to our 
 fellow-subjects resident in Greece, let us do as we would be done by, 
 and let us pay all the respect to a feeble State, and to the infancy of 
 free institutions, which we should desire and exact from others towards 
 their maturity and their strength. Let us refrain from all gratuitous 
 and arbitrary meddling in the internal concerns of other States, even 
 as we should resent the same interference if it were attempted to be 
 practised towards ourselves. If the noble lord has indeed acted on 
 these principles, let the Government to which he belongs have your 
 verdict in its favour ; but if he has departed from them, as I contend, 
 then the House of Commons .must not shrink from the performance of 
 its duty, under whatever expectations of momentary obloquy or 
 reproach, because we shall have done what is right ; we shall enjoy 
 the peace of our own conscience ; and receive, whether sooner or a 
 little later, the approval of the public voice, for having entered our 
 solemn protest against a system of policy which we believe — nay, 
 which we know — whatever may be its first aspect, must of necessity in 
 its final result be unfavourable even to the security of British subjects 
 resident abroad, which it professes so much to study — unfavourable to 
 tlie dignity of the country, which the members of the House of Lords 
 may assert that it preserves — and equally unfavourable to that other 
 great and sacred object which also it suggests to our recollection, the 
 maintenance of peace with the nations of the world." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FINAL ABANDONMENT OF TORYISM. 
 
 Two mouths after the close of the session of I80O, the 
 nation was startled as if by the news of a foreign invasion. 
 Pope Pio Nono, who had so recently excited and dis- 
 appointed the hopes of European liberalism, issued a brief, 
 or rescript, in which he established in England a Roman 
 Catholic episcopal hierarchy, parcelling out the whole 
 land into territorial dioceses, presided over by twelve 
 bishops, and a Cardinal- Archbishop of Westminster. At 
 this unprecedented act of what the great majority of the 
 nation deemed wanton, unjustifiable " aggression," the 
 popular passion was at once most tumultuously excited. 
 "When Parliament met in 1851, the " Papal Aggression" 
 filled most men's mouths and breasts, superseding even 
 the excited expectation of the opening of the Great Exhi- 
 bition of the Industry of All Nations, and the general 
 talk about the tottering weakness of the Whig Adminis- 
 tration. And the immediate form into which the general 
 angry fervour crystallised itself was the query, " What 
 steps will the Government and the Parliament take, in 
 defiance and repulsion of the 'aggression?]" To the 
 satisfaction of most, the Queen's Speech contained this 
 paragraph : — " The recent assumption o.' certain ecclesi- 
 astical titles conferred by a foreign power has excited 
 
62 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 strong feelings in this country; and large bodies of my 
 subjects have presented addresses to me^ expressing attach- 
 ment to the Throne, and praying that such assumptions 
 should be resisted. I have assured them of my resolution 
 to maintain the rights of my crown and the independence 
 of the nation against all encroachment, from whatever 
 quarter it may proceed. I have, at the same time, ex- 
 pressed my earnest desire and firm determination, under 
 God's blessing, to maintain unimpaired the religious 
 liberty which is so justly prized by the people of this 
 country. It will be for you to consider the measure 
 which will be laid before you on this subject." 
 
 A few days afterwards Lord John Russell moved for 
 leave to introduce a bill for preventing the " assumption 
 of any title, not only from any diocese now existing, but 
 from any territory or place in any part of the United 
 Kingdom, and to restrain parties from obtaining by 
 virtue of such titles any control over trust property." 
 Mr. Gladstone took no part in the preliminary debate on 
 the motion for leave to introduce the bill. 
 
 Meanwhile, ere the final discussion of the measure on 
 its merits, a temporary excitement of a minor character 
 was interposed by the occurrence of a ministerial crisis. 
 The Cabinet daily grew more pitiably feeble. Sir Charles 
 Wood introduced, in March, a Budget which was con- 
 demned on all sides, especially by reason of its proposal 
 to renew the unpopular income tax. Lord John ten- 
 dered his resignation. On his recommendation, Lord 
 Stanley was sent for. His Lordship failed — first, in an 
 attempt to fuse together a Cabinet of Protectionists and 
 Peelites; the latf.er — Sir James Graham being their spokes- 
 man — refusing to repair the breach which dated from the 
 
FINAL ABANDONMENT OF TORYISM. 63 
 
 early months of 1846 : he more conspicuously failed in 
 his subsequent endeavour to construct a Ministry from 
 the ranks of his immediate followers. Then overtures 
 were made to effect a coalition between the Whigs and 
 the Peelites. Negotiations were entered into between 
 Lord John Kussell on the one hand, and Lord Aberdeen 
 on the other. They failed — failed only on the Papal 
 Aggression question. Sir James Graham, speaking for 
 himself and his political associates, stated in the House 
 of Commons that they were quite prepared to effect a 
 coalition with the Whigs on two out of the three grounds 
 proposed to them. One was a thorough adhesion to the 
 principles of Pree Trade, and the second, their readiness to 
 entertain the question of further Parliamentary Eeform. 
 But the negotiation fairly broke down on the Ecclesiastical 
 Titles Assumption question, on which all the Peelites 
 differed toto ccelo from Ministers. So the Whigs resumed 
 their places, and the crisis was at an end. 
 
 Immediately afterwards the all important question 
 came on for discussion. Mr. Gladstone delivered a speech 
 brimful of ecclesiastical lore, and in which he, with much 
 ingenuity, justified the unpopular position which he and 
 a small and heterogeneous minority of the House of 
 Commons assumed. He said that his vote would be- 
 
 * governed by regard to principles of imperial policy, and 
 to the welfare of the entire community, with reference to 
 the interests of the Church of England. He believed 
 that our constitution was strong enough to resist any 
 
 ^ aggression whatever by any Power in the world. The 
 Church of England was not in such a position j but the 
 power of the Church could not be defended by temporal 
 legislation, which had been tried before and utterly failed. 
 
64: WILLIAM EVVART GLADSTONE. 
 
 If it could be .shown that the Papal authorities had 
 interfered witli our temporal aifairs, which was not per- 
 mitted to any other religious body, legislation was not 
 only just, but called for. Until, hov/ever, that line was 
 passed, we had no right to interfere. He admitted that 
 the language of the Papal documents was not only un- 
 fortunate, but of a vaunting and boastful character, of 
 which complaint might justly be made ; but was it just 
 to pass a proscribing Act alfecting our Roman Catholic 
 fellow-subjects, on account of language for which they 
 were not responsible 1 We must look to the substance 
 of the Act, and by that stand or fall. If the law of 
 nations had been broken, nothing was more disparaging 
 to the country than to proceed only by Act of Parliament, 
 imposing a penalty. There was nothing to prevent our 
 representing the wrong to the party who had done it, 
 and demanding redress. The bill, however, was before the 
 House, and the question was what to do with a measure 
 which no one had said was adequate for the purpose. 
 
 He then went on to point out various deficiencies and 
 anomalies in the bill, which, he said, did not defend the 
 territorial rights of the Crown; and with respect to 
 Homisli aggression, there was a preliminary question — 
 whether the rescript of the Pope had a temporal character. 
 That the Roman Catholics recognised the Pope as their 
 spiritual head, did not justify the withholding one jot of 
 religious freedom. It was not enough that bishops were 
 appointed by a foreign authority ; it must be shown that 
 they were not spiritual officers, but appointed for tem- 
 poral purposes. If the appointment of bishops per se was 
 a spiritual, not a temporal act, why exempt the Scottish 
 bishops? There was no proof, as to any of the details 
 
FINAL ABANDONMENT OF TORYISM. Co 
 
 of ecclesiastical machinery, that there was any temporal 
 character in the rescript distinct from that incidental to 
 the disciplinary ari'angements of every religious body, and 
 without such proof there was not a shadow of ground for 
 the bill. In the forgotten corners of the law might be 
 found doctrines of royal supremacy which might make 
 this act of the Pope an aggression ; but if we fell back 
 upon these doctrines, he protested against their applica- 
 tion to one religious body alone. 
 
 He meant to introduce a new and important point, to 
 which no previous reference had been made in the course 
 of the prolonged debate — namely, the effect which the 
 measure would exert upon the two parties into which the 
 Romish community was divided. For three hundred years 
 the Roman Catholic laity and secular clergy — the mode- 
 rate party — had been struggling, with the sanction of the 
 British Government, for this very measure, the appoint- 
 ment of diocesan bishops, which the extreme party — the 
 regulars and cardinals at the court of Rome — ^had been 
 all along struggling to resist. The present legislation 
 would drive the Roman Catholics back upon the Pope 
 and, teasing them with a miniature penal law, would 
 alienate and estrange them. 
 
 The general public opinion as to the line taken by Mr. 
 Gladstone and his associates — some of them regular, and 
 others occasional, allies — on this question, was, as is usual, 
 accurately represented by the comments of the Times in 
 the speech which we have thus condensed : — 
 
 " We cannot imagine that the party of Sir Robert Peel has improved 
 ts position by the part it has adopted in the recent debate ; nor, what- 
 ever may be thought of Mr. Gladstone's talents as a debater, do ^vei 
 think taat his speech will add much to his reputation as a practical and 
 
 E 
 
66 ' WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 far-siglited statesman. The elaborate argument by which h© seeks to 
 prove that the aggression of the Pope should have been met by nego- 
 tiation is, with reference to the position of the Koraan Pontiff, simply 
 puerile. The Pope, as a temporal prince, has nothing to lose, and, 
 strong in his weakness, can afford to defy our power. As an eccle- 
 siastical potentate, he set all on the cast when he issued his rescript. 
 Negotiation, though it might have prevented it, could never recall it. 
 Besides, Mr. Gladstone was at great pains to show that the Pope is in 
 the hands of the ultra party in the Koman Church, the party bitterly 
 hostile to this country, and determined in their arrogance and bigotry 
 to push matters to every extremity against xis. To be sure, Mr. 
 Gladstone has, with great ingenuity, in flat contradiction to his former 
 statement, sought to prove that this was the measure, not of the ultra, 
 but moderate party at Rome ; but as both these statements cannot be 
 true, and as the former is confirmed by the unexceptionable authority of 
 Lord Shrewsbury, we take the liberty of adopting it in preference to 
 its contradiction, which Mr. Gladstone asserts with equal confidence. 
 Mr. Gladstone admits that we have a right to see that the aggression is 
 not of a temporal nature, and in the same breath denies our right to 
 inquire into the necessity of the new hierarchy ; but is not the fact that 
 the new hierarchy is not wanted, for spiritual purposes pregnant proof 
 that it is intended to serve some temporal object ? If we are to leave 
 to the Roman Catholics unfettered judgment as to what ecclesiastical 
 changes they require, and, under the advice of Mr. Gladstone, to re- 
 nounce the use of our reason on the subject, what safeguard does he 
 leave us against the encroachments of a religion which has ever refused 
 to distinguish between temporal and spiritual authority, and always 
 employed the second as a means of obtaining the first ? Mr. Gladstone 
 admits the arrogance of the brief and the pastoral, but he does not 
 admit what is quite as evident as their arrogance — the claim of dominion 
 which they put forth in behalf of a Power which has never renounced 
 its claim to the feudal sovereignty of England. We ought, he says, to 
 meet this arrogance with fresh conciliation, for, if not, we shall unite 
 the Roman Catholics against us, and strengthen the hands of the ultra 
 party at Rome. Surely, after we have seen the Roman Catholic mem- 
 bers putting up their votes to auction for the purpose of revenge, and 
 felt in the recent aggression the utmost rancour of the ultra party at 
 Rome, but little is left for us to fear. Whatever be Mr. Gladstone's 
 merits as an apologist of the Pope, they are not appreciated either by 
 the House or the country, neither of which evince the least inclination 
 
FINAL ABANDONMENT OF TORYISM. 67 
 
 to place themselves under the guidance of statesmen who, regardless of 
 the just susceptibilities of the nation, conceal their own lukewarm 
 attachment to Protestantism behind the loosely-worn mask of a spurious 
 liberality." 
 
 Rather as a specimen of Mr. Gladstone's style at this 
 epoch of his public career, than because we deem it neces- 
 sary to the further elucidation of the position which he 
 took on this exciting question, we present verbatim the 
 concluding passage of the oration, in which he thus in- 
 geniously and pungently made rejoinder to a somewhat 
 clap-trap appeal by Lord John Russell: — 
 
 " The character of England is in our hands. Let us feel the re- 
 sponsibility that belongs to us, and let us rely on it, if we make this 
 step backwards, it is one we shall have to retrace with pain. We 
 cannot turn back the tendencies of the age towards religious liberty. 
 It is our business to forward them. To endeavour to turn them back 
 is childish, and every effort you may make in that direction will recoil 
 upon you with disaster and disgrace. The noble lord at the head of 
 the Government appealed to the gentlemen who sit behind me, in the 
 names of Hampden and Pym. 1 have great reverence for the names of 
 Hampden and Pym, in one portion at least of their political career ; 
 because they were persons energetically engaged in resisting oppression. 
 But I would rather have heard Hampden and Pym quoted on any other 
 subject than one which relates to the mode of legislation, or the policy 
 to be adopted in dealing with our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens, 
 because, if there was one. blot on their escutcheon, if there was one 
 painful — I would almost say odious — feature in the character of tlie 
 party of whom they were the most distinguished chiefs, it was the 
 bitter and ferocious intolerance which in them became the more power- 
 ful because it was directed against the Roman Catholics alone. I would 
 appeal in their names to gentlemen who sit on this side of the House, 
 If Hampden and Pym were friends of freedom, so were Clarendon and 
 Newcastle ; so were the gentlemen who sustained the principle of 
 loyalty, while the principle of freedom was sustained by those whose 
 names were quoted by the noble lord. If he appeals to you in the 
 name of Hampden and Pym, I appeal to you in the name of the great 
 men to whom Hallam says, ' we owe the preservation of the throne of 
 
 E 2 
 
68 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 this ancient monarchy,' in favour of the Roman Catholics. They were 
 not always seeking to tighten the chain and deepen the brand. Their 
 disposition was to relax the severity of the law, and attract the affections 
 of their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects to the constitution, by treating 
 them as brethren. I hope my appeal in their name will be equally 
 appropriate to the appeal made by the noble lord in the name of 
 Hampden and Pym. 
 
 " We are here strong in the consciousness of a strong cause. . . . 
 We, the opponents of the bill, are a minority, insignificant in point of 
 .numbers. We are more insignificant, because we have no ordinary 
 bond of union. What is it that binds us together against you but the 
 conviction that we have on our side the principle of justice — the con- 
 viction that we shall soon have on our side the course of public opinion. 
 Minority as we are, we are sustained in our path by the consciousness 
 that we serve both a generous Queen and a generous people, and that 
 the generous people will recognise the truth of the facts we present to 
 them. But, above all, we are sustained by the sense of justice which 
 we feel belongs to the cause we are advocating, and because we are 
 determined to follow that bright star of justice beaming from the 
 heavens, whithersoever it may lead." 
 
 Without going into the merits of the essential dispute 
 involved in the great controversy which gave to the year 
 1851 its per^^Har character, so far as the Parliamentary 
 arena was concerned, we cannot help remarking the strong 
 and noble passion — for it amounted to a passion — for 
 freedom, which was displayed all through this memorable 
 address. People began to say that Toryism was fast 
 losing its hold on the sentiments of the Member for the 
 elder University, and that some day or other he must 
 openly range himself on the Liberal side. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone uad spent the winter of 1850-51 in 
 Naples. "While there, he was induced to make personal 
 examination into the condition of the political prisoners 
 — victims of the part they had played in the Kevolution 
 two years before, and victims of the perfidy of their 
 
FINAL ABANDONMENT OF TORYISM. 69 
 
 sovereign, who crowded his prisons with the very best 
 of his subjects. When he had possessed himself of 
 the facts, he issued a pamphlet, which was followed 
 by a second supplementary one, in which he revealed 
 Avhat he had discovered to sympathetic and indignant 
 Christendom. The known character of the writer, as 
 well as the fact that he had not as yet displayed any but 
 Conservative sympathies, gave to his hrochures a very 
 high weight and authority. His word was taken — a 
 more obscure man's might have passed unheeded — when 
 he stated, as the result of what he had seen with his own 
 eyes, or what at least he personally vouched for and was 
 prepared to stand by — that the law had been violated by 
 sending men to j^rison without even the formality of a 
 sham trial ; that a former Prime Minister and the majority 
 of a recent Parliament were in prison ; that there were 
 in all twenty thousand prisoners for political offences j^ 
 and that they were chained together two and two. f Late V\ 
 in the session of 1851, Sir De Lacy Evans, in his place in ' 
 Parliament, asked of Lord Palmerston a question, the 
 gist of which was an inquiry into the accuracy of Mr. 
 Gladstone's statements — whether the victims " are suffer- 
 ing refinements of barbarity and cruelty unknown in any 
 other civilised country ?" In his reply, Lord Palmerston 
 used these words : — " It has not been deemed a part of 
 the duty of the British Government to make any formal 
 representation to the Government of Naples in a matter 
 that relates entirely to the internal affairs of that country. 
 At the same time I thought it right, seeing that Mr. 
 Gladstone — whom I may freely name, though not in 
 his capacity of a Member of Parliament — has done him- 
 self, as I think, very great honour by the course he 
 
70 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 pursued at Naples, and by the course he has followed 
 since; for I think, when you see an English gentleman 
 who goes to pass a winter at Naples, instead of confining 
 himself to those amusements that abound in that city ; 
 instead of diving into volcanoes and exploring excavated 
 cities — ^when we see him going to courts of justice, visiting 
 prisons, descending into dungeons, and examining, great 
 numbers of the cases of unfortunate victims of illegality and 
 injustice, with a view afterwards to enlist public opinion 
 in the endeavour to remedy these abuses — I think that is 
 a course that does honour to the person who pursues it." 
 
 Lord Palmerston went on to say tliat he had sent 
 copies of Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet to every English 
 ambassador, with an injunction that, in the interests 
 of humanity, they should bring them under the notice of 
 the Courts to which they were severally accredited. 
 This statement was most enthusiastically cheered. The 
 importance of these productions of Mr. Gladstone's heart 
 and pen can hardly be exaggerated. They did very 
 much to arouse and intensify the sympathy of all classes ;>-' 
 of English society for long-sufiering Italy, i They did 
 not a little to pave the way for what Cavour, Garibaldi, 
 Napoleon, and Bismark afterwards effected or were the 
 means of effecting. As regarded their author personally, 
 they did much to restore the popularity which he had 
 largely diminished by the unpopular line he had taken 
 on the Papal aggression dispute. 
 
 The year 1852 was, in one or two respects, a memor- 
 able year — memorable, if for nothing else than this, that , 
 within its compass of twelve months it saw three distinct 
 statesmen — Lords John Russell, Derby, and Aberdeen — 
 occupying in succession the post of Premier. 
 
FINAL ABANDONMENT OP TORYISM. 71 
 
 Late in 1851, Lord Palmerston was expelled by Lord 
 John Russell from the Foreign Office. Early in 1852, 
 he revenged himself by concocting with the Tories a 
 defeat of Ministers. Lord John Kussell resigned, and 
 Lord Derby became Premier. Mr. Gladstone was 
 offered (so, at least, the most competent authorities 
 allege) a seat in the new Administration ; but definitely 
 declined it, thus decisively abjuring his connection with 
 the Tories as a party, and indicating that by some other 
 ladder than theirs he chose to rise to higher altitudes 
 than he had yet attained. Lord Derby's Administration 
 was short-lived, and Mr. Gladstone did more than any 
 other man to bring about its destruction. The an- 
 tagonism and rivalry between Gladstone and Disraeli, 
 which had been growing ever since the death of Peel, 
 became in this year most conspicuous, and Gladstone 
 sought out every occasion of daring an encounter. 
 Early in the session, Mr. Gladstone divided the House 
 on the proposal of the Government to bestow the seats 
 vacated by the disfranchisement of Sudbury and St. 
 Albans for bribery, upon the West Riding and South Lan- 
 cashire. The question raised by the division really was, 
 whether Ministers should content themselves with the 
 discharge merely of necessary and routine business, and 
 hasten a dissolution, that the country might extort from 
 them either a recantation or a re-affirmation of Protectionist 
 principles ; and he beat them by a majority of 234 to 148. 
 
 In the course of this session he renewed — with able 
 support from like-minded High Churchmen of character, 
 such as the great lawyers, Koundell Palmer and Page 
 Wood, but without success — his attempt to bestow poweis 
 of self-government upon the branches of tlie Church of 
 
72 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 England in the colonies, which have never yet been 
 enjoyed by their mother at home. In the course of the 
 discussion on Mr. Spooner's annual anti-Maynooth 
 motion, he used these remarkable words — ^remarkable 
 when viewed in the light of the events of 1868 : — " If 
 the (Maynooth) endowment were withdrawn, the Parlia- 
 ment which withdrew it must be prepared to enter upon 
 the whole subject of the reconstruction of the ecclesias- 
 tical arrangements in Ireland." It is noteworthy that 
 this significant utterance was received with loud cheers. 
 For his part at least, Sir Robert Inglis said he interpreted 
 the cheers as meaning that their utterers understood 
 Mr. Gladstone's expression, " re-construction," to signify 
 "further confiscation of the property of the Irish Church." 
 
 On the assembling of the new Parliament, Mr. 
 Villiers at once put on the notice paper a resolution, the 
 practical effect of which was to compel Ministers to 
 accept, ex animo, the Free Trade shibboleth; and the 
 dose was offered to their lips in a very bitter and un- 
 palatable form. Lord Palmerston came to the rescue, 
 with a resolution couched in more mild and acceptable 
 terms. Mr. Gladstone gave his support to the peace- 
 maker. Ministers accepted Lord Palmerston*s amended 
 resolution, which was carried. 
 
 In 1852, the Duke of "Wellington passed away, full 
 of honours as of years. Of all the Parliamentary eulo- 
 giums passed upon his memory, we doubt if any, save 
 Lord Derby's, equalled — ^we know of none that excelled 
 — Mr. Gladstone's. 
 
 " It may never be given to anotlier subject of the British Crown," he 
 said, "to perform services so brilliant as he performed ; it may never be 
 given to another man to hold the sword which was to gain independence 
 
FINAL ABANDONMENT OF TORYISM. 73 
 
 for Europe ; to rally the nations around it, and while England saved 
 herself by her constancy, to save Europe by her example ; it may never 
 be given to another man, after having attained such eminence, after an 
 unexampled series of victories, to show equal modei'ation in peace as 
 he had shown greatness in war, and to devote the remainder of his 
 life to the cause of internal and external peace for that country which 
 he had so served; it may never be given to another man to have 
 equal authority, both with the Sovereign he served and with the Senate 
 of which he was to. the end a venerated member; it may never be 
 given to another man, after such a career, to preserve even to the last 
 the full possession of those great faculties with which he was endowed, 
 and to carry on the services of one of the most important depart- 
 ments of the State with unexampled regularity and success, even to 
 the latest day of his life. These are circumstances — these are qualities 
 which may never again occur in the history of this country. But 
 there are qualities which the Duke of Wellington displayed, of which 
 we may all act in humble imitation — that sincere and unceasing 
 devotion to our country, that honest and upright determination to act 
 for the benefit of the country on every occasion ; that devoted loyalty 
 which, while it made him ever anxious to serve the Crown, never 
 induced him to conceal from the Sovereign that which he believed to 
 be the truth ; that devotedness in the constant performance of his 
 duty ; that temperance of his life, which enabled him at all times to 
 give his mind and his faculties to the services which he was called 
 upon to perform ; that regular, consistent, and unceasing piety by 
 which he was distinguished at all times in his life — these are qualities 
 that are attainable by others, and these are qualities which should not 
 be lost as an example." 
 
 The final fight between Ministers and their opponents 
 Kcame ofi" on the Financial Statement. Mr. Disraeli 
 proposed to remit one-half of the Malt Tax, to effect a 
 considerable re-adjustment of the Income Tax, to extend 
 its incidence to natives of Ireland receiving salaries or 
 dividends from the Public Funds, but exempting land- 
 owners and tenant farmers ; and, lastly, to bring houses 
 rented as low as XI within the operation of the House 
 Tax, which Sir Charles Wood had substituted (with a 
 
74 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 £20 limit) for the odious Window Tax. Mr. Gladstone 
 led the attack upon this most unpopular, and, as the best 
 authorities held, most ill-conceived and vulnerable mea- 
 sure. Much heat was evoked in the discussion, as these 
 sentences, extracted from one of Mr. Gladstone's speeches 
 on the Budget, sufficiently prove : — " We are accustomed 
 to attach to the words of the Ministers of the Crown a 
 great authority ; and that authority, as it is required by 
 the public interest, so it is usually justified by the 
 character and conduct of Ministers. But the right 
 hon. gentleman is not entitled to charge with insolence 
 men who — I must tell him that he is not entitled to say 
 to my right hon. friend (Sir J. Graham) that he 
 regards, but does not respect him. I must tell the 
 right hon. gentleman, that whatever he has learned, 
 he has not learned the limits of discretion, of moderation, 
 and forbearance, that ought to restrain the conduct and 
 language of every member of this House — the disregard 
 of which would be an offence in the meanest among us, 
 and which is an offence of tenfold weight in the leader 
 of the House of Commons." And he thus summed up 
 the plain grounds of his objections to the measure on its 
 merits : — *' He voted against the Budget, not only be- 
 cause he disapproved, on general grounds, of its princi- 
 ples, but emphatically, because it was his firm conviction 
 that this was the most perverted Budget in its tendency 
 and ultimate effects he had ever seen ; and if the House 
 should sanction its delusive scheme, the day would come 
 when it would look back with bitter and late, though 
 ineffectual repentance." 
 
 The Tories immediately resigned, and in a few days 
 Mr. Gladstone held Mr. Disraeli's office. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD ABERDEEN. 
 
 The prominent — indeed the leading — part which Mr. 
 Gladstone had taken in the overthrow of the Administra- 
 tion of Lord Derby, naturally designated him for high 
 office in that which succeeded it. And the circumstance 
 that it was on most important questions of finance that 
 he had gained his triumph, coupled with his previous 
 experience at the Board of Trade, as appropriately pointed 
 out the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer as that most 
 
 '^ fitted for his occupancy. Ere the prorogation of Par- 
 liament, late in December of 1852, Lord Aberdeen, 
 speaking for himself and his colleagues in the Coalition 
 Ministry of which he was the head, with sufficient clear- 
 ness indicated the principle on which the fusion of the 
 Peelite section of the Tories and the Whigs had been 
 established. He expressed his conviction that no Govern- 
 tnent was possible in the existing state of parties except 
 it were Conservative, nor was any Government possible 
 except it were Liberal. These terms had ceased to have 
 any definite meaning, except as party cries, and the 
 
 » country was sick of them. The measures, therefore, of 
 the Government would be Conservative as well as Liberal ; 
 for both were essentially necessary. He looked in vain 
 for any indication of what had been alleged by some — the 
 
76 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 spread of democratic principles ; on the contrary, the 
 country at large was never more tranquil or contented ; 
 and though there might be speculative democrats among 
 us, these were not the men who subverted states. The 
 broad features of the programme which the general 
 public expected to be submitted to them by the new 
 Ministers were thus summarised by an intelligent con- 
 temporary journalist : — 
 
 "If it prove, as we trust it will, a wise and reforming, but truly 
 Conservative Ministry, it will be supported by the moderate and 
 enlightened public, which forms the vast majority of this nation. Such 
 a Ministry will have many noble tasks before it. To simplify and 
 amend the law, to extend the franchise to unrepresented property, 
 intelligence, and good conduct ; to remove impediments from trade and 
 industry ; to promote the employment of the people ; to untax cleanli- 
 ness, health, and knowledge ; to extend the blessings of education to 
 every British child ; to amend our whole system of taxation ; to con- 
 ciliate and satisfy our colonies and dependencies ; to promote our 
 wholesome and beneficial influence over the greater and lesser nations 
 of the v/orld ; to cement and increase a friendly understanding with all 
 civilised countries ; to maintain the national honour and dignity in all 
 circumstances, great or little ; these are the onerous but honourable 
 objects to be attained, and in the prosecution of which an honest 
 Ministry, even though its enemies may call it a Coalition, will find 
 abundance ®f supporters." 
 
 A few days after taking office, Lord Aberdeen re- 
 marked : — " A crisis in our financial arrangements would 
 speedily occur by a cessation of a large branch of the 
 revenue (the Income Tax), and it would tax the ingenuity 
 of all concerned to readjust our finances according to the 
 principles of justice and equity." On the 18th of May, 
 1853, Mr. Gladstone introduced his first Budget in s 
 speech of nearly five hours' duration. And over it he 
 spread the equally agreeable announcements of surplus of 
 revenue, reduction, and remission of taxation. His chief 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD ABERDEEN. 77 
 
 reduction was a diDiiniition of the duty ou tea from 
 2s. 2Jd. a pound to Is., by successive falls, running over 
 
 ^ five years ; and the duty on soap, producing £1,100,000, 
 he proposed to abolish altogether and at once. These 
 great financial strokes were most gladly received, as 
 they were at once felt by every household in the king- 
 dom. He confessed himself unequal to the equitable 
 adjustment of the Income Tax, and instead thereof pro- 
 posed to abolish it altogether after a gradual diminution 
 running over seven years. The Budget further included 
 a reform in the Customs tariff* worthy of being ranked 
 with those of Sir Robert Peel. He proposed the reduction 
 of the duties on butter, cheese, eggs, fruit, and on many 
 other articles of minor importance ; and no less than 133 
 tax-paying articles had their duties entirely remitted. 
 The assessed taxes — " that stronghold of iniquity which 
 
 > has so long stood the attacks of the genteel sufferers who 
 pay them " — ^were also boldly grappled. He proposed the 
 reduction of the duties on carriages, private as well as 
 hackney, and on horses and dogs, " so that there need be 
 no longer a question as to the pedigree of every pet." In 
 the stamps also a reform was chalked out. He proposed, 
 the abolition of the receipt stamp, a Queen's-head to frank 
 
 I ja receipt as it did a letter. The stamp duty on life 
 assurance, and also those levied on attorneys and solicitors, 
 also came in for reduction. As for the taxes on know- 
 ledge, which then were levied threefold — paper duty, 
 advertisement duty, and the compulsory newspaper 
 stamp — ^he proposed to reduce the duty on advertisements 
 a hundred per cent., and to fix the duty on each news- 
 paper at a penny a copy, without regard to its size, and 
 without imposing an additional duty on supplements. 
 
78 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 To fill up the fiscal vacuum thus created, Mr. Glad- 
 stone proposed to raise two millions a year, by extending 
 the legacy duty to all successions, and by abolishing the 
 unjust exemption which real property had hitherto en- 
 joyed. And he increased the duty on Scotch spirits by 
 one shilling, and on Irish by eightpence a gallon. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone thus concluded his masterly speech, 
 
 the salient points of which we have reproduced in the 
 
 following words : — 
 
 " I am almost afraid to look at the clock — shamefully reminding 
 me, as it must, how long I have trespassed on the House. All I can 
 say in apology is, that I have endeavoured to keep closely to the 
 topics which I have had before me — 
 
 ' — immensum spatiis confecimus sequor, 
 Et jam tempus sequum fumantia solvere colla.* 
 These are the proposals of the Government. They may be approved 
 or they may be condemned ; but I have this full confidence, that it 
 Avill be admitted that we have not sought to evade the difficulties of 
 the position ; that we have not concealed those difficulties either 
 from ourselves or from others ; that we have not attempted to coun- 
 teract them by narrow or flimsy expedients ; that we have prepared 
 plans which, if you will adopt them, will go some way to close up 
 many vexed financial questions, which, if not now settled, may be 
 attended with public inconvenience, and even with public danger in 
 future years, and under less favourable circumstances ; that we have 
 endeavoured, in the plans we have now submitted to you, to make the 
 path of our successors in future years not more arduous but more 
 easy; and I may be permitted to add, that while we have sought to 
 do justice, by the changes we propose in taxation, to intelligence and 
 skill as compared with property — while we have sought to do justice 
 to the great labour community of England by furthering their relief 
 from indirect taxation, we have not been guided by any desire to put 
 one class against another ; we have felt we should best maintain onv 
 own honour, that we should best meet the views of Parliament, and 
 best promote the interests of the country, by declining to draw any 
 invidious distinction between class and class— by adopting it to our- 
 selves as a sacred aim to diffuse and distribute the burdens as we 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD ABERDEEN. 79 
 
 must, and the beuefits if we can, with equal and impartial hand ; and 
 •we have the consolation of believing, that by proposals such as these 
 we contribute so far as ia us lies, not only to develop the material 
 ( *' resources of the country, but to knit the various parts of this great 
 nation yet more closely than ever to that throne and to those institu- 
 tions under which it is our happiness to live." 
 
 By the Tories the resolutions based upon the Financial 
 Statement were encountered with the hottest opposition, 
 ^ Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton commenced the onslaught 
 by an amendment condemning the propositions about 
 the Income Tax as " alike impolitic and unjust." He said 
 he hoped that Mr. Gladstone would, as others had done 
 before him (the allusion obviously being to the last Whig 
 Chancellor, Sir Charles Wood), "retain his position and 
 correct his measure." Mr. Newdegate attacked the 
 whole Budget, and excited great laughter by describing 
 the abolition of the soap duty as " another boon to Man- 
 , Chester." He fiercely demanded when these boons to 
 Manchester were to end. Mr. Cobden considered the 
 scheme " a bold and honest proposal,** and expressed, at 
 the conclusion of a long speech, his sincere hope that the 
 Budget, which he believed had been generally accepted 
 ^ by the country, would, in its main provisions, pass the 
 House. Mr. Cardwell called upon the House to "give its 
 cordial assent to a measure replete with comfort and 
 happiness to the people." Mr. Lowe held that " what- 
 ever errors might be charged against the Budget, it was 
 a financial scheme conceived in no servile spirit." Mr. 
 Disraeli denounced " this obsequious deference to special 
 interests," and concluded a most sarcastic speech by 
 taunting Lord John Russell with having thrown away 
 the Whig party, and " accepted a subordinate office under 
 subordinate officers of Sir Robert Peel," and concluded by 
 
80 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 warning the representatives of large towns against split- 
 ting up the national character of the country into sepa- 
 rate sections, lest they should turn a first-rate kingdom, 
 into a second-rate republic. Lord John Kussell ended a 
 reply of much dignity by speaking of Mr. Gladstone's 
 name as one " to be envied among the financial ministers 
 of this country. If, in order to do this, it has been his 
 fortune to live before his age, I trust he will find his 
 reward in the approbation and support of this House, 
 and in the gratitude of an admiring people." 
 
 Amid much cheering, the amendment of Sir Edward 
 Lytton was negatived by 323 to 252. After many 
 other minor contests, in which much larger majo- 
 rities recorded their votes with Ministers, the scheme 
 finally passed the ordeal of the House of Commons at 
 Midsummer, and within a few days it was ratified by 
 the Peers. 
 
 This great measure, the first of a series of great fiscal 
 reforms introduced by Mr. Gladstone, was thoroughly 
 approved by the majority of the nation, and elevated its 
 author to a popularity which he had not as yet enjoyed. 
 People of calm habit of mind remarked upon the amount 
 of relief which it gave without injuring the national 
 credit. There was hardly a class that was not greatly 
 interested in the success of his propositions. As it was 
 well put at the time : — " With the reduction on soap, 
 tea, foreign butter, cheese, eggs, fruit, and more than 250 
 other articles, carriages, horses, and stamps, we have no 
 hesitation in saying that the man with ^120 a year will 
 be at once better ofi" with the proposed changes, even on a 
 bare computation of losses and gains, without taking 
 into account the stimulus that such remissions must give 
 
r 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD ABERDEEN. 81 
 
 to trade. The case of tlie artisan we will leave to him- 
 self, or rather to his wife, for if he will only tell her 
 fairly the contents of the Budget, she can tell him that 
 he will save several pounds a year by it." 
 
 " On the whole," said the Times^ " we cannot but con- 
 gratulate the British people on the gi*eat enterprise, the 
 rare opportunities, and the high favour of Heaven, to which 
 they owe the possibility of these great, we had almost said 
 unexpected, reductions from their now hereditary burdens. 
 We are at last happily doing what it is the first law of 
 nature to do — we are transmitting to our children a 
 richer, a nobler, and a less encumbered inheritance. While 
 we sustain the glory of our forefathers, we are wiping 
 away, by our own toils, the records of their folly and 
 extravagances ; and have at last some hope that the day 
 may actually come when England will be as free from 
 the creditor at home as from the conqueror abroad." 
 
 Hopeful, stimulating, and encouraging words these ! 
 But, under Providence, circumstances, against which not 
 the combined sagacity of all the finance Ministers who 
 ever lived could foresee, caused, ere the end of the year, 
 very different prospects for the land. There was a sadly 
 deficient harvest in 1853, not only in Great Britain, but 
 in every corn-producing country. But that which, at the 
 close of 1853, riveted all men's attention, was the pro- 
 bability of its being the last year of the great peace which 
 followed the wars of the Frtach Revolution. The Czar 
 Nicholas was making his final preparations for his spring 
 at the throat of the Ottoman " Sick Man." Mr. Glad- 
 stone went to Manchester in October, to inaugurate a 
 statue of Sir Robei-t Peel. In the course of one of the 
 speeches which he delivered there, he used these words : — 
 
 F 
 
82 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 " The absorption of power "by one of the great potentates of Europe 
 threatening to override all the rest, would be dangerous to the peace 
 of the world ; the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire would precipitate 
 that dangerous condition of affairs ; and against that result it is the 
 duty of England to set herself, at any cost. Not that the Government 
 or the people of this country can desire war — a calamity which stains 
 the face of nature with hunaan gore, gives loose rein to crime, and takes 
 bread from the people. No doubt negotiation is repugnant to the 
 national impatience at the sight of injustice and oppression ; it is beset 
 with delay, intrigue, and chicane. But these are not so horrible as 
 war, if negotiation can be made to result in saving this country from a 
 calamity which deprives the nation of subsistence, and arrests the 
 operations of industry. To attain that result, if possible — still to 
 attain it, if still possible — which is even yet their hope — her Majesty's 
 Ministers have persevered in exercising that self-command and that 
 self-restraint, which impatience may mistake for iiidifference, feeble- 
 ness, or cowardice, but which are truly the crowning greatness of a 
 great people, an.I which do not evince the want of readiness to vin- 
 dicate, when the time conies, the honour of this country." 
 
 These were ominous and foreboding words — the words 
 of one hoping against hope. And they were all the more 
 sad that they were uttered by a man who was known 
 personally to be a lover as much of peace as of wise na- 
 tional parsimony; and by that Minister who was the 
 official guardian of the purse-strings of the nation. 
 
 In January, 1854, the hopes of peace had almost en- 
 tirely disappeared. The massacre of Sinope produced 
 universal indignation, and destroyed all confidence in the 
 assurances of the Czar Nicholas. And the entrance of 
 the allied fleets into the Black Sea, itself almost an act 
 of hostility, greatly diminished the chances of his returning 
 a favourable answer to the representations of the Western 
 Powers. On the 28th of March, Her Majesty declared 
 war against Hussia. 
 
 jMr. Gladstone took no part in the early and acri- 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUD ABERDEEN. 83 
 
 moiiious stages of discussion, in 1854, as to the way in 
 which the Cabinet of which he was a member had "drifted 
 into " the war. In the intervals of these hot and oft-rej^eated 
 contests — premonitions of the impending resignation ol 
 the Premiership by Lord Aberdeen — various domestic 
 bills were introduced — introduced, for the most part, only 
 to be withdrawn. One of these was a measure brought in 
 by Lord John Kussell, to make certain alterations in the 
 oaths taken by members of Parliament. Mr. Gladstone 
 supported it in a speech which is worthy of passing notice, 
 as it contained his first Parliamentary avowal of a change 
 of opinion on a subject on which we have already seen 
 that he more than once expressed, by speech and vote, 
 opinions hostile to those entertained by the Liberal party. 
 He plainly stated his belief that the strength of the 
 country and the rights of the Crown consisted not in 
 oaths and declarations, but in the attachment and fidelity 
 of the people. The more we blotted out all those matters 
 of strife, the sooner would be consolidated a firm and sure 
 basis for the interests of the country. To prove that 
 oaths could not bind men who thou^xht the oblisration in- 
 consistent with their duty, he showed how Protestants 
 themselves, who ought to be precluded from giving votes 
 that afiect the property of the Church, had a few days 
 previously proposed to deal with it by extinction. He 
 concluded by expressing a decided opinion that Lord 
 John Pussell had rendered a valuable service in handincr 
 over to the axe of the executioner a bundle of useless 
 oaths, which served as pitfalls to tender consciences, while 
 they caused bold men to disregard conscience altogether. 
 
 The Budget of 18-54 was neccsaarily one of a very 
 difierent character from that of the year preceding. 
 
 F 2 
 
84 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 That of 1853 was pre-eminently a Peace Budget. Its 
 successor was more warlike than any the existing gene- 
 ration had known. In some respects even the Financial 
 Statement of 1854 presented favourable features. Thus 
 the receipts of the current year had exceeded the esti- 
 mates by more than a million ; but no longer was there 
 any possibility of a heap of reductions, great and small, 
 extending with marvellous fairness and breadth over the 
 whole region of finance, elaborately calculated, artistically 
 arranged, and expounded in a speech which far outdid the 
 copious rhetoric of Peel. All the savings, present and 
 prospective, had vanished at the first sound of war j and 
 the estimated expenditure for the year forthcoming was 
 three millions in excess of that of the financial year about 
 to expire. In a word, three millions had to be found 
 from sources other than those supplied through the 
 existing channels of revenue. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone saw that there was only one feasible 
 course to adopt, and he faced it with a boldness worthy 
 of the occasion. He proposed to double the income tax 
 for half a year. And he intimated that if the war con- 
 tinued up till July or August, the doubling process must 
 be repeated for the second half of the year. For instant 
 and pressing needs, he craved powers to issue Exchequer 
 Bills to the amount of a million and three quarters, to be 
 used as the successive claims arose. Should the peace of 
 Europe be restored in the course of the summer, they 
 would be withdrawn. Brief as this summary is, it really 
 leaves out nothing of importance which is necessary to grasp 
 the purport of the Budget of 1854. Two months later, 
 however, it became necessary to make larger monetary pro- 
 visions for the conduct of the war. This was effected by 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OP LORD ABERDEEN. 85 
 
 the augmentation of the imposts on Irish and Scotch 
 spirits, malt, and sugar ; and the duration of the in- 
 creased income tax and the malt duty was to be " for the 
 term of the war," while the spirit duties were claimed and 
 voted "without limitation." He set himself firmly 
 against the principle of loans, and maintained, so long as 
 the capacity existed, and the patriotic willingness for 
 self-denial and sacrifice could be appealed to, the expenses 
 of the war should be defrayed as they occuiTed. In this 
 he showed great nobility of character. There was an 
 infinitude of truth in these sentences : — 
 
 *'I beg the committee will recollect, that if there is any one man 
 in this country who, beyond every other, except perhaps a capitalist, 
 has an interest in recommending recourse to a loan, it is the individual 
 who has the henour of filling the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 That office is an office which any man may be thankful to hold at a 
 time when his occupation is to deal with those timely resources which 
 wise legislation has given to him, and to distribute what may well be 
 called the bounty of the legislature, because it results from the wisdom 
 of Parliament, among the various classes of the community in the 
 remission ©f charges ; bnt that happy course is wofully changed when 
 there comes on a period of war. It is not onlj'^ a losing office, but a 
 miserable and wretched office, to be constantly engaged in inventing 
 the means of carrying on war, and of drawing fresh taxes from the 
 pockets of the people. Every good motive and every bad motive, 
 combated only by the desire of the approval of honourable men and 
 by conscientious rectitude ; every motive of ease, of comfort, and of 
 certainty, spring forward in his mind to induce a Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer to become the first man to recommend a loan." 
 
 Against very animated opposition, led by Mr. Disraeli 
 and Mr. Thomas Baring, the House affirmed the principle 
 of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, by a majority of 
 more than a hundred. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone introduced, in this the second year of 
 his first Chancellorship, a measure of very considerable 
 
86 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 constitutional importance — the Public Kevenue and Con- 
 solidated Funds Charges Bill. Its object was to alter the 
 machinery of the public accounts by bringing the gross 
 income directly into the Exchequer, including certain 
 deductions which had previously been made in transit, 
 but which, it was provided, should in future be voted in 
 Supply. By bringing these charges under the control 
 of Parliament, an additional security has since been 
 afforded by the Executive for the discharge of its duty. 
 
 The Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen had been growing 
 throughout 1854 more unpopular everyday. The sole 
 cause of this loss of favour was the manner in which the 
 war was conducted. The financial arrangements of the 
 Ministry were not found fault with, and Mr. Gladstone, 
 therefore, shared the unpopularity only so far as he shared 
 the general responsibility of the administration of depart- 
 ments other than his own. Upon the meeting of Par- 
 liament in 1855, hostile notices of motions criticising the 
 management of the war were put upon the table by 
 Lord Ellenborough in one House, and by Mr. Boebuck 
 in the other. Ere the discussion of Mr. Boebuck's motion, 
 which was fixed for the 25th of January, came on, the 
 public were astonished by the formal announcement of 
 the resignation of Lord John Bussell. He evidently 
 feared the results of the impending inquisition, and 
 sought personal safety by leaving a tottering house ere 
 its fall. In stating publicly the reasons for his resigna- 
 tion, he said he should look back with pride to his asso- 
 ciation with many measures of the Administration, and 
 particularly with Mr. Gladstone's scheme of 1853. 
 
 In the great and important debate on Mr. Koebuck's 
 motion, Mr, Gladstone, while thanking his late colleague 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OP LORD ABERDEEN. 87 
 
 for the eulogium passed upon himself, gently chid him for 
 having resigned without giving his colleagues a chance of 
 acceding to his demands. He went on to say that it 
 might be thought that, deprived of the support of the 
 noble lord, Ministers ought not to have met the House 
 without at least some reorganisation. But he felt tha4i 
 they had no right to attempt to make terms with the 
 House in that way, or to shrink from facing its judgment 
 on their past conduct. If they had no spirit, what kind 
 of epitaph would be placed over their remains? He 
 would himself have thus Avritten it : — " Here lie the dis- 
 honoured ashes of a Ministry which found England at 
 peace and left it at war ; which was content to enjoy the 
 emoluments of oflG.ce and to wield the sceptre of power so 
 long as no man had the courage to question their exist- 
 ence. They saw the storm gathering over the country ; 
 they heard the agonising accounts which were almost 
 daily received of the sick and wounded in the East ; but 
 had these things moved them ? As soon, however, as the 
 member for SheflSeld raised his hand to point the thunder- 
 bolt, they shrank away conscience-stricken ; the sense of 
 grief overwhelmed them; and, to escape from punishment, 
 they ran away from duty." He went on to give his 
 reasons for the belief that Mr. Roebuck's motion would 
 aggravate rather than alleviate the evils which all 
 acknowledged. He indignantly protested against it, as 
 useless to the army, unconstitutional in its nature, and 
 dangerous to the honour and interests of the Commons of 
 England. 
 
 The motion was carried by the enormous majority of 
 157. Two days after, on the 1st of February, Lord 
 Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston announced that Minis- 
 
88 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 ters had placed their resignations in the hands of Her 
 Majesty; and that she had been graciously pleased to 
 accept them. 
 
 Thus fell the Coalition Cabinet, which in innate 
 power and Parliamentary influence was apparently one 
 of the strongest Governments ever seen in England. 
 But in reality it was weak from the first — " a Ministiy 
 of suspended opinions and smothered antipathies." "With 
 the single exception of Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone 
 fell from office with less detriment to his reputation 
 than any of his colleagues. 
 
 The following pen-and-ink portrait of Mr. Gladstone 
 during his first Chancellorship of the Exchequer, will 
 have all the more weight attached to its laudatory ex- 
 pressions, that it is taken from a quarter which, to say 
 the least, was not likely to err on the side of partiality. 
 The passage is extracted from an able article on the 
 " House of Commons," which appeared in the Quarterly 
 Review for June, 1854: — "Mr. Gladstone is the most 
 polished speaker in the House of Commons. His verbal 
 resources are as remarkable as his management of them ; 
 and his manner is invariably that of a gentleman. He 
 is charged with * subtlety' by coarser minds, but we 
 fancy that the English intellect, which is not distin- 
 guished for its analytical power, treats the subject in a 
 somewhat jumbling fashion. Mr. Gladstone inclines to 
 the Tractarian party — Tractarians are no better than 
 Jesuits — Jesuits are particularly subtle, and therefore, 
 when Mr. Gladstone is defining, very elaborately, the 
 difference between long annuities and deferred annui- 
 ties, he is talking Jesuitically. We believe Mr. Glad- 
 stone would be a more popular orator if he would be 
 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD ABERDEEN. 89 
 
 less explicit ; but while he exhausts the subject, he some- 
 times exhausts the listener. His refined and scholarly 
 periods, the creation of the moment, but as elegantly 
 balanced and as keenly pointed as if they had been written 
 and studied, are always marvels of fluency, and often 
 specimens of eloquence." 
 
CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE PERIOD OP THE CRIMEAN WAR. 
 
 Before many days had passed Mr. Gladstone was re- 
 establislied in the position of Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer. After in succession Lord John Russell and 
 Lord Derby had failed to form Administrations, the 
 Queen sent for Lord Palmerston, whom already the 
 voice of the nation had almost unanimously called for 
 as the one fit man to be Premier in time of war. His 
 Cabinet was in reality the old one reconstructed, with 
 some partial changes and redistribution of ofiices, but Mr. 
 Gladstone's position remained unaffected. However, not 
 many days had elapsed from the date of the reconstruc- 
 tion of the Cabinet ere Mr. Gladstone, along with his 
 friends Sir James Graham and Mr. Sidney Herbert, re- 
 signed office on learning that Mr. Koebuck intended to 
 persevere with his resolution for the appointment of a 
 committee of inquiry into the condition of the army in 
 the Crimea. In a lengthy speech, in which he explained 
 the grounds of his resignation, he stated his belief that 
 the Cabinet had adopted a "fatal choice" when they 
 agreed to the inquiry. He showed that the proposed 
 committee would not be a committee of punishment, nor 
 a committee of remedy, but a committee of government, 
 taking from the executive the most important and deli- 
 
THE PERIOD OP THE CRIMEAN WAR. 91 
 
 cate of its functions. He proceeded, after paying a warm 
 tribute to Lord Aberdeen, who, lie said, had been dis- 
 missed by a blow darkly dealt from an official hand : — 
 
 " I may be told that I ought to have thought of this three weeks 
 ago, and ought to have known that the House of Commons would not 
 reverse its judgment. It is a much smaller matter that my rig lit 
 honourable friends and myself should be convicted of levity and in. 
 considerateness three weeks ago, than now of a great public delinquency. 
 Let it be granted that we have made a great omission, that would 
 not justify us now in concurring in a policy which we say is false and 
 erroneous. But I do not plead guilty to the charge of incousiderate- 
 ness. I never doubted that my noble friend at the head of the 
 Government would and must entertain the same opiaions Avitli respect 
 to the committee which he did when he first besought the House 
 in earnest language not to grant it ; and my noble friend is aware 
 that, before my acceptance of office imder his government was an- 
 nounced to the world, I had the satisfaction of conversing with him 
 on the subject of this committee, in which conversation he acquainted 
 me with his contiiiued opinion that the opposition of Government ought 
 to be offered to its appointment. This can be no secret, because the 
 right honourable gentlemen opposite, and indeed, I might say, tlie 
 whole world, must have observed that this, and this only, was tlie 
 meaning of a portion of the speech delivered by i^y noble friend when 
 he addressed the House after the formation of the Government." 
 
 From this date Mr. Gladstone held no public office 
 for more than four yeai-s — during the first Administra- 
 tion of Lord Palmerston and the second of Lord Derby. 
 As long as the Crim.ean war lasted he continued to give 
 a modified support to the Palmerston Ministry, now 
 composed exclusively of Whigs, and without any infusion 
 of the Peelite element, Lord Canning, the Postmaster- 
 4 General, alone excepted. 
 
 In the early spring of 1855, while Lord John Pussell 
 was endeavouring to patch up a peace at Vienna,, and 
 after his return from his somewh^-t ludicrous discharge of 
 
92 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 unwonted diplomatic duties, the warlike spirit was 
 becoming more intense in the nation, and that spirit was 
 adequately represented in the Parliament. Among other 
 motions hostile to Government, and breathing bellicose 
 fire, was one by Mr. Disraeli, introduced by him on the 
 24th of May — " That this House cannot adjourn for the 
 recess without expressing its dissatisfaction with the 
 ambiguous language and uncertain conduct of Her 
 Majesty's Government in reference to the great question 
 of peace or war j and that, under these circumstances, 
 the House feels it a duty to declare that it will continue 
 to give every support to Her Majesty in the prosecution 
 of the war, until Her Majesty shall, in conjunction with 
 her allies, obtain for the country a safe and honourable 
 peace." This was met by Sir William Heathcote, the 
 successor of Sir Robert Harry Inglis as Mr. Gladstone's 
 colleague in the representation of the University, by a con- 
 ciliatory amendment, in which he proposed to introduce 
 the terms, " still cherishing a desire that the communica- 
 tions in progress, may arrive at a successful issue." Mr. 
 Gladstone lent his powerful aid to the proposition of his 
 friend and colleague. His natural love of peace was 
 strongly displayed in his speech. He started with the 
 general position that a war just in its origin would be 
 unjust if prosecuted after its object had been attained. 
 This, in the main, he held, was the case with the war now 
 being waged. Having read the demands of the Allied 
 Powers, and the answer of the Emperor of Russia in the 
 beginning of 1854, and contrasted them with the terms to i 
 which Russia had since consented to at Vienna, he asked, 
 could it be justly said that the objects of the war were 
 yet unattained ? The " four points " proposed at Vienna 
 
TllE PERIOD OF THE CKIMEAN WAR. 93 
 
 by Lord John Kussell had, in August, 1854, been abso- 
 hitely rejected by Kussia, but in December the Czav 
 promised his unreserved acceptance of terms which four 
 months before he had contemptuously rejected. The only 
 one of these articles not now settled was the third ; and 
 the difference arose, not upon its principle, but upon the 
 mode of its application, so that the quarrel was merely as 
 to the mode of construing a moiety of the third point. 
 The question of the Black Sea, he observed, was sur- 
 rounded with difficulties, and the choice was to be made 
 between several plans of limitation, all being open to 
 objections and imperfect arrangements. The more he 
 looked at the question of limitation, the more apparent 
 was its enormous difficulty and the indignity it would 
 offer to Russia. And no policy could be more dangerous 
 than that of inflicting indignity upon her without re- 
 ducing her power. He went on to discuss the proposi- 
 tions of Russia, observing that her plenipotentiaries 
 insisted, with some reason, that a plan of limitation would 
 better accord with an aggressive policy on her part, than 
 the discretional power she offered to Turkey. Russia 
 had receded from her pretence ; she had gone far to put 
 herself in the right, and in war, as well as in peace, the 
 great object should be to be in the right. All the terms 
 we had demanded had been substantially conceded ; and 
 if it was not for terms we fought, but for military success, 
 let the House look at this sentiment with the eye of 
 reason, and it would appear immoral, inhuman, and un- 
 christian. If the war was continued in order to obtain 
 military glory, we should tempt the justice of Him in 
 whose hands was the fate of armies, to launch ujDon us 
 His wrath. 
 
94 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Neither tlie Parliament nor the nation was in tlie 
 liumour to listen to such language and such arguments 
 as these. Parliament once more re-affirmed a thoroncih 
 determination of belligerency, and the war went on with 
 greatly intensified force. 
 
 The mismanagement of the war gave rise to the well- 
 known agitation for administrative reform, which resulted 
 in the partial opening up of the appointments in some, 
 and the comjDlete opening in others, of the public depart- 
 ments. Mr. Layard was the first to raise this important 
 matter. Mr. Gladstone " heartily wished him God speed," 
 and said that he saw with unfeigned satisfaction that the 
 state of public feeling was likely to take the direction 
 given to it by Mr. Layard. He believed, in contra- 
 distinction to the popular opinion, that the system of 
 patronage was the weakness, not the strength of the 
 Executive. "What he wanted was a change in the basis 
 of the whole system of the Civil Service ; perfectly free 
 competition for admissions by the test of examination, 
 and subsequent promotion by merit and efficiency alone. 
 The public, he held, had a right to be served by the best 
 men it could get for the price it ofi'ered. And he con- 
 tended, not only that the existing system did not give 
 the best men, but that it created a vast mass of collateral 
 evils connected with the dispensation of patronage, which 
 kept a large class of men in a state of expectancy, wasting 
 their lives in solicitation. 
 
 Towards the close of the session, Mr. Gladstone 
 embraced a pertinent opportunity to deliver another 
 remarkable and emphatic speech against the farther 
 prolongation of the war. He pointedly , repeated his 
 belief that the reai')onsibility for the rejection of the 
 
THE PERIOD OP THE CRIMEAN WAR. 95 
 
 amicable and intercessory propositions of Austria lay 
 Avitli the British Government. They could never get 
 over the fact that all the pleni])otentiaries at Vienna 
 adopted the principle of counterpoise; and that the 
 Government, rejecting the golden opportunity of making 
 peace, continued to make war on account of paltry 
 diiferences. The best peace was not that which looked 
 best on paper, but that which secured the united support 
 of Europe. Defying the Western Powers to control the 
 liiture destinies of Russia, except for a moment, he pro- 
 ceeded to paint in unfavourable colours the position of 
 the allies : — Austria gradually separating from us ; Turkey 
 an ally, but such an ally as -<^neas found Anchises in his 
 flight from Troy; Sardinia, heavily burdened, dragged 
 through the conflict as a mere dependent of England ; 
 and France — was it likely that the French people would 
 add £100,000,000 to their public debt for the sake of the 
 ' difierence between limitation and counterpoise, and not 
 for military glory 1 
 
 And whom were we fighting 1 The Russian soldier, 
 fired with patriotism and religious zeal, was fighting 
 against the hereditary enemies of his religion, and the 
 invaders of his soil. " I am thankful," he concluded, 
 " for the indulgence and freedom of speech which have 
 ^been accorded me ; I remain content in the belief that in 
 endeavouring to recall the Government from that course 
 of policy which they are now pursuing, I am discharging 
 my duty as a patriot and a loyal subject of my Queen." 
 
 When the discussion of the Budget of Sir George 
 
 •Cornewall Lewis came on, Mr. Gladstone took the same 
 
 anti-warlike tone. He admitted the necessity of the 
 
 ]»roppscd loan, though he had still the same objections 
 
96 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 to loans as when in office. He had borrowed money, 
 but only in anticipation of taxes. He would, he said, 
 have been better satisfied if the financial statement could 
 have been deferred until the conclusion of the negotia- 
 tions for peace, since the result might afiect the amount 
 of expenditure required. 
 
 When peace had returned at the commencement of 
 1856, Mr. Gladstone said he regarded the peace as an 
 honourable one, because the objects of the war had been 
 attained. But if he thought that the treaty bound this 
 country to maintain the existing institutions of Turkey, 
 he should not be able to express his satisfaction. The 
 guarantee of the independence and integrity of Turkey 
 was not to be regarded as a permanent settlement of the 
 internal state of that country ; its sole object was to 
 secure her against foreign aggression. The general object 
 achieved for Europe by the war was far more extended 
 than any stipulation which could be put on paper. The 
 war had been a moral demonstration to almost the whole 
 of Europe, and had impressed upon Kussia the great 
 lesson that her attempts at aggression were a matter for 
 the consideration of the whole of Europe, and such as to 
 make it the duty of Europe to unite all its energies for 
 their suppression. 
 
 He made a somewhat important remark on the mattei** 
 of arbitration, to which an unprecedented prominence 
 had been given in the terms of the Peace of Paris. 
 While he looked upon its recognition as a great triumph, 
 he at the same time pointed out a danger. If encourage- 
 ment, said he, should be given to trumped-up and un- 
 tenable claims, more quarrels would be made than 
 mended ; and he laid down the principle that no country 
 
THE PERIOD OF THE CRIMEAN WAR. 97 
 
 ought to resort to arbitration until it had reduced its 
 claims to a minimum which it was ready to support 
 by force. Lay down that rule, and a resort to arbitration 
 would be a powerful engine on behalf of civilisation and 
 humanity, which he hoped would lead to a diminution 
 of that scourge of Europe — the enormous cost of iU', 
 military establishments. 
 
 Long ere Mr. Gladstone had reached the period of 
 his variously busy life at which we have now arrived, his 
 name had become conspicuous outside the land as a friend 
 and fellow-worker in many departments of the great 
 movement so characteristic of his time, for the religious, 
 moral, social, and educational elevation of the masses. It 
 is impossible, consistently with according due space to 
 the large political questions with which his name has 
 been chiefly identified, and about which the curiosity of 
 most readers is chiefly concerned, to follow his career in 
 this unobtrusive but important domain. We content 
 ourselves with presenting, as a representative specimen 
 of very many like utterances, a few words from a speech 
 which he delivered at the inauguration, in this year, of 
 the admirable schools founded for the children of artisans 
 by the Rev. William Rogers, in the district adjoining 
 the Charterhouse : — 
 
 " They had sung, during the ceremony of that day, a psalm, in which 
 it was said that * Children and the fruit of the womb are an heritage 
 and gift that couieth of the Lord.' They knew those words were 
 founded deep in the truths of the Divine Word. But there was no 
 man who walked through the streets of London, and especially the 
 more wretched parts of it, who did not feel that those words were a 
 trial of his faith. When they considered what human Bature was and 
 at what cost it had been redeemed ; when they reflected what des- 
 tinies were open to it ; how many and great were its vicissitudes, and 
 
 * G 
 
98 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 Low severe were its temptations and its trials, it was terrible to think 
 of the amount of labour that remained undischarged. And yet 
 * Children and the fruit of the womb are an heritage and gift that 
 cometh of the Lord ;' and difficult though it might be, yet it was not 
 impossible to carry home to the hearts and minds of men, and into the 
 houses of orery class of the community, the blessed and comforting 
 consciousnesjj of that, truth, so that, instead of a trial of faith, it 
 should, on the contrary, become the daily food and support of fathers 
 and mothers, who, though it might be their lot to earn their bread— 
 and perhaps scanty bread — by the labour of their hands and the 
 sweat of their brows, might see their offcpring growing up in the faith, 
 fear, and love of God." 
 
 m- 
 
•■■y*. ■^ 
 
 CHAPTEK YIII. 
 
 FALL OP THE PALMERSTON MINISTRY. 
 
 In criticising the financial policy of the Government in 
 1857, Mr. Gladstone took a rigidly economical line. 
 With reference, more especially, to the income tax, and 
 an agitation which had arisen in the country against its 
 continuance, he said that he earnestly desired to bring the 
 minds of the people of the country to a consideration of 
 that question which necessarily came first — what was the 
 just and reasonable scale of expenditure. If the 9d. in- 
 come tax were given up without an equivalent reduction 
 of the estimates, there must either be new taxation or a 
 loan. He would be no party to either ; he felt it to be 
 his bounden duty first to lay hold of the expenditure, 
 and to battle with the estimates. He continued : — 
 
 ** As far as my duty is concerned, it "will be my effort and labour to 
 secure a fulfilment of the pledges given in 1853. I understand these 
 pledges as the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) understands 
 them. I hare not forgotten them. I never can forget to the latest 
 day of my life, and I shall always remember with gratitude, the con- 
 duct of the House of Commons at the period when those measures 
 were adopted, and the generosity of the sentiments which they evinced. 
 I must endeavour to answer that conduct, at least so far as depends on 
 me ; and I shall endeavour to answer that conduct by striving to bring 
 the expenditure of the country and its fiscal arrangements into such 
 a shape as Avill allow the extinction of the ijicome tax in 1860." 
 
 Q 2 
 
100 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 The discussions on finance in this session, in which 
 Mr. Gladstone proved himself at once the most fearless 
 and the most formidable assailant of Ministers, were in- 
 terrupted by the great contest in which all parties and 
 sections of parties united to condemn Lord Palmer- 
 ston and his colleagues for their alleged causeless instiga- 
 tion of a war with China. Out of a dispute between 
 Dr. Bowring, the Governor of Hong Kong, and the com- 
 missioner of the Chinese Government at Canton, there 
 arose a defeat of the Ministry in the House of Commons, 
 an appeal from that decision to the ultimate tribunal of 
 the nation, the election of a new Parliament, and the un- 
 seating of several prominent Members of the former Par- 
 liament who had joined in the condemnation of Ministers. 
 "When the news of the collision between the Chinese and 
 the British authorities in the Canton Biver arrived in 
 England, Lord Derby and Mr. Cobden at once gave notices 
 of motions adverse to the Government. In the House of 
 Peers a majority of thirty-six was recorded against 
 Ministers. 
 
 In the other House the debate, commenced by Mr. 
 Cobden, was continued for four nights. On the fourth 
 and last night of the debate, Mr. Gladstone spoke, and 
 expressed his entire concurrence with the views of Mr. 
 Cobden. He denied the allegation that we had " fester- 
 ino- wrongs" against the Chinese. He reminded the 
 House that no answer had been given to the objection 
 that if a wrong had been committed by the Chinese 
 in the case of the " lorcha," the Arrow, the proper remedy 
 was by reprisals. He denied the position which had 
 been taken by the Attorney-General, that the term 
 "British subject" in the treaty meant any Chinaman 
 
FALL OF THE PALMEKSTON MINISTRY. 101 
 
 resident at Hmig Kong. When we talked of treaty 
 obligations by the Chinese, what, he asked, were our 
 treaty obligations towards them ? The purpose for which 
 Hong Kong was given to us was, that it should be a port 
 in which British ships might careen and refit. Was not 
 our contraband trade in opium a breach of treaty obli- 
 gations? Had our Government struggled to put it down, 
 as bound by treaty? Had they not encouraged it by 
 organising a fleet of lorchas under the British flag ? 
 They who put the British flag to the uses to which 
 it was put in China, stained that flag. Mr. Gladstone 
 dwelt with much energy upon the calamities that had 
 been inflicted upon the inhabitants of Canton. For what 
 were we at war with the Chinese ? The Government 
 had not stated what we were asking from them. Were 
 we afraid of the moral effect upon the Chinese if the acts 
 of the Government were disavowed? But consider, he 
 concluded, the moral impression which must now be 
 produced, and never could be avoided. If the House had 
 the courage to assert its prerogative, and adopted this 
 resolution, it would pursue a course consistent at once 
 with sound policy and the principles of eternal justice. 
 
 The result was a majority of sixteen against the Govern- 
 ment — 263, as against 247, voting with Mr. Cobden. 
 The division took place on the 3rd of March. Two days 
 later, the Premier stated that Ministers had determined 
 to advise Her Majesty to dissolve Parliament. Mr. 
 Gladstone was unopposed at Oxford, and was again 
 returned along with Sir William Heathcote. Lord Pal- 
 merston met the new Parliament with a strong and an 
 enthusiastic majority. His supporters formed an influen- 
 tial and compact body; his more formidable opponents 
 
102 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 were driven from the field, or weakened by the conscious- 
 ness that the public voice had declared against them. 
 
 A year had not elapsed ere the triumphant majority 
 which had endorsed Lord Palmerston's Chinese policy 
 had dwindled into a minority. After the attempt of 
 Felice Orsini on the life of the French Emperor, Lord 
 Palmerston introduced his well-known Conspiracy to 
 Murder Bill, by which he sought greater powers by which 
 the Executive should restrain and punish conspiracies 
 against the lives of foreign potentates, hatched upon 
 British soil. Instantaneously, the country was up in 
 arms against what was generally deemed an infraction 
 of the ancient privilege of asylum. Meetings were instan- 
 taneously convened, and the vast numbers of the audiences, 
 and the hearty approbation which they accorded to the 
 spokesmen, equally showed that the heart of the country 
 was stirred. Mr. Milner Gibson was selected to reflect 
 the popular voice within St. Stephen's Hall. He moved 
 an amendment, the gist of which was a practical nega- 
 tive to the proposal. Amongst others who supported him 
 by speech and vote was Mr. Gladstone. The arguments of 
 the opponents of the Ministers prevailed, and to the great 
 delight of the nation. Ministers were defeated by 234 to 
 215. This was on Friday. On the following Monday 
 (the 22nd of February), Lord Palmerston announced the 
 resignation of himself and his colleagues, and in a few 
 days Lord Derby became for the second time Prime 
 Minister of England. 
 
 ) 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LORD derby's second ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 The first important measure introduced by the Adminis- 
 tration of Lord Derby subsequent to the downfall of the 
 Palmerston Ministry, was their bill for the abolition of 
 the governing powers of the East India Company, their 
 transference to the Crown and the home Government, 
 and for the better government of India generally. The 
 proposal in its first shape was looked upon with very 
 great disfavour by the country at large, and especially 
 by the magnates of the commercial community whom it 
 had been the special object of Ministers to conciliate by 
 certain provisions of the bill. Mr. Gladstone strongly 
 expressed his coincidence of opinion with the objections 
 urged against it. Indeed, he found fault with the veiy 
 basis of the proposal, as well as with its details. He 
 said that he could not see either in the first or the 
 amended edition of the scheme any elements of good, 
 and there was great difficulty in attempting to govern 
 a people separated not only by distance, but by blood, 
 and by institutions. The Court of Directors had been 
 practically a protecting body to the people of India, 
 and there ought to be supplied a no less efficient pro- 
 vision for that object. For this — a protection afforded 
 to the people of India against the ignorance, error, or 
 
104 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 indiscretion of tlie people of England — he looked in vain. 
 He added, that there had grown up a system fraught 
 with danger to the Parliament and to the liberties of the 
 people of England, as well as of India, by undue and 
 unconstitutional exercise of power by the Executive here, 
 through the treasury and army of India, by which wars 
 were commenced without the knowledge or consent of 
 Parliament, and an accumulation of debt was cast upon 
 India. 
 
 When the great debates upon the " clemency " pro- 
 clamation of Governor-General Lord Canning, and the 
 hasty resignation of Lord Ellenborough, came a little 
 later in the year, Mr. Gladstone afforded his valuable 
 aid to Ministers, and counselled his friend, Mr. Cardwell, 
 to withdraw the motion hostile to Ministers, which he 
 had laid on the table. Mr. Gladstone's defection from 
 his accustomed allies had much to do with saving the 
 Ministry, and with the production of an unexpected and 
 lame conclusion of a great Parliamentary conflict, that 
 had for several days held the fate of the Government in 
 suspense, and kept the country on the tenter-hooks of 
 expectation. On more than one occasion, Mr. Gladstone 
 did similar service to Ministers, and more than once 
 there occurred more or less angry recriminations between 
 liim and the former colleagues whom he had helped to 
 oust early in the year. At this period the state of 
 political parties was extremely disjointed. In many 
 men's mouths were to be found the alternatives of a 
 change of Ministry, a reconstruction of parties, or a 
 dissolution. It was well known, that ere the offer was 
 made to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, the post of Secretary 
 for the Colonies was offered to and declined by Mr. 
 
LOBD derby's second ADMINISTRATION. 105 
 
 Gladstone. Tlie debates were at once perplexing and 
 exciting. The principal performers were changing their 
 parts every night. Members and strangers entered the 
 House with an utter uncertainty what Lord Palmerston, 
 Lord John Eussell, Mr. Disraeli, or Mr. Gladstone 
 would do or say. But each of them was almost expected 
 to appear in exactly opposite positions to that which 
 they had occupied on the previous evening. One night, 
 Lord John and Mr. Gladstone were bolstering up the 
 Government against the attacks of Lord Palmerston, 
 »Sir George Cornewall Lewis, and Sir Richard Bethell ; 
 and the next, Lord Palmerston was hotly and angrily 
 declaring that Lord John Pussell and Mr. Gladstone 
 were the most ignorant and mischievous meddlers in 
 foreign politics, Messrs. Roebuck and Bright hardly 
 excepted. Mr. Gladstone and others — he being the 
 chief — were eminently worthy of ministerial gi'atitude; 
 for, when the Whitsuntide holidays came round, the 
 opinion was generally expressed — an opinion directly 
 the reverse of that generally uttered a very short time 
 
 ' previously — that notwithstanding the paucity of their 
 supporters in the House of Commons, the Administra- 
 tion would retain their seats for the remainder of the 
 session. 
 
 ^ After the recess, Mr. Gladstone continued his support 
 to Mr. Disraeli on the important question of the Budget. 
 The Budget of this year, owing to the commercial em- 
 barrassments of the preceding autumn, large reductions 
 
 ^ in the rates of the income tax in the previous year, and 
 the necessity of increased expenditure in the navy, was 
 a very severe ordeal for the financial abilities of Mr. 
 Disraeli. When he rose he displayed a most unusual 
 
106 WILLIAM EWAKT GLADSTONE. 
 
 amount of nervousness, wliicli gradually wore away as 
 he proceeded. He indulged in a deprecatory style of 
 conciliation, and the most ornate compliments to the wis- 
 dom of Mr. Gladstone, and declared his determination to 
 adhere to the pledge about the gradual reduction of the 
 income tax given by the latter in 1853. Although 
 Mr. Gladstone remained in his favourite attitude while 
 Budget speeches are being delivered — ^namely, with arms 
 folded, legs stretched out, and hat pulled over the eyes, 
 and a general air of contemptuous inattention varied 
 by an occasional yawn — yet it was clear that the 
 Chancellor had got quit of his most dangerous critic, 
 a.nd that as a whole his scheme was safe. 
 
 While giving, however, a general support to the 
 Financial Scheme, he did not omit to renew his now 
 annual protest against Parliamentary thriftlessness. He 
 stated his strong objections to the permanency of the 
 income tax. He believed that its essential nature was 
 to corrupt and demoralise ; and that as long as Parlia- 
 ment consented, without a special purpose, to vote the 
 income tax as part of our ordinary expenditure, so long 
 would it be utterly in vain to talk of economy. 
 
 The principal subjects which occupied public atten- 
 tion in England at the commencement of 1859 were 
 the Reform of Parliament, on which Ministers were' 
 pledged to introduce a measure, and the state of foreign 
 politics, particularly with reference to France, Austria, 
 and Italy. When Lord John Russell tabled his resolu- 
 tion of hostility to the Reform Bill of 1859, which was< 
 born of the "Willis's " Rooms compact, and which proved 
 victorious, Mr. Gladstone, still acting at variance with 
 all his recent political associates, gave a general, though a 
 
LORD derby's second ADMINISTRATION. 107 
 
 guarded support to Ministers. If we could have a strong 
 Government, he urged, formed bv the Opposition, he 
 should vote with Lord John Russell. But he saw that 
 after carrying the resolution, the Opposition would follow 
 separate courses. Greatly to the amusement of the 
 House, he thus depicted the failures of previous Govern- 
 ments:— -"In 1851, my noble friend, then the First 
 Minister of the Crown, approached the question of 
 Reform, and commenced with a promise of what was 
 to be done twelve months afterwards. In 1852, he 
 brought in a bill, and it disappeared, together with the 
 Mini'stry. In 1853 we had the Ministry of Lord 
 Aberdeen, which commenced with a promise of Reform 
 in twelve months' time. Well, 1854 arrived; with it 
 arrived the bill ; but with it also arrived the war, and 
 in the war was a reason, and I believe a good reason, for 
 abandoning the bill. Then came the Government of 
 Lord Palmerston, which was not less unfortunate in the 
 circumstances which prevented the redemption of those 
 pledges that had been given to the people from the 
 mouth of the Sovereign on the throne. In 1855, my 
 noble friend escaped all responsibility of a Reform Bill 
 on account of the war; in 1856, he escaped all responsi- 
 bility for Reform on account of the peace. In 1857, he 
 escaped that inconvenient responsibility by the dissolution 
 of Parliament; and in 1858, he escaped again by the 
 dissolution of his Government. This series of events 
 strengthens the misgivings of the people that the House 
 ' is reluctant to deal with the question, makes it more 
 hazardous to interpose obstacles, and requires the pro- 
 gress of this bill to completion." And, as the Government 
 had said they would abandon the bill, if the resolution 
 
108 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 were pressed and carried, he urged that it should be 
 withdrawn and allowed to pass into committee. 
 
 One of the most noteworthy points of this address was 
 that portion of it in which he spoke most strongly in 
 behalf of small nomination boroughs. He said he re- 
 garded them as supplying the race of men who were 
 trained to carry on the government of the country, the 
 masters of civil wisdom, like Mr. Burke, Sir James 
 Macintosh, Mr. Pelham, Lord Chatham, Mr. Fox, Mr. 
 Pitt, Mr. Canning, Sir Robert Peel, all of whom sat first 
 for small boroughs. If there was to be no ingress to the 
 House but one, and that one the suffrages of a large mass 
 of voters, there would be a dead level of mediocrity. The 
 extension, the durability of our liberty, were to be attri- 
 buted, under Providence, to distinguished statesmen 
 introduced into the House at an early age. But large 
 constituencies would not return boys, and therefore he 
 hoped the small boroughs would be retained. 
 
 Ministers were defeated by a majority of thirty-nine 
 on the night of the delivery of Mr. Gladstone's speech, 
 and they forthwith availed themselves of their privilege 
 of an appeal to the country. The new Parliament re- 
 assembled on the last day of May, and a trial of strength 
 was at once challenged, in the form of a vote of want of 
 confidence moved by the Marquis of Hartington. The 
 motion was aimed fully as much against the foreign — and 
 especially the Italian — as the domestic policy of Ministers. 
 They were defeated by thirteen, and at once resigned. Lord 
 Palmerston was sent for, and, in the Administration which 
 he formed, Mr. Gladstone returned to his former position 
 at the Exchequer. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE. 
 
 Shortly after Lis resumption of office in 1859, a measure 
 Ava^ introduced, which Mr. Gladstone and other members 
 of the Cabinet supported, by which it was proposed to 
 open up the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland to 
 Roman Catholics. There was a general impression among 
 the more decided Protestants, that such a measure, intro- 
 duced at such a moment, meant more than met the eye ; 
 both the Irish law officers of the Crown being Roman 
 Catholics. The Government evinced a "suspicious readi- 
 ness " to take up the scheme. Mr. Newdegate groaned 
 loudly, and a hostile motion of Mr. Whiteside was 
 peculiarly deep in its Orange dye. What was most sur- 
 prising was the tone and manner of Mr. Gladstone. 
 While Mr. Card well was balancing the two parties in 
 Ireland in his elaborate sentences, as an Irish Secretary 
 is always obliged to do, Mr. Gladstone stood at the bar 
 in an attitude which seemed to indicate something near 
 akin to contempt for the business which his fellow-official 
 was mincingly manipulating. But after Mr. Whiteside 
 vhad spoken a few sentences, in which he referred in a 
 sneering tone to Mr. Gladstone, reproaching him for 
 inconsistency and tergiversation, he glided quietly into 
 his seat ; and when Mr. WhiteKside sat down he started 
 
110 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 up, with his face full of fire and his manner flushed with 
 vigour, and in a masterly, keen, and crushing speech of 
 only ten minutes — a speech at once dignified, humorous, 
 argumentative, and piled up with epigram — concen- 
 ti-ated every faculty of an orator, and all the scorn of an 
 offended man of spirit. It was a burst of earnest speech- 
 making rarely to be found in the House of Commons, 
 and well worth waiting through a long hot summer 
 night to listen to. 
 
 A not unfriendly contemporary critic thus described 
 Mr. Gladstone on the night of the introduction of Jiis 
 1859 Budget: — "As he walked up the House, we could 
 not help remarking how slight, and thin, and weakly his 
 person looks ; and yet, since he has resumed the labours of 
 an office which to no man can be light, but to him, whose 
 earnestness is almost a disease, must be an ever-burning if 
 not a consuming fire, he appears to have gathered fresh- 
 ness, alacrity, and cheeriness ; to have dropped the fretful 
 nervousness which characterises him out of office ; and, in 
 short, to justify the theory that great work is great happi- 
 ness. . . . Speculation was rife whether there was to be 
 a five or six hours' dissertation on finance ; and when the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer came, in a cool white waist- 
 coat and trousers, looking like a cricketer who was 
 prepared for a heavy innings, bets ran in favour of the > 
 longer period. The moment, however, that he commenced, 
 the hints that had been going about all day about a pro- 
 visional Budget appeared likely to be realised. He plunged 
 at once, without a single prefatory flourish, into facts and 
 figures, and so continued all through the very brief space 
 — for a financial statement — of an hour and a half, to dis- 
 course in the most practical, plain, straightforward style 
 
THE COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE. Ill 
 
 that could have been predicted of any one. One single, 
 nervous, brilliant burst — but even that compressed into a 
 sentence — comprised the peroration of the clearest, most 
 masterly, and at the same time most frank and candid 
 exposition which it was ever our good fortune to listen to 
 from a Finance Minister. There was a sustained buoy- 
 ancy all through Mr. Gladstone's speech, and he was 
 occasionally even humorous, so much so as to evoke a 
 smile, and nearly a laugh from the iron gravity of ]Mr. 
 Cobden, although he did not succeed in chasing away 
 even for a moment that grim and querulous expression 
 wliich seems to have settled permanently on the coun- 
 tenance of Mr. Bright." 
 
 The Budget of 1860, wdth its close associations with 
 the Commercial Treaty which Mr. Cobden had just con- 
 tracted with France, and with its daring abolition of over 
 three hundred Customs duties, will probably remain Mr. 
 Gladstone's most magnificent monument as a Minister of 
 Finance. Considerable financial changes were expected 
 on the re-assembling of Parliament. It was known that 
 there would be a serious deficit in the revenue to be 
 supplied, and at the same time that increased armaments 
 and defensive preparations would make augmented de- 
 mands upon the public expenditure. The falling in of a 
 ' number of Long Annuities would, however, furnish con- 
 siderable, if not continuing, relief, and the character of 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave assurance that the 
 opportunity now oJBfered would not be neglected. The 
 IGth of February, a date considerably earlier than usual, 
 w^as fixed for the Financial Statement. He walked up the 
 House with an alacrity most surprising, as he had just 
 risen from a sick bed, and bent his head with conscious 
 
112 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 pleasure before tlie hearty cheers which greeted his 
 appearance. He spoke for four hours, without any trace 
 of weakness, physical or mental. In his address he was 
 playful and humorous, and the absence of " his accustomed 
 touch of grimness" was remarked. Even gentlemen 
 opposite were charmed into applause. The speech was 
 so artistically arranged as to awake and retain attention, 
 to pique and tease curiosity. It was not so much a 
 speech as an oration, in the form of a great State paper 
 made eloquent, in which there was a proper restraint over 
 the crowding ideas, with nothing overlooked, and nothing 
 put wrongly. 
 
 Among the more salient points of the great scheme 
 thus remarkably introduced, the following may be 
 accepted as the more important : — There was a deficit of 
 £9,400,000, in all, to be met. If the existing war duties 
 on tea and sugar were retained, the deficit must be about 
 £7,500,000. No radical change could be made in the 
 expenditure of the year. But, nevertheless, he main- 
 tained it was the duty of the Government to take further 
 steps for the relief of trade and commerce in the direction 
 of Free Trade. He then went on to explain in detail the 
 concessions which we had made to France, and France to 
 us, by terms of the Commercial Treaty. He denied that this 
 treaty indicated any subserviency to France, and in glowing 
 language called upon the two countries to inaugurate a 
 new epoch of amity, as distinguished from former 
 jealousy and ill feeling — a union of the two nations, 
 not merely of the two Governments. The terms of the 
 Treaty would cause a loss to the revenue of more than a 
 million. But the loss was made up of remissions of pro- 
 tective duties, every one of which would yield relief to 
 
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THE COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE. 113 
 
 the poor man. What had been done would be good 
 for this country if France had done nothing; it was 
 better for us in proportion as France did something. A 
 number of other Customs duties, not stipulated in the 
 treaty, were also doomed to extinction, at a total cost 
 of about £400,000 ; and others were lessened at about 
 double the same loss. The revenue thus sacrificed was 
 chiefly recouped by the extension of the use of stamps 
 upon various classes of commercial instruments, dock 
 and warehouse warrants, and the like. The revenue from 
 licences to houses where all classes of refreshment are 
 sold, would be also largely widened in the area of its yield. 
 He then said that he proposed to abolish the excise duty 
 on paper — a proposition in the attainment of which he 
 was disappointed for another twelvemonth by the oppo- 
 sition of the House of Lords. 
 
 Summing up, he stated that the total of the altera- 
 tions and reductions he had proposed would give in all a 
 relief to the consumers of about four millions, while it 
 would cost a nett loss to the revenue of little more than 
 half, or about equivalent to the amount falling in from 
 the cessation of the Long Annuities. On the Customs 
 tariff there would only remain forty-eight articles ; and 
 out of these only fifteen for purposes of revenue. To 
 enable these great changes to be effected, the income 
 tax was re-imposed, but for a year only; and a differ- 
 ence was made between the rates levied on incomes 
 above and below £150 a-year. He concluded, amid great 
 cheering, with an appeal to the House to support the 
 principles of commercial reform, for which the country 
 had already received so much honour and reward in 
 scattering blessini^ among the people of the country, 
 
 H 
 
114 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 and which lie contended were carried out and advanced 
 in his commercial plan. 
 
 So sweeping and thoroughly Liberal a measure necessa- 
 rily was met by the keenest opposition from the occupants 
 of the Tory benches. In succession, hostile amendiaents 
 by Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Ducane were defeated by large 
 majorities — majorities so large as to be conclusive as to 
 the ultimate success of the Treaty and the Budget. Mr. 
 Gladstone thus eloquently concluded one of his addresses 
 delivered at one stage of the protracted discussion of his 
 scheme : — 
 
 " There were times of old when Sovereigns made progresses through 
 the land, and when, at the proclamation of their heralds, they caused to 
 be scattered heaps of coin among the people. That may have been a 
 goodly spectacle ; but it is also a goodly spectacle, in the altered spirit 
 and circumstances of our times, when a Sovereign is enabled, through 
 the wisdom of her great Council assembled in Parliament, again to 
 scatter blessings among the people in the shape of wise and prudent 
 laws, which do not sap, in any respect, the foundations of duty, but 
 which strike away the shackles from the arm of industry, which give 
 a new incentive and ne\T reward to toil, and which win more and more 
 for the throne, and for the institutions of the country, the gratitude, 
 the confidence, and the love of an united people. , . . We recommend 
 this plan to your impartial and searching inquiry ; we do not presume 
 to make a claim on your acknowledgments, but neither do we desire to 
 draw on your generous confidence, nor to appeal to your compassion. 
 We ask for nothing but impartial search and inquiry ; we know that it 
 will receive that justice at your hand*, and we confidently anticipate in 
 Lts behalf the approval alike of Parliament and of the people of this 
 empire,** 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE LAST WHIG ADMINISTRATION, 
 
 The Budget of 1861 was awaited with great anxiety, 
 and it furnished an occasion for a very keen and pro- 
 tracted party struggle. Mr. Gladstone, who spoke with 
 exceptional brevity, concluded by moving three resolu- 
 tions ; one remitting a penny of the income tax ; the 
 second, for the continuance of the tea and sugar duties ; 
 and the third, about which the great fight arose, for the 
 tL** repeal of the paper duty. Mr. Disraeli went so far as 
 to say that the Government had created an artificial 
 surplus in order that they might perpetrate a financial 
 caprice. On the ultimate and crucial division, on which 
 the fate of the Ministry undoubtedly depended, the 
 Government won by the sufficient majority of fifteen. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's Budget speech was universally ad- 
 jnitted on all hands to be a peculiarly happy efibrt. One 
 who heard him, remarked with surprise, that when he 
 rose he had no facts or documents with him, and, 
 although he afterwards produced what looked like a 
 lirst copy-book for a very small child, the most careful 
 observation did not cause the detection of any reference 
 to that book, «xcept for the purpose of stating figures. 
 The secret of the special charm of this speech lay in the 
 fact that it was pervaded by good humour, and was not 
 
 H 2 
 
116 . WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 verbose. He had a pleasant surprise in store for those 
 hearers who had come to listen to a woful palinode, and 
 there was a lurking sense of .good-humoured triumph 
 over his avowed opponents, and still more over his skin- 
 deep friends, which gave a lightness and buoyancy to 
 his demeanour, which, of course, spread to his audience. 
 But the chief merit of the speech, in respect to its 
 object, was the remarkable dexterity with which it ap- 
 pealed to the tastes, feelings, and opinions of both sides 
 of the House. At one sentence, with his face half 
 turned to the benches behind, Mr. Bright would break 
 out into an involuntary cheer at once natural and hearty; 
 while the very next moment the orator would lean, with 
 a fascinating smile on his countenance, over the table to- 
 wards gentlemen opposite, and minister to their weaknesses 
 or prejudices with equal power and success. In every 
 respect it was a masterpiece of oratory, and as it in the 
 result actually led to something tangible — that is to say, 
 to a surplus and a reduction of taxation — it was, of course, 
 in every sense triumphant. 
 
 The outbreak of the war in America had consider- 
 able influence on the Budget of 1862. It was of a 
 peculiarly simple character. Mr. Gladstone said that, in 
 considering the causes which influenced the revenue for 
 the year, they might all be expressed in one word — 
 America ; and the main question in relation to our ex- 
 port trade was, whether a large portion of the population 
 of this country was to be supplied with the raw material, 
 without which they would be deprived of employment' 
 He referred with justifiable pride to the fact, that the 
 increased trade which had been created by the treaty 
 with France, had gone very far to make up for the 
 
THE LAST WHIG ADMINISTRATION. 117 
 
 loss of business with America. He said he was spared 
 the necessity of imposing any additional taxes, but was 
 in the unpleasant position of being unable to remit any. 
 An important minor point was the abolition of the pre- 
 carious and irritating hop duty, and the substitution for 
 it of a fixed tax of threepence per barrel on beer. He 
 concluded a plain, and not in any way remarkable, address 
 by emphasising that fact, to which, year by year, he re- 
 curred, that if we hoped to effect a remission of taxation, 
 it was not to be had except by judiciously and gradually, 
 but resolutely, applying to every department of the public 
 service the principles of true economy. Though not with- 
 out considerable debate, the financial measures of the 
 Government received the sanction of both Houses of 
 Parliament. 
 
 In this session there was an extremely animated 
 discussion on the condition of the new Kingdom of Italy. 
 Sir George Bowyer had made a speech highly eulogistic 
 of the Papal temporal Government, and of tlie rule of 
 the various dethroned princes ; and had drawn one of his 
 fanciful glowing pictures of the new state of atilurs. 
 Mr. Gladstone addressed himself energetically to the 
 refutation at once of the laudations and invectives of the 
 Papal baronet. He said. Sir George evidently regarded 
 / the improvements in the laws, the free institutions, and 
 the social ameliorations introduced into the Kingdom 
 of Italy, which others considered as demonstrations ot 
 freedom, as nothing. The revolution took place but two 
 years ago, and what had been the result in that short 
 period 1 As regarded two-thirds of the Italian King- 
 dom, Sir George had practically renounced and abandoned 
 the case ; and as to the other third, it could clearly be 
 
118 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 shown that things were improving. With regard to 
 Kome, Sir George required the House to believe that 
 people were perfectly satisfied \ but there we're 20,000 
 French troops kept there for some purpose, which had 
 not been explained. Speaking as an individual, he said 
 he could not but regret the continuance of that occupa- 
 tion ; and he most earnestly hoped, for the sake of the 
 name and the fame of JFrance — for the sake of humanity 
 and the peace of Europe — ^it might soon be done away with. 
 With respect to the temporal government of the Papacy, 
 one of the questions involved in the discussion, Mr. Glad- 
 stone argued, in powerful and uncompromising terms, the 
 impolicy, as well as the injustice of prolonging it. 
 
 There being a considerable surplus in 1863, the general 
 expectation was, that the income tax and the tea duty 
 would come in for reduction. Nor did Mr. Gladstone 
 disappoint the general expectation and desire. He ap- 
 peared in high spirits, as well he might. That the 
 revenue exhibited such buoyancy, in spite of many adverse 
 circumstances and heavy drawbacks, such as the American 
 War, the extensive stoppage of manufactures at home, 
 and the serious falling off in agricultural productions in 
 Ireland, afforded ample ground of the soundness of the 
 system which he had done so much to create. He was 
 enabled to reduce the duty on tea from Is. 5d. to Is. a lb., 
 and to give an abatement of 2d. to all classes of income- 
 tax payers. The reception of the Budget was in the 
 highest degree favourable. By this time Mr. Gladstone's 
 management of the finances had become the very main 
 strength and support of the otherwise lethargic and coma- 
 tose Administration of the declining Lord Palmerston. 
 
 An interesting personal incident associated with the 
 
THE LAST WHIG ADMINISTRATION. 119 
 
 introduction of the Budget of 18G3, was the presence, for 
 tlis first time, of one of the Queen's sons, Prince Alfred, 
 accompanied by Prince Louis of Hesse, in the diplomatic 
 gallery of the House. They, like all the world, wished 
 to hear Mr. Gladstone convert figures into flowers of 
 rhetoric. They may have been disappointed ; for he never 
 delivered a less ambitious, plainer, or more straightforward 
 financial statement. It was amusing to observe that 
 whenever Mr. Gladstone made a point or got a cheer. 
 Prince Louis turned to Prince Alfred for an explanation, 
 which his Royal brother-in-law appeared either unable or 
 disinclined to afford. Indeed, it appeared on the whole 
 that the Princes were not overwhelmed with delight at 
 what they heard, and seemed puzzled to make out why so 
 much fuss had always been made about Mr. Gladstone's 
 Budgets. At the end of two hours, they had had enough 
 of it, and retired with alacrity. 
 
 The effect on Mr. Disraeli was still more palpable, but 
 from a different cause. He had deputed to Sir Stafford 
 Northcote the task of picking up points for criticism, and 
 that careful subordinate sat by his side, with an elabo- 
 rate apparatus of note-book and pen. But as the speech 
 went on, and disclosed a more and more pleasing con- 
 dition of affairs, more stern and fixed grew Mr. Disraeli's 
 face, and blanker and more lengthy grew Sir Stafford's. 
 His note-book lay neglected on his knee, and his whole 
 aspect and demeanour denoted that his occupation as 
 second critic of the Budget was this time gone. Mr. 
 Disraeli did not even stay to the end of the speech, but 
 as soon as Mr. Gladstone got to what may be called the 
 'supplement of his address, groped under his seat for his 
 hat, and disappeared for the evening. 
 
120 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 The general election ol' 1S65 took place under cir- 
 cumstances of rare tranquillity. There was no definite 
 issue to be tried, no election "cry." The Parliament was 
 near the period of its natural death, which the Palmer- 
 ston Ministry chose by a slight interval to anticipate. 
 The Government appealed with confidence to the success 
 of their efibrts in maintaining external peace, and to the 
 triumphant result of their commercial and financial 
 policy ; and they counted on a certain, though moderate 
 accession of strength in the new Parliament. The only 
 exciting contests were those for the University of Oxford 
 and the City of I^ondon. Mr. Gladstone had indicated 
 certain symptoms of a willingness to take into considera- 
 tion the alleged abuses of the Irish Establishment ; and 
 the Church and State element at Oxford was at once 
 aroused against him. Mr. Gathorne Hardy was put up 
 as a candidate to oppose him, and their respective friends 
 made the most strenuous exertions in the favour of each. 
 Had the election depended upon the resident members 
 of the University, Mr. Gladstone's return would have 
 been certain, but the new voting paper system, by which 
 thousands of the country clergy and squires could record 
 their suffrages without any trouble or expense, proved 
 fatal to his candidature. At the close of the poll, which 
 lasted five days, Mr. Hardy was 180 a-head of his illus- 
 trious rival. Thus terminated, after eighteen years' 
 faithful service, Mr. Gladstone's connection with that 
 academic seat, of which he has been the greatest lay orna- 
 ment in his and our time. 
 
 The election for South Lancashire was still open,, 
 and preparations for a keen struggle between the Liberal 
 and Conservative parties had for some time been made. 
 
THE LAST WHIG ADMINISTRATION. 121 
 
 On the 17th of July the nomination had taken place, 
 and Mr. Gladstone's name had been proposed, ere the 
 result at Oxford was as yet known. On the 18th, Mr. 
 Gladstone went to Manchester, where he had a conference 
 with the Liberal Election Committee, the result of which 
 was the immediate issue of this address : — 
 
 ** I appear before you as a candidate for the suffrages of your divisisn 
 of my native county. Time forbids me to enlarge on the numerous 
 topics which justly engage the public interest. I will bring them all 
 to a single head. You are conversant — few so much so — with the 
 legislation of the last thirty-five years. You have seen, you have felt, 
 its results. You cannot fail to have observed the verdict which the 
 country generally has, within the last eight days, pronounced upon the 
 relative claims and positions of the two great political parties with 
 respect to that legislation in the past, and to the prospective adminis- 
 tration of public affairs. I humbly, but confidently, without the least 
 disparagement to many excellent persons from whom I have the mis- 
 fortune frequently to difter, ask you to give your powerful voice in 
 confirmation of that verdict, and to pronounce with significance as to 
 the direction in which you desire the wheels of the State to move. 
 Before these words can be read, I hope to be among you in the hives of 
 your teeming enterprise." 
 
 The election took place two days after. The consti- 
 tuency returned three members. Two Tories stood first 
 and second, Mr. Gladstone heading the fourth on the 
 •list by less than three hundred votes out of nearly 9,000 
 recorded in his favour. Mr. Gladstone's return for Lan- 
 cashire was not regarded by the Liberals — who looked 
 upon him as their future leader — as a subject of greater 
 congratTilation than his rej ection at Oxford. They thought 
 he was fettered by^the latter connection, and would advance 
 more quickly as a non-academic member. The result has 
 demonstrated the accuracy of their surmise and hope. 
 
 Lord Palmerston died on the 18th of October, 1865, 
 
122 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTCNE. 
 
 and a few days after, his honoured remains were laid 
 in Westminster Abbey. With him, every one felt that 
 an era of English history had passed away, and that the 
 party of which he had been the head up to the moment 
 of his decease, must at once, or soon, develop a decisive 
 and an unmistakable policy. The first question that 
 arose was, who shall be his successor ? The names of 
 Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville were for a few days in 
 some men's mouths j but Earl E-ussell was appointed 
 Premier. Mr. Gladstone, however, was the real inspiring 
 spirit of the reconstituted Cabinet. During the recess, 
 public curiosity grew keener as to whether the Russell- 
 Gladstone Cabinet would introduce a Keform Bill, and 
 that a truly Liberal one. In November, Mr. Bright, 
 speaking at Birmingham, and evidently with authority, 
 stated that the Ministry was *' pledged to introduce a 
 measure of Parliamentary Reform, and an extended 
 suffrage for the people — and I believe it will redeem its t> 
 pledge." This significant utterance gave great satisfac- 
 tion to the thinking portion of the unenfranchised classes, 
 and to the Liberal section of the community generally 
 throughout the land. 
 
 On the 12th of March, 1866, Mr. Gladstone introduced 
 the Reform Bill which will continue identified with his 
 name, and frankly and unreservedly announced that the , 
 Government staked their existence on the issue they had 
 raised. His memorable phrase was : — " We have crossed 
 the Rubicon, and burned our boats." Yet the speech 
 in which he introduced the measure lacked his usual fire, 
 and the spontaneity and unforced eloquence which he 
 had frequently expended on inferior themes. The chief 
 promises of the measure were, the lowering of the 
 
THE LAST WHIG ADMINISTRATION. 123 
 
 county occupation francliise to <£14, and the borough to 
 iE7, the addition of a <£10 borough lodger franchise, a 
 £50 savings' bank franchise, the disfranchisement of per- 
 sons employed in Government yards, and others, which 
 are now of no interest. 
 
 When Mr, Gladstone rose, on the 12th of April, 
 to move the second reading of the Bill, he entered a 
 second time — and, being now fairly put on his mettle by 
 opposition, with his wonted fire — on the vindication of 
 the principles of the proposal. He thus concluded : — 
 " Enough, and more than enough, of vain, idle, and 
 mocking words have been uttered. Acts and deeds are 
 wanted. I beseech you to be wise, and, above all, to be 
 wise in time." When he sat down, Lord Grosvendr 
 moved an amendment, which was seconded by Lord 
 Stanley. After several nights' debate, in which all the 
 Parliamentary athletes took part, Mr. Gladstone replied, 
 closing with the emphatic words, " You cannot fight 
 against the future; time is on our side. The great 
 social forces are against you. They are arrayed — they 
 are marshalled on our side. The banner which we carry, 
 although it may, perhaps, at this moment droop over our 
 sinking heads, yet it will soar again, and float in the light 
 of heaven, and will be borne in the firm hands of the 
 united people of these three kingdoms — not, perhaps, to 
 an easy, but to a certain and not distant future." 
 
 Amid the most tumultuous cheering, Mr. Gladstone 
 resumed his seat ; and the division was at once taken, all 
 men's hearts present throbbing with excitement. The 
 result was, for the second reading, 318; against, 313 — 
 majority, five. 
 
 'Twere tedious to recite at length the subsequent 
 
124 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 movements made against the Bill. The end approached. 
 On Mr. Walpole's motion to raise the county quali- 
 fication from £14: to £20, the Ministerial majority 
 amounted to fourteen, all the Tories and all the " Adul- 
 lamites " — that exquisitely humorous term of Mr. 
 Bright's application — still, to a man, voting one way. 
 A somewhat similar amendment by Mr. Ward Hunt 
 reduced the majority to five, the point at which it had 
 stood in the instance of the attack led by Lord Gros- 
 venor. At last came the amendment of Lord Dunkellin, 
 a Whig, and the son of an ex- Whig Cabinet Minister, 
 substituting rating for rental ; in other words, greatly 
 lessening the scope of the area of enfranchisement. On 
 this. Ministers were beaten by eleven. Forthwith, Mr. 
 Gladstone informed the House that the Ministers had 
 made a communication to Her Majesty ; the nature of, 
 and reply to which, he could not divulge until after a 
 few days' delay — the Queen being at Balmoral. After 
 a week's suspense and anxiety, Earl Bussell and Mr. Glad- 
 stone stated that the Ministers had determined upon the 
 alternative of resignation. This greatly chagrined not a 
 few of the Adullamites, who had not contemplated such a 
 result* But Mr. Gladstone reminded his auditors of his 
 expressed determination to stand or fall by his measure. 
 He might have reminded them that he not only "be- 
 sought them to be wise, but to be wise in time." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH STRUGGLE. 
 
 In the session of 1868, Mr. Gladstone thoroughly succeeded 
 in rallying round him once more the whole body of the 
 Liberals. The "AduUamites" and the " Tea-room party" 
 were blotted out of existence. Not only did he succeed in 
 re-uniting his disorganised party, but he associated the last 
 session of the dying Parliament with an almost certain 
 triumph of the future. His good fortune, rather than 
 any marvellous prevision, enabled him to associate his 
 own legitimate ambition with what many believe to be the 
 cause of expediency and justice. There was a felicitous 
 coincidence uniting party interests with what a large 
 class believed to be the demands of duty. 
 
 The Government itself had led up to the subject of 
 Irish legislation ; as the event proved, thereby playing 
 into their adversaries' hands. Mr. Gladstone naturally 
 took the place of Ministers from the moment it appeared 
 that they had no definite policy to suggest. Before the 
 opening of the session. Lord Stanley had stated at Bristol, 
 that the Irish question imperatively demanded immediate 
 solution, and it was afterwards formally announced in 
 both Houses that the result of the deliberations of the 
 Cabinet would be stated by the Irish Secretary. On 
 the 10th of March, after Mr. Maguire had, with remark- 
 
126 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 able ditfuseness, recited the long list of Irish grievances, 
 Lord Mayo rose to redeem the pledge of his colleagues. 
 He disappointed both friends and foes by his announce- 
 ment of the intention to establish and endow an Irish 
 Koman Catholic university, and the promotion of religious 
 equality by a process of "levelling up," which was 
 understood to mean the partial endowment of the 
 Catholics and such of the Nonconformists as would 
 accept State aid. Mr. Gladstone instantly seized the 
 opportunity afforded by the development of so crude and 
 unsatisfactory a scheme. At the conclusion of aja address, 
 elaborate beyond measure, and irritating by its absence 
 Sv of practical suggestion or revelation of policy, he declared 
 /just ere sitting down, in the plainest and most unmis- 
 takable language, that the Irish Church must cease to 
 exist as an establishment. The fact of the thorough 
 acquiescence of his party became speedily apparent ; Earl 
 E/Ussell himself being the first to withdraw his published 
 scheme for the division of Church property in favour of 
 Mr. Gladstone's bolder and simpler proposal. 
 
 A fortnight afterwards, he moved that the House 
 should go into committee for the purpose of considering 
 a series of three resolutions, which affirmed, in few 
 phrases, the expediency of the disestablishment and dis- 
 endowment of the Irish Church. He proposed to 
 recognise all vested interests and all private benefactions 
 to the Church, and to apply the marginal sums not so 
 absorbed to purposes connected with the general benefit 
 of all classes — carefully, however, avoiding all detail or 
 even clue to his intentions on the latter point. It was 
 expected that the Government would meet this stroke 
 either by a direct negative, or by moving the previous 
 
THE IRISH CHURCH STRUGGLE. 127 
 
 question ; but Lord Stanley laid upon the table a colour- 
 less amendment, the purpoi-t of which was to leave the 
 whole matter open to the consideration of a new Parlia- 
 ment. He was bold enough, when speaking on behalf 
 of his amendment, to admit that no educated man could 
 either defend the existing condition of the Irish Church, 
 or rest satisfied with an internal re-distribution of its 
 endowments, such as had been effected by his father 
 thirty-five years before. This alarmed the bulk of the 
 Tory party; and Mr. Gathorne Hardy, speaking as their 
 mouthj)ieoe, attached to the amendment a high Con- 
 servative and ultra-Protestant interpretation. The 
 exigency of the case compelled Mr. Disraeli to endorse 
 this version. The issue between the two great rivals was 
 made unmistakably clear and definite. On a division, 
 Mr. Gladstone won by the telling majority of sixty. 
 , We here insert the following anecdote, neither vouch- 
 
 ing for, nor throVing doubts upon its accuracy. Nor 
 would it find a place in our pages, but for the circum- 
 stance that it is extracted from a communication inserted, 
 after the close of the session, in the Guardian^ a Church 
 newspaper, with which it is matter of notoriety that Mr. 
 Gladstone has long held peculiarly intimate relations : — 
 
 ^ "When Mr. Gladstone gave notice of his resolutions, a Roman 
 Catholic gentleman of great ability, who enjoys the confidence of the 
 Irish hierarchy, and is deep in the secrets of the Vatican, requested 
 an interview with Mr. Gladstone, to whom he was till then, I believe, 
 personally a stranger. In that interview he urged on Mr. Gladstone 
 
 ^ the abandonment of his Irish Church policy as being most prejudicial 
 to the interests of the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Gladstone replied, 
 I believe, somewhat as follows : — That he had considered the question 
 in all its bearings ; that the disestablishment of the Irish Church was 
 fen act of political justice ; that justice would, in the long run, be 
 
128 WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. 
 
 beneficial to all legitimate interests ; that the time had, in his opinion, 
 arrived for declaring a policy for Ireland ; that the disestablishment 
 of the Irish Church seemed to him to be both the most just and tlie 
 only satisfactory policy, and l|that he was determined to risk his 
 political future on its accomplishment. When you consider the state 
 of opinion at the time, the risk was very great, though Mr. Gladstone's 
 unexpected success has made the public insensible to the danger he 
 was running of making shipwreck of his political reputation. If he 
 had failed, it would have discredited his statesmanship for years to 
 congfij^ and failure was clearly on the cards, and was, at first, confidently 
 predicted by the Tory press, and even by the PaU Mall Gazette, and, I 
 think, the Satwrday Review.'''' 
 
 After tlie Easter recess, the first resolution was re- 
 affirmed by a majority increased to sixty-five, and for a 
 few days it was alternately reported that Ministers 
 would either resign, or make an appeal to the existing 
 unreformed constituencies. Ultimately, however, the 
 Premier stated that he would carry the session to its ter- 
 mination, and reserve the final decision of the great issue 
 for the arbitrement of the new and eillarged constituen- 
 cies in the succeeding November. 
 
 A complementary measure for suspending all nomina- 
 tions to vacant benefices in the gift of the Crown, was 
 passed by the Commons and rejected by the Peers. The 
 conflicting decisions of the two Houses left a definite 
 issue which admits of no compromise, and which must 
 necessarily be fought out at the hustings. Even Lord * 
 Salisbury admitted in his place that, on this, as on all 
 questions of similar importance, the will of the House of 
 Commons, if endorsed by the nation, must ultimately 
 prevail. Such was the issue on which the newly-enfran- i 
 chised had to record their first verdict. 
 
 
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 W. E. 
 
 Gladstone. 
 
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