The Grand Old Man Part 15

During a debate on the bill for the abolition of Church rates, Mr.

Gladstone said that the law requiring Church rates was _prima facie_ open to great objection, but he could not vote for total abolition. He offered a compromise and proposed that Dissenters be exempted from paying Church rates, and at the same time be disqualified from interfering with funds to which they had not contributed. The compromise was accepted, but failed to become a law.

On the subject of reform, mentioned in the address, there were great debates, during the session of 1866. The new Cabinet, known as the Russell-Gladstone Ministry, set themselves to work in earnest upon a question that had baffled all the skill of various administrations. As a part of the reform scheme, Mr. Gladstone brought forward a Franchise Bill in the House of Commons, March 12th.

The bill satisfied most of the Liberal party. Mr. Robert Lowe, a Liberal, became one of its most powerful a.s.sailants. His enmity to the working cla.s.ses made him extremely unpopular. Mr. Horseman also joined the Conservatives in opposing the bill. Mr. Bright, in a crus.h.i.+ng retort, fastened upon the small party of Liberals, led by these two members in opposition to the bill, the epithet of "Adullamites." Mr.

Horseman, Mr. Bright said, had "retired into what may be called his political Cave of Adullam, to which he invited every one who was in distress, and every one who was discontented. He had long been anxious to found a party in this house, and there is scarcely a member at this end of the House who is able to address us with effect or to take much part, whom he has not tried to bring over to his party and his cabal. At last he has succeeded in hooking ... Mr. Lowe. I know it was the opinion many years ago of a member of the Cabinet that two men could make a party. When a party is formed of two men so amiable and so disinterested as the two gentlemen, we may hope to see for the first time in Parliament a party perfectly harmonious and distinguished by mutual and unbroken trust. But there is one difficulty which it is impossible to remove. This party of two is like the Scotch terrier that is so covered with hair that you could not tell which was the head and which was the tail." This sally, which excited immoderate laughter, remains one of the happiest examples of Parliamentary retort and badinage.

During this session the Conservative party met at the residence of the Marquis of Salisbury, and decided upon strongly opposing the measure proposed by the Liberal government. Mr. Bright characterized it as "a dirty conspiracy." On the other hand, the country supported the bill, and great meetings were held in its interest. Mr. Gladstone spoke at a great meeting at Liverpool. He said: "Having produced this measure, founded in a spirit of moderation, we hope to support it with decision.... We have pa.s.sed the Rubicon, we have broken the bridge and burned the boats behind us. We have advisedly cut off the means of retreat, and having done this, we hope that, as far as time is yet permitted, we have done our duty to the Crown and to the nation." This was regarded as the bugle-call to the Liberal party for the coming battle.

The debate began April 12th, and continued for eight nights. "On no occasion since, and seldom before, has such a flow of eloquence been heard within the walls of the House of Commons." Mr. Disraeli spoke for three hours against the bill, and in his speech accused Mr. Gladstone of introducing American ideas of Government, and of having once a.s.sailed the very principles he now advocated, when in the Oxford Union he spoke against the Reform Bill of 1832. Mr. Gladstone's reply was one of the most noteworthy parts of this famous debate. He rose at one o'clock in the morning to conclude a legislative battle which had begun two weeks before. "At last," Mr. Gladstone said, "we have obtained a declaration from an authoritative source that a bill which, in a country with five millions of adult males, proposes to add to a limited const.i.tuency 200,000 of the middle cla.s.s and 200,000 of the working cla.s.s, is, in the judgment of the leader of the Tory party, a bill to reconstruct the const.i.tution upon American principles.

"The right honorable gentleman, secure in the recollection of his own consistency, has taunted me with the errors of my boyhood. When he addressed the honorable member of Westminster, he showed his magnanimity by declaring that he would not take the philosopher to task for what he wrote twenty-five years ago; but when he caught one who, thirty-six years ago, just emerged from boyhood, and still an undergraduate at Oxford, had expressed an opinion adverse to the Reform Bill of 1832, of which he had so long and bitterly repented, then the right honorable gentleman could not resist the temptation."

The bill was put upon its pa.s.sage. The greatest excitement prevailed.

"The house seemed charged with electricity, like a vast thunder-cloud; and now a spark was about to be applied. Strangers rose in their seats, the crowd at the bar pushed half-way up the House, the Royal Princes leaned forward in their standing places, and all was confusion."

Presently order was restored, and breathless excitement prevailed while the tellers announced that the bill had been carried by a majority of only five.

"Hardly had the words left the teller's lips than there arose a wild, raging, mad-brained shout from floor and gallery, such as has never been heard in the present House of Commons. Dozens of half-frantic Tories stood up in their seats, madly waved their hats and hurrahed at the top of their voices. Strangers in both galleries clapped their hands. The Adullamites on the Ministerial benches, carried away by the delirium of the moment, waved their hats in sympathy with the Opposition, and cheered as loudly as any. Mr. Lowe, the leader, instigator, and prime mover of the conspiracy, stood up in the excitement of the moment--flushed, triumphant, and avenged.... He took off his hat, waved it in wide and triumphant circles over the heads of the very men who had just gone into the lobby against him.... But see, the Chancellor of the Exchequer lifts up his hand to bespeak silence, as if he had something to say in regard to the result of the division. But the more the great orator lifts his hand beseechingly, the more the cheers are renewed and the hats waved. At length the noise comes to an end by the process of exhaustion, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer rises. Then there is a universal hush, and you might hear a pin drop."

"Few, if any, could antic.i.p.ate at this time, that in the course of one short year a Conservative Government would find itself compelled to take up that very question of Reform, whose virtual defeat its opponents now hailed with such intoxicating expressions of delight." However, the bill was unexpectedly wrecked June 18th, by an amendment subst.i.tuting a ratal instead of a rental basis for the borough franchise. The ministry regarding this as a vital point, could not agree to it, and consequently threw up their measure and resigned office. The Queen was unwilling to accept their resignation. But the ministry felt that they had lost the confidence of the House, so their resignation was announced June 26th.

The apathy of the people about reform that Earl Russell thought he perceived, as far as London was concerned, at once disappeared. A great demonstration was made at Trafalgar Square, where some ten thousand people a.s.sembled and pa.s.sed resolutions in favor of reform. A serious riot occurred at Hyde Park in consequence of the prohibition by the Government of the meeting of the Reform League. The Reformers then marched to Carleton House Terrace, the residence of Mr. Gladstone, singing songs in his honor. He was away from home, but Mrs. Gladstone and her family came out on the balcony to acknowledge the tribute paid by the people. It is said that Mr. Gladstone, now for the first time, became a popular hero. Great meetings were held in the interest of reform in the large towns of the North and the Midlands, where his name was received with tumultuous applause. Mr. Gladstone was hailed everywhere as the leader of the Liberal party. Reform demonstrations continued during the whole of the recess. A meeting was held at Brookfields, near Birmingham, which was attended by nearly 250,000 people. The language of some of the ardent friends of reform was not always discreet, but Mr. Gladstone appears to have preserved a calm and dignified att.i.tude.

In the summer of 1866, Lord Derby had announced his acceptance of office as Premier, and the formation of a Conservative Cabinet. The demonstrations of the people compelled the Conservatives to introduce measures in Liberal Reform. Accordingly, in 1867, Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues pa.s.sed a Reform Bill, which, after various modifications, was far more extreme than that presented by the Liberals and defeated.

Owing to a division in the ranks of the Liberal members on the pending bill, Mr. Gladstone withdrew from the active leaders.h.i.+p of the House, but soon resumed it. Mr. Bright said, at Birmingham, that since 1832, there had been no man of Mr. Gladstone's rank as a statesman who had imported into the Reform question so much of conviction, of earnestness, and of zeal.

Not long after this deputations from various parts of the country, accompanied by their representatives in Parliament, called on Mr.

Gladstone to present addresses expressive of confidence in him as Liberal leader.

Lord Cranborne expressed his astonishment at hearing the bill described as a Conservative triumph. It was right that its real parentage should be established. The bill had been modified by Mr. Gladstone. All his points were conceded. If the adoption on the principles of Mr. Bright could be described as a triumph, then indeed the Conservative party, in the whole history of its previous annals, had won no triumphs so simple as this. In the House of Lords the Duke of Buccleuch declared that the only word in the bill that remained unaltered was the first word, "whereas."

"The work of reform was completed in the session of 1868, by the pa.s.sing of the Scotch and Irish Reform Bills, a Boundary Bill for England and Wales, an Election Pet.i.tions and Corrupt Practices Prevention Bill, and the Registration of Voters Bill. The object of the last-named measure was to accelerate the elections, and to enable Parliament to meet before the end of 1868."

In the autumn of 1866, Mr. Gladstone and his family again visited Italy, and at Rome had an audience with Pope Pio Nono. It became necessary two years later, owing to this interview, for Mr. Gladstone formally to explain his visit.

In February, 1868, Lord Derby, owing to failing health, resigned. The Derby Ministry retired from office, and Mr. Disraeli became Prime Minister. An English author writes: "There was, of course, but one possible Conservative Premier--Mr. Disraeli--he who had served the Conservative party for more than thirty years, who had led it to victory, and who had long been the ruling spirit of the Cabinet."

The elevation of Mr. Disraeli to the Premiers.h.i.+p before Mr. Gladstone, produced, in some quarters, profound regret and even indignation. But Mr. Disraeli, though in office, was not in power. He was nominally the leader of a House that contained a large majority of his political opponents, now united among themselves. The schism in the Liberal party had been healed by the question of Reform, and they could now defeat the government whenever they chose to do so; consequently Mr. Gladstone took the initiative. His compulsory Church Rates Abolition Bill was introduced and accepted. By this measure all legal proceedings for the recovery of church rates were abolished. The question that overshadowed all others, however, was that of the Irish Church.

On the 16th of March Mr. Gladstone struck the first blow in the struggle that was to end in the disestablishment of the Irish Church. Mr. Maguire moved that the House consider the condition of Ireland. Mr. Gladstone said that Ireland had a controversy with England and a long account against England. It was a debt of justice, and he enumerated six particulars, one of which was the Established Episcopal Church.

Religious Equality, he contended, must be conceded. He said, in referring to his speech made on the motion of Mr. Dillwyn in 1865: "The opinion I held then and hold now--namely, that in order to the settlement of this question of the Irish Church, that Church, as a State Church must cease to exist."

This speech excited feelings of consternation amongst the Ministerialists. Mr. Disraeli bewailed his own unhappy fate at the commencement of his career as Prime Minister, at finding himself face to face with the necessity of settling an account of seven centuries old. He complained that all the elements of the Irish crisis had existed while Mr. Gladstone was in office, but no attempt had been made to deal with them.

March 23d Mr. Gladstone proposed resolutions affirming that the Irish Episcopal Church should cease to exist as an establishment, and asking the Queen to place at the disposal of Parliament her interest in the temporalities of the Irish Church.

Mr. Gladstone's resolution was carried by a majority of 65, and the Queen replied that she would not suffer her interests to stand in the way of any measures contemplated by Parliament. Consequently Mr.

Gladstone brought in his Irish Church Suspensory Bill, which was adopted by the Commons, but rejected by the Lords. During the discussion, ministerial explanations followed; Mr. Disraeli described, in his most pompous vein, his audiences with the Queen. His statement amounted to this--that, in spite of adverse votes, the Ministers intended to hold on till the autumn, and then to appeal to the new electorate created by the Reform Act.

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

An appeal was now made to the country. The general election that followed, in November, was fought out mainly upon this question. A great Liberal majority was returned to Parliament, which was placed at 115.

But there were several individual defeats, among them Mr. Gladstone himself, who was rejected by South Lancaster. This was in part owing to the readjustment of seats according to the Reform Bill. But Mr.

Gladstone received an invitation from Greenwich, in the southwestern division, where he was warmly received by the electors. "He spoke everywhere, with all his fiery eloquence, on the monstrous foolishness of a religious establishment which ministered only to a handful of the people." Is the Irish Church to be or not to be? was the question. He was returned for that borough by a large majority over his Conservative opponents.

Archbishop Wilberforce wrote in November: "The returns to the House of Commons leave no doubt of the answer of the country to Gladstone's appeal. In a few weeks he will be in office at the head of a majority of something like a hundred, elected on the distinct issue of Gladstone and the Irish Church."

The feeling was so enormously great in its preponderance for Mr.

Gladstone's policy of Liberal Reform, especially for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, that Mr. Disraeli did not adopt the usual course of waiting for the endors.e.m.e.nt of the new Parliament, which he felt sure would be given to Mr. Gladstone, but resigned, and the first Disraeli Cabinet went out of office, December 2d.

December 4, 1868, the Queen summoned Mr. Gladstone to Windsor to form a Cabinet. He had now attained the summit of political ambition. He was the first Commoner in the land--the uncrowned king of the British Empire --for such is the English Premier. "All the industry and self-denial of a laborious life, all the anxieties and burdens and battles of five and thirty years of Parliamentary struggle were crowned by this supreme and adequate reward. He was Prime Minister of England--had attained to that goal of the Eton boy's ambition; and, what perhaps was to him of greater consideration, he was looked up to by vast numbers of the people as their great leader."

December 9th the new government was completed and the ministers received their seals from the Queen. Mr. Bright, contrary to all expectation, became President of the Board of Trade. In offering themselves for re-election, the members of the new Cabinet found no trouble--all were returned. Mr. Gladstone was returned by Greenwich.

With the year 1869 Mr. Gladstone entered upon a great period of Reform.

The new Parliament was opened December 10th. On the 11th Mr. and Mrs.

Gladstone paid a visit to Lord and Lady Salisbury, at Hatfield. Bishop Wilberforce was there and had opportunity to observe his old and honored friend in the first flush of his new dignity. Here are his comments: "Gladstone, as ever, great, earnest, and honest; as unlike the tricky Disraeli as possible." To Dr. Trench the Bishop wrote: "The nation has decided against our establishment, and we bow to its decision, and on what tenure and conditions it is to be held, remains confessedly open."

"But his sagacious and statesmanlike counsel was disregarded. The Irish Bishops ranged themselves in bitter but futile hostility to the change.

A frantic outbreak of Protestant violence began in Ireland and spread to England." Bishop Wilberforce notes this conversation at Windsor Castle: "The Queen very affable. 'So sorry Mr. Gladstone started this about the Irish Church, and he is a great friend of yours.'"

On the 15th of February Parliament a.s.sembled. March 1st Mr. Gladstone introduced his momentous bill in a speech of three hours, his first speech as Prime Minister, which was characterized as "calm, moderate and kindly." It was proposed that on January 1, 1871, the Irish Church should cease to exist as an establishment and should become a free Church.

Mr. Disraeli, in the Commons, moved the rejection of the bill. In opposing the measure he objected to disestablishment, because he was in favor of the union of Church and State.

Mr. Gladstone eloquently concluded as follows: "As the clock points rapidly towards the dawn, so as rapidly flow out the years, the months, the days, that remain to the existence of the Irish Established Church.... Not now are we opening this great question. Opened, perhaps, it was when the Parliament which expired last year p.r.o.nounced upon it that emphatic judgment which can never be recalled. Opened it was, further, when in the months of autumn the discussions were held in every quarter of the Irish Church. Prosecuted another stage it was, when the completed elections discovered to us a manifestation of the national verdict more emphatic than, with the rarest exceptions, has been witnessed during the whole of our Parliamentary history. The good cause was further advanced towards its triumphant issue when the silent acknowledgment of the late government, that they declined to contest the question, was given by their retirement from office, and their choosing a less responsible position from which to carry on a more desultory warfare against the policy which they had in the previous session unsuccessfully attempted to resist. Another blow will soon be struck in the same good cause, and I will not intercept it one single moment more."

The bill pa.s.sed by an overwhelming vote--368 against 250--and went up to the Lords, where stirring debates occurred. But there, as well as in the House, the Irish Establishment was doomed. The bill, substantially unaltered, received the Royal a.s.sent July 26, 1869.

The Annual Register for 1869 declared that the bill "was carried through in the face of a united and powerful opposition, mainly by the resolute will and unflinching energy of the Prime Minister.... Upon the whole, whatever may be thought of its merits or demerits, it can hardly be disputed that the Act of the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, introduced and carried into a law within somewhat less than five months, was the most remarkable legislative achievement of modern times."

The parliamentary session of 1870 was rendered memorable by the pa.s.sing of a scarcely less popular and important measure--the Irish Land Bill.

Mr. Gladstone, in speaking of Ireland, had referred to three branches of an Upas tree, to the growth of which her present sad condition was largely owing--the Irish Church, the Irish Land Laws, and the Irish Universities. The first branch had fallen with the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and Mr. Gladstone, pressing on in his reform, now proposed to lop off the second branch by his Irish Land Bill, which was in itself a revolution. It was claimed for Mr. Gladstone's new bill, or Land Scheme, that while it insured for the tenant security of holding, it did not confiscate a single valuable right of the Irish land-owner.

Mr. Gladstone remarked that he believed there was a great fund of national wealth in the soil of Ireland as yet undeveloped, and said he trusted that both tenant and landlord would accept the bill because it was just. The bill pa.s.sed, and received the approval of the Queen, August 1, 1870.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Old Lion]

CHAPTER XV

THE GOLDEN AGE OF LIBERALISM

In what has been denominated the "Golden Age of Liberalism" the Liberal party was united, enthusiastic, victorious, full of energy, confidence and hope. "I have not any misgivings about Gladstone personally," says an English writer, "but as leader of the party to which the folly of the Conservatives and the selfish treachery of Disraeli, bit by bit, allied him, he cannot do what he would, and, with all his vast powers, there is a want of sharp-sighted clearness as to others. But G.o.d rules. I do not see how we are, after Disraeli's Reform Bill, long to avoid fundamental changes, both in Church and State."

Justin McCarthy has well summed up the aims of Mr. Gladstone and his party on their accession to power: "Nothing in modern English history is like the rush of the extraordinary years of reforming energy on which the new administration had now entered. Mr. Gladstone's government had to grapple with five or six great questions, any one of which might have seemed enough to engage the whole attention of an ordinary administration. The new Prime Minister had pledged himself to abolish the State Church in Ireland, and to reform the Irish Land Tenure system.