The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume II Part 40

Meanwhile the _Times_ had raised the question immediately (Aug. 11), though not in adverse language. The unslumbering instinct of party had quickly got upon a scent, and two keen-nosed sleuth hounds of the opposition four or five weeks after Mr. Gladstone had taken the seals of the exchequer, sent to the Speaker a certificate in the usual form (Sept.

17) stating the vacancy at Greenwich, and requesting him to issue a writ for a new election. The Speaker reminded them in reply, that the law governing the issue of writs during the recess in cases of acceptance of office, required notification to him from the member accepting; and he had received no such notification.(297) Everybody knew that in case of an election, Mr. Gladstone's seat was not safe, though when the time came he was in fact elected. The final state and the outlook could not be better described than in a letter from Lord Halifax to Mr. Gladstone (Dec. 9):-

_Lord Halifax to Mr. Gladstone._

_Dec. 9, 1873._-On thinking over the case as to your seat, I really think it is simple enough. I will put my ideas shortly for your benefit, or you may burn them. You did not believe that you had vacated your seat on accepting the office of chancellor of the exchequer, and you did not send notice to the Speaker as required by the Act of 1858. Were you right? The solicitor-general said that you were, in a deliberate opinion. The attorney-general concurred. The present law officers consider it so very doubtful that they will not give an opinion. The Speaker either from not having your notice, or having doubts, has not ordered a new writ.

These are the facts. What should you do? _Up to the meeting_ of parliament you clearly must act as if there was no doubt. If you do not, you almost admit being wrong. You must a.s.sume yourself to be right, that you are justified in the course which you have taken, and act consistently on that view. When parliament meets, I think the proper course would be for the Speaker to say that he had received a certificate of vacancy from two members, but not the notice from the member himself, and having doubts he referred the matter to the House, according to the Act. This ensures the priority of the question and calls on you to explain your not having sent the notice. You state the facts as above, place yourself in the hands of the House, and withdraw. I agree with what Bright said that the House of Commons will deal quite fairly in such a case. A committee will be appointed. I don't think it can last very long, and you will be absent during its sitting. No important business can be taken during your absence, and I do not know that any evil will ensue from shortening the period of business before the budget. They may vote estimates, or take minor matters.

This sensible view of Lord Halifax and Mr. Bright may be set against Lord Selborne's dogmatic a.s.sertion that a dissolution was the only escape. As for his further a.s.sertion about his never doubting that this was the determining cause of the dissolution, I can only say that in the ma.s.s of papers connected with the Greenwich seat and the dissolution, there is no single word in one of them a.s.sociating in any way either topic with the other. Mr. Gladstone acted so promptly in the affair of the seat that both the Speaker of the House of Commons and Lord Selborne himself said that no fault could be found with him. His position before the House was therefore entirely straightforward. Finally Mr. Gladstone gave an obviously adequate and sufficient case for the dissolution both to the Queen and to the cabinet, and stated to at least three of his colleagues what was "the determining cause," and this was not the Greenwich seat, but something wholly remote from it.(298)

III

The autumn recess began with attendance at Balmoral, of which a glimpse or two remain:-

_To Mrs. Gladstone._

_Balmoral, Aug. 22, 1873._-The Queen in a long conversation asked me to-day about you at Holyhead. She talked of many matters, and made me sit down, because odd to say I had a sudden touch of my enemy yesterday afternoon, which made me think it prudent to beg off from dining with her, and keep on my back taking a strong dose of sal volatile.... The Queen had occasion to speak about the Crown Princess, lauded her talents, did not care a pin for her (the Queen's) opinion, used to care only for that of her father....

_Aug. 24._-To-day I had a long talk. Nothing can be better than her humour. She is going to Fort William on the 8th. I leave on Sat.u.r.day, but if I make my Highland walk it cannot be till Monday, and all next week will probably be consumed in getting me home.

_Aug. 27._-I enclose a copy of my intimation to the Queen [the engagement of his eldest daughter], which has drawn forth _in a few minutes_ the accompanying most charming letter from her. I think the original of this should be given to Agnes herself, as she will think it a great treasure; we keeping a copy. Is it not a little odd on our part, more than his, that (at least so far as I am concerned) we have allowed this great Aye to be said, without a single word on the subject of the means of support forthcoming? It is indeed a proceeding worthy of the times of the Acts of the Apostles! You perhaps know a little more than I do. _Your_ family were not very worldly minded people, but you will remember that before our engagement, Stephen was spirited up, most properly, to put a question to me about means. Yesterday I was not so much struck at hearing nothing on the subject of any sublunary particular; but lo! again your letter of to-day arrives with all about the charms of the orphanage, but not a syllable on beef and mutton, bread and b.u.t.ter, which after all cannot be altogether dispensed with.

Of this visit Lord Granville wrote to him (Sept. 20): "The Queen told me last night that she had never known you so remarkably agreeable." The journey closed with a rather marked proof of bodily soundness in a man nearly through his sixty-fourth year, thus recorded in his diary:-

_Aug. 25._-[At Balmoral]. Walked thirteen miles, quite fresh.

26.-Walked 8- miles in 2 h. 10 m. _Sept. 1._-Off at 9.15 [from Invercauld] to Castleton and Derry Lodge, driving. From the Lodge at 11.15, thirty-three miles to Kingussie on foot. Half an hour for luncheon, 1/4 hour waiting for the ponies (the road so rough on the hill); touched a carriageable road at 5, the top at 3. Very grand hill views, floods of rain on Speyside. Good hotel at Kingussie, but sorely disturbed by rats.

"Think," he wrote to his daughter Mary from Naworth, "of my walking a good three and thirty miles last Monday, some of it the roughest ground I ever pa.s.sed." He was always wont to enjoy proofs of physical vigour, never forgetting how indispensable it is in the equipment of the politician for the athletics of public life. On his return home, he resumed the equable course of life a.s.sociated with that happy place, though political consultations intruded:-

_Sept. 6._-Settled down again at Hawarden, where a happy family party gathered to-day. 13.-Finished the long and sad but profoundly interesting task of my letter to Miss Hope-Scott [on her father]. Also sent her father's letters (105) to her.... We finished cutting down a great beech. Our politicians arrived.

Conversations with Bright, with Wolverton, with Granville, and with all three till long past twelve, when I prayed to leave off for the sake of the brain. 14.-Church morning and evening.... A stiff task for a half exhausted brain. But I cannot desist from a sacred task. Conversation with Lord Granville, Lord Wolverton, Mr.

Bright. 15.-Church, 8- A.M. Spent the forenoon in conclave till two, after a preliminary conversation with Bright. Spent the evening also in conclave, we have covered a good deal of ground.... Cut down the half-cut alder. 16.-Final conversation with Granville, with Wolverton, and with Bright, who went last.

18.-Wood-cutting with Herbert, then went up to Stephen's school feast, an animated and pretty scene. 21.-Read Manning's letter to Archbishop of Armagh. There is in it to me a sad air of unreality; it is on stilts all through. 27.-Conversation with Mr. Palgrave chiefly on Symonds and the Greek mythology.... Cut a tree with Herbert. 28.-Conversation with Mr. Palgrave. He is tremendous, but in all other respects good and full of mental energy and activity, only the vent is rather large. 29.-Conversation with Mr. Palgrave, pretty stiff. Wood-cutting with Herbert. Wrote a rough mem. and computation for the budget of next year. I want eight millions to handle! _Oct. 2._-Off at 8, London at 3.

The memorial letter on the departed friend of days long past, if less rich than the companion piece upon Lord Aberdeen, is still a graceful example of tender reminiscence and regret poured out in periods of grave melody.(299) It is an example, too, how completely in the press of turbid affairs, he could fling off the load and at once awake afresh the thoughts and a.s.sociations that in truth made up his inmost life.

(M152) Next came the autumn cabinets, with all their embarra.s.sments, so numerous that one minister tossed a sc.r.a.p across the table to another, "We ought to have impeached Dizzy for not taking office last spring." Disraeli had at least done them one service. An election took place at Bath in October. The conservative leader wrote a violent letter in support of the conservative candidate. "For nearly five years," said Mr. Disraeli, "the present ministers have hara.s.sed every trade, worried every profession and a.s.sailed or menaced every cla.s.s, inst.i.tution, and species of property in the country. Occasionally they have varied this state of civil warfare by perpetrating some job which outraged public opinion, or by stumbling into mistakes which have been always discreditable and sometimes ruinous. All this they call a policy and seem quite proud of it; but the country has I think made up its mind to close this career of plundering and blundering."(300) Mr. Gladstone described this curious outburst as "Mr.

Disraeli's incomparable stroke on our behalf," and in fact its effect on public opinion was to send the liberal candidate to the head of the poll.

But the victory at Bath stood solitary in the midst of reverses.

As for the general legislative business of the coming session, Mr.

Gladstone thought it impossible to take up the large subject of the extension of the county franchise, but they might encourage Mr. Trevelyan to come forward with it on an early day, and give him all the help they could. Still the board was bare, the meal too frugal. They were afraid of proposing a change in the laws affecting the inheritance of land, or reform of London government, or a burials bill, or a county government bill. The home secretary was directed to draw up a bill for a group of difficult questions as to employers and employed. No more sentences were to be provided for Mr. Disraeli's next electioneering letter.

December was mainly spent at Hawarden. A pleasant event was his eldest daughter's marriage, of which he wrote to the Duke of Argyll:-

The kindness of _all_ from the Queen down, to the cottagers and poor folks about us, has been singular and most touching. Our weather for the last fortnight has been delightful, and we earnestly hope it may hold over to-morrow. I have not yet read Renan's _apotres_. My opinion of him is completely dual. His life of Our Lord I thought a piece of trumpery; his work _Sur les langues semitiques_ most able and satisfactory in its manner and discussion.

The notes in the diary bring us up to the decision that was to end the great ministry:-

_Dec. 1._-Dined at Mr. Forster's and went to Drury Lane to see in _Antony and Cleopatra_ how low our stage has fallen. Miss K. V. in the ballet, dressed in black and gold, danced marvellously. 2.-To Windsor, and had a long audience of the Queen. Dined with H.M.

Whist in evening. 3.-Castle. Prayers at 9; St. George's at 10.30.

Off to Twickenham at 11.25. Visited Mr. Bohn, and saw his collection; enormous and of very great interest. Then to Pembroke Lodge, luncheon and long conversation with Lord Russell.... Read _The Parisians_. 6.-Packing, etc., and off to Hawarden. 13.-Walked with Stephen Glynne. I opened to him that I must give up my house at or about the expiry of the present government. 15.-Read Montalembert's _Life_; also my article of 1852 on him. Mr. Herbert (R.A.) came and I sat to him for a short time. 17.-Finished _Life_ of Montalembert. It was a pure and n.o.ble career personally; in a public view unsatisfactory; the pope was a worm in the gourd all through. His oratory was great. 19.-With Herbert set about making a walk from Glynne Cottage to W. E. G. door. 20.-Sat to Mr.

Herbert. Worked on version of the "s.h.i.+eld" [_Iliad_]. Worked on new path. 23.-Sat 1-3/4 hours to Mr. Herbert. Worked on correcting version of the s.h.i.+eld and finished writing it out. Read Aristophanes. 26.-24 to dinner, a large party gathered for the marriage. 27.-The house continued full. At 10.30 the weather broke into violent hail and rain. It was the only speck upon the brightness of the marriage. 29.-Sixty-four years completed to-day-what have they brought me? A weaker heart, stiffened muscles, thin hairs; other strength still remains in my frame.

31.-Still a full house. The year ends as it were in tumult. My constant tumult of business makes other tumult more sensible.... I cannot as I now am, get sufficiently out of myself to judge myself, and unravel the knots of being and doing of which my life seems to be full.

_Jan. 1, 1874._-A little _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. 2.-Tree-cutting.

Read Fitzjames Stephen on _Parliamentary Government_, not wizard-like. (No. 2.) 6.-Read _The Parisians_, vol. iv., Muir's beautiful version of Gray's _Elegy_, and the Dizzy pamphlet on the crisis. 8.-Revised and sent off the long letter to Lord Granville on the political situation which I wrote yesterday. Axe work.

9.-Tree-cutting with Herbert. Sent off with some final touches my version of the s.h.i.+eld and preface. 10.-Mr. Burnett [his agent]

died at one A.M. Requiescat. I grieve over this good and able man sincerely, apart from the heavy care and responsibility of replacing him, which must fall on me of necessity. 15.-Worked with Herbert; we finished gravelling the path. It rather strains my chest. 16.-Off to town after an early breakfast. Reached C. H. T.

about 3 P.M. Saw Lord Granville and others.

Chapter XIV. The Dissolution. (1874)

... Cette pretendue sagacite qui se croit profonde, quand elle suppose partout des intrigues savantes, et met de pet.i.ts drames arranges a la place de la verite. II n'y a pas tant de premeditation dans les affaires humaines, et leur cours est plus naturel, que ne le croit le vulgaire.-GUIZOT.

The spurious sagacity that thinks itself deep, because it everywhere takes for granted all sorts of knowing intrigues, and puts little artful dramas in the place of truth. There is less premeditation in human affairs, and their course is more natural than people commonly believe.

I

In the summer of 1873 before leaving London for Hawarden, Mr. Gladstone sent for the chairman of the board of inland revenue and for the head of the finance department of the treasury; he directed them to get certain information into order for him. His requests at once struck these experienced officers with a surmise that he was nursing some design of dealing with the income-tax. Here are two entries from his diary:-

_Aug. 11, 1873._-Saw Mr. Cardwell, to whom at the war office I told in deep secrecy my ideas of the _possible_ finance of next year, based upon the abolition of income-tax and sugar duties, with partial compensation from spirit and death duties. _Sept.

29._-Wrote a rough mem. and computation for budget of next year. I want eight millions to handle!

So much for the charitable tale that he only bethought him of the income-tax, when desperately hunting for a card to play at a general election.