The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume III Part 50

One of the cardinal difficulties of all free government is to make it hard for majorities to act unjustly to minorities. You cannot make this injustice impossible but you may set up obstacles. In this case, there was no novelty in the device adopted. The legislative body was to be composed of two orders. The first order was to consist of the twenty-eight representative peers, together with seventy-five members elected by certain scheduled const.i.tuencies on an occupation franchise of twenty-five pounds and upwards. To be eligible for the first order, a person must have a property qualification, either in realty of two hundred pounds a year, or in personalty of the same amount, or a capital value of four thousand pounds. The representative peers now existing would sit for life, and, as they dropped off, the crown would nominate persons to take their place up to a certain date, and on the exhaustion of the twenty-eight existing peers, then the whole of the first order would become elective under the same conditions as the seventy-five other members.

The second order would consist of 206 members, chosen by existing counties and towns under the machinery now operative. The two orders were to sit and deliberate together, but either order could demand a separate vote. This right would enable a majority of one order to veto the proposal of the other. But the veto was only to operate until a dissolution, or for three years, whichever might be the longer interval of the two.

The executive transition was to be gradual. The office of viceroy would remain, but he would not be the minister of a party, nor quit office with an outgoing government. He would have a privy council; within that council would be formed an executive body of ministers like the British cabinet. This executive would be responsible to the Irish legislature, just as the executive government here is responsible to the legislature of this country.

If any clause of a bill seemed to the viceroy to be _ultra vires_, he could refer it to the judicial committee of the privy council in London. The same reference, in respect of a section of an Irish Act, lay open either to the English secretary of state, or to a suitor, defendant, or other person concerned.

Future judges were to hold the same place in the Irish system as English judges in the English system; their office was to be during good behaviour; they were to be appointed on the advice of the Irish government, removable only on the joint address of the two orders, and their salaries charged on the Irish consolidated fund. The burning question of the royal Irish constabulary was dealt with provisionally. Until a local force was created by the new government, they were to remain at the orders of the lord lieutenant. Ultimately the Irish police were to come under the control of the legislative body. For two years from the pa.s.sing of the Act, the legislative body was to fix the charge for the whole constabulary of Ireland.

In national as in domestic housekeeping, the figure of available income is the vital question. The total receipts of the Irish exchequer would be 8,350,000, from customs, excise, stamps, income-tax, and non-tax revenue. On a general comparison of the taxable revenues of Ireland and Great Britain, as tested more especially by the property pa.s.sing under the death duties, the fair proportion due as Ireland's share for imperial purposes, such as interest on the debt, defence, and civil charge, was fixed at one-fifteenth. This would bring the total charge properly imperial up to 3,242,000. Civil charges in Ireland were put at 2,510,000, and the constabulary charge on Ireland was not to exceed 1,000,000, any excess over that sum being debited to England. The Irish government would be left with a surplus of 404,000. This may seem a ludicrously meagre amount, but, compared with the total revenue, it is equivalent to a surplus on our own budget of that date of something like five millions.

The true payment to imperial charges was to be 1,842,000 because of the gross revenue above stated of 1,400,000 though paid in Ireland in the first instance was really paid by British consumers of whisky, porter, and tobacco. This sum, deducted from 3,342,000, leaves the real Irish contribution, namely 1,842,000.

A further sum of uncertain, but substantial amount, would go to the Irish exchequer from another source, to which we have now to turn. With the proposals for self-government were coupled proposals for a settlement of the land question. The ground-work was an option offered to the landlords of being bought out under the terms of the Act. The purchaser was to be an Irish state authority, as the organ representing the legislative body. The occupier was to become the proprietor, except in the congested districts, where the state authority was to be the proprietor. The normal price was to be twenty years' purchase of the net rental.

The most important provision, in one sense, was that which recognised the salutary principle that the public credit should not be resorted to on such a scale as this merely for the benefit of a limited number of existing cultivators of the soil, without any direct advantage to the government as representing the community at large. That was effected by making the tenant pay an annual instalment, calculated on the gross rental, while the state authority would repay to the imperial treasury a percentage calculated on the net rental, and the state authority would pocket the difference, estimated to be about 18 per cent. on the sum payable to the selling landlord. How was all this to be secured?

Princ.i.p.ally, on the annuities paid by the tenants who had purchased their holdings, and if the holdings did not satisfy the charge, then on the revenues of Ireland. All public revenues whatever were to be collected by persons appointed by the Irish government, but these collectors were to pay over all sums that came into their hands to an imperial officer, to be styled a receiver-general. Through him all rents and Irish revenues whatever were to pa.s.s, and not a s.h.i.+lling was to be let out for Irish purposes until their obligations to the imperial exchequer had been discharged.

On The Place Of Italy. (Page 415)

By the provisions of nature, Italy was marked out for a conservative force in Europe. As England is cut off by the channel, so is Italy by the mountains, from the continental ma.s.s.... If England commits follies they are the follies of a strong man who can afford to waste a portion of his resources without greatly affecting the sum total.... She has a huge free margin, on which she might scrawl a long list of follies and even crimes without damaging the letterpress. But where and what is the free margin in the case of Italy, a country which has contrived in less than a quarter of a century of peace, from the date of her restored independence, to treble (or something near it) the taxation of her people, to raise the charge of her debt to a point higher than that of England, and to arrive within one or two short paces of national bankruptcy?...

Italy by nature stands in alliance neither with anarchy nor with Caesarism, but with the cause and advocates of national liberty and progress throughout Europe. Never had a nation greater advantages from soil and climate, from the talents and dispositions of the people, never was there a more smiling prospect (if we may fall back upon the graceful fiction) from the Alpine tops, even down to the Sicilian promontories, than that which for the moment has been darkly blurred. It is the heart's desire of those, who are not indeed her teachers, but her friends, that she may rouse herself to dispel once and for ever the evil dream of what is not so much ambition as affectation, may acknowledge the true conditions under which she lives, and it perhaps may not yet be too late for her to disappoint the malevolent hopes of the foes of freedom, and to fulfil every bright and glowing prediction which its votaries have ever uttered on her behalf.-_"__The Triple Alliance and Italy's Place in it__"__ (Contemporary Review, Oct. 1889)._

The Glasgow Peroration. (Page 492)

_After describing the past history of Ireland as being for more than five hundred years 'one almost unbroken succession of political storm and swollen tempest, except when those tempests were for a time interrupted by a period of servitude and by the stillness of death,' Mr. Gladstone went on_:-

Those storms are in strong contrast with the future, with the present. The condition of the Irish mind justifies us in antic.i.p.ating. It recalls to my mind a beautiful legend of ancient paganism-for that ancient paganism, amongst many legends false and many foul, had also some that were beautiful. There were two Lacedaemonian heroes known as Castor and Pollux, honoured in their life and more honoured in their death, when a star was called after them, and upon that star the fond imagination of the people fastened lively conceptions; for they thought that when a s.h.i.+p at sea was caught in a storm, when dread began to possess the minds of the crew, and peril thickened round them, and even alarm was giving place to despair, that if then in the high heavens this star appeared, gradually and gently but effectually the clouds disappeared, the winds abated, the towering billows fell down to the surface of the deep, calm came where there had been uproar, safety came where there had been danger, and under the beneficent influence of this heavenly body the terrified and despairing crew came safely to port. The proposal which the liberal party of this country made in 1886, which they still cherish in their mind and heart, and which we trust and believe, they are about now to carry forward, that proposal has been to Ireland and the political relations of the two countries what the happy star was believed to be to the seamen of antiquity. It has produced already antic.i.p.ations of love and good will, which are the first fruits of what is to come. It has already changed the whole tone and temper of the relations, I cannot say yet between the laws, but between the peoples and inhabitants of these two great islands. It has filled our hearts with hope and with joy, and it promises to give us in lieu of the terrible disturbances of other times, with their increasing, intolerable burdens and insoluble problems, the promise of a brotherhood exhibiting harmony and strength at home, and a brotherhood which before the world shall, instead of being as it hitherto has been for the most part, a scandal, be a model and an example, and shall show that we whose political wisdom is for so many purposes recognised by the nations of civilised Europe and America have at length found the means of meeting this oldest and worst of all our difficulties, and of subst.i.tuting for disorder, for misery, for contention, the actual arrival and the yet riper promise of a reign of peace.-_Theatre Royal, Glasgow, July 2, 1892._

The Naval Estimates Of 1894.

(M197) _The first paragraph of this memorandum will be found on p. 508_:-

This might be taken for granted as to 1854, 1870, and 1884. That it was equally true in my mind of 1859 may be seen by any one who reads my budget speech of July 18, 1859. I defended the provision as required by and for the time, and for the time only. The occasion in that year was the state of the continent. It was immediately followed by the China war (No. 3) and by the French affair (1861-2), but when these had been disposed of economy began; and, by 1863-4, the bulk of the new charge had been got rid of.

There is also the case of the fortifications in 1860, which would take me too long to state fully. But I will state briefly (1) my conduct in that matter was mainly or wholly governed by regard to peace, for I believed, and believe now, that in 1860 there were only two alternatives; one of them, the French treaty, and the other, war with France. And I also believed in July 1860 that the French treaty must break down, unless I held my office. (2) The demand was reduced from nine millions to about five (has this been done now?) (3) I acted in concert with my old friend and colleague, Sir James Graham. We were entirely agreed.

_Terse figures of new estimates_

The "approximate figure" of charge involved in the new plan of the admiralty is 4,240,000, say 4- millions. Being an increase (subject probably to some further increase in becoming an act)

1. On the normal navy estimate 1888-9 (_i.e._ before the Naval Defence Act) of, in round numbers, 4- millions

2. On the first year's total charge under the Naval Defence Act of (1,979,000), 2 millions

3. On the estimates of last year 1893-94 of 3 millions

4. On the total charge of 1893-4 of (1,571,000), 1- million

5. On the highest amount ever defrayed from the year's revenue (1892-3), 1- million

6. On the highest expenditure of any year under the Naval Defence Act which included 1,150,000 of borrowed money, 359,000

Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet Colleagues. (Page 525)

_The following is the list of the seventy ministers who served in cabinets of which Mr. Gladstone was a member_:-

1843-45. Peel.

Wellington.

Lyndhurst.

Wharncliffe.

Haddington.

Buccleuch.

Aberdeen.

Graham.

Stanley.

Ripon.

Hardinge.

Goulburn.

Knatchbull.

1846. Ellenborough.

S. Herbert.

Granville Somerset.

Lincoln.

1852-55. Cranworth.

Granville.

Argyll.

Palmerston.

Clarendon.

C. Wood.

Molesworth.

Lansdowne.