The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume I Part 48

[362] See above, p. 225.

[363] It is a striking indication of the tenacity of custom against logic that in France, though civil marriage was made not merely permissive, as with us, but compulsory in 1792, divorce was banished from French law from 1816 down to 1884.

[364] July 1857. Reprinted in _Gleanings_, vi. p. 47.

[365] House of Commons, June 20, 1849.

[366] _Ibid._, July 20, 1869. See also _Gleanings_, vi. p. 50.

[367] It may be said that the exaction of damages comes to the same thing.

[368] In republis.h.i.+ng in 1878 his article from the _Quarterly_ (_Gleanings_, vi. p. 106), he says his arguments have been too sadly ill.u.s.trated by the mischievous effects of the measure. The judicial statistics, however, hardly support this view, that pet.i.tions for divorce were constantly increasing, and at an accelerating rate of progression. In England the proportion of divorce pet.i.tions to marriages and the proportion of divorce decrees to population are both of them lower than they were a few years ago. Mr. Gladstone used to desire the prohibition of publicity in these proceedings, until he learned the strong view of the president of the Court that the hideous glare of this publicity acts probably as no inconsiderable deterrent.

CHAPTER IX

THE SECOND DERBY GOVERNMENT

(_1858_)

Extravagance and exaggeration of ideas are not the essential characteristic of either political party in this country. Both of them are composed in the main of men with English hearts and English feelings. Each of them comprises within itself far greater diversities of political principles and tendencies, than can be noted as dividing the more moderate portion of the one from the more moderate portion of the other.... But while the great English parties differ no more in their general outlines than by a somewhat varied distribution of the same elements in each, they are liable to be favourably or unfavourably affected and their essential characteristics unduly exaggerated, by circ.u.mstances of the order that would be termed accidental.--GLADSTONE.

The turn of the political wheel is constantly producing strange results, but none has ever been more strikingly dramatic than when, on February 20, Bright and Milner Gibson, who had been ignominiously thrown out at Manchester the year before, had the satisfaction of walking to the table of the House of Commons as victorious tellers in the division on the Conspiracy to Murder bill that overthrew Lord Palmerston. A plot to slay the French Emperor had been organised by a band of Italian refugees in London. The bombs were manufactured in England. Orsini's design miscarried, but feeling in France was greatly excited, and the French government formally drew attention at St. James's to the fact that bodies of a.s.sa.s.sins abused our right of asylum. They hinted further that the amity of the crown called for stronger law. Palmerston very sensibly did not answer the French despatch, but introduced a bill with new powers against conspiracy. He in an instant became the most unpopular man in the country, and the idol of the year before was now hooted in the Park.

LORD PALMERSTON DEFEATED

Mr. Gladstone was at first doubtful, but soon made up his mind. To Mrs.

Gladstone he writes (Feb. 17):--

As respects the Conspiracy bill, you may depend upon our having plenty of fight; the result is doubtful; but if the bill gets into the House of Lords it will pa.s.s. Lord Aberdeen is strong against it. From him I went to-day to Lord Lyndhurst, and I found Lord Brougham with him. A most interesting conversation followed with these two wonderful old men at 80 and 86 (coming next birthday) respectively, both in the fullest possession of their faculties, Brougham vehement, impulsive, full of gesticulation, and not a little rambling, the other calm and clear as a deep pool upon rock.

Lord Lyndhurst is decidedly against the bill, Brougham somewhat inclines to it; being, as Lord Lyndhurst says, half a Frenchman.

[Lord Lyndhurst expounded the matter in a most luminous way from his point of view. Brougham went into raptures and used these words: 'I tell you what, Lyndhurst, I wish I could make an exchange with you. I would give you some of my walking power, and you should give me some of your brains.' I have often told the story with this brief commentary, that the compliment was the highest I have ever known to be paid by one human being to another.][369]

The debate showed a curious inversion of the parts usually played by eminent men. Palmerston vainly explained that he was doing no more than international comity required, and doing no worse than placing the foreign refugee on the same footing in respect of certain offences as the British subject. Mr. Gladstone (Feb. 19), on the other hand, 'as one who has perhaps too often made it his business to call attention to the failings of his countrymen,' contended that if national honour was not henceforth to be a shadow and a name, it was the paramount, absolute, and imperative duty of Her Majesty's ministers to protest against the imputation upon us of favour for a.s.sa.s.sination, 'a plant which is congenial neither to our soil nor to the climate in which we live.'[370]

One of the truest things said in the debate was Disraeli's incidental observation that 'the House should remember that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, when there is a quarrel between two states, it is generally occasioned by some blunder of a ministry.' Mr. Disraeli perhaps consoled himself by the pithy saying of Baron Brunnow, that if no one made any blunders, there would be no politics. The blood of the _civis Roma.n.u.s_, however, was up, and Palmerston, defeated by a majority of nineteen, at once resigned.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD DERBY

Lord Derby, whose heart had failed him three years earlier, now formed his second administration, and made one more attempt to bring Mr.

Gladstone over to the conservative ranks. Lord Lansdowne had told the Queen that no other government was possible, and an hour after he had kissed hands the new prime minister applied to Mr. Gladstone. The decisions taken by him in answer to this and another application three months later, mark one more of the curious turning points in his career and in the fate of his party.

_Feb. 20, 1858._--Dined at Herbert's with Graham. We sat till 12, but did not talk quite through the crisis. Palmerston has resigned.

He is down. I must now cease to denounce him. 21.--St. James's morning, and holy communion. Westminster Abbey in evening, when I sat by Sir George Grey. From St. James's I went to Lord Aberdeen's.

There Derby's letter reached me. We sent for Herbert and I wrote an answer. Graham arrived and heard it; with slight modifications it went. The case though grave was not doubtful. Made two copies and went off before 6 with S. Herbert. We separated for the evening with the fervent wish that in public life we might never part.

Two or three letters exhibit the situation:--

_Lord Derby to Mr. Gladstone._

_St. James's Square, Feb. 21, 1858._--In consequence of the adverse vote of the other night, in which you took so prominent and distinguished a part, the government, as you know, has resigned; and I have been entrusted by the Queen with the difficult task, which I have felt it my duty not to decline, of forming an administration. In doing so, I am very desirous, if possible, of obtaining the co-operation of men of eminence, who are not at this moment fettered by other ties, and whose principles are not incompatible with my own. Believing that you stand in this position, it would afford me very great satisfaction if I could obtain your valuable aid in forming my proposed cabinet; and if I should be so fortunate as to do so, I am sure there would be on all hands a sincere desire to consult your wishes, as far as possible, as to the distribution of offices. I would willingly include Sidney Herbert in this offer; but I fear he is too intimately a.s.sociated with John Russell to make it possible for him to accept.

_Mr. Gladstone to Lord Derby._

10 _Great George Street, Feb. 21, 1851._--I am very sensible of the importance of the vote taken on Friday; and I should deeply lament to see the House of Commons trampled on in consequence of that vote. The honour of the House is materially involved in giving it full effect. It would therefore be my first wish to aid, if possible, in such a task; and remembering the years when we were colleagues, I may be permitted to say that there is nothing in the fact of your being the head of a ministry, which would avail to deter me from forming part of it.

Among the first questions I have had to put to myself, in consequence of the offer which you have conveyed in such friendly and flattering terms, has been the question whether it would be in my power by accepting it, either alone or in concert with others, to render you material service. After the long years during which we have been separated, there would be various matters of public interest requiring to be noticed between us; but the question I have mentioned is a needful preliminary. Upon the best consideration which the moment allows, I think it plain that alone, as I must be, I could not render you service worth your having. The dissolution of last year excluded from parliament men with whom I had sympathies; and it in some degree affected the position of those political friends with whom I have now for many years been united through evil and (much more rarely) through good report.

Those who lament the rupture of old traditions may well desire the reconst.i.tution of a party; but the reconst.i.tution of a party can only be effected, if at all, by the return of the old influences to their places, and not by the junction of an isolated person. The difficulty is even enhanced in my case by the fact that in your party, reduced as it is at the present moment in numbers, there is a small but active and not unimportant section who avowedly regard me as the representative of the most dangerous ideas. I should thus, unfortunately, be to you a source of weakness in the heart of your own adherents, while I should bring you no party or group of friends to make up for their defection or discontent.

For the reasons which I have thus stated or glanced at, my reply to your letter must be in the negative.

I must, however, add that a government formed by you at this time will, in my opinion, have strong claims upon me, and upon any one situated as I am, for favourable presumptions, and in the absence of conscientious difference on important questions, for support. I have had an opportunity of seeing Lord Aberdeen and Sidney Herbert; and they fully concur in the sentiments I have just expressed.

LETTER FROM MR. BRIGHT

Mr. Gladstone had no close personal or political ties with the Manchester men at this moment, but we may well believe that a sagacious letter from Mr. Bright made its mark upon his meditations:--

_Mr. Bright to Mr. Gladstone._

_Reform Club, Feb. 21, '58._--Coming down Park Lane just now, I met a leading lawyer of Lord Derby's party, who will doubtless be in office with him if he succeeds in forming a government. He told me that Lord Derby and his friends were expecting to be able to induce you to join them.

Will you forgive me if I write to you on this matter? I say nothing but in the most friendly spirit, and I have some confidence that you will not misinterpret what I am doing. Lord Derby has only about one-third of the House of Commons with him--and it is impossible by any management, or by any dissolution, to convert this minority into a majority. His minority in the House is greater and more powerful than it is in the country--and any appeal to the country, now or hereafter, must, I think, leave him in no better position than that in which he now finds himself. The whole liberal party in the country dislike him, and they dislike his former leader in the Commons; and notoriously his own party in the country, and in the House, have not much confidence in him. There is no party in the country to rally round him, as Peel was supported in 1841. A Derby government can only exist upon forbearance, and will only last till it is convenient for us and the whigs to overthrow it. Lord Palmerston may give it his support for a time, but he can give it little more than his own vote and speeches, for the liberal const.i.tuencies will not forgive their members if they support it. If you join Lord Derby, you link your fortunes with a constant minority, and with a party in the country which is every day lessening in numbers and in power. If you remain on our side of the House, you are with the majority, and no government can be formed without you. You have many friends there, and some who would grieve much to see you leave them--and I know nothing that can prevent your being prime minister before you approach the age of every other member of the House who has or can have any claim to that high office.

If you agree rather with the men opposite than with those among whom you have been sitting of late, I have nothing to say. I am sure you will follow where 'the right' leads, if you only discover it, and I am not hoping or wis.h.i.+ng to keep you from the right. I think I am not mistaken in the opinion I have formed of the direction in which your views have for some years been tending. You know well enough the direction in which the opinions of the country are tending. The minority which invites you to join it, if honest, must go or wish to go, in an opposite direction, and it cannot therefore govern the country. Will you unite yourself with what must be, from the beginning, an inevitable failure?

Don't be offended, if, by writing this, I seem to believe you will join Lord Derby. I don't believe it--but I can imagine your seeing the matter from a point of view very different to mine--and I feel a strong wish just to say to you what is pa.s.sing in my mind. You will not be the less able to decide on your proper course. If I thought this letter would annoy you, I would not send it. I think you will take it in the spirit in which it is written. No one knows that I am writing it, and I write it from no idea of personal advantage to myself, but with a view to yours, and to the interests of the country. I may be mistaken, but think I am not. Don't think it necessary to reply to this. I only ask you to read it, and to forgive me the intrusion upon you--and further to believe that I am yours, with much respect.

_Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Bright._

_10 Great George Street, Feb. 22, '58._--Your letter can only bear one construction, that of an act of peculiar kindness which ought not to be readily forgotten. For any one in whom I might be interested I should earnestly desire, upon his entering public life, that, if possible, he might with a good conscience end in the party where he began, or else that he might have broad and definite grounds for quitting it. When neither of these advantages appears to be certainly within command, there remains a strong and paramount consolation in seeking, as we best can, the truth and the public interests; and I think it a marked instance of liberality, that you should give me credit for keeping this object in my view.

My seeking, however, has not on the present occasion been very difficult. The opinions, such as they are, that I hold on many questions of government and administration are strongly held; and although I set a value, and a high value, upon the power which office gives, I earnestly hope never to be tempted by its exterior allurements, unless they are accompanied with the reasonable prospect of giving effect to some at least of those opinions and with some adequate opening for public good. On the present occasion I have not seen such a prospect; and before I received your letter yesterday afternoon I had made my choice.

This ended the first scene of the short fifth act. The new government was wholly conservative.

II

UNEASINESS OF FRIENDS

Throughout the whole of this period, Mr. Gladstone's political friends were uneasy about him. 'He writes and says and does too much,' Graham had told Lord Aberdeen (Dec. 1856), and a year and a half later the same correspondent notices a restless anxiety for a change of position, though at Gladstone's age and with his abilities he could not wonder at it. Mr. Gladstone was now approaching fifty; Graham was nearer seventy than sixty; and Aberdeen drawing on to seventy-five. One of the most eminent of his friends confessed that he was 'amazed at a man of Gladstone's high moral sense of feeling being able to _bear_ with Dizzy.

I can only account for it on the supposition, which I suppose to be the true one, that personal dislike and distrust of Palmerston is the one absorbing feeling with him.... I see no good ground for the violent personal prejudice which is the sole ruling motive of Gladstone's and Graham's course--especially when the alternative is such a man as Dizzy.' Then comes some angry language about that enigmatic personage which at this cooling distance of time need not here be transcribed. At the end of 1856 Lord Aberdeen told Mr. Gladstone that his position in the House was 'very peculiar.' 'With an admitted superiority of character and intellectual power above any other member, I fear that you do not really possess the sympathy of the House at large, while you have incurred the strong dislike of a considerable portion of Lord Derby's followers.'

Things grew worse rather than better. Even friendly journalists in the spring of 1858 wrote of him as 'the most signal example that the present time affords of the man of speculation misplaced and lost in the labyrinth of practical politics.' They call him the chief orator and the weakest man in the House of Commons. He has exhibited at every stage traces of an unhappy incoherence which is making him a mere bedouin of parliament, a n.o.ble being full of spirit and power, but not to be tamed into the ordinary ways of civil life. His sympathies hover in hopeless inconsistency between love for righteous national action, good government, freedom, social and commercial reform, and a hankering after a strong, una.s.sailable executive in the old obstructive tory sense. He protests against unfair dealing with the popular voice in the Princ.i.p.alities on the Danube, but when the popular voice on the Thames demands higher honours for General Havelock he resists it with the doctrine that the executive should be wholly free to distribute honours as it pleases. He is loudly indignant against the supersession of parliament by diplomacy, but when a motion is made directly pointing to the rightful influence of the House over foreign affairs, he neither speaks nor votes. Is it not clear beyond dispute that his cannot be the will to direct, nor the wisdom to guide the party of progress out of which the materials for the government of this country will have to be chosen?[371]

In organs supposed to be inspired by Disraeli, Mr. Gladstone's fate is p.r.o.nounced in different terms, but with equal decision. In phrases that must surely have fallen from the very lips of the oracle itself, the public was told that 'cerebral natures, men of mere intellect without moral pa.s.sion, are quite unsuited for governing mankind.' The days of the mere dialectician are over, and the rulers of Christendom are no longer selected from the serfs of Aristotle. Without the emotions that soar and thrill and enkindle, no man can attain 'a grand moral vision.'

When Mr. Gladstone aims at philosophy, he only reaches casuistry. He reasons like one of the sons of Ignatius Loyola. What their Society is to the Jesuit, his own individualism is to Mr. Gladstone. He supports his own interests as much from intellectual zeal as from self-love. A shrewd observer is quoted: 'looking on Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sidney Herbert sitting side by side, the former with his rather saturnine face and straight black hair, and the latter eminently handsome, with his bright, cold smile and subtlety of aspect, I have often thought that I was beholding the Jesuit of the closet really devout, and the Jesuit of the world, ambitious, artful, and always on the watch for making his rapier thrusts.' Mr. Gladstone, in a word, is extremely eminent, but strangely eccentric, 'a Simeon Stylites among the statesmen of his time.'[372]