The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume II Part 33

IV

In 1872 the wide popularity of the government underwent a marked decline.

The award at Geneva caused lively irritation. The most active nonconformists were in active revolt. The Licensing bills infuriated the most powerful of all trade interests. The Collier case and the Ewelme case seemed superfluous and provoking blunders. A strong military section thirsted for revenge on the royal warrant. Mr. Goschen's threatened bill on local rating spread vague terrors. Individual ministers began to excite particular odium.

As time went on, the essentially composite character of a majority that was only held together by Mr. Gladstone's personality, his authority in the House, and his enormous strength outside, revealed itself in awkward fissures. The majority was described by good critics of the time, as made up of three sections, almost well defined enough to deserve the name of three separate parties. First were the whigs, who never forgot that the prime minister had been for half his life a tory; who always suspected him, and felt no personal attachment to him, though they valued his respect for property and tradition, and knew in any case that he was the only possible man. Then came the middle-cla.s.s liberals, who had held predominance since 1832, who were captivated by Mr. Gladstone's genius for finance and business, and who revered his high moral ideals. Third, there was the left wing, not strong in parliament but with a certain backing among the workmen, who thought their leader too fond of the church, too deferential to the aristocracy, and not plain enough and thorough enough for a reforming age. The murmurs and suspicions of these hard and logical utilitarians of the left galled Mr. Gladstone as ungrateful. Phillimore records of him at this moment:-

_Feb. 21, 1872._-Gladstone in high spirits and in rather a conservative mood. 29.-Gladstone sees that the time is fast coming when he must sever himself from his extreme supporters. He means to take the opportunity of retiring on the fair plea that he does not like to oppose those who have shown such great confidence in him, or to join their and his opponents. The plea seems good for retirement, but not for refraining in his individual capacity from supporting a government which is liberal and conservative.

Here is a sketch from the Aberdare papers of the temper and proceedings of the session:-

_April 19._-We have had a disastrous week-three defeats, of which much the least damaging was that on local taxation, where we defended the public purse against a dangerous raid. There is no immediate danger to be apprehended from them. But these defeats lower prestige, encourage the discontented and envious, and animate the opposition. I think that Gladstone, who behaved yesterday with consummate judgment and temper, is personally very indifferent at the result. He is vexed at the ingrat.i.tude of men for whom he has done such great things which would have been simply impossible without him, and would not be unwilling to leave them for a while to their own guidance, and his feeling is shared by many of the ministry. Our measures must for the most part be taken up by our successors, and we should of course be too happy to help them. But I don't see the end near, although, of course, everybody is speculating.

Yet business was done. Progress of a certain kind was made in the th.o.r.n.y field of the better regulation of public houses, but Mr. Gladstone seems never to have spoken upon it in parliament. The subject was in the hands of Mr. Bruce, the home secretary, an accomplished and amiable man of the purest public spirit, and he pa.s.sed his bill; but nothing did more to bring himself and his colleagues into stern disfavour among the especially pagan strata of the population. An entry or two from Mr. Bruce's papers will suffice to show Mr. Gladstone's att.i.tude:-

_Home Office, Dec. 9, 1869._-I am just returned from the cabinet, where my Licensing bill went through with flying colours. I was questioned a great deal as to details, but was ready, and I think that Gladstone was very well pleased.

_Jan. 16, 1871._-I called upon Gladstone yesterday evening. He was in high spirits and full of kindness. He said that he had told Cardwell that I must be at the bottom of the abuse the press was pouring upon him, as I had contrived to relieve myself of it.

"Some one minister," he added, "is sure to be a.s.sailed. You caught it in the autumn, and now poor Cardwell is having a hard time of it." I went with him afterwards to the Chapel Royal, which he never fails to attend.

_Dec. 14._-We have a cabinet to-day, when I hope to have my Licensing bill in its main principles definitely settled.

Unfortunately Gladstone cares for nothing but "free trade" [in the sale of liquor], which the House won't have, and I cannot get him really to interest himself in the subject.

This is Speaker Brand's account of the general position:-

Throughout the session the opposition, ably led by Disraeli, were in an att.i.tude of watchfulness. He kept his eye on the proceedings of the government day by day on the Alabama treaty. Had that treaty failed, no doubt Disraeli would have taken the sense of the House on the conduct of the government. For the larger part of the session the Alabama question hung like a cloud over the proceedings, but as soon as that was settled, the sky cleared. It has been a good working session.... Of the two leading men, Gladstone and Disraeli, neither has a strong hold on his followers. The radicals below the right gangway are turbulent and disaffected, and the same may be said of the independent obstruction below the left gangway.... B., E., H., L. avowedly obstruct all legislation, and thus bring the House into discredit.

(M128) It was now that Mr. Disraeli discerned the first great opportunity approaching, and he took the field. At Manchester (April 3) he drew the famous picture of the government, one of the few cla.s.sic pieces of the oratory of the century:-

Extravagance is being subst.i.tuted for energy by the government.

The unnatural stimulus is subsiding. Their paroxysms end in prostration. Some take refuge in melancholy, and their eminent chief alternates between a menace and a sigh. As I sit opposite the treasury bench, the ministers remind me of one of those marine landscapes not very unusual on the coasts of South America. You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers upon a single pallid crest. But the situation is still dangerous. There are occasional earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumblings of the sea.

On midsummer day he essayed at the Crystal Palace a higher flight, and first struck the imperialist note. He agreed that distant colonies could only have their affairs administered by self-government. "Self-government, when it was conceded, ought to have been conceded as part of a great policy of imperial consolidation. It ought to have been accomplished by an imperial tariff, by securities for the people of England, for the enjoyment of the unappropriated lands which belonged to the sovereign as their trustee, and by a military code which should have precisely defined the means and the responsibilities by which the colonies should have been defended, and by which, if necessary, this country should call for aid from the colonies themselves. It ought further to have been accompanied by the inst.i.tution of some representative council in the metropolis which would have brought the colonies into constant and continuous relations with the home government." He confessed that he had himself at one time been so far caught by the subtle views of the disintegrationists, that he thought the tie was broken. Opinion in the country was at last rising against disintegration. The people had decided that the empire should not be destroyed. "In my judgment," he said, "no minister in this country will do his duty who neglects any opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible our colonial empire, and of responding to those distant sympathies which may become the source of incalculable strength and happiness to this land." Toryism now sought three great objects: "the maintenance of our inst.i.tutions, the preservation of our empire, and the improvement of the condition of the people." The time was at hand when England would have to decide between national and cosmopolitan principles, and the issue was no mean one. "You must remember," he concluded, "that in fighting against liberalism or the continental system, you are fighting against those who have the advantage of power-against those who have been high in place for nearly half a century. You have nothing to trust to but your own energy and the sublime instinct of an ancient people."

Disraeli's genius, at once brooding over conceptions and penetrating in discernment of fact, had shown him the vast tory reserves that his household suffrage of 1867 would rally to his flag. The same genius again scanning the skies read aright the signs and characteristics of the time.

n.o.body would seriously have counselled intervention in arms between France and Germany, yet many felt a vague humiliation at a resettlement of Europe without England. n.o.body seriously objected to the opening of the Black Sea, yet many were affected by a restive consciousness of diplomatic defeat. Everybody was glad that-as I am about to describe in the following chapter-we had settled the outstanding quarrel with America, yet most people were sore at the audacity of the indirect claims, followed by the award of swingeing damages. National pride in short was silently but deeply stirred; the steady splendour of the economic era for a season paled in uncalculating minds. This coming mood the tory leader, with his rare faculty of wide and sweeping forecast, confidently divined, and he found for it the oracle of a party cry in phrases about Empire and Social Reform. When power fell into his hands, he made no single move of solid effect for either social reform or imperial unity. When Mr. Gladstone committed himself to a policy, he brought in bills to carry it out.

Forecast without a bill is interesting, but not to be trusted.

Chapter IX. Was.h.i.+ngton And Geneva. (1870-1872)

Although I may think the sentence was harsh in its extent, and unjust in its basis, I regard the fine imposed on this country as dust in the balance compared with the moral value of the example set when these two great nations of England and America-which are among the most fiery and the most jealous in the world with regard to anything that touches national honour-went in peace and concord before a judicial tribunal rather than resort to the arbitrament of the sword.-GLADSTONE.(254)

I

One morning in the summer of 1862 a small wooden sloop, screw and steam, of a little over a thousand tons register dropped slowly down the waters of the Mersey. The decks were rough and unfinished, but guests on board with bright costumes made a gay picture, flags were flying, and all wore the look of a holiday trial trip. After luncheon in the cabin, the scene suddenly changed. At a signal from the vessel a tug came alongside, the cheerful visitors to their surprise were quickly transferred, and the sloop made off upon her real business. She dropped anchor in a bay on the coast of Anglesey, where she took twenty or thirty men mostly English on board from a tug sent after her from Liverpool, with or without the knowledge of the officials. Thence she sailed to the Azores, where a steamer from London and a steamer from Liverpool brought officers, armaments, and coal. As soon as these were trans-s.h.i.+pped, the British ensign was hauled down, the Confederate flag run up, and the captain opened sealed orders directing him to sink, burn, or destroy, everything that flew the ensign of the so-called United States of America. These orders the captain of the rover faithfully executed, and in a few months the _Alabama_-for that was henceforth her memorable name-had done much to sweep the commercial marine of America from the ocean.

(M129) On the day on which she sailed (July 29), the government made up its mind that she should be detained, on the strength of affidavits that had been almost a week in their hands. The bird of prey had flown. The best definition of due diligence in these matters would seem to be, that it is the same diligence and exactness as are exercised in proceedings relating to imposts of excise or customs. We may guess how different would have been the vigilance of the authorities if a great smuggling operation had been suspected. This lamentable proceeding, for which the want of alacrity and common sense at the foreign office and the bias or blundering of the customs agents at Liverpool, may divide the grave discredit, opened a diplomatic campaign between England and the United States that lasted as long as the siege of Troy, and became an active element in the state of moral war that prevailed during that time between the two kindred communities. Mr. Gladstone, like other members of the Palmerston administration, held for several years that the escape of the _Alabama_ was no wrong done by us. Lord Russell admitted (1863) that the cases of the _Alabama_ and the _Oreto_ were "a scandal and in some degree a reproach to our laws," though he stated in the same sentence that the cabinet thought the law sufficient where legal evidence also was sufficient. It was true that Britain is the greatest s.h.i.+pbuilding country in the world; that to interfere with s.h.i.+ps or any other article of commerce is in so far to impose on a neutral some of the calamities of a belligerent; and that restriction of trade was no element in the policy and spirit of foreign enlistment acts either here or in America, which was the first country that by positive legislation sought to restrain its citizens within definite limits of neutrality. By a law of this kind parliament intended to forbid all subjects within its jurisdiction to make war on people at peace with the British sovereign. It is only, in the words of Canning, when the elements of armament are combined, that they come within the purview of such law. This is not by way of controversy, but to define an issue. Chief Justice c.o.c.kburn, an ardent champion of his country if ever there was one, p.r.o.nounced in his judgment at Geneva, when the day for a verdict at length arrived, that the cruiser ought to have been detained a week before; that the officials of customs were misled by legal advice "perhaps erroneous"; and that the right course to take was "plain and unmistakable." Even Lord Russell after many years of obdurate self-defence, at last confessed in manly words: "I a.s.sent entirely to the opinion of the lord chief justice that the _Alabama_ ought to have been detained during the four days I was waiting for the opinion of the law officers. But I think that the fault was not that of the commissioners of customs; it was my fault as secretary of state for foreign affairs."(255)

Before the _Alabama_ some ten vessels intended for Confederate service had been detained, inquired into, and if released, released by order of a court for want of evidence. After the _Alabama_, no vessel on which the American minister had made representation to the foreign office succeeded in quitting a British port. But critical cases occurred. Emboldened by the successful escape of the _Alabama_, the Confederate agents placed two ironclad rams upon the stocks at the Birkenhead s.h.i.+pyard; Mr. Adams, the American minister in London, renewed his bombardment of the foreign office with proof of their object and design; the foreign office repeated its perplexed pleas against interference, made still more difficult by a colourable transfer of the rams to a French owner; and the whole dreary tragi-comedy of the _Alabama_ seemed likely to be acted over again. By the autumn of 1863 the rams were ready to take the water, and the builders were again talking of a trial trip. This time Lord Russell gave orders that the rams were to be stopped (Sept. 3). He felt the mortification of an honourable man at the trick, of which he had allowed himself to be made the dupe in the case of the _Alabama_. Perhaps also he had been impressed by language used by Mr. Adams to a member of the cabinet, and more formally to himself, to the effect that the departure of the rams would mean the practical opening to the Southern Confederates of full liberty to use this country as a base for hostile expeditions against the North.

"This," said Mr. Adams, "is war."(256)

The affair of the rams was followed by Mr. Gladstone with absorbed attention. He confessed to the Duke of Argyll (Sept. 30, 1863) that he could not get the ironclads out of his head, and his letter shows with what exhaustive closeness he argued the case. The predicament was exactly fitted to draw out some of his most characteristic qualities-minute precision, infinite acuteness, infinite caution, the faculty of multiplied distinction upon distinction, an eye for the shadows of a shade. The points are no longer of living interest, but they exhibit a side of him that is less visible in his broader performances of parliament or platform.

As might have been expected, Mr. Adams was instructed to solicit redress for the doings of the _Alabama_. Lord Russell (Dec. 19, 1862), declaring that government had used every effort to stop her, refused to admit that we were under any obligation whatever to make compensation. Two years later (Aug. 30, 1865) he still declined both compensation and a proposal for arbitration. This opened a long struggle of extreme interest in the ministerial life of Mr. Gladstone, and, what was more, in the history of civilised nations. It was arbitration upon these issues that now began to divide politicians both inside the cabinet and outside, just as mediation and recognition had divided them in the earlier stages of the American conflict.

(M130) In 1863 Mr. Adams was the first to point to what after a long struggle became the solution of these difficulties, by a.s.suring Lord Russell that there was "no fair and equitable form of conventional arbitrament or reference" to which America would not be willing to submit.

In 1865 (Sept. 2) Mr. Gladstone wrote a letter to Lord Russell, the reply to which has already been published.(257) Always jealous for cabinet authority, he began by submitting to Lord Russell that he had no idea that a despatch refusing arbitration was to be written, without a cabinet being held upon a subject so important. As it was, they had not disposed of the question or even discussed it. On the merits, he inclined to believe that the demand for arbitration was highly unreasonable; still though not disposed to say "Yes" to the demand, he doubted "No." The proper course would be to lead the Americans to bring out the whole of their case, so that the cabinet might have all the pleas before them previously to coming to "a decision of great delicacy and moment."

Lord Russell stood to his guns. "The question," he said, "has been the princ.i.p.al object of my thoughts for the last two years, and I confess I think that paying twenty millions down would be far preferable to submitting the case to arbitration." England would be disgraced for ever if a foreign government were left to arbitrate whether an English secretary of state had been diligent or negligent in his duties, and whether an English law officer was partial and prejudiced in giving his opinion of English law. There the matter stood, and the moral war smouldered on.

II

In 1870, the time arrived when Mr. Gladstone himself, no longer a minister third in standing in a Palmerston government, was called upon to deal with this great issue as a princ.i.p.al in his own administration. In 1868 the conservative government had agreed to a convention, by which a mixed commission, British and American, sitting in London should decide upon the settlement of all claims by the subjects of either country upon the other; and in respect of what were known generically as the _Alabama_ Claims, proposing to refer these to the arbitration of the head of some friendly state, in case the mixed commission should not agree. The idea of a composite court or tribunal, as distinguished from a single sovereign arbitrator, had not yet risen above the horizon. Before this project ripened, Mr. Disraeli was out of government, Lord Clarendon had taken Lord Stanley's place at the foreign office, and the convention, with some modifications, was signed by him (Jan. 14, 1869), and in due course despatched to Was.h.i.+ngton. There the Senate, not on the merits but for party and personal reasons, refused to ratify. Though this attempt failed, neither of the two English political parties was in a position any longer to refuse arbitration in principle.

Agreement in principle is of little avail, without driving force enough for practice. The driving force was found mainly from a gradual change in English sentiment, though the difficulties with Russia also counted for something. Even so early as 1863 the tide of popular opinion in England had begun slowly to swell in favour of the Northern cause. In 1866 victory across the Atlantic was decided, the union was saved, and slavery was gone. A desire to remove causes of difference between ourselves and the United States grew at a remarkable speed, for the spectacle of success is wont to have magical effects even in minds that would indignantly reject the standards of Machiavelli. While benevolent feeling gained volume in this country, statesmen in America took ground that made the satisfaction of it harder. They began to base their claim for reparation on the original proclamation of British neutrality when the American conflict began. First made in 1866, this new pretension was repeated in despatches of 1867, and in 1869 the American secretary formally recorded the complaint that the Southern insurrection obtained its enduring vitality by resources drawn from England, and as a consequence of England's imperfect discharge of her duties as neutral. England became, they said, the a.r.s.enal, the navy-yard, and the treasury of the insurgent Confederacy.

In the discussion of the Clarendon convention of 1869 Mr. Sumner-a man of some great qualities, but too often the slave of words where he thought himself their master-made an extravagant speech against the British government in the senate, a.s.sessing the claim of the United States upon this country on principles that would have raised it to the modest figure of some four hundred million pounds sterling due from us to them, or, as Mr. Gladstone himself estimated it, to sixteen hundred millions. It does not matter which. This was only a violent and fantastic exaggeration of an idea of constructive claims for indirect damages that lay slumbering, but by no means extinct, in American minds, until, as we shall see, in 1872 it very nearly led to a disastrous explosion. This idea first found distinct and official utterance in the despatch of 1869. Besides compensating individuals for depredations, we were to pay for the cost to America of chasing the cruisers; for the transfer of most of the American commercial marine to the British flag; for enhanced insurance; and generally for the increased difficulty of putting down the rebellion.

All through 1870 a rather troublesome exchange of letters went on between Was.h.i.+ngton and the foreign office, and Mr. Gladstone took an active concern in it. "I grieve to trouble you with so much ma.n.u.script," Lord Clarendon writes him on one occasion (Mar. 17, 1870), "but I don't venture single-handed to conduct a correspondence with the United States.... All this correspondence can do nothing but harm, and I have made my answer as short as is consistent with courtesy. I should like to send it on Sat.u.r.day, but if you have not time to look at it, or think it ought to be seen by the cabinet, I could, make an excuse for the delay to Motley." All this was in entire conformity to Mr. Gladstone's enduring conception of the right relations between a prime minister and the foreign secretary. We need not follow details, but one must not be omitted. In 1868 a royal commission recommended various material changes in the Foreign Enlistment Act, and in 1870 accordingly a new law was pa.s.sed, greatly strengthening the hands of the executive, and furnis.h.i.+ng due means of self-protection against such nefarious manuvres as those of the _Alabama_.(258) By this Act, among other things, it was made an offence to build a s.h.i.+p with reasonable cause to believe that it would be employed in the service of a foreign state at war with a friendly state.

As the year 1870 went on, the expediency of an accommodation with America strengthened in Mr. Gladstone's mind. One member of the cabinet pointed out to the foreign secretary that if there was any chance of a war with Russia about the Black Sea, it would be as well to get causes of differences with America out of the way; otherwise, however unprepared the United States might be at the moment, we should undoubtedly have them on our hands sooner or later.(259) With Mr. Gladstone the desire was not a consequence of the possible troubles with Russia. His view was wider and less specific. He was alive to the extent to which England's power in Europe was reduced by the smothered quarrel with America, but he took even higher ground than this in his sense of the blessing to the world of an absolute reconciliation in good faith between the old England and the new.

At first the government proposed (Nov. 28, 1870) to send over Sir John Rose to America. He was one of the many Scots who have carried the British flag in its best colours over the face of the globe; his qualities had raised him to great prominence in Canada; he had enjoyed good opportunities of measuring the American ground; he was shrewd, wise, well read in the ways of men and the book of the world, and he had besides the virtue of being pleasant. Rose himself did not formally undertake the mission, but he applied himself with diligence and success to bring the American government to the project of a joint high commission to examine and consider a situation that there was a common desire to terminate.

(M131) On Feb. 1, 1871, Mr. Gladstone was able to report to the Queen the arrival of news that the government of the United States were willing to concur in a commission for the discussion of international questions at present depending, without a previous understanding that liability in respect of the _Alabama_ was to be acknowledged by this country. The cabinet naturally thought that on this they might close, and they at once considered the composition of the commission and the proper instructions.

Lord de Grey consented to be its president. Lord Derby, on being invited to join the commission, was very grateful for the compliment but declined, being of opinion that firmness and not concession to the Americans was what was wanted. Sir George Grey declined; so did Lord Halifax. "I asked Northcote," Lord Granville reports to Mr. Gladstone, "his eyes twinkled through his spectacles. But he said he must ask Lady Northcote, and requested permission to consult Dizzy. The former consented, ditto Dizzy, which looks well." So the commission was made up of Lord de Grey as the head of it, Northcote, Thornton (the British minister at Was.h.i.+ngton), Sir John Macdonald, as the representative of Canada, and Mr. Mountague Bernard, a theoretic jurist, who had written a book about our neutrality the year before.(260)

III