The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume II Part 38

Between six and seven in the evening Colonel Ponsonby came with a letter from the Queen to the effect that Mr. Disraeli had unconditionally declined to undertake the formation of a government. In obedience to the Queen's commands Mr. Gladstone proceeded to give his view of the position in which her Majesty was placed:-

_March 15._-Not being aware that there can be a question of any intermediate party or combination of parties which would be available at the present juncture, he presumes that your Majesty, if denied the a.s.sistance of the conservative or opposition party, might be disposed to recur to the services of a liberal government. He is of opinion, however, that either his late colleagues, or any statesman or statesmen of the liberal party on whom your Majesty might call, would with propriety at once observe that it is still for the consideration of your Majesty whether the proceeding which has taken place between your Majesty and Mr.

Disraeli can as yet be regarded as complete. The vote of the House of Commons on Wednesday morning was due to the deliberate and concerted action of the opposition, with a limited amount of advent.i.tious numerical aid. The division was a party division, and carried the well-known symbol of such divisions in the appointment of tellers of the opposition and government respectively. The vote was given in the full knowledge, avowed in the speech of the leader of the opposition, that the government had formally declared the measure on which the vote was impending to be vital to its existence. Mr. Gladstone humbly conceives that, according to the well-known principles of our parliamentary government, an opposition which has in this manner and degree contributed to bring about what we term a crisis, is bound to use and to show that it has used its utmost efforts of counsel and inquiry to exhaust all practicable means of bringing its resources to the aid of the country in its exigency. He is aware that his opinion on such a subject can only be of slight value, but the same observation will not hold good with regard to the force of a well-established party usage. To show what that usage has been, Mr. Gladstone is obliged to trouble your Majesty with the following recital of facts from the history of the last half century.... [_This apt and cogent recital the reader will find at the end of the volume, see _Appendix_._]... There is, therefore, a very wide difference between the manner in which the call of your Majesty has been met on this occasion by the leader of the opposition, and the manner which has been observed at every former juncture, including even those when the share taken by the opposition in bringing about the exigency was comparatively slight or none at all. It is, in Mr. Gladstone's view, of the utmost importance to the public welfare that the nation should be constantly aware that the parliamentary action certain or likely to take effect in the overthrow of a government; the reception and treatment of a summons from your Majesty to meet the necessity which such action has powerfully aided in creating; and again the resumption of office by those who have deliberately laid it down,-are uniformly viewed as matters of the utmost gravity, requiring time, counsel, and deliberation among those who are parties to them, and attended with serious responsibilities. Mr.

Gladstone will not and does not suppose that the efforts of the opposition to defeat the government on Wednesday morning were made with a previously formed intention on their part to refuse any aid to your Majesty, if the need should arise, in providing for the government of the country; and the summary refusal, which is the only fact before him, he takes to be not in full correspondence either with the exigencies of the case, or as he has shown, with the parliamentary usage. In humbly submitting this representation to your Majesty, Mr. Gladstone's wish is to point out the difficulty in which he would find himself placed were he to ask your Majesty for authority to inquire from his late colleagues whether they or any of them were prepared, if your Majesty should call on them, to resume their offices; for they would certainly, he is persuaded, call on him, for their own honour, and in order to the usefulness of their further service if it should be rendered, to prove to them that according to usage every means had been exhausted on the part of the opposition for providing for the government of the country, or at least that nothing more was to be expected from that quarter.

This statement, prepared after dinner, Mr. Gladstone took to Lord Granville that night (March 14). The next morning he again saw Lord Granville and Colonel Ponsonby, and despatched his statement to the Queen.

"At 2.45," he writes to Granville:-

I saw the Queen, not for any distinct object, but partly to fill the blank before the public. H.M. was in perfect humour. She will use the whole or part of my long letter by sending it to Disraeli.

She seemed quite to understand our point of view, and told me plainly what shows that the artful man _did_ say, if it came back to him again at this juncture, he would not be bound by his present refusal. I said, "But, ma'am, that is not before me." "But he told it to me," she said.

(M148) The Queen sent Mr. Gladstone's long letter to Mr. Disraeli, and he replied in a tolerably long letter of his own. He considered Mr.

Gladstone's observations under two heads: first, as an impeachment of the opposition for contributing to the vote against the bill, when they were not prepared to take office; second, as a charge against Mr. Disraeli himself that he summarily refused to take office without exhausting all practicable means of aiding the country in the exigency. On the first article of charge, he described the doctrine advanced by Mr. Gladstone as being "undoubtedly sound so far as this: that for an opposition to use its strength for the express purpose of throwing out a government which it is at the time aware that it cannot replace-having that object in view and no other-would be an act of recklessness and faction that could not be too strongly condemned." But this, he contended, could not be imputed to the conservative opposition of 1873. The Irish bill was from the first strongly objected to by a large section of the liberal party, and on the same grounds that led the conservative opposition to reject it, namely, that it sacrificed Irish education to the Roman catholic hierarchy. The party whom the bill was intended to propitiate rejected it as inadequate.

If the sense of the House had been taken, irrespective of considerations of the political result of the division, not one-fourth of the House would have voted for it. Mr. Gladstone's doctrine, Disraeli went on, amounted to this, that "whenever a minister is so situated that it is in his power to prevent any other parliamentary leader from forming an administration likely to stand, he acquires thereby the right to call on parliament to pa.s.s whatever measures he and his colleagues think fit, and is ent.i.tled to denounce as factious the resistance to such measures. Any such claim is one not warranted by usage, or reconcilable with the freedom of the legislature. It comes to this: that he tells the House of Commons, 'Unless you are prepared to put some one in my place, your duty is to do whatever I bid you.' To no House of Commons has language of this kind ever been addressed; by no House of Commons would it be tolerated."

As for the charge of summary refusal to undertake government, Mr. Disraeli contented himself with a brief statement of facts. He had consulted his friends, and they were all of opinion that it would be prejudicial to the public interests for a conservative ministry to attempt to conduct business in the present House of Commons. What other means were at his disposal? Was he to open negotiations with a section of the late ministry, and waste days in barren interviews, vain applications, and the device of impossible combinations? Was he to make overtures to the considerable section of the liberal party that had voted against the government? The Irish Roman catholic gentlemen? Surely Mr. Gladstone was not serious in such a suggestion. The charge of deliberate and concerted action against the Irish bill was 'not entirely divested of some degree of exaggeration.'

His party was not even formally summoned to vote against the government measure, but to support an amendment which was seconded from the liberal benches, and which could only by a violent abuse of terms be described as a party move.

On Sat.u.r.day afternoon Mr. Gladstone had gone down to Cliveden, and there at ten o'clock on the Sunday evening (March 16) he received a message from the Queen, enclosing Mr. Disraeli's letter, and requesting him to say whether he would resume office. This letter was taken by Mr. Gladstone to show that "nothing more was to be expected in that quarter," and at eleven o'clock he sent off the messenger with his answer in the affirmative:-

_March 16, 1873_, 10-3/4 P.M.-It is quite unnecessary for him to comment upon any of the statements or arguments advanced by Mr.

Disraeli, as the point referred by your Majesty for him to consider is not their accuracy, sufficiency, or relevancy, but simply whether any further effort is to be expected from the opposition towards meeting the present necessity. Your Majesty has evidently judged that nothing more of this kind can be looked for.

Your Majesty's judgment would have been conclusive with Mr.

Gladstone in the case, even had he failed to appreciate the full cogency of the reason for it; but he is bound to state that he respectfully concurs with your Majesty upon that simple question, as one not of right but of fact. He therefore does not hesitate at once to answer your Majesty's gracious inquiry by saying that he will now endeavour to prevail upon your Majesty's late advisers generally to resume their offices, and he again places all such service as it is in his power to offer, at your Majesty's disposal. According to your Majesty's command, then, he will repair to London to-morrow morning, and will see some of the most experienced members of the late government to review the position which he regards as having been seriously unhinged by the shock of last Wednesday morning; to such an extent indeed, that he doubts whether either the administration or parliament can again be what they were. The relations between them, and the course of business laid down in the royal speech, will require to be reconsidered, or at least reviewed with care.

II

_Tuesday, March 18._-[_To the Queen_] The cabinet met informally at this house [11 Carlton House Terrace] at 2 P.M., and sat till 5-.

The whole of the cabinet were ready to resume their offices. It was decided to carry on the government in the present parliament, without contemplating any particular limit of time for existence in connection with the recent vote.

_Wednesday, March 19._-Went down to Windsor at midday; 3/4 hour with the Queen on the resignation, the statement tomorrow, the Duke of Edinburgh's marriage, royal precedence, Tennyson's honour; also she mentioned railway accidents and an a.s.sault on a soldier, and on luxury in food and dress. Dined with the Duke of Cambridge.

Speaker's levee, saw Mr. Fawcett [who had been active in fomenting hostility] and other members. Then Mrs. Glyn's party.

_Thursday, March 20._-H. of C. Made my explanation. Advisedly let pa.s.s Mr. Disraeli's speech without notice.

Mr. Gladstone said among other things:-

I felt reluctance personally from a desire for rest, the t.i.tle to which had possibly been ... earned by labour. Also politically, because I do not think that as a general rule the experience we have had in former years of what may be called returning or resuming governments, has been very favourable in its character.... The subsequent fortunes of such governments lead to the belief that upon the whole, though such a return may be the lesser of two evils, yet it is not a thing in itself to be desired. It reminds me of that which was described by the Roman general according to the n.o.ble ode of Horace:-

... Neque amissos colores Lana refert medicata fuco, Nec vera virtus c.u.m semel excidit Curat reponi deterioribus.(288)

Mr. Disraeli made a lengthy statement, covering a much wider field. The substance of the whole case after all was this. The minister could not dissolve for the reason that the defeat had strengthened all the forces against the bill and against the government, and the const.i.tuencies who had never looked on it with much favour after its rejection by the Irish to satisfy whom it had been invented, now regarded it with energetic disfavour. The leader of the opposition, on the other hand, produced a long string of ingenious reasons for not abiding by the result of what was his own act: as, for example, that dissolution could not be instant; to form a government would take time; financial business must be arranged; a policy could not be shaped without access to official information; in this interval motions would be made and carried on plausible questions, and when the election came, his friends would go to the country as discredited ministers, instead of being a triumphant opposition. In writing to his brother Robertson, Mr. Gladstone glances at other reasons:-

_March 21._-We have gone through our crisis; and I fear that n.o.body is much the better for it. For us it was absolutely necessary to show that we did not consider return, as we had not considered resignation, a light matter. As to the opposition, the speech of Disraeli last night leaves it to be asked why did he not come in, wind up the business of the session, and dissolve? There is no reason to be given, except that a portion of his party was determined not to be educated again, and was certain that if he got in he would again commence this educating process. The conservative party will never a.s.sume its natural position until Disraeli retires; and I sometimes think he and I might with advantage pair off together.

Speaker Brand says: "Disraeli's tactics are to watch and wait, not showing his hand nor declaring a policy; he desires to drive Gladstone to a dissolution, when he will make the most of Gladstone's mistakes, while he will denounce a policy of destruction and confiscation, and take care to announce no policy of his own. His weakness consists in the want of confidence of some of his party."

Chapter XIII. Last Days Of The Ministry. (1873)

?spe? ?? e? t?? ?a??????? p??t? ?p? s?t???? p???a?ta, ?a?

?atas?e??sa?ta t? p????? ?f? ?? ?pe??a?e s???ses?a?, e?ta ?e???? ???s?e??? ?a? p???s??t?? a?t? t?? s?e??? ? ?a?

s??t???t?? ????, t?? ?a?a??a? a?t??t?.-DEMOSTHENES.

As if, when a s.h.i.+pmaster had done all he could for safety, and fitted his vessel with everything to make her weathertight, then when he meets a storm and all his tackle strains and labours until it is torn to pieces, we should blame him for the wreck.

I

The shock of defeat, resignation, and restoration had no effect in lessening ministerial difficulties. The months that followed make an unedifying close to five glorious years of progress and reform. With plenty of differences they recall the sunless days in which the second administration of the younger Pitt ended that lofty career of genius and dominion. The party was divided, and some among its leaders were centres of petty disturbance. In a sc.r.a.p dated at this period Mr. Gladstone wrote: "Divisions in the liberal party are to be seriously apprehended from a factious spirit on questions of economy, on questions of education in relation to religion, on further parliamentary change, on the land laws.

On these questions generally my sympathies are with what may be termed the advanced party, whom on other and general grounds I certainly will never head nor lead."

The quarrel between the government and the nonconformists was not mitigated by a speech of Mr. Gladstone's against a motion for the disestablishment of the church. It was described by Speaker Brand as "firm and good," but the dissenters, with all their kindness for the prime minister, thought it firm and bad.(289) To Dr. Allon, one of the most respected of their leaders, Mr. Gladstone wrote (July 5):-

The spirit of frankness in which you write is ever acceptable to me. I fear there may be much in your sombre antic.i.p.ations. But if there is to be a great schism in the liberal party, I hope I shall never find it my duty to conduct the operations either of the one or of the other section. The nonconformists have shown me great kindness and indulgence; they have hitherto interpreted my acts and words in the most favourable sense; and if the time has come when my acts and words pa.s.s beyond the measure of their patience, I contemplate with repugnance, at my time of life especially, the idea of entering into conflict with them. A political severance, somewhat resembling in this a change in religion, should at most occur not more than once in life. At the same time I must observe that no one has yet to my knowledge pointed out the expressions or arguments in the speech, that can justly give offence.

A few personal jottings will be found of interest:-

_April 7, 1873._-H. of C. The budget and its reception mark a real onward step in the session. 23.-Breakfast with Mr. C. Field to meet Mr. Emerson. 30.-I went to see the remains of my dear friend James Hope. Many sad memories but more joyful hopes. _May 15._-The King and Queen of the Belgians came to breakfast at ten. A party of twenty. They were most kind, and all went well.

_To the Queen_ (May 19).-Mr. Gladstone had an interview yesterday at Chiselhurst with the Empress. He thought her Majesty much thinner and more worn than last year, but she showed no want of energy in conversation. Her Majesty felt much interest, and a little anxiety, about the coming examination of the prince her son at Woolwich.

_June 8._-Chapel royal at noon. It was touching to see Dean Hook and hear him, now old in years and very old I fear in life; but he kindled gallantly. 17.-Had a long conversation with Mr. Holloway (of the pills) on his philanthropic plans; which are of great interest. 25.-Audience of the Shah with Lord Granville and the Duke of Argyll. Came away after 1-1/4 hours. He displayed abundant acuteness. His gesticulation particularly expressive. 26.-Sixteen to breakfast. Mme. Norman Neruda played for us. She is also most pleasing in manner and character. Went to Windsor afterwards. Had an audience. _July 1._-H. of C. Received the Shah soon after six.

A division on a trifling matter of adjournment took place during his Majesty's presence, in which he manifested an intelligent interest. The circ.u.mstance of his presence at the time is singular in this view (and of this he was informed, rather to his amus.e.m.e.nt) that until the division was over he could not be released from the walls of the House. It is probably, or possibly, the first time for more than five hundred years that a foreign sovereign has been under personal restraint of any kind in England. [_Query, Mary Queen of Scots._]

(M149) Then we come upon an entry that records one of the deepest griefs of this stage of Mr. Gladstone's life-the sudden death of Bishop Wilberforce:-