Chapter IX

. The Second Ministry. (1880)

There is indeed one great and critical act, the responsibility for which falls momentarily or provisionally on the Sovereign: it is the dismissal of an existing Ministry, and the appointment of a new one. This act is usually performed with the aid drawn from authentic manifestations of public opinion, mostly such as are obtained through the votes or conduct of the House of Commons.—GLADSTONE.

The day after the declaration of the poll in Midlothian, Mr. Gladstone and his wife and daughter quitted Dalmeny, and made their way homewards, as we have just seen.

_April 6._—A heavy day with post, incessant telegrams, and preparations for departure. We drove, however, to Linlithgow, saw the beautiful church and fine old castle, and I made a short non-polemical speech to the people.... Careful concealment of the plans of departure until well on in the evening. Left this most hospitable of all houses at 8.30, and got into the 9.25, escaping by secrecy all demonstration except from some 200 who seemed to gather on the instant. Travelled all night, and had time to ruminate on the great hand of God, so evidently displayed.

_April 7, Wed._—After three hours of successful sleep amid frightful unearthly noises at Warrington, we went off to Chester and Hawarden, saluted enthusiastically, but escaping all crowds.... Set to work at once on a mass of letters and papers.... The day occupied with papers, letters, and telegrams, and reading my Vatican tracts.... The triumph grows and grows; to God be the praise.

_April 9._—Letters passed 100. _April 10, Sat._—Church, 8-½ A.M. Wrote to ... Postal arrivals, 140; terrible! Wolverton arrived to dinner, and I spent the evening in full conversation with him. He threatens a request from Granville and Hartington. Again, I am stunned, but God will provide.

_April 11, Sun._—Church, 8-½ A.M., Holy Communion; 11 A.M. Wrote etc. Read _Gospel for the 19th Century_. Examined liturgical books. Further conversation with Wolverton on the London reception, on Leeds, and on the great matter of all. _April 12._—Wolverton went off in the morning, and is to see Granville and Hartington to-day. Read Brugsch’s _Hist. Egypt_. _Guy Mannering._ Wrote some memoranda of names applicable to this occasion. Hard day. But all are pretty hard in this my “retirement.” _April 13._—Began tentatively an anonymous letter on the Conservative Collapse,(366) really drawn forth by the letter of Lord Bath.... Read _Guy Mannering_ and that most heavenly man George Herbert.... _April 16._—Mr. Bright came over from Llandudno, and we spent nearly all the time in conversing on the situation. He is most kind and satisfactory. _April 17._—Finished my letter and revision of it. Cut down a sycamore with W. H. G. _April 18, Sun._—Holy Communion 8 A.M.; morning service and evening. Wrote to [17 letters]. _Read Divine Veracity or Divine Justice_, Caird on the _Philosophy of Religion_. _April 19._—A reluctant goodbye before 1. London at 6.30. A secret journey, but people gathered at Chester station and Euston. I vaguely feel that this journey is a plunge out of an atmosphere of peace into an element of disturbance. May He who has of late so wonderfully guided, guide me still in the critical days about to come. _April 20._—This blank day is, I think, probably due to the Queen’s hesitation or reluctance, which the ministers have to find means of [covering].

One joyous element in these days at Hawarden was the arrival first of the youngest son of the house, then of the eldest, the latter of them having won a seat in Worcestershire, and the former having failed in Middlesex, after a display of qualities that delighted his family and friends much more than mere victory could have done. “About one,” Mr. Gladstone marks on the 8th, “Herbert entered in triumph. We were there, and could not but be much moved.” And on the 14th, “Willy made his triumphal entry at four, and delivered a very good speech. Neville Lyttelton, too, spoke well from the carriage.” As Lord Acton wrote to Miss Gladstone about Middlesex, “The picture of the young, untried son bursting into sudden popularity, and turning men’s thoughts from the absorbing exploits of his father, adds an affecting domestic feature to that great biography. That meeting at Hawarden, after such a revolution and such a growth, is a thing I cannot think of without emotion.” A little later, when Mr. Gladstone’s option of Midlothian left the Leeds seat vacant, his son was elected without opposition to fill it. Mr. Gladstone’s letters on this operation, which had its delicacies, are an excellent example of his habits of careful and attentive judgment in handling even secondary affairs.

II

(M199) From the moment when it became clear that Lord Beaconsfield would be swept out of office, it was just as clear to sensible men that only one successor was possible. It was Mr. Gladstone, as everybody knew and said, who had led and inspired the assault. A cabinet without him would hold its councils without the most important of the influences on which it depended. If the majorities that carried the election could have been consulted on the choice of a minister, nobody doubted upon whom with unanimity their choice would fall. Even those who most detested the result, even those who held that a load of anxiety would be lifted from the bosoms of many liberals of official rank if they were to hear of Mr. Gladstone’s definite retirement from public life, still pronounced that it was Mr. Gladstone’s majority, and that was what the contributors to that majority intended to vote for was, above all else, his return to office and his supremacy in national affairs. If he would not lay down his power, such persons said, it was best for everybody that he should exercise it openly, regularly, and responsibly as head of the government.(367) The very fact that he had ceased to be the leader of the opposition five years before, was turned into an argument for his responsibility now; for it was his individual freedom that had enabled him to put forth all his strength, without any of that management and reserve that would have been needed in one who was titular leader of a party, as well as real leader of the nation. The victory would have been shorn of half its glory if any other chief had been given to the party. In short, no minister, not Pitt in 1784, nor Grey in 1831, nor Peel ten years later, nor Palmerston in 1855, was ever summoned by more direct and personal acclaim. Whatever liberty of choice the theory of our constitution assigned to the Queen, in practice this choice did not now exist. It was true that in the first of his Midlothian speeches Mr. Gladstone had used these words, “I hope the verdict of the country will give to Lord Granville and Lord Hartington the responsible charge of its affairs.”(368) But events had wrought a surprise, and transformed the situation.

Some, indeed, there were whom a vision of another kind possessed; a vision of the moral grandeur that would attend his retirement after putting Apollyon and his legions to flight, and planting his own hosts in triumph in the full measure of their predominance. Some who loved him, might still regretfully cherish for him this heroic dream. Retirement might indeed have silenced evil tongues; it would have spared him the toils of many turbid and tempestuous years. But public life is no idyll. Mr. Gladstone had put himself, by exertions designed for public objects, into a position from which retreat to private ease would have been neither unselfish nor honourable. Is it not an obvious test of true greatness in a statesman, that he shall hold popularity, credit, ascendency and power such as Mr. Gladstone now commanded, as a treasure to be employed with regal profusion for the common good, not guarded in a miser’s strong-box? For this outlay of popularity the coming years were to provide Mr. Gladstone with occasions only too ample.

If retreat was impossible, then all the rest was inevitable. And it is easy to guess the course of his ruminations between his return from Midlothian and his arrival in Harley Street. Mr. Gladstone himself, looking back seventeen years after, upon his refusal in 1880 to serve in a place below the first, wrote: “I conceive that I was plainly right in declining it, for had I acted otherwise, I should have placed the facts of the case in conflict with its rights, and with the just expectations of the country. Besides, as the head of a five years’ ministry, and as still in full activity, I should have been strangely placed as the subordinate of one twenty years my junior, and comparatively little tested in public life.”

As the diary records, on Monday, April 12, Lord Wolverton left Hawarden, and was to see the two liberal leaders the same day. He did so, and reported briefly to his chief at night:—

I hope the Plimsoll matter(369) is at an end. The clubs to-night think that Lord Beaconsfield will meet parliament, and that when the time comes, if asked, he will advise that Hartington should be sent for. I do not believe either. I have seen Lord Granville and Hartington; both came here upon my arrival, and Adam with them. Lord Granville hopes you may be in London on Friday. I told him I thought you would be. He has gone to Walmer, and will come up on Friday. He has a good deal to think of in the meantime as to “the position of the party.” I need not say more than this, as it embraces the whole question, which he _now quite appreciates_.... Nothing could be more cordial and kind than Granville and Hartington, but I hardly think till to-day they _quite_ realised the _position_, which I confess seems to me as clear as the sun at noon. They will neither of them speak to any one till Friday, when Lord Granville hopes to see you. Adam is much pleased with your kind note to him. He has gone home till Friday. It is well to be away just now, for the gossip and questioning is unbearable.

Acknowledging this on the following day (April 13), Mr. Gladstone says to Lord Wolverton:—

The claim, so to speak, of Granville and Hartington, or rather, I should say, of Granville with Hartington as against me, or rather as compared with me, is complete. My labours as an individual cannot set me up as a Pretender. Moreover, if they should on surveying their position see fit to apply to me, there is only one form and ground of application, so far as I see, which could be seriously entertained by me, namely, their conviction that on the ground of public policy, all things considered, it was best in the actual position of affairs that I should come out. It cannot be made a matter of ceremonial, as by gentlemen waiving a precedence, or a matter of feeling, as by men of high and delicate honour determined to throw their bias against themselves. They have no right to throw their bias against themselves—they have no right to look at anything but public policy; and this I am sure will be their conviction. Nothing else can possibly absolve them from their presumptive obligation as standing at the head of the party which for the time represents the country.

As a matter of fact, I find no evidence that the two leaders ever did express a conviction that public policy required that he should stand forth as a pretender for the post of prime minister. On the contrary, when Lord Wolverton says that they “did not quite realise the position” on the 12th, this can only mean that they hardly felt that conviction about the requirements of public policy, which Mr. Gladstone demanded as the foundation of his own decision.

III

The last meeting of the outgoing cabinet was held on April 21. What next took place has been described by Mr. Gladstone himself in memoranda written during the days on which the events occurred.

_Interview with Lord Hartington._

_April 22, 1880._ At 7 P.M. Hartington came to see me at Wolverton’s house and reported on his journey to Windsor.

The Queen stood with her back to the window—which _used_ not to be her custom. On the whole I gathered that her manner was more or less embarrassed but towards him not otherwise than gracious and confiding. She told him that she desired him to form an administration, and pressed upon him strongly his duty to assist her as a responsible leader of the party now in a large majority. I could not find that she expressed clearly her reason for appealing to him as _a_ responsible leader of the party, and yet going past _the_ leader of the party, namely Granville, whom no one except himself has a title to displace. She however indicated to him her confidence in his moderation, the phrase under which he is daily commended in the _Daily Telegraph_, at this moment I think, Beaconsfield’s personal organ and the recipient of his inspirations. By this moderation, the Queen intimated that Hartington was distinguished from Granville as well as from me.

Hartington, in reply to her Majesty, made becoming acknowledgments, and proceeded to say that he did not think a government could be satisfactorily formed without me; he had not had any direct communication with me; but he had reason to believe that I would not take any office or post in the government except that of first minister. Under those circumstances he advised her Majesty to place the matter in my hands. The Queen continued to urge upon him the obligations arising out of his position, and desired him to ascertain whether he was right in his belief that I would not act in a ministry unless as first minister. This, he said, is a question which I should not have put to you, except when desired by the Queen.

I said her Majesty was quite justified, I thought, in requiring positive information, and he, therefore, in putting the question to me. Of my action he was already in substantial possession, as it had been read to him (he had told me) by Wolverton. I am not asked, I said, for reasons, but only for Aye or No, and consequently I have only to say that I adhere to my reply as you have already conveyed it to the Queen.

In making such a reply, it was my duty to add that in case a government should be formed by him, or by Granville with him, whom the Queen seemed to me wrongly to have passed by—it was to Granville that I had resigned my trust, and he, Hartington, was subsequently elected by the party to the leadership in the House of Commons—my duty would be plain. It would be to give them all the support in my power, both negatively, as by absence or non-interference, and positively. Promises of this kind, I said, stood on slippery ground, and must always be understood with the limits which might be prescribed by conviction. I referred to the extreme caution, almost costiveness, of Peel’s replies to Lord Russell, when he was endeavouring to form a government in December 1845 for the purpose of carrying the repeal of the Corn Law. In this case, however, I felt a tolerable degree of confidence, because I was not aware of any substantive divergence of ideas between us, and I had observed with great satisfaction, when his address to North-East Lancashire came into my hands, after the writing but before the publication of mine to Midlothian, that they were in marked accordance as to opinions, if not as to form and tone, and I did not alter a word. In the case of the first Palmerston government I had certainly been thrown into rather sharp opposition after I quitted it, but this was mainly due to finance. I had not approved of the finance of Sir George Lewis, highly as I estimated his judgment in general politics; and it was in some ways a relief to me, when we had become colleagues in the second Palmerston government, to find that he did not approve of mine. However, I could only make such a declaration as the nature of the case allowed.

He received all this without comment, and said his conversation with her Majesty had ended as it began, each party adhering to the ground originally taken up. He had not altered his advice, but had come under her Majesty’s command to learn my intentions, which he was to make known to her Majesty returning to Windsor _this_ day at one.

He asked me what I thought of the doctrine of obligation so much pressed upon him by the Queen. I said that in my opinion the case was clear enough. Her Majesty had not always acted on the rule of sending for the leader of the opposition. Palmerston was the known and recognised leader of the opposition in 1859, but the Queen sent for Granville. The leader, if sent for, was in my opinion bound either to serve himself, or to point out some other course to her Majesty which he might deem to be more for the public advantage. And if that course should fail in consequence of the refusal of the person pointed out, the leader of the party could not leave her Majesty unprovided with a government, but would be bound in loyalty to undertake the task.

I did not indicate, nor did he ask, what I should do if sent for. He did not indicate, nor did I ask, what he should do if the Queen continued to press him to go on, in spite of his advice to her to move in another direction.—_April 23, 1880._

A barren controversy was afterwards raised on the question whether at this exciting moment Lord Hartington tried to form a government. What he did, according to the memorandum, was to advise the Queen to send for Mr. Gladstone, on the ground of his belief that Mr. Gladstone would join no government of which he was not the head. The Queen then urged him to make sure of this, before she would acquiesce in his refusal to undertake the commission. The Queen, as Mr. Gladstone says, had a right to require positive information, and Lord Hartington had a right, and it was even his duty, to procure this information for her, and to put the direct question to Mr. Gladstone, whether he would or would not act in an administration of which he was not the head. He went back to Windsor, not in the position of a statesman who has tried to form a government and failed, but in the position of one who had refused a task because he knew all along that failure was certain, and now brought proof positive that his refusal was right.(370)

What happened next was easy to foresee:—

_Interview with Lord Granville and Lord Hartington._

_April 23, 1880._—Soon after half-past three to-day, Lord Granville and Lord Hartington arrived from Windsor at my house, and signified to me the Queen’s command that I should repair to Windsor, where she would see me at half-past six.

The purport of Lord Hartington’s conversation with me yesterday had been signified. They had jointly advised thereupon that I should be sent for with a view to the formation of a government, and her Majesty desired Lord Granville would convey to me the message. I did not understand that there had been any lengthened audience, or any reference to details.

Receiving this intimation, I read to them an extract from an article in the _Daily News_ of yesterday,(371) descriptive of their position relatively to me, and of mine to them, and said that, letting drop the epithets, so I understood the matter. I presumed, therefore, that under the circumstances as they were established before their audience, they had unitedly advised the sovereign that it was most for the public advantage to send for me. To this they assented. I expressed, a little later, my sense of the high honour and patriotism with which they had acted; said that I had endeavoured to fulfil my own duty, but was aware I might be subject to severe criticism for my resignation of the leadership five years ago, which I had forced upon them; but I did it believing in good faith that we were to have quiet times, and for the first years, 1875 and 1876, and to the end of the session I had acted in a manner conformable to that resignation, and had only been driven from my corner by compulsion. They made no reply, but Granville had previously told me he was perfectly satisfied as to my communications with him.

I at once asked whether I might reckon, as I hoped, on their co-operation in the government. Both assented. Granville agreed to take the foreign office, but modestly and not as of right. I proposed the India office as next, and as very near in weight, and perhaps the most difficult of all at this time, to Hartington, which he desired time to consider. I named Childers as the most proper person for the war office. As I had to prepare for Windsor, our interview was not very long; and they agreed to come again after dinner.

We spoke of the governor-generalship, at least I spoke to Granville who stayed a little after Hartington, and I said Goschen’s position as to the franchise would prevent his being in the cabinet now, but he should be in great employ. Granville had had the lead in the conversation, and said the Queen requested _him_ to carry the message to me.

_Audience at Windsor._

_Windsor Castle, April 23, 1880._—At 6.50 I went to the Queen, who received me with perfect courtesy, from which she never deviates. Her Majesty presumed I was in possession of the purport of her communications with Lord Granville and with Lord Hartington, and wished to know, as the administration of Lord Beaconsfield had been “turned out,” whether I was prepared to form a government. She thought she had acted constitutionally in sending for the recognised leaders of the party, and referring the matter to them in the first instance. I said that if I might presume to speak, nothing could in my views be more correct than her Majesty’s view that the application should be so made (I did not refer to the case as _between_ Lord Granville and Lord Hartington), and that it would have been an error to pass them by and refer to me. They had stood, I said, between me and the position of a candidate for office, and it was only their advising her Majesty to lay her commands upon me, which could warrant my thinking of it after all that had occurred. But since they had given this advice, it was not consistent with my duty to shrink from any responsibility which I had incurred, and I was aware that I had incurred a very great responsibility. I therefore humbly accepted her Majesty’s commission.

Her Majesty wished to know, in order that she might acquaint Lord Beaconsfield, whether I could undertake to form a government, or whether I only meant that I would make the attempt. I said I had obtained the co-operation of Lord Granville and Lord Hartington, and that my knowledge and belief as to prevailing dispositions would, I think, warrant me in undertaking to form a government, it being her Majesty’s pleasure. I had ascertained that Lord Granville would be willing to accept the foreign office; and I had also to say that the same considerations which made it my duty to accept office, seemed also to make it my duty to submit myself to her Majesty’s pleasure for the office of chancellor of the exchequer together with that of first lord of the treasury.

She asked if I had thought of any one for the war office, which was very important. The report of the Commission would show that Lord Cardwell’s system of short service had entirely broken down, and that a change must be made at any rate as regarded the non-commissioned officers. Lord Hartington had assured her that no one was committed to the system except Lord Cardwell, and he was very unwell and hardly able to act. Lord Hartington knew the war office, and she thought would make a good war minister. I said that it seemed to me in the present state of the country the first object was to provide for the difficulties of statesmanship, and then to deal with those of administration. The greatest of all these difficulties, I thought, centred in the India office, and I was very much inclined to think Lord Hartington would be eminently qualified to deal with them, and would thereby take a place in the government suitable to his position and his probable future.

She asked, to whom, then, did I think of entrusting the war office? [Resumed this afternoon, April 24.](372) I said Mr. Childers occurred to me as an administrator of eminent capacity and conciliatory in his modes of action; his mind would be open on the grave subjects treated by the Commission, which did not appear to me to be even for Lord Cardwell matters of committal, but simply of public policy to be determined by public advantage. She thought that Mr. Childers had not been popular at the admiralty, and that it was desirable the secretary for war should be liked by the army. I said that there was an occurrence towards the close of his term which placed him in a difficult position, but relied on his care and discretion. (She did not press the point, but is evidently under strong professional bias.)

She spoke of the chancellorship, and I named Lord Selborne.

She referred to general action and hoped it would be conciliatory. I said that every one who had served the crown for even a much smaller term of years than I had the good or ill fortune to reckon, would know well that an incoming government must recognise existing engagements, and must take up, irrespective of its preferences, whatever was required by the character and honour of the country. I referred to the case of Scinde and Sir R. Peel’s cabinet in 1843; which she recognised as if it had been recently before her.

She said, “I must be frank with you, Mr. Gladstone, and must fairly say that there have been some expressions”—I think she said some little things, which had caused her concern or pain. I said that her Majesty’s frankness, so well known, was a main ground of the entire reliance of her ministers upon her. That I was conscious of having incurred a great responsibility, and felt the difficulty which arises when great issues are raised, and a man can only act and speak upon the best lights he possesses, aware all the time that he may be in error. That I had undoubtedly used a mode of speech and language different in some degree from what I should have employed, had I been the leader of a party or a candidate for office. Then as regarded conciliation, in my opinion the occasion for what I had described had wholly passed away, and that so far as I was concerned, it was my hope that her Majesty would not find anything to disapprove in my general tone; that my desire and effort would be to diminish, her cares, in any case not to aggravate them; that, however, considering my years, I could only look to a short term of active exertion and a personal retirement comparatively early. With regard to the freedom of language I had admitted, she said with some good-natured archness, “But you will have to bear the consequences,” to which I entirely assented. She seemed to me, if I may so say, “natural under effort.” All things considered, I was much pleased. I ended by kissing her Majesty’s hand.

IV

(M200) The usual embarrassments in building a government filled many days with unintermittent labour of a kind that, like Peel, Mr. Gladstone found intensely harassing, though interesting. The duty of leaving out old colleagues can hardly have been other than painful, but Mr. Gladstone was a man of business, and lie reckoned on a proper stoicism in the victims of public necessity. To one of them he wrote, “While I am the oldest man of my political generation, I have been brought by the seeming force of exceptional circumstances to undertake a task requiring less of years and more of vigour than my accumulating store of the one and waning residue of the other, and I shall be a solecism in the government which I have undertaken to form. I do not feel able to ask you to resume the toils of office,” etc., but would like to name him the recipient for a signal mark of honour. “I have not the least right to be disappointed when you select younger men for your colleagues,” the cheerful man replied. Not all were so easily satisfied. “It is cruel to make a disqualification for others out of an infirmity of my own,” Mr. Gladstone wrote to the oldest of his comrades in the Peelite days, but—et cetera, et cetera, and he would be glad to offer his old ally the red riband of the Bath when one should be vacant. The peer to whom this letter with its dubious solatium was addressed, showed his chagrin by a reply of a single sentence: that he did not wish to leave the letter unanswered, lest it should seem to admit that he was in a state of health which he did not feel to be the case; the red riband was not even declined. One admirable man with intrepid _naïveté_ proposed himself for the cabinet, but was not admitted; another no less admirable was pressed to enter, but felt that he could be more useful as an independent member, and declined—an honourable transaction repeated by the same person on more than one occasion later. To one excellent member of his former cabinet, the prime minister proposed the chairmanship of committee, and it was with some tartness refused. Another equally excellent member of the old administration he endeavoured to plant out in the viceregal lodge at Dublin, without the cabinet, but in vain. To a third he proposed the Indian vice-royalty, and received an answer that left him “stunned and out of breath.” As the hours passed and office after office was filled up, curiosity grew vivacious as to the fate appointed for the younger generation of radicals. The great posts had gone to patrician whigs, just as if Mr. Gladstone had been a Grey or a Russell. As we have seen, he had secured Lord Granville and Lord Hartington before he went to Windsor, and on the evening of his return, the first person to whom he applied was Lord Derby, one of the most sagacious men of his day, but a great territorial noble and a very recent convert. He declined office on the ground that if a man changes his party connection, he is bound to give proof that he wishes the change from no merely personal motive, and that he is not a gainer by it.

Mr. Bright had joined, it was true, and Mr. Forster, but Bright the new radicals honoured and revered without any longer following, and with Forster they had quarrelled violently upon education, nor was the quarrel ever healed. One astute adviser, well acquainted with the feeling and expectations of the left wing, now discovered to his horror that Mr. Gladstone was not in the least alive to the importance of the leaders of the radical section, and had never dreamed of them for his cabinet. His view seems to have been something of this kind, “You have been saved from whig triumph in the person of Lord Hartington; now that you have got me to keep the balance, I must have a whig cabinet.” He was, moreover, still addicted to what he called Peel’s rule against admitting anybody straight into the cabinet without having held previous office. At last he sent for Sir Charles Dilke. To his extreme amazement Sir Charles refused to serve, unless either himself or Mr. Chamberlain were in the cabinet; the prime minister might make his choice between them; then the other would accept a subordinate post. Mr. Gladstone discoursed severely on this unprecedented enormity, and the case was adjourned. Mr. Bright was desired to interfere, but the pair remained inexorable. In the end the lot fell on Mr. Chamberlain. “Your political opinions,” Mr. Gladstone wrote to him (April 27), “may on some points go rather beyond what I may call the general measure of the government, but I hope and believe that there can be no practical impediment on this score to your acceptance of my proposal.” So Mr. Chamberlain took office at the board of trade, where Mr. Gladstone himself had begun his effective career in administration nearly forty years before; and his confederate went as under-secretary to the foreign office. At that time the general feeling was that Sir Charles Dilke, long in parliament and a man of conspicuous mark within its walls, was rather badly used, and that Mr. Gladstone ought to have included both. All this was the ominous prelude of a voyage that was to be made through many storms.(373)

One incident of these labours of construction may illustrate Mr. Gladstone’s curious susceptibility in certain kinds of personal contest. He proposed that Mr. Lowe should be made a viscount, while the Queen thought that a barony would meet the claim. For once it broke the prime minister’s sleep; he got up in the middle of the night and dashed off a letter to Windsor. The letter written, the minister went to bed again, and was in an instant sound asleep.

“The new parliament,” he told his old friend at school and college, Sir Francis Doyle (May 10), “will be tested by its acts. It will not draw its inspiration from me. No doubt it will make changes that will be denounced as revolutionary, and then recognised as innocent and even good. But I expect it to act in the main on well-tried and established lines, and do much for the people and little to disquiet my growing years, or even yours.” All fell out strangely otherwise, and disquiet marked this second administration from its beginning to its end. To lay all the blame on a prime minister or his cabinet for this, is like blaming the navigator for wild weather. In spite of storm and flood, great things were done; deep, notable, and abiding results ensued. The procedure of parliament underwent a profound revolution. So too did our electoral system in all its aspects. New lines of cleavage showed themselves in the divisions of political party. A not unimportant episode occurred in the chapter of religious toleration. The Irish peasant, after suffering centuries of oppression and tyrannic wrong, at last got the charter of his liberation. In a more distant region, as if to illustrate the power of events against the will of a statesman and the contemporary opinion of a nation, England for good or evil found herself planted in the valley of the Nile, and became a land-power on the Mediterranean.

APPENDIX

Budget Of 1860

_Page __26_

_Sir William Heathcote wrote to Mr. Gladstone, May 4, 1861_:—

I understood you in your rebukes of Lewis in 1857, to be aiming not only at a change of his plan of finance in that particular year, but (if that were impossible, or at least could not be carried), at a resumption as early as circumstances would allow, of what you thought the proper line of

## action which he insisted on suspending. Income-tax and war duties on tea

and sugar were and would continue to be, as I understood, the primary claimants for reduction of taxation, in your judgment.... The very vehemence of your convictions and expressions on _both_ occasions perplexes me.

_Mr. Gladstone replied the same day_:—

... You think, 1. That I bound myself to the reduction of the tea and sugar duties as a policy for future occasions, and not merely for the issue then raised. 2. That in like manner I was bound to the reduction and abolition of the income-tax. 3. That even if there arose in the system of our expenditure a great change, involving an increase of ten or fifteen millions of money over 1853, I was still in consistency bound to hold over the first chance of reduction for income-tax, tea and sugar. 4. That consequently until these duties were remitted I could not propose to prosecute any commercial reforms involving, as nearly all of them do, a sacrifice of revenue for a time. 5. It is because I have departed from these positions by proposing a multitude of reductions and abolitions of duty, other than the three mentioned, and partly or wholly in preference to them, that you have lost confidence in my judgment on these matters (a confidence to which I do not pretend that I had ever any claim).

If I have interpreted you aright, and I hope you will tell me whether I have done so or not, this is all to me exceedingly curious; such are the differences in the opinions of men formed from their different points of view. Now I will give you mine. To give effect to the pledge of honour, by which I became bound in 1853, I made a desperate effort in 1857, with all the zeal of which I was capable, and with all the passion to which I am liable. It was my opinion that the course then taken would be decisive as to the operations in 1860, for the income-tax never can be got rid of except by prospective finance, reaching over several years, and liable to impediment and disturbance accordingly. I therefore protested against the whole scale of expenditure then proposed; as well as against particular kinds of expenditure to which I might refer. I likewise protested against the provision for that expenditure which the government of the day proposed. First, because the expenditure itself was excessive, in my view. Secondly, because in the mode of that provision I thought the remission of income-tax was large out of all proportion to the remission on indirect taxes; and this disproportion I regarded as highly dangerous. I determined to let no political prejudice stand in my way, and to test to the best of my very feeble power the opinion of parliament with respect to tea and sugar. I stated that if the opinion of parliament were against me I should not factiously prolong the contest but should withdraw from it. Not only was the opinion of parliament against me, but it so happened that the opinion of the country was immediately afterwards taken by a dissolution on that and on other kindred questions. The country affirmed the policy of Lord Palmerston, and the policy of a materially increased expenditure, by an overwhelming majority. I had misjudged public opinion; they had read it aright. After the dissolution of 1857, Sir George Lewis, who had previously raised the tea and sugar duties for one year, proposed to raise them for two more. I immediately followed in debate, and thanked him warmly for doing it. All this of course I can prove. I said, we are going to have more expenditure, we must therefore have more taxation.

As I have gone thus far with my history, I will conclude it. Notwithstanding what had happened, I did not absolutely abandon at that time the hope that we might still reach in 1860 a state which might enable us to abolish the income-tax. I had a faint expectation of more economy under another government. When Lord Derby’s administration came in in 1858, they professed to reduce expenditure by £800,000, and to contemplate further reductions. I expressed my satisfaction, and gave them the extreme of support that I could. But I then clearly pointed out that, even with the scale of expenditure they then proposed, we could not abolish the income-tax in 1860. In a few months, their reductions vanished into air. In 1859 came the famous “reconstruction.” I took office in June, and found a scale of expenditure going on in the treasury far more prodigal and wanton than I had ever charged upon Lord Palmerston’s first government. I found also that when the estimates had been completed, I believe entirely on _their_ basis, there was a probable deficiency of four or five millions for a year of which nearly one-third had passed. And the expenditure was I think nearly seventy millions, or some fourteen millions more than in 1853. This was not the act only of the government. The opposition halloed them on; and the country, seized with a peculiar panic, was in a humour even more lavish than the opposition.

My view was, and I stated it, that we ought to provide for this expenditure in a due proportion between direct and indirect taxes. I showed that this proportion had not been observed; that we had continued to levy large amounts of war tax on tea and sugar, and had returned to the scale of 1853 for income. I proposed to provide the necessary sums chiefly by an increase of income-tax. But neither then (in July 1859), nor for nearly two and a half years before, had I ever (to my knowledge) presumed to speak of any one as bound to abolish the income-tax or to remit the additional duties on tea and sugar.

I fully expect from _you_ the admission that as to these measures I could not in the altered circumstances be bound absolutely to the remissions. But you say I was bound to give them a preference over all other remissions. Nowhere I believe can one word to this effect be extracted from any speech of mine. I found in 1860 that all the reforming legislation, which had achieved such vast results, had been suspended for seven years. We were then raising by duties doomed in 1853, from twelve to thirteen millions. It would in my opinion have been no less than monstrous on my part to recognise the preferences you claim for these particular duties. All of them indeed would have been reliefs, even the income-tax which is I think proved to be the least relief of any. But, though reliefs, they were hardly reforms; and experience had shown us that reforms were in fact double and treble reliefs. I may be wrong, but it is my opinion and I found it on experience, that the prospect of the removal of the three collectively (income, tea extra, and sugar extra) being in any case very remote, it is less remote with than without the reforming measures of the last and (I hope I may add) of the present year. Had the expenditure of 1853 been resumed, there would notwithstanding the Russian war have been, in my opinion, room for all these three things. 1. Abolition of income-tax by or near 1860; 2. remission of increases on tea and sugar within the same time; 3. the prosecution of the commercial reforms.

It may be said that having set my face against an excess of expenditure I ought to have considered that a holy war, and not to have receded. Although I place public economy somewhat higher as a matter of duty than many might do, I do not think it would have been right, I do think it would have been foolish and presumptuous in me to have gone beyond these two things: first, making an effort to the utmost of my power at the critical moment (as I took it to be), and secondly, on being defeated to watch for opportunities thereafter. Since it should be remembered I do not recommend or desire sweeping and sudden reductions.

The chief errors that I see myself to have committed are these. In 1853 when I took the unusual course of estimating our income for seven years, and assuming that our expenditure would either continue as it was, or only move onwards gradually and gently, I ought no doubt to have pointed out explicitly, that a great disturbance and increase of our expenditure would baffle my reckonings. Again in 1857 the temper of the public mind had undergone a change which I failed to discern; and I attacked the government and the chancellor of the exchequer of that day for doing what the country desired though I did not. I name these as specific errors, over and above the general one of excess of heat.

The budget of last year I cannot admit to have been an error. People say it should have been smaller. My belief is that if it had been a smaller boat it would not have lived in such a sea. I speak of the period of the session before the China war became certain. When it did so, we were in a great strait about the paper duty. We felt the obligation incurred by the vote on the second reading, and we construed it according to the established usage. We took the more arduous, but I think the more honourable course for a government to pursue. Had we abandoned the bill, I know not how we could have looked in the face those who had acted and invested on the faith of an unbroken practice. I admit that political motives greatly concurred to recommend the budget of last year. It was a budget of peace, and peace wanted it. The budget of this year followed from the budget of last, given the other circumstances. At the same time I can understand how the claim of tea could be set up, but not well after the occurrences of last year how it could be supported.

This is a long egotistical story. But when you consider that it contains my whole story (except _pièces justificatives_) in answer to so many speeches in both Houses and elsewhere, for never to this hour have I opened my lips in personal defence, you will understand why I might be garrulous....

Notwithstanding the mild doctrine I have held about expenditure I admit it may be said I ought not to have joined a government which had such extended views in that direction, even though they were the views of the nation. Much may be said on this. I may, however, remark that when the government was formed I did not fully conceive the extent to which we should proceed.

The Cabinet. 1860

_Page __36_

_Mr. Gladstone’s memorandum on the currents of opinion in the cabinet of 1860 concludes as follows_:—

1. The most Italian members of the cabinet have been: Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, W.E.G., Gibson, Argyll. The least Italian: Lewis, Wood, Grey, Herbert, Villiers (especially).

2. In foreign policy generally the most combative have been: Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Duke of Newcastle, the chancellor. The least combative: Duke of Somerset, Duke of Argyll, Granville, Gibson, Herbert, Lewis, Grey, W.E.G., Wood, the same in feeling but not active.

3. In defences and expenditure, the most alarmed, or most martial (as the case may be), have been: Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Duke of Newcastle, S. Herbert, followed by Duke of Somerset, the chancellor, Granville, Cardwell. Inclined the other way: Gibson, W.E.G., Lewis, Grey, Duke of Argyll (Elgin, I think).

4. In finance some are for movement, some stationary or retrograde so as to be ready for immediate war. Yet here we are not divided simply as combative or anti-combative. The onward men in finance are: Lord John Russell, Duke of Newcastle, Granville, Argyll, Gibson, W.E.G., and, I think, the chancellor. The stationary men are, first and foremost: Sir George Lewis, Sir C. Wood; next to these, Lord Palmerston, Cardwell, and, I think, Villiers, Herbert.

5. On reform I must distinguish between (_a_) extension of the franchise and (_b_) redistribution of seats. In the first the more liberal men are: Lord John Russell, Duke of Somerset, Duke of Newcastle, Duke of Argyll, Gibson, W.E.G. The fearful or opposed are: Lord Palmerston, C. Villiers, S. Herbert. In the second, for small disfranchisement were, I think, all the first except Newcastle. For larger disfranchisement: Newcastle, Villiers, and Lord Palmerston, I think not greatly averse. In fact, I think that larger disfranchisement of places may have been favoured by him, 1. as a substitute for enlargement of the franchise, which he chiefly dreads; 2. as perhaps an obstacle to the framing of a measure.

6. In church matters Herbert, Newcastle, and I are the most conservative and the most church-like; with a sympathy from Argyll. But, as I said, there is no struggle here: patronage, the sore subject, not being a cabinet affair.

Session Of 1860

_Page __47_

_Extract from a Letter to the Duke of Argyll._

_Penmaen., September 3, 1860._—The session has been one to make all of us thoughtful, and me perhaps most of all. It is indeed much before my mind, but my head has not ceased to whirl, so that I cannot get a clear view of what Seward would call my position. Two things I know, one is that it produced the greatest pleasures and the greatest pains I have ever known in politics; the other that 1 have had to take various decisions and perform acts that could neither be satisfactory to others, nor from the doubt attaching to one side or the other of the alternative, even to myself. To have been the occasion of the blow to the House of Commons, or as I call it the “gigantic innovation,” will be a grief to me as long as I live; if by wildness and rashness I have been its cause, it will be a much greater grief. Of that I am not yet able to judge. On the whole when I think of the cabinet, I always go back to Jacob and Esau fighting in their mother’s womb; only here there have been many Jacobs and Esaus, by which I do not mean the sixteen members of the cabinet, but the many and very unhandy causes of division. Perhaps I should find it easiest in the work of confession to own my neighbour’s faults, _i.e._ to dwell upon those strange sins of foreign policy which have happily for the most part been nipped in the bud almost _à l’unanimité_ (yet with what exceptions!); but avoiding that task, I will make my own confession. I cannot justify the finance of the year as a whole.... As to the amount of the final demand [for the China war], what it really demonstrates is _one_ among the follies and dangers of our high-handed policy, our want of control over proceedings at the other end of the world. But the weak point is the fortification plan; I do not now speak of its own merits or demerits, but I speak of it in relation to the budget.... It is a vile precedent to give away money by remission, and borrow to supply the void; and in the full and _chief_ responsibility for having established this precedent I am involved, not by the budget of February but by the consent of July to the scheme which involved the borrowing. No doubt there are palliating circumstances; and lastly the grievous difficulty of choice between mischievous [_illegible_] and mischievous resignation. Still I must say, it is in retrospect, as the people and parliament have a right to judge it, a bad and unworkmanlike business, and under a skilful analysis of it in the House of Commons (which there is no one opposite fit to make, except it be Northcote, who perhaps scruples it) I should wince. All these things and others more inward than these, make sore places in the mind; but on the other hand, that I may close with a gleam of sunshine like that which is now casting its shadow on my paper from Penmaenmawr after a rough morning, I am thankful in the highest degree to have had a share in resisting the alarmist mania of the day by means of the French treaty, to which, if we escape collision, I think the escape will have been mainly due; and likewise in one at least negative service to the great Italian cause, which is not Italian merely but European.

Mr. Pitt’s War Finance

_Page __59_

_Mr. Gladstone to Herbert Gladstone_

_March 10, 1876._—Mr. Pitt’s position in the Revolutionary war was, I think, a false one. To keep out of that war demanded from the people of this country an extraordinary degree of self-control, and this degree of it they did not possess. The consequence of our going into it was to give an intensity and vitality to the struggle, which but for the tenacity of English character it would not have possessed. Mr. Pitt did not show the great genius in war which he possessed as a peace minister. Until the epoch of the Peninsula our military performances were small and poor, and the method of subsidy was unsatisfactory and ineffective. The effect of borrowing money in three per cents. was to load us with a very heavy capital of national debt. I think at one time we only got £46, or some such amount, for the £100. It must, however, be taken into view that a perpetual annuity of £3, redeemable upon paying £100, brought _more_ than 3/4 of what a perpetual annuity of £4, similarly redeemable, would have brought; or than 3/5 of what a £5 annuity, similarly redeemable, would have brought. It is not easy to strike the balance. Mr. Newmarch, a living economist of some authority, I believe, thinks Mr. Pitt was right. I do not think the case is so clear against him as to _detract_ from his great reputation. But were I in the unhappy position of having to call for a large loan, I should be disposed to ask for the tender in more than one form, _e.g._, to ask for a tender in three per cents, pure and simple, and an alternative in 4 or 5 per cents., with that rate of interest guaranteed for a certain number of years. Sir Robert Walpole had not to contend with like difficulties, and I think his administration should be compared with the _early years_ of Pitt’s, in which way of judging he would come off second, though a man of cool and sagacious judgment, while morally he stood low.

French Commercial Treaty. 1860

_Page __66_

_Mr. Gladstone at Leeds, October 8, 1881_:—

I, for my part, look with the deepest interest upon the share that I had in concluding—I will not say so much in concluding, but in conducting on this side of the water, and within the walls of parliament as well as in administration—the proceedings which led to the memorable French treaty of 1860. It is quite true that that treaty did not produce the whole of the benefits that some too sanguine anticipations may possibly have expected from it, that it did not produce a universal smash of protective duties, as I wish it had, throughout the civilised world. But it did something. It enormously increased the trade between this country and France. It effectually checked and traversed in the year 1860 tendencies of a very different kind towards needless alarms and panics, and tendencies towards convulsions and confusion in Europe. There was no more powerful instrument for confining and controlling those wayward and angry spirits at that

## particular crisis, than the commercial treaty with France. It produced no

inconsiderable effect for a number of years upon the legislation of various European countries, which tended less decisively than we could have desired, but still intelligibly and beneficially, in the direction of freedom of trade.

Lord Aberdeen

_Page __87_

_Mr. Gladstone to Sir Arthur Gordon (Lord Stanmore)_

_Downing Street, April 21, 1861._—MY DEAR ARTHUR,—When, within a few days after your father’s death, I referred in conversation with you to one or two points in his character, it was from the impulse of the moment, and without any idea of making my words matter of record. Months have now passed since you asked me to put on paper the substance of what I said. The delay has been partly, perhaps mainly, owing to the pressure of other demands upon my time and thoughts. But it has also been due to this, that an instinct similar to that which made me speak, has made me shrink from writing. It is enough in conversation to give the most partial and hasty touches, provided they be not in the main untrue. Those same touches when clothed in a form of greater assumption have but a meagre and unsatisfactory appearance, and may do even positive injustice. Most of all in the case of a character which was not only of rare quality, but which was so remarkable for the fineness of its lights and shadows. But you have a right to my recollections such as they are, and I will not withhold them.

I may first refer to the earliest occasion on which I saw him; for it illustrates a point not unimportant in his history. On an evening in the month of January 1835, during what is called the short government of Sir Robert Peel, I was sent for by Sir Robert Peel, and received from him the offer, which I accepted, of the under-secretaryship of the colonies. From him I went on to your father, who was then secretary of state in that department, and who was thus to be, in official home-talk, my master. Without any apprehension of hurting you, I may confess, that I went in fear and trembling. [_Then follows the passage already quoted in vol. i. p. 124._] I was only, I think, for about ten weeks his under-secretary. But as some men hate those whom they have injured, so others love those whom they have obliged; and his friendship continued warm and unintermitting for the subsequent twenty-six years of his life.

Some of his many great qualities adorned him in common with several, or even with many, other contemporary statesmen: such as clearness of view, strength of the deliberative faculty, strong sense of duty, deep devotion to the crown, and the most thorough and uncompromising loyalty to his friends and colleagues. In this loyalty of intention many, I think, are not only praiseworthy but perfect. But the loyalty of intention was in him so assisted by other and distinctive qualities, as to give it a peculiar efficacy; and any one associated with Lord Aberdeen might always rest assured that he was safe in his hands. When our law did not allow prisoners the benefit of counsel, it was commonly said that the judge was counsel for the prisoner. Lord Aberdeen was always counsel for the absent. Doubtless he had pondered much upon the law, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” It had entered profoundly into his being, and formed a large part of it. He was strong in his self-respect, but his respect for others, not for this man or that but for other men as men, was much more conspicuous. Rarely indeed have I heard him utter a word censuring opponents, or concerning those who actually were or had been friends, that could have given pain. If and when it was done, it was done so to speak judicially, upon full and reluctant conviction and with visible regret.

If I have said that he had much in common with other distinguished men who were like him statesmen by profession, it has been by way of preface to what I have now to say; namely, that what has ever struck me in his character as a whole, was its distinctiveness. There were several mental virtues that he possessed in a degree very peculiar; there were, I think, one or two in which he stood almost alone. I am not in myself well qualified for handling a subject like this, and also my life has been too hurried to give me the most favourable opportunities. Still I must try to explain my meaning. I will name then the following characteristics, one and all of which were more prominent in him than in any public man I ever knew: mental calmness; the absence (if for want of better words I may describe it by a negative) of all egoism; the love of exact justice; a thorough tolerance of spirit; and last and most of all an entire absence of suspicion.

There was something very remarkable in the combination of these qualities, as well as in their separate possession. Most men who might be happy enough to have one half his love of justice, would be so tossed with storms of indignation at injustice as to lose the balance of their judgment. But he had or seemed to have all the benefits, all the ennobling force of strong emotion, with a complete exemption from its dangers. His mind seemed to move in an atmosphere of chartered tranquillity, which allowed him the view of every object, however blinding to others, in its true position and proportion.

It has always appeared to me that the love of justice is one of the rarest among all good qualities, I mean the love of it with full and commanding strength. I should almost dare to say there are five generous men to one just man. The beauty of justice is the beauty of simple form; the beauty of generosity is heightened with colour and every accessory. The passions will often ally themselves with generosity, but they always tend to divert from justice. The man who strongly loves justice must love it for its own sake, and such a love makes of itself a character of a simple grandeur to which it is hard to find an equal.

Next to Lord Aberdeen, I think Sir Robert Peel was the most just of the just men I have had the happiness to know. During the years from 1841 to 1846, when they were respectively foreign secretary and prime minister, as I was at the board of trade for much of the time, I had occasion to watch the two in the conduct of several negotiations that involved commercial interests, such as that on the Stade Dues and that on the project of a commercial treaty with Portugal. Now and then Sir Robert Peel would show some degree of unconscious regard to the mere flesh and blood, if I may so speak, of Englishmen; Lord Aberdeen was invariably for putting the most liberal construction upon both the conduct and the claims of the other negotiating state.

There is perhaps no position in this country, in which the love of justice that I have ascribed in such extraordinary measure to your father, can be so severely tested, as that very position of foreign minister, with which his name is so closely associated. Nowhere is a man so constantly and in such myriad forms tempted to partiality; nowhere can he do more for justice; but nowhere is it more clear that all human force is inadequate for its end. A nation is rarely just to other nations. Perhaps it is never truly just, though sometimes (like individuals) what may be called more than just. There can be no difficulty in any country, least of all this, in finding foreign ministers able and willing to assert the fair and reasonable claims of their countrymen with courage and with firmness. The difficulty is quite of another kind; it is to find the foreign minister, first, who will himself view those claims in the dry light both of reason and of prudence; secondly, and a far harder task, who will have the courage to hazard, and if need be to sacrifice himself in keeping the mind of his countrymen down to such claims as are strictly fair and reasonable. Lord Aberdeen was most happy in being secretary of state for foreign affairs in the time and in the political company of two such men as the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. He was also happy in the general prevalence of a spirit of great sobriety in the country, which was singularly free under the government of Sir Robert Peel, from the opposite but sometimes associated extremes of wantonness and fear. I am glad to think that his administration of his department earned a decided public approval. So just a man will, I think, rarely attain in that department to the same measure of popularity, while a less just man might easily obtain one far greater.

To fall short of perfect candour would deprive all I have said of the little value it can possess, as that little value is all summed up in its sincerity. On one subject to which my mind has been directed for the last twelve or fourteen years, I had the misfortune to differ from your father. I mean the state of Italy and its relation to Austria in particular. I will not pretend to say that his view of the case of Italy appeared to me to harmonize with his general mode of estimating human action and political affairs. It seemed to me as if, called in early youth to deal with a particular combination of questions which were truly gigantic, his mind had received from their weight and force at an impressible period, a fixed form in relation to them, while it ever remained open and elastic in a peculiar degree upon all others. But my mode of solution for what appeared to me an anomaly is immaterial. I thankfully record that the Italian question was almost the only one within my recollection, quite the only one of practical importance, on which during the twenty-six years I have named, I was unable to accept his judgment. I bear witness with yet greater pleasure that, when I returned from Naples in 1851 deeply impressed with the horrible system that I had witnessed, his opinions on Italian politics did not prevent his readily undertaking to read the statement I had drawn, nor his using, when he had read it, more strong words on the subject, which came from lips like his with such peculiar force. As readily did he undertake to invoke the aid of the court of Vienna; to which, if I remember right, he transmitted the statement in manuscript.

Though I feel that I cannot by any effort do justice to what I have termed his finely-shaded character, I also feel that I might be drawn onwards to great length on the subject. I must resist the impulse, but I cannot stop without saying a word on the quality which I regard as beyond all others his own, I mean the absence from his nature of all tendency to suspicion. Those who have read his state papers, and have admired their penetrating force and comprehensive scope, will not misunderstand me when I say that he was, in this respect, a little child; not from defect of vision, but from thorough nobleness of nature.

I do not think it was by effort and self-command that he rid himself of suspicion. In the simple and strong aim of the man to be good himself, it belonged to the very strength and simplicity of that aim, that he should also think others good. I recollect, and I dare say you better recollect, one of his sayings: “I have a habit of believing people.” To some these words may not seem to import a peculiarity. But as descriptive of him they indicate what of all the points of his character seemed to me most peculiar. I have known one man as free from suspicions as was Lord Aberdeen, but he was not a politician. I am far from thinking statesmen, or politicians, less honourable than other men, quite the reverse; but the habit of their life renders them suspicious. The vicissitudes of politics, the changes of position, the changes of alliance, the sharp transitions from co-operation to antagonism, the inevitable contact with revolting displays of self-seeking and self-love; more than all these perhaps, the constant habit of forecasting the future and shaping all its contingencies beforehand, which is eminently the merit and intellectual virtue of the politician, all these tend to make him, and commonly do make him, suspicious even of his best friend. This suspicion may be found to exist in conjunction with regard, with esteem, nay with affection. For it must be recollected that it is not usually a suspicion of moral delinquency, but at least as it dwells in the better and higher natures, of intellectual error only, in some of its numerous forms, or at most of speaking with a reserve that may be more or less or even wholly unconscious. None of these explanations are needed for Lord Aberdeen. He always took words in their direct and simple meaning, and assumed them to be the index of the mind; and its full index too, so that he did not speculate to learn what undiscovered residue might still remain in its dark places. This entire immunity from suspicion, which makes our minds in general like a haunted place, and the sense of the immunity that he conveyed to his friends in all his dealings with them, combined with the deep serenity of his mind, which ever seemed to beguile and allay by some kindly process of nature excitement in others, gave an indescribable charm to all intercourse with him in critical and difficult circumstances. Hence perhaps in great part, and not merely from his intellectual gifts, was derived the remarkable power he seemed to me to exercise in winning confidences without seeking to win them; and, on the whole, I believe that this quality, could we hold it as it was held in him, would save us from ten erroneous judgments for one into which it might lead. For the grand characteristic of suspicion after all, as of superstition, is to see things that are not.

I turn now to another point: Lord Aberdeen was not demonstrative; I do not suppose he could have been an actor; he was unstudied in speech; and it is of interest to inquire what it was that gave such extraordinary force and impressiveness to his language. He did not deal in antithesis. His sayings were not sharpened with gall. In short, one might go on disclaiming for him all the accessories to which most men who are impressive owe their impressiveness. Yet I never knew any one who was so impressive in brief utterances conveying the sum of the matter....

History has also caught and will hold firmly and well the honoured name of your father. There was no tarnish upon his reputation more than upon his character. He will be remembered in connection with great passages of European policy not only as a man of singularly searching, large, and calm intelligence, but yet more as the just man, the man that used only true weights and measures, and ever held even the balance of his ordered mind. It is no reproach to other statesmen of this or other periods, to say that scarcely any of them have had a celebrity so entirely unaided by a transitory glare. But if this be so, it implies that while they for the most part must relatively lose, he must relatively and greatly gain. If they have had stage-lights and he has had none, it is the hour when those lights are extinguished that will for the first time do that justice as between them which he was too noble, too far aloft in the tone of his mind, to desire to anticipate. All the qualities and parts in which he was great were those that are the very foundation-stones of our being; as foundation-stones they are deep, and as being deep they are withdrawn from view; but time is their witness and their friend, and in the final distribution of posthumous fame Lord Aberdeen has nothing to forfeit, he has only to receive.

I see on perusing what I have written, that in the endeavour to set forth the virtues and great qualities of your father, I seem more or less to disparage other men, including even Sir Robert Peel whom he so much esteemed and loved. I had no such intention, and it is the fault of my hand, not of my will. He would not have claimed, he would not have wished nor borne, that others should claim for him superiority, or even parity in all points with all his contemporaries. But there was a certain region of character which was, so to speak, all his own; and there other men do seem more or less dwarfed beside him. In the combination of profound feeling with a calm of mind equally profound, of thorough penetration with the largest charity, of the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove, in the total suppression and exclusion of self from his reckonings and actions—in all this we may think him supreme, and yet have a broad array of good and noble qualities in which he may have shared variously with others. There are other secrets of his character and inner life into which I do not pretend to have penetrated. It always seemed to me that there was a treasure-house within him, which he kept closed against the eyes of men. He is gone. He has done well in his generation. May peace and light be with him, and may honour and blessing long attend his memory upon earth.—Believe me, my dear Arthur, affectionately yours, W. E. GLADSTONE.

Cabinet Of 1868-1874

_Page __255_

_First lord of the treasury_, W. E. Gladstone. _Lord chancellor_, Lord Hatherly (Page Wood). _President of the council_, Earl de Grey (created Marquis of Ripon, 1871). _Lord privy seal_, Earl of Kimberley. _Chancellor of the exchequer_, Robert Lowe. _Home secretary_, Henry Austin Bruce. _Foreign secretary_, Earl of Clarendon. _Colonial secretary_, Earl Granville. _War secretary_, Edward Cardwell. _First lord of the admiralty_, H. C. E. Childers. _Indian secretary_, Duke of Argyll. _President of the board of trade_, John Bright. _Chief secretary for Ireland_, Chichester Fortescue. _Postmaster general_, Marquis of Hartington. _President of the poor law board_, George J. Goschen.

On Lord Clarendon’s death in June 1870, Lord Granville became foreign secretary; Lord Kimberley, colonial secretary; Viscount Halifax (Sir C. Wood), lord privy seal; and Mr. Forster, vice-president of the privy council, entered the cabinet.

On Mr. Bright’s resignation in December 1870, Mr. Chichester Fortescue became president of the board of trade; Lord Hartington succeeded him as chief secretary for Ireland; Mr. Monsell was appointed postmaster general without a seat in the cabinet.

On Mr. Childers’s resignation in March 1871, Mr. Goschen became first lord of the admiralty, and Mr. James Stansfeld president of the poor law board.

In August 1872 Mr. Childers rejoined the cabinet, succeeding Lord Dufferin as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. In October Sir Roundell Palmer (created Lord Selborne) became lord chancellor on the retirement of Lord Hatherley.

In August 1873 Lord Ripon and Mr. Childers retired, Mr. Gladstone became chancellor of the exchequer as well as first lord; Mr. Bright rejoined the cabinet as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster; Mr. Lowe became home secretary and Mr. Bruce (created Lord Aberdare) president of the council.

Irish Church Bill

_Page __276_

_Mr. Gladstone to the Queen_

_July 21, 1869._—Mr. Gladstone presents his humble duty to your Majesty and reports that the cabinet met at 11 this day, and considered with anxious care its position and duty in regard to the Irish Church bill. The vote and declaration of the House of Lords last night were regarded as fatal if persisted in; and the cabinet deemed it impossible to meet proceedings of such a character with any tender of further concessions. The cabinet, however, considered at much length a variety of courses; as (1) To announce at once that they could no longer, after the vote and announcement of last night, be responsible for further proceedings in connection with the bill, but that they would leave it to the majority of the House of Lords to take such steps as it might think proper; (2) To go through the whole of the amendments of the bill [_i.e._ in the House of Lords], and then if they were adversely carried to declare and proceed as above; (3) To go through not the whole of the amendments but the endowment amendments, and to conclude that when these had been adversely decided, they could (as before) assume no further responsibility, but must leave the matter to the majority to consider; (4) To send the bill back to the House of Commons with the declaration that it would not be accepted there, and with the intention of simply moving the House to adhere to its amendments as last adjusted.

Your Majesty has already been apprized by Mr. Gladstone’s telegram in cipher of this afternoon, that (under the influence of a strong desire to exhibit patience, and to leave open every opportunity for reconsideration), the third of these courses had been adopted; although there was no doubt that the House of Commons was fully prepared to approve and sustain the first. Lord Granville deemed it just possible that the peers might be prepared to give way before another return of the bill from the House of Commons; and the question therefore was left open whether, if evidence to this effect should appear, the government should then fall in with that course of proceeding. Although the government have felt it to be impossible to make biddings in the face of the opposition, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been apprised, in strict confidence, of the nature and extent of the concession, which for the sake of peace they would be prepared to recommend. Sir R. Palmer is also substantially aware of it, and has expressed his opinion that on such terms the opposition ought to be ready to conclude the matter.

Board And Voluntary Schools

_Page __310_

_Mr. Gladstone to M. Bright_

_Aug. 21, 1873._—An appeal to me was made to introduce board schools into Hawarden on account of my share in the Education Act. I stated the two views held by different supporters of the Act, respectively on the question of board schools and voluntary schools. For myself, I said, not in education only but _in all things including education, I prefer voluntary to legal machinery, when the thing can be well done either way_. But this question is not to be decided by a general preference or a general formula. Parliament has referred it to the choice of the local communities. They should decide according to the facts of the case before them. What are the facts in Hawarden? Four-fifths are already provided for; were it only one-fifth or were it two-fifths the case for the board (I said) would be overwhelming. But besides the four-fifths, arrangements are already made for a further provision in a voluntary school. Nothing remains to be done except to build three _infant_ schools. The voluntary schools will be governed by a committee, including the churchwardens, and having a majority of laymen. The machinery of a board is of necessity cumbrous, and the method costly in comparison. I hold that we ought not to set up this machinery, in order to create three infant schools, where all the other wants of some 2000 people are already provided for.

Views On A Classical Education

_Page __312_

_Mr. Gladstone to Lord Lyttelton_

_Penmaenmawr, Aug. 29, 1861._—-Thanks for the brief notice which you recently took of the Public Schools Commission. I was heartily glad to hear that you had formed a drastic set of questions. I take the deepest interest in the object of the commission, and I have full confidence in its members and organs; and at all times I shall be very glad to hear what you are doing. Meantime I cannot help giving you, to be taken for what it is worth, the sum of my own thoughts upon the subject.... The _low_ utilitarian argument in matter of education, for giving it what is termed a practical direction, is so plausible that I think we may on the whole be thankful that the instincts of the country have resisted what in argument it has been ill able to confute. We still hold by the classical training as the basis of a liberal education; parents dispose of their children in early youth accordingly; but if they were asked why they did so, it is probable they would give lamentably weak or unworthy reasons for it, such for example as that the public schools and universities open the way to desirable acquaintance and what is termed “good society.” Your commission will not I presume be able to pass by this question, but will have to look it in the face; and to proceed either upon a distinct affirmative, or a substantial negative, of the proposition that the classical training is the proper basis of a liberal education. I hope you will hold by affirmation and reject negation.

But the reason why I trouble you upon the subject is this, that I think the friends of this principle have usually rather blinked the discussion, and have been content with making terms of compromise by way of buying off the adversary, which might be in themselves reasonable unless they were taken as mere instalments of a transaction intended in the long run to swallow up the principle itself. What I feel is that the relation of pure science, natural science, modern languages, modern history, and the rest of the old classical training ought to be founded on a principle and ought not to be treated simply as importunate creditors, that take a shilling in the £ to-day, because they hope to get another shilling to-morrow, and in the meantime have a recognition of their title. This recognition of title is just what I would refuse. I deny their right to a parallel or equal position; their true position is auxiliary, and as auxiliary it ought to be limited and restrained without scruple, as a regard to the paramount matter of education may dictate.

But why after all is the classical training paramount? Is it because we find it established? because it improves memory or taste, or gives precision, or develops the faculty of speech? All these are but partial and fragmentary statements, so many narrow glimpses of a great and comprehensive truth. That truth I take to be that the modern European civilisation from the middle age downwards is the compound of two great factors, the Christian religion for the spirit of man, and the Greek, and in a secondary degree the Roman discipline for his mind and intellect. St. Paul is the apostle of the Gentiles, and is in his own person a symbol of this great wedding—the place, for example, of Aristotle and Plato in Christian education is not arbitrary nor in principle mutable. The materials of what we call classical training were prepared, and we have a right to say were advisedly prepared, in order that it might become not a mere adjunct but (in mathematical phrase) the complement of Christianity in its application to the culture of the human being formed both for this world and for the world to come.

If this principle be true it is broad and high and clear enough, and supplies a key to all questions connected with the relation between the classical training of our youth and all other branches of their secular education. It must of course be kept within its proper place, and duly limited as to things and persons. It can only apply in full to that small proportion of the youth of any country, who are to become in the fullest sense educated men. It involves no extravagant or inconvenient assumptions respecting those who are to be educated for trades and professions in which the necessities of specific training must limit general culture. It leaves open every question turning upon individual aptitudes and inaptitudes and by no means requires that boys without a capacity for imbibing any of the spirit of classical culture are still to be mechanically plied with the instruments of it after their unfitness has become manifest. But it lays down the rule of education for those who have no internal and no external disqualification; and that rule, becoming a fixed and central point in the system, becomes also the point around which all others may be grouped.

_Mr. Gladstone to Sir S. Northcote_

_Nov. 12, 1861._—The letter I wrote to Lyttelton about the classical education suggested topics, which as you justly perceive are altogether esoteric. They have never to my knowledge been carefully worked out, and I think they well deserve it; but clearly your report is not the place. I will not say you are not prudent in suggesting that you should not even give an opinion upon the great question: What is the true place of the old classical learning in the human culture of the nineteenth century? I am far from venturing to say the contrary. But one thing I do think, namely, that it is desirable that, as far as may be, the members of the commission should have some answer to that question in their minds, and should write their report with reference to it. For centuries, through the lifetime of our great schools this classical culture has been made the _lapis angularis_ of all secular culture of the highest class. Was this right or was it wrong, aye or no? I think it much to be desired that the commission should, if they will, proceed upon the affirmative or negative of that proposition, and should also make their choice for the former. This would be a long note to their report; but it need not be distinctly and separately heard in it. Such is my notion. As to particulars I have little to say that is worth hearing; but I think these three things. First, that we give much too little scope for deviation from what I think the normal standard to other and useful branches, when it has become evident that the normal standard is inapplicable; just as was the case in Oxford before the reform of the examinations, or let me rather say the new statutes. Secondly, I am extremely jealous of any invasion of modern languages which is to displace classical culture, or any portion of it in minds capable of following that walk. (I take it that among the usual modern tongues Italian has by far the greatest capacity for strict study and scholarship; whereas it is the one least in favour and the whole method of dealing with them is quite alien to strict study.) Lastly, I confess I grieve over the ignorance of natural history which I feel in myself and believe to exist in others. At some time, in some way, much more of all this ought to be brought in, but clearly it would serve in a great degree as recreation, and need not thrust aside whatever hard work boys are capable of doing.

Position Of The Commander-In-Chief In Parliament

_Page __362_

_Mr. Gladstone to the Queen_

_July 8, 1871._—Mr. Gladstone believes that according to precedent the commander-in-chief, when a peer, has not shrunk from giving his opinion on measures submitted to the House of Lords. In 1847, the government of that day introduced the Short Service bill, of which on the merits it is believed that the Duke of Wellington, then commander-in-chief, did not approve. Indeed he expressed in debate on April 26th, 1847, his doubts whether the measure would produce the advantages which were anticipated from it; nevertheless, while having no political connection with the government, he spoke and voted in a division for the bill. It is probable, as the numbers were only 108 to 94, that his speech and vote alone carried the bill. Your Majesty will not fail to bear in mind that until 1855, there was always a very high military authority who was in political connection with the government, namely, the master of the ordnance. Indeed, unless Mr. Gladstone’s recollection deceives him, Lord Beresford was required by the Duke of Wellington in 1829, as master of the ordnance, to support the Roman Catholic Relief bill. And it is still regretted by many that ministries have not since comprehended any such officer. All question, however, as to the political support of a ministry by the military chiefs of the army is now at an end.

A Soldier At The War Office

_Page __363_

_Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Cardwell_

_Jan. 5, 1871._—It was a great advantage before 1854, that there was always a considerable soldier either in the cabinet or at least at the head of an important military department, and politically associated with the government. This we lost by the crude and ill-advised reconstructions of ’55. But you, following in this point a wise initiative of your predecessor, have endeavoured to bring the appointment of Sir H. Storks into a position which makes it probably the best substitute for the former plan that can be had at present. The demand that a soldier shall be appointed at the present time would hold good _a fortiori_ for all periods of greater emergency. I know not where that principle has been admitted in our military administration. If we have committed gross errors, it has been owing to an excess much more than to a defect of professional influence and counsel. In my opinion the qualities of a good administrator and statesman go to make a good war minister, especially at this juncture, far more than those of a good soldier. Show me the soldier who has those equally with you, and then let him take your place as S.S. But not till then. You were chosen for your office, not because you would do tolerably for easy times, and then could walk out, but because you were the best man the party could supply for the post. The reproaches aimed at you now are merely aimed at the government through you, and you are chosen to be the point of attack because the nation is sore on military matters in times of crisis, and the press which ought to check excitement, by most of its instruments ministers to its increase. You find yourself unable to suggest a successor; and I have seen no plan that would not weaken the government instead of strengthening it. You see what eulogies have been passed on Bright, now he is gone. You would rise in the market with many after resigning, to depreciate those who remain behind; but as I have said, you would not be allowed to have had a legitimate cause of going, and as far as my observation goes, retirements are quite as critically judged as acceptances of office, perhaps more so. What is really to be desired, is that we should get Storks into parliament if possible.

Mr. Gladstone’s Financial Legacy, 1869

_Page __372_

_Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Lowe_

_Hawarden, Jan. 9, 1869._—I have referred to my list of remnants; and I will begin with those that I tried in parliament and failed in: 1. Collection of taxes by Queen’s officers instead of local officers. 2. Taxation of charities. 3. Bill for restraining, with a view to ultimately abolishing, the circulation of the notes of private banks. 4. Plan for bringing the chancery and other judicial accounts under the control of parliament. Here I had a commission (on chancery accounts) but did not dare to go farther.

The following are subjects which I was not able to take in hand:—

1. Abolition of the remaining duty upon corn; an exceeding strong case. 2. I should be much disposed to abolish the tea licences as greatly restrictive of the consumption of a dutiable and useful commodity. I modified them; but am not sure that this was enough. The B.I.R. could throw light on this subject. 3. The probate duty calls, I fear, loudly for change; but I wanted either time or courage to take it in hand. 4. The remaining conveyance duties, apart from railways, I always considered as marked for extinction. On this subject Mr. Ayrton has rather decided antecedents. 5. The fire insurance duty is sure to be further assailed. Though not as bad (relatively to other taxes) as is supposed, it is bad enough to be very hard to defend in an adverse House; and this is one of the questions on which it is not likely that the opposition will help to see fair play. The promises that liberal reduction will lead to recovery of anything like the old or previous revenue have always been confidently pressed by irresponsible men, and are in my opinion illusory. The tax is a tax on property: and, as we have too few of these rather than too many, what would seem desirable is to commute it; leaving no more than a penny stamp on the policy. This might perhaps be done, if it were made part of a large budget. 6. The income-tax at 6d., I suppose, presents a forward claim. 7. The commutation of malt duty for beer duty must always, I presume, be spoken of with respect; but the working objections to it have thus far been found too hard to deal with.

There is always room in detail for amendments of stamp duties, but the great case as among them is the probate. They are of a class which, without any legal knowledge, I found very hard to work through the House of Commons. I do not look upon the Act of 1844 as the _end_ of legislation in currency; but this subject is a big one. Scotch and Irish notes would be hard to deal with until the English case is disposed of. I forget whether we have abolished the last of the restrictions on newspapers. If not, they deserve to be taken in hand, according to me. I have always wished to equalise the outgoings of the exchequer as much as possible over the several weeks of the year. Few incomes admit of this advantage in the same degree as the public income. It would make our “account” much more valuable to our bankers; therefore to us.

These, I think, were the main matters which lay more or less in perspective before me. I must add that I am strongly in favour of paying off the national debt, not only by annual surpluses, but by terminable annuities _sold to the national debt commissioners for securities held by them against deposit monies_. The opponents of this plan were Mr. Hubbard and Mr. Laing. I am satisfied that neither of them had taken the trouble, and it requires some trouble, to understand it. I admit them to be no mean authorities. Terminable annuities sold to others than yourself are quite another matter. I got into the law some power of this kind over post office savings bank monies to be exercised by the chancellor of the exchequer from time to time.

This is all I need trouble you with, and I have endeavoured to keep clear of all idiosyncratic propositions as much as in me lies. Of course such a letter calls for no answer. As this legacy opinion to you takes the form of a donation _inter vivos_ it will, I hope, escape duty.

Prince Albert, 1854

_Page __426_

Mr. Gladstone wrote an elaborate article in the _Morning Chronicle_ (Jan. 16, 1854) warmly defending the court against attacks that had clouded the popularity of the Prince Consort. They came to little more than that the Prince attended meetings of the privy council; that he was present when the Queen gave an audience to a minister; that he thwarted ministerial counsels and gave them an un-English character; that in corresponding with relatives abroad he used English influence apart from the Queen’s advisers. Mr. Gladstone had no great difficulty in showing how little this was worth, either as fact supported by evidence, or as principle supported by the fitness of things; and he put himself on the right ground. “We do not raise the question whether, if the minister thinks it right to communicate with the sovereign alone, he is not entitled to a private audience. But we unhesitatingly assert that if the Prince is present when the Queen confers with her advisers, and if his presence is found to be disadvantageous to the public interests, we are not left without a remedy; for the minister is as distinctly responsible for those interests in this as in any other matter, and he is bound on his responsibility to parliament, to decline compliance even with a personal wish of the sovereign when he believes that his assent would be injurious to the country.”

Parliamentary Crises

_Page __451_

_Extract from Mr. Gladstone’s letter to the Queen, March 15, 1873_

There have been within that period [1830-1873] twelve of what may be properly called parliamentary crises involving the question of a change of government. In nine of the twelve cases (viz., those of 1830, 1835, 1841, 1846, 1852, 1858, 1859, 1866, and 1868), the party which had been in opposition was ready to take, and did take, office. In the other three it failed to do this (viz., in 1832, 1851, 1855), and the old ministry or a modification of it returned to power. But in each of these three cases the attempt of the opposition to form a government was not relinquished until after such efforts had been made by its leaders to carry the conviction to the world that all its available means of action were exhausted; and there is no instance on record during the whole period (or indeed so far as Mr. Gladstone remembers at an earlier date) in which a summary refusal given on the instant by the leader was tendered as sufficient to release the opposition from the obligations it had incurred. This is the more remarkable because in two of the three instances the opposition had not, in the same mode or degree as on Wednesday morning last, contributed by concerted action to bring about the crisis. On the 7th of May 1832 the opposition of the day carried in the House of Lords a motion which went only to alter the order of the opening (and doubtless very important) clauses of the Reform bill, but which the government of Lord Grey deemed fatal to the integrity of the measure. Their resignation was announced, and Lord Lyndhurst was summoned to advise King William iv. on the 9th of May. On the 12th the Duke of Wellington was called to take a share in the proceedings, the details of which are matters of history. It was only on the 15th that the Duke and Lord Lyndhurst found their resources at an end, when Lord Grey was again sent for, and on the 17th the Duke announced in the House of Lords his abandonment of the task he had strenuously endeavoured to fulfil. On the 20th February 1851 the government of Lord Russell was defeated in the House of Commons on Mr. Locke King’s bill for the enlargement of the county franchise by a majority composed of its own supporters. Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, being sent for by your Majesty on the 22nd, observed that there were at the time three parties in the House of Commons and that the ministry had never yet been defeated by his political friends. He therefore counselled your Majesty to ascertain whether the government of Lord Russell could not be strengthened by a

## partial reconstruction, and failing that measure he engaged to use his own

best efforts to form an administration. That attempt at reconstruction (to which nothing similar is now in question) did fail, and Lord Derby was therefore summoned by your Majesty on the 25th, and at once applied himself, as is well known, to every measure which seemed to give him a hope of success in constructing a government. On the 27th he apprised your Majesty of his failure in these efforts; and on March 3rd the cabinet of Lord Russell returned to office. (This recital is founded on Lord Derby’s statement in the House of Lords, Feb. 28, 1851.) On Jan. 29, 1855, the government of Lord Aberdeen was defeated in the House of Commons on a motion made by an independent member of their own party and supported by twenty-five of the liberal members present. Though this defeat resembles the one last named in that it cannot be said to be due to the concerted

## action of the opposition as a party, Lord Derby, being summoned by your

Majesty on the 1st of Feb. proceeded to examine and ascertain in every quarter the means likely to be at his disposal for rendering assistance in the exigency, and it was not until Feb. 3 that he receded from his endeavours.

Cabinet Of 1880-1885

_Page __630_

_First lord of the treasury, chancellor of the exchequer_, W. E. Gladstone. _Lord chancellor_, Lord Selborne. _President of the council_, Earl Spencer. _Lord privy seal_, Duke of Argyll. _Home secretary_, Sir W. V. Harcourt. _Foreign secretary_, Earl Granville. _Colonial secretary_, Earl of Kimberley. _War secretary_, H. C. E. Childers. _First lord of the admiralty_, Earl of Northbrook. _Indian secretary_, Marquis of Hartington. _President of the board of trade_, Joseph Chamberlain. _Chief secretary for Ireland_, W. E. Forster. _Chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster_, John Bright. _President of the local government board_, J. G. Dodson.

On the resignation of the Duke of Argyll, April 1881, Lord Carlingford (Mr. Chichester Fortescue) became lord privy seal.

In May 1882, Earl Spencer became lord-lieutenant of Ireland. On Mr. Forster’s resignation he was succeeded by Lord Frederick Cavendish, and then by Mr. G. O. Trevelyan, neither of whom had a seat in the cabinet.

On the resignation of Mr. Bright in July 1882, Mr. Dodson became chancellor of the duchy, and Sir Charles Dilke president of the local government board.

In December 1882, Mr. Gladstone resigned the chancellorship of the exchequer to Mr. Childers; Lord Hartington became war secretary; Lord Kimberley, Indian secretary, and Lord Derby colonial secretary.

In March 1883, Lord Carlingford succeeded Earl Spencer as president of the council.

In October 1884, Mr. Trevelyan succeeded Mr. Dodson as chancellor of the duchy (with the cabinet), Mr. Campbell-Bannerman becoming Irish secretary without a seat in the cabinet.

In February 1885, Lord Rosebery, first commissioner of works, succeeded Lord Carlingford as lord privy seal (with the cabinet) [Lord Carlingford had also been president of the council from March 1883 in succession to Lord Spencer], and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, postmaster-general, entered the cabinet.

CHRONOLOGY

All speeches unless otherwise stated were made in the House of Commons.

1860.

Jan. 25. Defends good understanding with France.

Feb. 10. Introduces budget.

Feb. 20. Replies to criticisms on commercial treaty.

Feb. 24. Defends his financial proposals.

Feb. 27. Defends proposed reduction of duty on foreign wines.

March 5. Explains objects of Savings Banks bill.

March 9. Defends commercial treaty.

March 12. On Paper Duty Repeal bill.

March 26. On Refreshment Houses and Wine Licences bill.

April 16. Inaugural address before University of Edinburgh on the Work of Universities.

May 3. In support of Representation of the People bill.

May 8. On Paper Duty Repeal bill.

July 5 and 17. Protests against interference of House of Lords with supply bills.

Aug. 6. Defends reduction of Customs Duty on paper.

Nov. 8. At Chester on the volunteer movement.

1861.

Feb. 8. Explains provisions of Post Office Savings Bank bill.

Feb. 19. Opposes inquiry into income-tax.

Feb. 21. Introduces Bank of England Payments bill.

Feb. 27. Opposes bill for abolishing church rates.

March 4. Explains provisions of Consolidated Fund and Exchequer Bills Act.

March 7. Defends the government’s Italian policy.

March 14. On Chinese war expenditure.

April 15. Introduces budget.

April 29. Replies to criticisms on financial proposals.

May 2. Moves continuance of tea and sugar duties.

May 6. Announces decision to embody all financial proposals in a single bill.

May 7. Defends his acts as lord high commissioner of Ionian Islands.

May 16 and 30. On second reading of Customs and Inland Revenue bill.

July 12. Opposes third reading of Universities Elections bill.

July 19. On misgovernment of Italy.

Oct. 10. At Liverpool on the Pursuit of Science.

Nov. 27. At Willis’s Room, London, on the Christian aspect of education.

Publishes _Translations by Lord Lyttelton and the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone_.

1862.

Jan. 11. At Edinburgh on American Civil War and results of French treaty.

April 3. Introduces budget.

April 7. Replies to criticisms on budget.

April 10. Defends proposed brewers’ licences.

April 11. Defends government’s Italian policy.

April 23. At Manchester on value of competitive examinations and the death of Prince Albert.

April 24. At Manchester condemns extravagance in public expenditure.

May 8. Replies to criticisms of Sir S. Northcote on his financial proposals.

May 13. Defends principles on which income-tax is levied.

May 16. In favour of economy.

June 16. At Archbishop Tenison’s grammar school on middle class education.

July 26. Pays tribute to Sir Hugh Myddelton at inauguration of his statue on Islington Green.

Aug. 1. Opposes Night Poaching Prevention bill.

Sept. 24. On agriculture at Mold.

Oct. 7. At Newcastle-on-Tyne on the American Civil War and French treaty.

Oct. 8. Makes a tour of inspection of the Tyne.

Oct. 9. At Sunderland on government’s foreign policy.

At Middlesborough on commercial and social progress.

Oct. 10. At York on America and Italy.

Oct. 22. At Wrexham on minor railways.

Dec. 27. At Chester on distress in Lancashire.

1863.

Jan. 5. At Hawarden on his visit to Sicily, 1838.

Feb. 13. Explains provisions of Post Office Savings Bank bill.

March 4. Supports Qualification for Office Abolition bill.

April 15. Supports Burials bill.

April 16. Introduces budget.

April 23. Opposes levying income-tax on precarious incomes at a lower scale than on permanent.

May 4. Receives deputation protesting against income-tax on charity trust funds. Defends the proposal in debate.

May 8. Defends government’s Italian policy.

May 12. On condition of Ionian Islands.

May 29. On Turkey and her dependencies.

June 9. On relaxation of the Act of Uniformity.

June 12. On the condition of Ireland.

June 30. Opposes recognition of the Southern Confederacy.

July 20. On condition of Poland.

July 24. On petition for abolition of tests at Oxford.

Oct. 26. Lays foundation stone of Wedgwood Memorial Institute at Burslem.

1864.

Jan. 4. At Buckley on thrift.

Feb. 4. On Schleswig-Holstein question.

Feb. 8. On his bill for regulating collection of taxes.

Feb. 11. Introduces Bank Act (Scotland) bill.

Feb. 26. On taxation of Ireland.

March 7. Defends provisions of Government Annuity bill.

March 16. Receives deputation of London Trades Council on Annuity bill.

March 16. In support of bill abolishing tests for degrees at Oxford.

March 18. On cession of Ionian Islands to Greece.

April 7. Introduces budget.

April 21. On departure of General Garibaldi from England.

May 6. On English public school education.

May 10. On direct and indirect taxation.

May 11. On Mr. Baines’s bill for the extension of the suffrage in towns.

July 3. On the Roman question.

July 4. Replies to Mr. Disraeli’s resolution of censure on Schleswig-Holstein.

Oct. 11. At Bolton on progress of the past thirty years.

Oct. 12. Opens Farnworth Park, Bolton: on the factory system and open spaces. At town hall, Liverpool, on principles of colonial and foreign policy.

Oct. 13. At Liverpool on direct and indirect taxation.

Oct. 14. At Manchester appeals to the nation to protest against extravagant expenditure. Distributes prizes at Manchester to competitors in Oxford middle-class examinations: on older and newer pursuits of Christian civilisation.

Nov. 7. Closes the North London Industrial Exhibition.

Nov. 8. In praise of law and lawyers at banquet to M. Berryer.

Nov. 10. Commends volunteer movement at dinner of volunteers of the St. Martin’s division.

Dec. 30. At Mold on our coal resources.

1865.

Feb. 10. Explains provisions of Bank of Issue bill.

Feb. 14. Announces appointment of commission on railways.

Feb. 24. On state of Ireland.

March 28. On Irish church establishment.

April 7. On Irish railway system.

April 27. Introduces budget.

May 31. At Chester on liberal principles and parliamentary reform.

June 14. Opposes Mr. Goschen’s bill for abolition of tests at Oxford.

June 15. Explains provisions of Exchequer and Public Audit bill.

June 20. On Irish university education.

July 18. Defeated at Oxford university,—Sir William Heathcote, 3236; Mr. Gathorne Hardy, 1904; Mr. Gladstone, 1724. At free trade hall, Manchester. In the evening, at St. George’s hall, Liverpool, replies to Mr. Disraeli’s attack on his finance.

July 22. Elected for South Lancashire,—Egerton, 9171; Turner, 8806; Gladstone, 8786; Legh, 8476; Thompson, 7703; Heywood, 7653.

July 27 to Aug. 7. Correspondence with Lord Malmesbury on responsibility for Chinese expedition of 1860.

Oct. 18. Tribute to memory of the Duke of Newcastle at Shire Oaks, Notts.

Nov. 1. Presented with address by Parliamentary Reform Union, in trades hall, Glasgow. Presented with freedom of the city in city hall: on increase of commerce and decrease of wars. In Scotia hall on results of free trade, a cheap press, and social legislation.

Nov. 3. Delivers valedictory address before Edinburgh University on ’The Place of Ancient Greece in the Providential Order of the World.’

1866.

Feb. 8. On the condition of Ireland.

Feb. 9. Introduces bill to consolidate the duties of exchequer and audit departments.

Feb. 17. Defends suspension of Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland.

Feb. 22. Tribute to memory of Lord Palmerston.

Feb. 23. On Fenianism in America.

Feb. 26. On economy in public expenditure.

March 2. Brings in bill consolidating laws regulating the preparation, issue, and payment of exchequer bills.

March 7. Suggests compromise for settling church rate question.

March 12. Explains provisions of Representation of the People bill.

April 5. At Liverpool replies to Mr. Lowe’s criticisms of the Reform bill.

April 6. On reform at the Amphitheatre, Liverpool.

April 12. Moves second reading of Reform bill.

April 27. Closes debate on Earl Grosvenor’s amendment to Reform bill.

May 3. Introduces budget.

May 7. Brings in Redistribution of Seats bill.

May 8. Brings in Compulsory Church Rate Abolition bill.

May 24. Explains provisions of Terminable Annuities bill.

June 11. On the state of Europe; Austro-Prussian question, etc.

June 15. Tribute to Mr. Hume.

June 18. Moves second reading of Church Rates bill.

June 18. Opposes Lord Dunkellin’s amendment substituting rateable for rental for borough franchise.

June 26. Announces resignation of Lord Russell’s government.

July 16. On the Queen’s Universities, Ireland.

July 20. On the state of Europe and the Italian policy of Lord Palmerston’s government.

July 21. At inaugural meeting of Cobden Club; tribute to work of Mr. Cobden.

Aug. 2. Supports renewal of Habeas Corpus Suspension Act.

Sept. 7. At Salisbury in defence of Reform bill and on Lord Herbert.

Oct. to Jan. In Rome.

1867.

Jan. 27. Speech in praise of free trade at dinner of Society of Political Economy, Paris.

Feb. 5. On the question of reform.

Feb. 11. On the government’s intention of proceeding by way of resolutions.

Feb. 15. On the condition of Crete.

Feb. 27. Supports bill enabling Roman catholics to hold office of lord lieutenant of Ireland.

March 18. Criticises provisions of the Reform bill.

March 20. On Church Rates Abolition bill.

March 21. Meeting of 278 liberal members; advises agreement to second reading of Reform bill.

March 21. On bill to repeal the Ecclesiastical Titles Act.

March 25. Criticises Reform bill on second reading.

March 28. On England’s share in the defence of the colonies.

April 4. On Mr. Disraeli’s financial statement.

April 10. On abolition of religious tests at Oxford.

April 11, 12. Moves amendment making personal payment of rates not an essential qualification for the franchise.

April 18. Letter to Mr. R. W. Crawford announcing intention not to attempt further alteration in basis of borough franchise.

May 3. On right of public meeting in parks and open spaces.

May 7. On Irish church establishment.

May 9. On “compound householders.”

May 11. Receives deputation from National Reform Union to express confidence in his leadership.

May 13. On Scotch Reform bill.

May 16. Defends policy of reduction of national debt.

May 28. On inconsistency of the government on reform.

May 29. On Mr. Fawcett’s Uniformity Act Amendment bill.

May 30. On penalties for corrupt practices at elections.

May 31. On late ministry’s action regarding Queen’s Universities, Ireland.

June 28. On representation of Ireland.

July 10. On Mr. H. A. Bruce’s Education bill.

Aug. 1. On Irish railways.

Aug. 8. Opposes Lords’ minority representation amendment to Reform bill.

Oct. “The Session and its Sequel” in _Edinburgh Review_.

Nov. 10. On Abyssinian campaign, protests against territorial aggrandisement.

Nov. 26. On Abyssinian expedition.

Nov. 28. On financial proposals to meet expenses of Abyssinian war.

Dec. 18. At Oldham on national prosperity and the condition of Ireland. Opens Mechanics’ Institute at Werneth: on education. Distributes prizes to science and art students, Oldham: on education, machinery, and foreign competition.

Dec. 19. At Ormskirk on Reform bill. At Southport on Fenianism and the condition of Ireland.

1868.

Jan. “Phœnicia and Greece” in _Quarterly_.

Feb. 3. At Hawarden on Sir Walter Scott.

Feb. 18. To deputation from London Trades Unions on labour questions.

March 6. On _Alabama_ claims.

March 16. Declares for disestablishment of Irish church.

March 19. On Compulsory Church Rates Abolition bill.

March 23. Gives notice of three resolutions on Irish church establishment.

March 30. In support of his resolutions.

April 3. Replies to Mr. Disraeli’s criticisms.

April 30. Replies to criticisms of first resolution.

May 4. Protests against intention to dissolve parliament.

May 7. Moves second and third resolutions on Irish church.

May 22. On Suspensory bill.

June 9, July 26. On proposal to purchase the telegraph system.

June 25. Replies to Mr. Disraeli’s attack on foreign policy of Lord Russell’s ministry.

July 2. Seconds vote of thanks to army on conclusion of Abyssinian war.

July 4. Presides at meeting of Social Science Association: on relations of capital and labour.

July 22. At Romsey on England’s duty to Ireland.

July 27. Tribute to memory of Lord Brougham.

Aug. 5. At St. Helens on disestablishment of Irish church.

Oct. 9. Issues election address to S.-W. Lancashire.

Oct. 12. At Warrington on retrenchment of public expenditure and the Irish church.

Oct. 14. At Liverpool on tory Reform bill and Irish church.

Oct. 16. At Old Swan, Liverpool, on conservative party as party of monopoly.

Oct. 17. At Newton criticises proposals for reforming Irish church.

Oct. 20. At Leigh on retrenchment and Ireland.

Oct. 21. At Ormskirk on English and Irish church establishments. At Southport on finance and Ireland.

Oct. 23. At Wigan on Irish church.

Nov. 13. At Bootle replies to personal calumnies, and on ritualism.

Nov. 14. At Garston on condition of conservative party. At Wavertree on Irish church.

Nov. 16. At Widnes on national expenditure. At St. Helens on Ireland.

Nov. 17. Elected for Greenwich,—Salomons, 6645; Gladstone, 6351; Parker, 4661; Mahon, 4342.

Nov. 18. At Preston on Irish church.

Nov. 23. _A Chapter of Autobiography_ published.

Nov. 24. Defeated in S.-W. Lancashire,—Cross, 7729; Turner, 7676; Gladstone, 7415; Grenfell, 6939.

Dec. 9. First ministry formed.

Dec. 21. Returned unopposed for Greenwich: on the liberal programme.

Articles on _Ecce Homo_ published volume form.

1869.

Feb. 11. At Fishmongers’ hall on work before liberal government.

March 1. Introduces bill for disestablishment of Irish church.

March 23. Closes debate on second reading of Irish Church bill.

April 15. Replies to criticisms of Irish Church bill.

May 31. On third reading of Irish Church bill.

June 29. Defends change of opinion on university tests.

July 15, 16. Moves rejection of Lords’ amendments to Irish Church bill.

July 20. Supports Mr. Chambers’s Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister bill.

July 23. Moves to agree to final amendments of Lords.

Aug. 5. Explains Bishops’ Resignation bill.

Publishes _Juventus Mundi, The Gods and Men of the Heroic Age_.

1870

Feb. 8. On condition of Ireland.

Feb. 15. Brings in Irish Land bill.

March 1. On state-aided emigration to British colonies.

March 11. On second reading of Irish Land bill.

March 18. On Elementary Education bill.

March 22. On Peace Preservation (Ireland) bill.

April 1. On position of Trinity College, Dublin.

April 4. Opposes Mr. Disraeli’s amendment to clause 3 of Irish Land bill.

April 5. Opposes payment of members.

April 11. Moves for committee to inquire into law regarding corrupt practices.

April 26. On his principles of colonial policy.

April 27. In support of Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister bill.

May 10. On Indian opium revenue.

May 23. In support of University Tests bill.

May 24. Opposes motion in favour of disestablishing church of England in Wales.

May 30. On third reading of Irish Land bill.

June 15. In support of bill abolishing minority representation.

June 16 and 24. On Elementary Education bill.

June 21. In favour of presence of bishops in House of Lords.

June 30. On conscience clause in Education bill. On religious teaching in elementary schools.

July 14. Defends vote by ballot in Education bill.

July 22. Replies to reproaches from Mr. Miall and Mr. Dixon on Education bill.

July 27. Supports second reading of Ballot bill.

Aug. 1. On Franco-German war and neutrality of Belgium.

Aug. 10. On treaty guaranteeing independence and neutrality of Belgium.

Oct. “Germany, France, and England” in _Edinburgh Review_.

Nov. 1. Closes Workman’s International Exhibition, Islington: on benefit to English commerce of foreign competition.

Nov. 9. At Lord Mayor’s banquet on Franco-German war.

1871.

Feb. 9. Replies to Mr. Disraeli’s criticisms of government’s foreign policy.

Feb. 10. On University Tests bill.

Feb. 13. Defends Princess Louise’s dowry and annuity.

Feb. 17. Defends the government’s foreign policy.

Feb. 24. Replies to Mr. Disraeli’s attack on his interpretation of treaty of Paris (1856).

March 2. On appointment of committee to inquire into Ribandism in West Meath.

March 17. Replies to criticisms on Mr. Cardwell’s Army Regulation bill.

March 23. On Mr. Mundella’s motion that army might be made efficient without increasing estimates.

March 29. On Parochial Councils bill.

March 31. Explains policy during Franco-German war.

April A poem on “An infant who was born, was baptized, and died on the same day,” in _Good Words_.

April 18. On dismissal of Sir Spencer Robinson.

April 24. Defends moderate increase of public expenditure under his government.

May 1. Defends modification in budget.

May 3. On Mr. Jacob Bright’s bill granting parliamentary suffrage to single women.

May 4. Defends principle of reduction of national debt.

May 9. Opposes motion for disestablishment of the church of England.

May 26. On Protection of Life (Ireland) bill.

June 29. On Ballot bill.

July 3. On third reading of Army Regulation bill.

July 20. Announces abolition of purchase by royal warrant.

July 31. Proposes annuity of £15,000 for Prince Arthur.

Aug. 2. On Mr. Fawcett’s Trinity College, Dublin, bill.

Aug. 4. On treaty of Washington.

Aug. 8. On obstruction to Ballot bill.

Aug. 15. Defends abolition of purchase.

Sept. 2. At Whitby on the Ballot bill.

Sept. 26. Presented with freedom of Aberdeen: on Irish agitation for home rule.

Oct. 23. At Blackheath Common on the policy of government.

1872.

Feb. 6. Replies to Mr. Disraeli’s criticisms on Address.

Feb. 7. Replies to the criticisms of treaty of Washington.

Feb. 8. Moves vote of thanks to Speaker Denison on retirement.

Feb. 9. On office of speaker.

Feb. 19. Defends appointment of Sir R. Collier.

March 8. Defends appointment of Mr. Harvey to Ewelme.

March 19. Replies to Sir Charles Dilke’s motion for inquiry into Civil List.

March 20, April 25. On University of Dublin (Tests) bill.

April 12. On England’s treaty obligations for intervention in affairs of foreign states.

April 26. On motion for extending rural franchise.

May 2. On the demand for home rule.

May 13. On United States indirect claims.

May 14. At King’s College, London, in favour of positive religious teaching.

June 14. On denunciation by France of treaty of commerce.

June 25. On proposal to annex Fiji Islands.

June 28. On Lords’ amendment to Ballot bill making its adoption optional.

July 2. Opposes inquiry into revenues of church of England.

Aug. 1. Pledges government to bring in large measures on local government and taxation.

Nov. 14. At Middle Temple on legal opposition to legal reforms and on arbitration.

Nov. 28. At American Thanksgiving dinner on good understanding between England and United States.

Dec. 3. At Society of Biblical Archæology on results of excavations in the East.

Dec. 21. At Liverpool College on unbelief.

1873.

Feb. 6. On _Alabama_ award.

Feb. 13. Introduces Irish University bill.

Feb. 14. On resolution that treaties with foreign powers be submitted to House of Commons.

Feb. 18. On Mr. Harcourt’s motion that the rate of public expenditure is excessive.

March 6. At Croyden on Irish University bill.

March 7. On relations between England and the colonies.

March 11. On second reading of Irish University bill.

March 13. Resignation of ministry.

March 20. Resumes office. Explains history of crisis.

March 21. On the three rules of Washington treaty.

April 21. On University Tests (Dublin) bill.

April 29. On proposal for state purchase of Irish railways.

May 2. On German Emperor’s award on Canadian-American boundary.

May 6. On resolution urging redress of electoral inequalities.

May 16. On disestablishment of church of England.

May 26. On _Alabama_ award and arbitration.

July 8. On international arbitration.

July 10. On Judicature bill.

Aug. 15. At Hawarden on school boards.

Aug. 19. Presides at Welsh National Eisteddfod at Mold: on Welsh language.

Dec. Letter on “Evolution” in _Contemporary Review_.

1874.

Jan. 23. Issues election address.

Jan. 28. Speech on Blackheath Common on issues before the electors.

Jan. 31. At Woolwich.

Feb. “The Shield of Achilles” in _Contemporary Review_.

Feb. 2. Replies to Mr. Disraeli’s speeches at New Cross.

Feb. 4. Re-elected for Greenwich,—Boord (C.), 6193; Gladstone (L.), 5968; Liardet (C.), 5561; Langley (L.), 5255.

Feb. 17. Resignation of ministry.

March 5. On the office of speaker.

March 12. Letter to Lord Granville on leadership.

March 19. Defends the late dissolution.

March 20. On Mr. Butt’s Home Rule motion.

March 30. On the Ashantee war.

April 23. On Sir S. Northcote’s budget.

April 24. On proposed vote of censure on late government for dissolution.

May “The Reply of Achilles to the envoys of Agamemnon” in _Contemporary Review_.

June “Homer’s place in history” in _Contemporary Review_.

July “The place of Homer in history and in Egyptian chronology” in _Contemporary Review_.

July 6. Opposes the Scotch Church Patronage bill.

July 9. Opposes Public Worship Regulation bill, explains his Six Resolutions.

July 14, 21, 24. Opposes Endowed Schools Act Amendment bill.

Aug. 4. Protests against premature annexation of Fiji.

Aug. 5. On Public Worship Regulation bill.

Sept. 7-25. Visits Dr. Döllinger in Munich.

Oct. “Ritualism and Ritual” in _Contemporary Review_.

Oct. Reviews Miss Yonge’s _Life of Bishop Patteson_ in _Quarterly Review_.

Nov. _The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on civil allegiance: a political expostulation._

1875.

Jan. “Speeches of Pope Pius IX.” in _Quarterly Review_.

Jan. 13. Announces retirement from leadership.

Feb. _Vaticanism: an answer to replies and reproofs._

March Sells 11 Carlton House Terrace.

April 21. Supports Burials bill.

May “Life and Speeches of the Prince Consort” in _Contemporary Review_.

May 5. In support of Irish Sunday Closing bill.

May 7. Criticises Sir S. Northcote’s budget.

May 27. Criticises Savings Bank bill.

June 8. On National Debt (Sinking Fund) bill.

July “Is the Church of England worth Preserving?” in _Contemporary Review_.

Sept. 9. Lays foundation-stone of King’s School, Chester: on English public schools.

Sept. 14. At Hawarden on mental culture.

Oct. “Italy and her Church” in _Church Quarterly Review_.

Nov. 11. Distributes prizes to science and art students at Greenwich: on education.

Dec. Latin translation of “Art thou weary, art thou languid?” in _Contemporary Review_.

1876.

Feb. 8. On the Andrassy note and the Crimean war.

Feb. 16. Presented with freedom of Turners’ Company: on city companies.

Feb. 21. On purchase of Suez Canal shares.

March “Homerology: I. Apollo” in _Contemporary Review_.

March 6. On danger of future complications in Egypt.

March 9. On Royal Titles bill.

March 23. In support of House of Charity at annual meeting in Soho.

March 23. On third reading of Royal Titles bill.

April “Homerology: II. Hippos, the Horse. III. Diphros, the Chariot,” in _Contemporary Review_.

May 23. On city of London companies.

May 31. Presides at dinner in celebration 100th anniversary of publication of _Wealth of Nations_.

June “Courses of Religious Thought” in _Contemporary Review_.

June “A Letter on Newman and Wesley” in _Contemporary Review_.

July “Homerology: IV. Athené. V. Aiolas,” in _Contemporary Review_.

July “Lord Macaulay” in _Quarterly Review_.

July “Memoir of Norman Macleod, D.D.,” in _Church Quarterly Review_.

July 6. Distributes prizes at King’s College: on knowledge.

July 13. Distributes prizes at London Hospital Medical College: on medical education.

July 21. On Turkish Loan of 1854.

July 31. Defends Crimean war and European concert.

Aug. 17. On cottage gardening at Hawarden.

Aug. 19. Receives five hundred Lancashire liberals at Hawarden.

Sept. 6. _The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East_ published.

Sept. 9. On Blackheath Common on Bulgarian atrocities.

Nov. “Russian Policy and Deeds in Turkestan” in _Contemporary Review_.

Dec. “The Hellenic Factor in the Eastern Problem” in _Contemporary Review_.

Dec. Publishes, _The Church of England and Ritualism_.

Dec. _A Biographical Sketch of Lord Lyttelton._

Dec. _Homeric Synchronism: an Inquiry into the Time and Place of Homer._

1877.

Jan. “Life of the Prince Consort” in _Church Quarterly Review_.

Jan. 16. At Hawarden on the Turks, the Greeks, and the Slavs.

Jan. 22. At Bath railway station on Eastern Question.

Jan. 27. At Taunton railway station on duty of England in Near East.

Feb. 3. Address to boys of Marlborough College on value of simple habits.

Feb. 8. On Eastern Question.

Feb. 16. Attacks government’s Turkish policy.

Feb. 28. In support of Servian Relief Fund at Grosvenor House.

March “On the influence of authority in matters of opinion” in _Nineteenth Century_.

March _Lessons in Massacre_ published.

March 22. On Preaching at the City Temple.

March 23. Supports Mr. Fawcett’s resolution that Turkish promises without guarantees are useless.

April 24. On a motion in favour of an Irish parliament.

April 30. Gives notice of five resolutions—on the Eastern Question.

May “Montenegro: a sketch” in _Nineteenth Century_.

May 7. Moves first of his resolutions.

May 12. On ceramic art at the Cymmodorian Society, London Institution.

May 14. Closes debate on his first resolution.

May 31. At Birmingham on the Eastern Question.

June 1. At Bristol Street Board School, Birmingham, on Ireland and Irish representatives. Presented with address by the City: on municipal life.

June 4. Supports amendment to Universities bill, providing that holy orders shall not be a condition of holding any headship or fellowship.

June 30. Opens Caxton Exhibition: on the work of Caxton.

July “Rejoinder on authority in matters of opinion” in _Nineteenth Century_.

July “Piracy in Borneo and the Operations of July 1849” in _Contemporary Review_.

July 13. At Plymouth and Exeter on liberal party and Eastern Question.

July 16. On behalf of Bosnian refugees at Willis’s Rooms.

July 20. On Irish demand for pardon of Fenian convicts.

Aug. “Aggression on Egypt and Freedom in the East” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Aug. 4, 18, 20. Receives deputations of 5200 liberals at Hawarden on Eastern Question.

Sept. 19. At Hawarden Grammar School on education.

Sept. 27. At University College, Nottingham, on higher education. At Alexandra Hall on Eastern Question.

Oct. “The colour sense” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Oct. “The Dominions of the Odysseus and the island group of the Odyssey” in _Macmillan’s Magazine_.

Oct. 17. Visits Ireland.

Nov. “The County Franchise and Mr. Lowe thereon” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Nov. 7. Presented with freedom of Dublin: on Irish questions. Entertained at luncheon by corporation of Dublin: on Irish municipalities.

Nov. 12. At Holyhead on Eastern Question.

Nov. 15. Elected Rector of Glasgow University,—Mr. Gladstone, 1153; Sir Stafford Northcote, 609.

Nov. 23. At Hawarden on Russians, Turks, and Bulgarians.

1878.

Jan. “The Life of the Prince Consort” in _Church Quarterly Review_. “Last words on the County Franchise” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Jan. 17. Comments on Sir S. Northcote’s explanation of the government’s Eastern policy.

Jan. 30. At Corn Exchange, Oxford, on the vote of credit for six millions. At Palmerston Club dinner on Canning, Palmerston, and liberal party.

Feb. “The Peace to Come” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Feb. 4. On Mr. Forster’s amendment against vote of credit.

March. “The Paths of Honour and of Shame” in _Nineteenth Century_.

March 19. On Indian press law.

March 23. Receives deputation of Greenwich liberals: on unpopularity of economy in public expenditure.

March 28. To deputation from Leeds on the Eastern Question.

April “The Iris of Homer: and the relation of Genesis ix. 11-17” in _Contemporary Review_.

April 1. Supports Irish Sunday Closing bill.

April 3. On Vaccination Law (Penalties) bill.

April 5. On government and the Berlin Congress.

April 8. On government’s Eastern policy in debate on calling out army reserves.

April 18. At Memorial Hall on Eastern Question at conference of 400 London nonconformist ministers.

May 21. Protests against use of Indian troops in Europe without consent of parliament.

May 23. Receives deputation of Scotch Presbyterian ministers: on the Eastern Question.

May 27. Protests against despatch of Indian contingent to Malta.

June “Liberty in the East and West” in _Nineteenth Century_.

June 13. On treaties of 1856 and 1871.

June 18. On a motion to appoint select committee on Scotch Church Patronage act, 1874.

July Contributes paper to symposium,—“Is the popular judgment of politics more just than that of the higher orders?” in _Nineteenth Century_.

July 6. On Homer at Eton.

July 11. In London on spendthrift administration of charity.

July 15. Supports Irish Intermediate Education bill.

July 20. At Bermondsey on Anglo-Turkish convention.

July 23. Moves address that proceedings under Indian Vernacular Press Act be reported to parliament.

July 30. Criticises action of British plenipotentiaries at Berlin Congress.

Aug. 6. Criticises Sir S. Northcote’s finance.

Aug. 15. On art-labour at Hawarden.

Sept. “England’s Mission” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Oct. “The Sixteenth Century arraigned before the Nineteenth: a Study on the Reformation” in _Contemporary Review_.

Oct. 1-7. Visits Isle of Man.

Oct. 31. At Rhyl on the political situation.

Nov. “Electoral Facts” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Nov. 11. At Buckley on books.

Nov. 30. At Greenwich on liberal organisation. At Woolwich on Afghan war.

Dec. 10. On Afghan war and policy.

Dec. 16. Protests against charging Indian revenues with expenses of Afghan war.

Dec. Publishes a Literary Primer on _Homer_.

1879.

Jan. “The Friends and Foes of Russia” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Feb. 10. At Hawarden on Life and Labours of Dr. Hook.

March “On Epithets of Movement in Homer” in _Nineteenth Century_.

April 21. At Mentmore on liberal party and foreign policy.

April 28. On increase in national expenditure.

May “Probability as the Guide of Conduct” in _Nineteenth Century_.

May 2. In favour of enabling Irish tenants to purchase their holdings.

May 5. In explanation and defence of his financial policy in 1860.

May 13. Opposes resolution protesting against government’s abuse of prerogative of the crown.

May 19. On church home missions at Willis’s Rooms.

June. “Greece and the Treaty of Berlin” in _Nineteenth Century_.

June. 11. On education at Mill Hill School.

June. 12. On financial condition of India.

June 14. On tendency of political life to mar a literary career at Savage Club.

June 20. On condition of Cyprus under English administration.

June 24. Letter to Principal Rainy on Scotch disestablishment.

July. “The Evangelical Movement, its Parentage, Progress, and Issue,” in _British Quarterly Review_.

July 5. On Homer at Eton College.

July 22. On unfulfilled stipulations of Berlin treaty.

Aug. “The Country and the Government” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Aug. 11. Opens Fine Art Exhibition, Chester: on art and manufacture.

Aug. 19. At Chester on government’s foreign policy.

Aug. 21. At St. Pancras workhouse.

Aug. 28. At Hawarden on garden cultivation.

Sept. 14-Oct. 21. Travelling in Bavaria and Italy.

Oct. “The Olympian System versus the Solar Theory” in _Nineteenth Century_.

Nov. 3. To students at Wellington College on knowledge.

Nov. 25. At Music Hall, Edinburgh, on issues before the electors.

Nov. 26. At Dalkeith on domestic questions.

Nov. 27. At West Calder on right principles of foreign policy.

Nov. 29. At Edinburgh on tory finance. In Waverley Market on Balkan principalities.

Dec. 5. Inaugural address at Glasgow University. In St. Andrew’s Hall on government’s European, Indian, and South African policies.

Dec. Publishes _Gleanings of Past Years_ 1843-79, in seven volumes.

FOOTNOTES

_ 1 Eng. Hist. Rev._ April 1887, p. 296.

M1 Doctrine Of Nationality M2 Napoleon III

_ 2 Il Conte di Cavour. Ricordi biografici._ Per G. Massari (Turin, 1875), p. 204.

3 See _L’Empire Libéral_, by Émile Ollivier, iv. p. 217.

4 It is a notable thing that in 1859 the provisional government of Tuscany made a decree for the publication of a complete edition of Machiavelli’s works at the cost of the state.

M3 Annexation Of Savoy And Nice

5 One of the pope’s chamberlains gravely assured the English resident in Rome that he knew from a sure and trustworthy source that the French Emperor had made a bargain with the Devil, and frequently consulted him.

M4 Garibaldi M5 Reform Not Unity M6 Napoleon’s Share

6 Walpole’s _Russell_, ii. pp. 335-339.

7 Martin’s _Prince Consort_, v. p. 226.

_ 8 A General Review of the Different States of Italy_; prepared for the Foreign Office by Sir Henry Bulwer, January 1853.

M7 The English Despatch

9 Cavour to Marquis d’Azeglio, Dec. 9, 1860. _La Politique du Comte Camille de Cavour de 1852 à 1861_, p. 392.

10 June 6, 1861.

11 The disaster was the outcome of the Chinese refusal to receive Mr. Bruce, the British minister at Pekin. Admiral Hope in endeavouring to force an entrance to the Peiho river was repulsed by the fire of the Chinese forts (June 25, 1859). In the following year a joint Anglo-French expedition captured the Taku forts and occupied Pekin (Oct. 12, 1860).

_ 12 Odyssey_, xx. 63.

13 On a motion by Lord Elcho against any participation in a conference to settle the details of the peace between Austria and France.

14 I may be forgiven for referring to my _Life of Cobden_, ii. chap. xi. For the French side of the transaction, see an interesting

## chapter in De La Gorce, _Hist. du Second Empire_, iii. pp. 213-32.

15 “I will undertake that there is not a syllable on our side of the treaty that is inconsistent with the soundest principles of free trade. We do not propose to reduce a duty which, on its merits, ought not to have been dealt with long ago. We give no concessions to France which do not apply to all other nations. We leave ourselves free to lay on any amount of internal duties and to put on an equal tax on foreign articles of the same kind at the custom-house. It is true we bind ourselves for ten years not otherwise to raise such of our customs as affect the French trade, or put on fresh ones; and this, I think, no true free trader will regret.”—_Cobden to Bright._

M8 Outline Of The Scheme

16 The reader who wishes to follow these proceedings in close detail will, of course, read the volume of _The Financial Statements_ of 1853, 1860-63, containing also the speech on tax-bills, 1861, and on charities, 1863 (Murray, 1863).

17 Strictly speaking, in 1845 the figure had risen from 1052 to 1163 articles, for the first operation of tariff reform was to multiply the number in consequence of the transition from _ad valorem_ to specific duties, and this increased the headings under which they were described. In 1860 Mr. Gladstone removed the duties from 371 articles, reducing the number to 48, of which only 15 were of importance—spirits, sugar, tea, tobacco, wine, coffee, corn, currants, timber, chicory, figs, hops, pepper, raisins, and rice.

18 See an interesting letter to Sir W. Heathcote in reply to other criticisms, in Appendix.

19 On Mr. Duncan’s resolution against adding to an existing deficiency by diminishing ordinary revenue and against re-imposing the income-tax at an unnecessarily high rate. _Moved Feb. 21._

20 Martin’s _Life of Prince Consort_, v. pp. 35, 37, 51.

M9 Budget Introduced

21 Greville, III. ii. p. 291.

_ 22 Eng. Hist. Rev._ April 1887, p. 301. The majority in the Lords was 193 to 104.

23 Aug. 31, 1897.

24 Martin, v. p. 100.

25 Bright wrote to Mr. Gladstone that he was inclined “to think that the true course for Lord John, yourself, and Mr. Gibson, and for any others who agreed with you, was to have resigned rather than continue a government which could commit so great a sin against the representative branch of our constitution.”

M10 Revival Of Popularity M11 Cabinet Currents

26 See Appendix.

27 “He made an administration so checkered and speckled, he put together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed, a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversified mosaic, such a tessellated pavement without cement ... that it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand upon.”—_Speech on American Taxation._

M12 Defeat Of The Lords

28 At Manchester, Oct. 14, 1864.

M13 Resistance To Panic

29 For his letter to Mr. Gladstone, Dec. 16, 1859, see Ashley, ii. p. 375.

M14 Resistance To Panic M15 Fortifications

30 See Appendix. “This account,” Mr. Gladstone writes, “contains probably the only reply I shall ever make to an account given or printed by Sir Theodore Martin in his _Life of the Prince Consort_, which is most injurious to me without a shadow of foundation: owing, I have no doubt, to defective acquaintance with the subject.” The passage is in vol. v. p. 148. Lord Palmerston’s words to the Queen about Mr. Gladstone are a curiously unedifying specimen of loyalty to a colleague.

31 “It appears that he wrote his final opinion on the subject to the cabinet on Saturday, left them to deliberate, and went to the Crystal Palace. The Duke of Argyll joined him there and said it was all right. The Gladstones then went to Cliveden and he purposely did not return till late, twelve o’clock on Monday night, in order that Palmerston might make his speech as he pleased. I doubt the policy of his absence. It of course excited much remark, and does not in any way protect Gladstone. M. Gibson was also absent.”—_Phillimore Diary_, July 23. In his diary Mr. Gladstone records: “_July 21._—Cabinet 3 ½-5 1/4. I left it that the discussion might be free and went to Stafford House and Sydenham. There I saw, later, Argyll and S. Herbert, who seemed to bring good news. At night we went off to Cliveden.”

32 For an interesting letter on all this to the Duke of Argyll, see Appendix.

M16 Correspondence With The Prime Minister

33 This letter is printed in full by Mr. Ashley, ii. p. 413.

34 Diary.

35 Mr. Evelyn Ashley in _National Review_, June 1898, pp. 536-40.

36 Plan for Economical Reform.

M17 Savings Banks

37 27 and 28 Vict., chap. 43.

M18 Private Thrift And Public

_ 38 Financial Statements_, p. 151.

M19 Creation Of Public Interest

39 See his elaborate article in the _Nineteenth Century_ for February 1880, on _Free Trade, Railways, and Commerce_, in which he endeavours fairly to divide the credit of our material progress between its two great factors, the Liberation of Intercourse, and the Improvement of Locomotion. Under the head of new locomotive forces he counts the Suez canal.

M20 The True Social Question M21 Mark Of His Originality

40 From a letter to his son Herbert, March 10, 1876, containing some interesting remarks on Pitt’s finance. See Appendix.

41 Τὸ ζητεῖν πανταχοῦ τὸ χρήσιμον ἤκιστα ἁρμόττει τοῖς ἐλευθεροῖς.—_Politics_, viii. 3.

M22 Effect Upon The Public Service

42 Edinburgh, Nov. 29, 1879.

M23 Heroic In Economy

43 Edinburgh, Nov. 29, 1879.

_ 44 Guinevere_, 90-92.

M24 Budget Of 1863

45 For his later views on the French treaty, see his speech at Leeds in 1881, an extract from which is given in Appendix.

_ 46 Nineteenth Century_, Feb. 1880, p. 381.

47 Mr. Courtney contributes a good account of this measure to the chapter on Finance in Ward’s _Reign of Queen Victoria_, i. pp. 345-7.

48 On this sentence in his copy of the memorandum Mr. Gladstone pencils in the margin as was his way, his favourite Italian corrective, _ma!_

49 Of course the literature of this great theme is enormous, but an English reader with not too much time will find it well worked out in the masterly political study, _The Slave Power_, by J. E. Cairnes (1861), that vigorous thinker and sincere lover of truth, if ever there was one. Besides Cairnes, the reader who cares to understand the American civil war should turn to F. L. Olmsted’s _Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom_ (1861), and _A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States_ (1856)—as interesting a picture of the South on the eve of its catastrophe, as Arthur Young’s picture of France on the eve of the revolution.

M25 General Ideas On The American War

50 See Nicolay and Hay, _Abraham Lincoln_, v. p. 28. Also Martin’s _Life of the Prince Consort_, v. p. 421.

51 See Walpole’s _Russell_, ii. p. 358.

M26 Progress Of The War By 1862

52 War-with England, or the probability of it, would have meant the raising of the blockade, the withdrawal of a large part of the troops from the Southern frontier, and substantially the leaving of the Confederates to a _de facto_ independence.—Dana’s _Wheaton_, p. 648.

53 Rhodes, _History of the United States since 1850_, iii. p. 538. See also _Life of C. F. Adams_, by his son C. F. A., Boston, 1900,

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