I have been much struck (he wrote, Feb. 26) throughout the private discussions connected with, the new project of a corn law, by the tenacity with which Sir Robert Peel, firstly by adhering in every point to the old arrangements where it seemed at all possible, and since the announcement of the plan to parliament, by steadily resisting changes in any part of the resolutions, has narrowed the ground and reduced in number the points of attack, and thus made his measure practicable in the face of popular excitement and a strong opposition. Until we were actually in the midst of the struggle, I did not appreciate the extraordinary sagacity of his parliamentary instinct in this particular. He said yesterday to Lord Ripon and to me, 'Among ourselves, in this room, I have no hesitation in saying, that if I had not had to look to other than abstract considerations, I would have proposed a lower protection. But it would have done no good to push the matter so far as to drive Knatchbull out of the cabinet after the Duke of Buckingham, nor could I hope to pass a measure with greater reductions through the House of Lords.'

When Lord John Russell proposed an amendment substituting an eight-shilling duty for a sliding scale, Peel asked Mr. Gladstone to reply to him. 'This I did (Feb. 14, 1842),' he says, 'and with my whole heart, for I did not yet fully understand the vicious operation of the sliding scale on the corn trade, and it is hard to see how an eight-shilling duty could even then have been maintained.'

III

THE NEW POLICY

The three centres of operations were the corn bill, then the bill imposing the income-tax, and finally the reform of the duties upon seven hundred and fifty out of the twelve hundred articles that swelled the tariff. The corn bill was the most delicate, the tariff the most laborious, the income-tax the boldest, the most fraught alike with peril for the hour and with consequences of pith and moment for the future. It is hardly possible for us to realise the general horror in which this hated impost was then enveloped. The fact of Brougham procuring the destruction of all the public books and papers in which its odious accounts were recorded, only illustrates the intensity of the common sentiment against the dire hydra evoked by Mr. Pitt for the destruction of the regicide power of France, and sent back again to its gruesome limbo after the ruin of Napoleon. From 1842 until 1874 the question of the income-tax was the vexing enigma of public finance.

It was upon Mr. Gladstone that the burden of the immense achievement of the new tariff fell, and the toil was huge. He used afterwards to say that he had been concerned in four revisions of the tariff, in 1842, 1845, 1853, and 1860, and that the first of them cost six times as much trouble as the other three put together. He spoke one hundred and twenty-nine times during the session. He had only once sat on a committee of trade, and had only once spoken on a purely trade question during the nine years of his parliamentary life. All his habits of thought and action had been cast in a different mould. It is ordinarily assumed that he was a born financier, endowed besides with a gift of idealism and the fine training of a scholar. As matter of fact, it was the other way; he was a man of high practical and moral imagination, with an understanding made accurate by strength of grasp and incomparable power of rapid and concentrated apprehension, yoked to finance only by force of circumstance—a man who would have made a shining and effective figure in whatever path of great public affairs, whether ecclesiastical or secular, duty might have called for his exertions.

It is curious that the first measure of commercial policy in this session should have been a measure of protection in the shape of a bill introduced by the board of trade, imposing a duty on corn, wheat, and flour brought from the United States into Canada.[156] But this was only a detail, though a singular one, in a policy that was in fact a continuance of the relaxation of the commercial system of the colonies which had been begun in 1822 and 1825 by Robinson and Huskisson. In his present employment Mr. Gladstone was called upon to handle a mass of questions that were both of extreme complexity in themselves, and also involved collision with trade interests always easily alarmed, irritated, and even exasperated. With merchants and manufacturers, importers and exporters, brokers and bankers, with all the serried hosts of British trade, with the laws and circumstances of international commerce, he was every day brought into close, detailed, and responsible contact:—Whether the duty on straw bonnets should go by weight or by number; what was the difference between boot-fronts at six shillings per dozen pairs and a 15 per cent. duty ad valorem; how to distinguish the regulus of tin from mere ore, and how to fix the duty on copper ore so as not to injure the smelter; how to find an adjustment between the liquorice manufacturers of London and the liquorice growers of Pontefract; what was the special case for muscatels as distinct from other raisins; whether 110 pounds of ship biscuits would be a fair deposit for taking out of bond 100 pounds of wheat if not kiln-dried, or 96 pounds if kiln-dried; whether there ought to be uniformity between hides and skins. He applies to Cornewall Lewis, then a poor-law commissioner, not on the astronomy of the ancients or the truth of early Roman history, but to find out for a certain series of years past the contract price of meat in workhouses. He listens to the grievances of the lath-renders; of the coopers who complain that casks will come in too cheap; of the coal-whippers, and the frame-work knitters; and he examines the hard predicament of the sawyers, who hold government answerable both for the fatal competition of machinery and the displacement of wood by iron. 'These deputations,' he says, 'were invaluable to me, for by constant close questioning I learned the nature of their trades, and armed with this admission to their interior, made careful notes and became able to defend in debate the propositions of the tariff and to show that the respective businesses would be carried on and not ruined as they said. I have ever since said that deputations are most admirable aids for the transaction of public business, provided the receiver of them is allowed to fix the occasion and the stage at which they appear.'

PEEL TO JOHN GLADSTONE

Among the deputations of this period Mr. Gladstone always recalled one from Lancashire, as the occasion on which he first saw Mr. Bright:—

The deputation was received not by me but by Lord Ripon, in the large room at the board of trade, I being present. A long line of fifteen or twenty gentlemen occupied benches running down and at the end of the room, and presented a formidable appearance. All that I remember, however, is the figure of a person in black or dark Quaker costume, seemingly the youngest of the band. Eagerly he sat a little forward on the bench and intervened in the discussion. I was greatly struck with him. He seemed to me rather fierce, but very strong and very earnest. I need hardly say this was John Bright. A year or two after he made his appearance in parliament.[157]

The best testimony to Mr. Gladstone's share in this arduous task is supplied in a letter written by the prime minister himself to John Gladstone, and that he should have taken the trouble to write it shows, moreover, that though Peel may have been a 'bad horse to go up to in the stable,' his reserve easily melted away in recognition of difficult duty well done:—

Sir Robert Peel to John Gladstone.

Whitehall, June 16, 1842.—You probably have heard that we have concluded the discussions (the preliminary discussions at least) on the subject of the tariff. I cannot resist the temptation, if it be only for the satisfaction of my own feelings, of congratulating you most warmly and sincerely, on the distinction which your son has acquired, by the manner in which he has conducted himself throughout those discussions and all others since his appointment to office. At no time in the annals of parliament has there been exhibited a more admirable combination of ability, extensive knowledge, temper, and discretion. Your paternal feelings must be gratified in the highest degree by the success which has naturally and justly followed the intellectual exertions of your son, and you must be supremely happy as a father in the reflection that the capacity to make such exertions is combined in his case with such purity of heart and integrity of conduct.

More than fifty years later in offering to a severe opponent magnanimous congratulations in debate on his son's successful maiden speech, Mr. Gladstone said he knew how refreshing to a father's heart such good promise must ever be. And in his own instance Peel's generous and considerate letter naturally drew from John Gladstone a worthy and feeling response:—

John Gladstone to Sir R. Peel.

June 17.—The receipt last evening of your kind letter of yesterday filled my eyes with tears of gratitude to Almighty God, for having given me a son whose conduct in the discharge of his public duties has received the full approbation of one, who of all men, is so well qualified to form a correct judgment of his merits. Permit me to offer you my most sincere thanks for this truly acceptable testimonial, which I shall carefully preserve. William is the youngest of my four sons; in the conduct of all of them, I have the greatest cause for thankfulness, for neither have ever caused me a pang. He excels his brothers in talent, but not so in soundness of principles, habits of usefulness, or integrity of purpose. My eldest, as you are aware, has again, and in a most satisfactory manner, got into parliament. To have the third also again there, whilst the services of naval men, circumstanced as he is, who seek unsuccessfully for employment, are not required, we are desirous to effect, and wait for a favourable opportunity to accomplish. Whenever we may succeed, I shall consider my cup to be filled, for the second is honourably and usefully engaged as a merchant in Liverpool, occupying the situation I held there for so many years.

It was while they were in office that Peel wrote from Windsor to beg Mr. Gladstone to sit for his portrait to Lucas, the same artist who had already painted Graham for him. 'I shall be very glad of this addition to the gallery of the eminent men of my own time.'

ENTRY INTO THE CABINET

It was evident that Mr. Gladstone's admission to the cabinet could not be long deferred, and in the spring of the following year, the head of the government made him the coveted communication:—

Whitehall, May 13, 1843.

MY DEAR GLADSTONE,—I have proposed to the Queen that Lord Ripon should succeed my lamented friend and colleague, Lord Fitzgerald, as president of the board of control. I, at the same time, requested her Majesty's permission (and it was most readily conceded) to propose to you the office of president of the board of trade, with a seat in the cabinet. If it were not for the occasion of the vacancy I should have had unmixed satisfaction in thus availing myself of the earliest opportunity that has occurred since the formation of the government, of giving a wider scope to your ability to render public service, and of strengthening that government by inviting your aid as a minister of the crown. For myself personally, and I can answer also for every other member of the government, the prospect of your accession to the cabinet is very gratifying to our feelings.—Believe me, my dear Gladstone, with sincere esteem and regard, most truly yours,

ROBERT PEEL.

At two to-day (May 13), Mr. Gladstone records, I went to Sir R. Peel's on the subject of his letter. I began by thanking him for the indulgent manner in which he had excused my errors, and more than appreciated any services I might have rendered, and for the offer he had made and the manner of it. I said that I went to the board of trade without knowledge or relish, but had been very happy there; found quite enough to occupy my mind, enough responsibility for my own strength, and had no desire to move onwards, but should be perfectly satisfied with any arrangement which he might make as to Lord Ripon's successor. He spoke most warmly of service received, said he could not be governed by any personal considerations, and this which he proposed was obviously the right arrangement. I then stated the substance of what I had put in my memorandum, first on the opium question, to which his answer was, that the immediate power and responsibility lay with the East India Company; he did not express agreement with my view of the cultivation of the drug, but said it was a minor subject as compared with other imperial interests constantly brought under discussion; intimated that the Duke of Wellington had surrendered his opinion (I think) upon the boundary question; and he referred to the change in his own views, and said that in future he questioned whether he could undertake the defence of the corn laws on principle. His words were addressed to a sympathising hearer. My speeches in the House had already excited dissatisfaction if not dismay.

Then came something about the preservation of the two bishoprics in North Wales.[158] To Mr. Gladstone's surprise, Peel reckoned this a more serious matter, as it involved a practical course. After much had been said on the topic, Mr. Gladstone asked for a day or two to consider the question. 'I have to consider with God's help by Monday whether to enter the cabinet or to retire altogether: at least such is probably the second alternative.' He wished to consult Hope and Manning, and they, upon discussion, urged that the point was too narrow on which to join issue with the government. This brought him round. 'I well remember,' he says of this early case of compromise, 'that I pleaded against them that I should be viewed as a traitor, and they observed to me in reply that I must be prepared for that if necessary, that (and indeed I now feel) in these times the very wisest and most effective servants of any cause must necessarily fall so far short of the popular sentiment of its friends, as to be liable constantly to incur mistrust and even abuse. But patience and the power of character overcome all these difficulties. I am certain that Hope and Manning in 1843 were not my tempters but rather my good angels.'[159]

Peel had been in parliament as long, and almost as long in office, as Mr. Gladstone had lived, but experience of public life enlarges the man of high mind, and Peel, while perhaps he wondered at his junior's bad sense of proportion, was the last man to laugh at force of sincerity and conscience. Men of the other sort, as he knew, were always to be had for the asking. 'He spoke again of the satisfaction of his colleagues, and even said he did not recollect former instances of a single vacancy in a cabinet, on which there was an entire concurrence. I repeated what I had said of his and their most indulgent judgment and took occasion distinctly to apologise for my blunder, and the consequent embarrassment which I caused to him in Feb. 1842, on the corn scale.'[160]

PARLIAMENTARY SUCCESS

His parliamentary success had been extraordinary. From the first his gifts of reasoning and eloquence had pleased the House; his union of sincerity and force had attracted it as sincerity and force never fail to do; and his industry and acuteness, his steady growth in political stature, substance, and acquisition, had gained for him the confidence of the austerest of leaders. He had reached a seat in the cabinet before he was thirty-four, and after little more than ten years of parliamentary life. Canning was thirty-seven before he won the same eminence, and he had been thirteen years in the House; while Peel had the cabinet within reach when he was four-and-thirty, and had been in the House almost thirteen years, of which six had been passed in the arduous post of Irish secretary. Mr. Gladstone had shown that he had in him the qualities that make a minister and a speaker of the first class, though he had shown also the perilous quality of a spirit of minute scruple. He had not yet displayed those formidable powers of contention and attack, that were before long to resemble some tremendous projectile, describing a path the law of whose curves and deviations, as they watched its journey through the air in wonder and anxiety for the shattering impact, men found it impossible to calculate.

Mr. Gladstone's brief notes of his first and second cabinets are worth transcribing: the judicious reader will have little difficulty in guessing the topic for deliberation; it figured in the latest of his cabinets as in the earliest, as well as in most of those that intervened. 'May 15.—My first cabinet. On Irish repeal meetings. No fear of breach of the peace, grounded on reasons. Therefore no case for interference. (The duke, however, was for issuing a proclamation.) May 20.—Second [cabinet] Repeal. Constabulary tainted.' It would be safe to say of any half dozen consecutive meetings of the Queen's servants, taken at random during the reign, that Ireland would be certain to crop up. Still, protection was the burning question. From one cause or another, said Mr. Gladstone looking back to these times, 'my reputation among the conservatives on the question of protection oozed away with rapidity. It died with the year 1842, and early in 1843 a duke, I think the Duke of Richmond, speaking in the House of Lords, described some renegade proceeding as a proceeding conducted under the banner of the vice-president of the board of trade.' He was not always as careful as Peel, and sometimes came near to a scrape.

In my speech, on Lord Howick's motion (Mar. 10, 1843) I was supposed to play with the question, and prepare the way for a departure from the corn law of last year, and I am sensible that I so far lost my head, as not to put well together the various, and, if taken separately, conflicting considerations which affect the question.... It so happens that I spoke under the influence of a new and most sincere conviction, having reference to the recent circumstances of commercial legislation abroad, to the effect that it would not be wise to displace British labour for the sake of cheap corn, without the counteracting and sustaining provisions which exchange, not distorted by tariffs all but prohibitory, would supply.... This, it is clear, is a slippery position for a man who does not think firmly in the midst of ambiguous and adverse cheering, and I did my work most imperfectly, but I do think honestly. Sir R. Peel's manner, by negative signs, showed that he thought either my ground insecure or my expressions dangerous.

AN ARTIFICIAL SITUATION

The situation was essentially artificial. There was little secret of the surrender of protection as a principle. In introducing the proposals for the reform of the customs tariff, Peel made the gentlemen around him shiver by openly declaring that on the general principle of free trade there was no difference of opinion; that all agreed in the rule that we should buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest; that even if the foreigner were foolish enough not to follow suit, it was still for the interest of this country to buy as cheap as we could, whether other countries will buy from us or no.[161] Even important cabinet colleagues found this too strong doctrine for them.

'On Tuesday night,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'Peel opened the tariff anew, and laid down, in a manner which drew great cheering from the opposition, the doctrine of purchasing in the cheapest market. Stanley said to me afterwards, "Peel laid that down a great deal too broadly." Last night he (Lord S.) sat down angry with himself, and turned to me and said, "It does not signify, I cannot speak on these subjects; I quite lost my head." I merely answered that no one but himself would have discovered it.' Yet it was able men, apt to lose their heads in economics, whom Peel had to carry along with him. 'On another night,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'I thought Sir R. Peel appeared in an attitude of conspicuous intellectual greatness, and on comparing notes next day with Sir J. Graham at the palace, I found he was similarly impressed. Sheil delivered a very effective rhetorical speech. Lord Stanley had taken a few notes and was to follow him. Sheil was winding up just as the clock touched twelve. Lord Stanley said to Peel, "It is twelve, shall I follow him? I think not." Peel said, "I do not think it will do to let this go unanswered." He had been quite without the idea of speaking that night. Sheil sat down, and peals of cheering followed. Stanley seemed to hesitate a good deal, and at last said, as it were to himself, "No, I won't, it's too late." In the meantime the adjournment had been moved; but when Peel saw there was no one in the breach, he rose. The cheers were still, a little spitefully, prolonged from the other side. He had an immense subject, a disturbed House, a successful speech, an entire absence of notice to contend against; but he began with power, gathered power as he went on, handled every point in his usual mode of balanced thought and language, and was evidently conscious at the close, of what no one could deny, that he had made a deep impression on the House.'

IV

Mr. Gladstone kept pretty closely in step with his leader. From Sir Robert he slowly learned lessons of circumspection that may not seem congenial to his temperament, though for that matter we should remember all through that his temperament was double. He was of opinion, as he told the House of Commons, that a sliding-scale, a fixed duty, and free trade were all three open to serious objection. He regarded the defects of the existing law as greatly exaggerated, and he refused to admit that the defects of the law, whatever they might be, were fatal to every law with a sliding-scale. He wished to relieve the consumer, to steady the trade, to augment foreign commerce, and the demand for labour connected with commerce. On the other hand he desired to keep clear of the countervailing evils of disturbing either vast capitals invested in land, or the immense masses of labour employed in agriculture.[162] He noted with some complacency, that during the great controversy of 1846 and following years, he never saw any parliamentary speech of his own quoted in proof of the inconsistency of the Peelites. Here are a couple of entries from Lord Broughton's diary for 1844:—'June 17. Brougham said "Gladstone was a d——d fellow, a prig, and did much mischief to the government," alluding to his speech about keeping sugar duties. June 27. Gladstone made a decided agricultural protection speech, and was lauded therefor by Miles—so the rebels were returning to their allegiance.' Gladstone's arguments, somebody said, were in favour of free trade, and his parentheses were in favour of protection.

Well might the whole position be called as slippery a one as ever occurred in British politics. It was by the principles of free trade that Peel and his lieutenant justified tariff-reform; and they indirectly sapped protection in general by dwelling on the mischiefs of minor forms of protection in particular. They assured the country gentlemen that the sacred principle of a scale was as tenderly cherished in the new plan as in the old; on the other hand they could assure the leaguers and the doubters that the structure of the two scales was widely different. We cannot wonder that honest tories who stuck to the old doctrine, not always rejected even by Huskisson, that a country ought not to be dependent on foreign supply, were mystified and amazed as they listened to the two rival parties disputing to which of them belonged the credit of originating a policy that each of them had so short a time before so scornfully denounced. The only difference was the difference between yesterday and the day before yesterday. The whigs, with their fixed duty, were just as open as the conservatives with their sliding-scale to the taunts of the Manchester school, when they decorated economics by high a priori declaration that the free importation of corn was not a subject for the deliberations of the senate, but a natural and inalienable law of the Creator. Rapid was the conversion. Even Lord Palmerston, of all people in the world, denounced the arrogance and presumptuous folly of dealers in restrictive duties 'setting up their miserable legislation instead of the great standing laws of nature.' Mr. Disraeli, still warmly on the side of the minister, flashed upon his uneasy friends around him a reminder of the true pedigree of the dogmas of free trade. Was it not Mr. Pitt who first promulgated them in 1787, who saw that the loss of the market of the American colonies made it necessary by lowering duties to look round for new markets on the continent of Europe? And was it not Fox, Burke, Sheridan, and the minor whig luminaries, who opposed him, while not a single member of his own government in the House of Lords was willing or able to defend him? But even reminiscences of Mr. Pitt, and oracular descriptions of Lord Shelburne as the most remarkable man of his age, brought little comfort to men sincerely convinced with fear and trembling that free corn would destroy rent, close their mansions and their parks, break up their lives, and beggar the country. They remembered also one or two chapters of history nearer to their own time. They knew that Lord John had a right to revive the unforgotten contrast between Peel's rejection of so-called protestant securities in 1817 and 1825, and the total surrender of emancipation in 1829. Natural forebodings darkened their souls that protectionism would soon share the fate of protestantism, and that capitulation to Cobden was doomed to follow the old scandal of capitulation to O'Connell. They felt that there was something much more dreadful than the mere sting of a parliamentary recrimination, in the contrast between the corn bill of 1842 and Peel's panegyrics in '39, '40, and '41 on the very system which that bill now shattered. On the other side some could not forget that in 1840 the whig prime minister, the head of a party still even at the eleventh hour unregenerated by Manchester, predicted a violent struggle as the result of the Manchester policy, stirring society to its foundations, kindling bitter animosities not easy to quench, and creating convulsions as fierce as those of the Reform bill.

A situation so precarious and so unedifying was sure to lead to strange results in the relations of parties and leaders. In July 1843 the Speaker told Hobhouse that Peel had lost all following and authority; all but votes. Hobhouse meeting a tory friend told him that Sir Robert had got nothing but his majority. 'He won't have that long,' the tory replied. 'Who will make sacrifices for such a fellow? They call me a frondeur, but there are many such. Peel thinks he can govern by Fremantle and a little clique, but it will not do. The first election that comes, out he must go.' Melbourne, only half in jest, was reported to talk of begging Peel to give him timely notice, lest the Queen might take him by surprise. On one occasion Hobhouse wished a secondary minister to tell Sir Robert how much he admired a certain speech. 'I!' exclaimed the minister; 'he would kick me away if I dared to speak to him.' 'A man,' Hobhouse observes, 'who will not take a civil truth from a subaltern is but a sulky fellow after all; there is no true dignity or pride in such reserve.' Oddly enough, Lord John was complaining just as loudly about the same time of his own want of hold upon his party.

The tariff operations of 1842 worked no swift social miracle. General stagnation still prevailed. Capital was a drug in the market, but food was comparatively cheap.[163] Stocks were light, and there was very little false credit. In spite of all these favouring conditions, Mr. Gladstone (March 20, 1843) had to report to his chief that 'the deadness of foreign demand keeps our commerce in a state of prolonged paralysis.' Cobden had not even yet convinced them that the true way to quicken foreign demand was to open the ports to that foreign supply, with which they paid us for what they bought from us. Mr. Gladstone saw no further than the desire of making specific arrangement with other countries for reciprocal reductions of import duties.

In one of his autobiographic notes (1897) Mr. Gladstone describes the short and sharp parliamentary crisis in 1844 brought about by the question of the sugar duties, but this may perhaps be relegated to an appendix.[164]

V

From 1841 to 1844 Mr. Gladstone's department was engaged in other matters lying beyond the main stream of effort. 'We were anxiously and eagerly endeavouring to make tariff treaties with many foreign countries. Austria, I think, may have been included, but I recollect especially France, Prussia, Portugal, and I believe Spain. And the state of our tariff, even after the law of 1842, was then such as to supply us with plenty of material for liberal offers. Notwithstanding this, we failed in every case. I doubt whether we advanced the cause of free trade by a single inch.'

The question of the prohibition against the export of machinery came before him. The custom-house authorities pronounced it ineffective, and recommended its removal. A parliamentary committee in 1841 had reported in favour of entire freedom. The machine makers, of course, were active, and the general manufacturers of the country, excepting the Nottingham lace makers and the flax-spinners of the north of Ireland, had become neutral. Only a very limited portion of the trade was any longer subject to restriction, and Mr. Gladstone, after due consultation with superior ministers, proposed a bill for removing the prohibition altogether.[165] He also brought in a bill (April 1844) for the regulation of companies. It was when he was president of the board of trade that the first Telegraph Act was passed. 'I was well aware,' he wrote, 'of the advantage of taking them into the hands of the government, but I was engaged in a plan which contemplated the ultimate acquisition of the railways by the public, and which was much opposed by the railway companies, so that to have attempted taking the telegraphs would have been hopeless. The bill was passed, but the executive machinery two years afterwards broke down.'

RAILWAYS

Questions that do not fall within the contentions of party usually cut a meagre figure on the page of the historian, and the railway policy of this decade is one of those questions. It was settled without much careful deliberation or foresight, and may be said in the main to have shaped itself. At the time when Mr. Gladstone presided over the department of trade, an immense extension of the railway system was seen to be certain, and we may now smile at what then seemed the striking novelty of such a prospect. Mr. Gladstone proposed a select committee on the subject, guided its deliberations, drew its reports, and framed the bill that was founded upon them. He dwelt upon the favour now beginning to be shown to the new roads by the owners of land through which they were to pass, so different from the stubborn resistance that had for long been offered; upon the cheapened cost of construction; upon the growing disposition to employ redundant capital in making railways, instead of running the risks that had made foreign investment so disastrous. It was not long, indeed, before this very disposition led to a mania that was even more widely disastrous than any foreign investment had been since the days of the South Sea bubble. Meanwhile, Mr. Gladstone's Railway Act of 1844, besides a number of working regulations for the day, laid down two principles of the widest range: reserving to the state the full right of intervention in the concerns of the railway companies, and giving to the state the option to purchase a line at the end of a certain term at twenty-five years' purchase of the divisible profits.[166]

It was during these years of labour under Peel that he first acquired principles of administrative and parliamentary practice that afterwards stood him in good stead: on no account to try to deal with a question before it is ripe; never to go the length of submitting a difference between two departments to the prime minister before the case is exhausted and complete; never to press a proposal forward beyond the particular stage at which it has arrived. Pure commonplaces if we will, but they are not all of them easy to learn. We cannot forget that Peel and Mr. Gladstone were in the strict line of political succession. They were alike in social origin and academic antecedents. They started from the same point of view as to the great organs of national life, the monarchy, the territorial peerage and the commons, the church, the universities. They showed the same clear knowledge that it was not by its decorative parts, or what Burke styled 'solemn plausibilities,' that the community derived its strength; but that it rested for its real foundations on its manufactures, its commerce, and its credit. Even in the lesser things, in reading Sir Robert Peel's letters, those who in later years served under Mr. Gladstone can recognise the school to which he went for the methods, the habits of mind, the practices of business, and even the phrases which he employed when his own time came to assume the direction of public affairs, the surmounting of administrative difficulties, the piloting of complex measures, and the handling of troublesome persons.

FOOTNOTES:

[151] Undated fragment of letter to the Queen. See Appendix.

[152] See above, p. 232.

[153] Parker, ii. pp. 499, 529, 533.

[154] Ibid., p. 509. Before the end of the session (Aug. 10, 1842) he had learned enough to do more justice to Hume and the committee.

[155] The editor of Sir Robert Peel's papers was allowed to print three or four of Mr. Gladstone's letters to his chief at this interesting date. The reader will find the correspondence in Parker, ii. pp. 497-517, 519, 520.

[156] In 1843 a bill was passed lowering the duty on Canadian corn imported into England, and Mr. Gladstone says in a memo, of 1851: 'In 1843 I pleaded strongly for the admission of all the colonies to the privilege then granted to Canada.'

[157] Bright was elected for Durham in July 1843.

[158] The question of the Welsh bishoprics was one of a certain magnitude in its day. The union of Bangor and St. Asaph had been provided for by parliament in 1836, with a view to form a new see at Manchester. The measure was passed with the general assent of the episcopal bench and the church at large. But sentiment soon changed, and a hostile cry was raised before the death of the Bishop of St. Asaph, when its provisions would come into force. On his death in 1846 the whig ministry gave way and the sees remained separate.

[159] Mr. Gladstone to Lord Lyttelton, Dec. 30, 1845.

[160] See above, p. 253.

[161] Hansard, May 10, 1842.

[162] Hansard, February 14, 1842.

[163] The average price of wheat per quarter in 1841 was 64 shillings, in 1842, 57 shillings, and in 1843, 50 shillings, a lower average than for any year until 1849.

[164] See Appendix.

[165] See Speech, Aug. 10, 1843.

[166] Wordsworth wrote (Oct. 15,1844) to implore him to direct special attention to the desecrating project of a railway from Kendal to the head of Windermere, and enclosed a sonnet. The sixth line, by the way, is a variant from the version in the books: 'And must he too his old delights disown.'—Knight's Wordsworth (1896 edition), viii. 166.



CHAPTER IX

MAYNOOTH

(1844-1845)

When I consider how munificently the colleges of Cambridge and Oxford are endowed, and with what pomp religion and learning are there surrounded; ... when I remember what was the faith of Edward III. and of Henry VI., of Margaret of Anjou and Margaret of Richmond, of William of Wykeham and William of Waynefleet, of Archbishop Chichele and Cardinal Wolsey; when I remember what we have taken from the Roman catholics, King's College, New College, Christ Church, my own Trinity; and when I look at the miserable Dotheboys' Hall which we have given them in exchange, I feel, I must own, less proud than I could wish of being a protestant and a Cambridge man.—MACAULAY.

IRISH POLICY OF CONCILIATION

In pursuit of the policy of conciliation with which he was now endeavouring to counter O'Connell, Peel opened to his colleagues in 1844 a plan for dealing with the sum annually voted by parliament to the seminary for the training of catholic clergy at Maynooth. The original grant was made by the Irish parliament, protestant as it was; and was accepted even by anti-catholic leaders after 1800 as virtually a portion of the legislative union with Ireland. Peel's proposal, by making an annual grant permanent, by tripling the amount, by incorporating the trustees, established a new and closer connection between the state and the college. It was one of the boldest things he ever did. What Lord Aberdeen wrote to Madame de Lieven in 1852 was hardly a whit less true in 1845: 'There is more intense bigotry in England at this moment than in any other country in Europe.' Peel said to Mr. Gladstone at the beginning of 1845—'I wish to speak without any reserve, and I ought to tell you, I think it will very probably be fatal to the government.' 'He explained that he did not know whether the feeling among Goulburn's constituents [the university of Cambridge] might not be too strong for him; that in Scotland, as he expected, there would be a great opposition; and he seemed to think that from the church also there might be great resistance, and he said the proceedings in the diocese of Exeter showed a very sensitive state of the public mind.' During the whole of 1844 the project simmered. At a very early moment Mr. Gladstone grew uneasy. He did not condemn the policy in itself, but whatever else might be said, it was in direct antagonism to the principle elaborately expounded by him only six years before, as the sacred rule and obligation between a Christian state and Christian churches. He had marked any departure from that rule as a sign of social declension, as a descent from a higher state of society to a lower, as a note in the ebb and flow of national life. Was it not inevitable, then, that his official participation in the extension of the public endowment of Maynooth would henceforth give to every one the right to say of him, 'That man cannot be trusted'? He was not indeed committed, by anything that he had written, to the extravagant position that the peace of society should be hazarded because it could no longer restore its ancient theories of religion; but was he not right in holding it indispensable that any vote or further declaration from him on these matters should be given under circumstances free from all just suspicions of his disinterestedness and honesty?[167]

In view of these approaching difficulties upon Maynooth, on July 12 he made a truly singular tender to the head of the government. He knew Peel to be disposed to entertain the question of a renewal of the public relations with the papal court at Rome, first to be opened by indirect communications through the British envoy at Florence or Naples. 'What I have to say,' Mr. Gladstone now wrote to the prime minister, 'is that if you and Lord Aberdeen should think fit to appoint me to Florence or Naples, and to employ me in any such communications as those to which I have referred, I am at your disposal.' Of this startling offer to transform himself from president of the board of trade into Vatican envoy, Mr. Gladstone left his own later judgment upon record; here it is, and no more needs to be said upon it:—

About the time of my resignation on account of the contemplated increase of the grant to the College of Maynooth, I became possessed with the idea that there was about to be a renewal in some shape of our diplomatic [relations] with the see of Rome, and I believe that I committed the gross error of tendering myself to Sir Robert Peel to fill the post of envoy. I have difficulty at this date (1894) in conceiving by what obliquity of view I could have come to imagine that this was a rational or in any way excusable proposal: and this, although I vaguely think my friend James Hope had some hand in it, seems to show me now that there existed in my mind a strong element of fanaticism. I believe that I left it to Sir R. Peel to make me any answer or none as he might think fit; and he with great propriety chose the latter alternative.

INTENTION TO RESIGN

In the autumn of 1844, the prime minister understood that if he proceeded with the Maynooth increase, he would lose Mr. Gladstone. The loss, Peel said to Graham, was serious, and on every account to be regretted, but no hope of averting it would justify the abandonment of a most important part of their Irish policy. Meanwhile, in the midst of heavy labours on the tariff in preparation for the budget of 1845, Mr. Gladstone was sharply perturbed, as some of his letters to Mrs. Gladstone show:—

Whitehall, Nov. 22, '44.—It is much beyond my expectation that Newman should have taken my letter so kindly; it seemed to me so like the operation of a clumsy, bungling surgeon upon a sensitive part. I cannot well comment upon his meaning, for as you may easily judge, what with cabinet, board, and Oak Farm, I have enough in my head to-day—and the subject is a fine and subtle one. But I may perhaps be able to think upon it to-night, in the meantime I think yours is a very just conjectural sketch. We have not got in cabinet to-day to the really pinching part of the discussion, the Roman catholic religious education. That comes on Monday. My mind does not waver; pray for me, that I may do right. I have an appointment with Peel to-morrow, and I rather think he means to say something to me on the question.

Nov. 23.—You will see that whatever turns up, I am sure to be in the wrong. An invitation to Windsor for us came this morning, and I am sorry to say one including Sunday—Nov. 30 to Dec. 2. I have had a long battle with Peel on the matters of my office; not another syllable. So far as it goes this tends to make me think he does not calculate on any change in me; yet on the whole I lean the other way. Manning comes up on Monday.

Nov. 25.—Events travel fast and not slow. My opinion is that I shall be out on Friday evening. We have discussed Maynooth to-day. An intermediate letter which Sir James Graham has to write to Ireland for information causes thus much of delay. I have told them that if I go, I shall go on the ground of what is required by my personal character, and not because my mind is made up that the course which they propose can be avoided, far less because I consider myself bound to resist it. I had the process of this declaration to repeat. I think they were prepared for it, but they would not assume that it was to be, and rather proceeded as if I had never said a word before upon the subject. It was painful, but not so painful as the last time, and by an effort I had altogether prevented my mind from brooding upon it beforehand. At this moment (61/4) I am sure they are talking about it over the way. I am going to dine with Sir R. Peel. Under these circumstances the Windsor visit will be strange enough! In the meantime my father writes to me most urgently, desiring me to come to Liverpool. I hope for some further light from him on Wednesday morning....

Nov. 26.—I have no more light to throw upon the matters which I mentioned yesterday. The dinner at Peel's went off as well as could be expected; I did not sit near him. Lord Aberdeen was with me to-day, and said very kindly it must be prevented. But I think it cannot, and friendly efforts to prolong the day only aggravate the pain. Manning was with me all this morning; he is well, and is to come back to-morrow.

Jan. 9, '45.—Another postponement; but our explanations were as satisfactory as could possibly be made under such circumstances. The tone and manner as kind as at any time—nothing like murmur. At the same time Peel said he thought it right to intimate a belief that the government might very probably be shipwrecked upon the Maynooth question, partly in connection with my retirement, but also as he intimated from the uncertainty whether there might not be a very strong popular feeling against it. He takes upon himself all responsibility for any inconvenience to which the government may possibly be put from the delay and a consequent abrupt retirement, and says I have given him the fullest and fairest notice.... I saw Manning for two hours this morning, and let the cat out of the bag to him in part. Have a note from Lockhart saying the Bishop of London had sent his chaplain to Murray to express high approval of the article on Ward—and enclosing the vulgar addition of L63.

AT WINDSOR CASTLE

Windsor Castle, Jan. 10.—First, owing to the Spanish ambassador's not appearing, Lady Lyttelton was suddenly invited, and fell to my lot to hand in and sit by, which was very pleasant. I am, as you know, a shockingly bad witness to looks, but she appeared to me, I confess, a little worn and aged. She ought to have at least two months' holiday every year. After dinner the Queen inquired as usual about you, and rather particularly with much interest about Lady Glynne. I told her plainly all I could. This rather helped the Queen through the conversation, as it kept me talking, and she was evidently hard pressed at the gaps. Then we went to cards, and played commerce; fortunately I was never the worst hand, and so was not called upon to pay, for I had locked up my purse before going to dinner; but I found I had won 2s. 2d. at the end, 8d. of which was paid me by the Prince. I mean to keep the 2d. piece (the 6d. I cannot identify) accordingly, unless I lose it again to-night. I had rather a nice conversation with him about the international copyright convention with Prussia....

Whitehall, Jan. 11.—I came back from Windsor this morning, very kindly used. The Queen mentioned particularly that you were not asked on account of presumed inconvenience, and sent me a private print of the Prince of Wales, and on my thanking for it through Lady Lyttelton, another of the Princess. Also she brought the little people through the corridor yesterday after luncheon, where they behaved very well, and she made them come and shake hands with me. The Prince of Wales has a very good countenance; the baby I should call a very fine child indeed. The Queen said, After your own you must think them dwarfs; but I answered that I did not think the Princess Royal short as compared with Willy. We had more cards last evening; Lady —— made more blunders and was laughed at as usual....

Jan. 13.—I think there will certainly be at least one cabinet more in the end of the week. My position is what would commonly be called uncomfortable. I do not know how long the Maynooth matter may be held over. I may remain a couple of months, or only a week—may go at any time at twenty-four hours' notice. I think on the whole it is an even chance whether I go before or after the meeting of parliament, so that I am unfeignedly put to obey the precept of our Lord, 'Take no thought for the morrow; the morrow will take thought for the things of itself.' I am sorry that a part of the inconvenience falls on your innocent head. I need not tell you the irksomeness of business is much increased, and one's purposes unmanned by this indefiniteness. Still, having very important matters in preparation, I must not give any signs of inattention or indifference.

Cabinet Room, Jan. 14.—I have no news to give you about myself, but continue to be quite in the dark. There is a certain Maynooth bill in preparation, and when that appears for decision my time will probably have come, but I am quite ignorant when it will be forthcoming. I am to be with Peel to-morrow morning, but I think on board of trade business only. Graham has just told us that the draft of the Maynooth bill will be ready on Saturday; but it cannot, I think, be considered before the middle of next week at the earliest.

Jan. 15.—The nerves are a little unruly on a day like this between (official) life and death; so much of feeling mixes with the more abstract question, which would be easily disposed of if it stood alone. (Diary.)

It was February 3 before Mr. Gladstone wrote his last note from his desk at the board of trade, thanking the prime minister for a thousand acts of kindness which he trusted himself not readily to forget. The feeling of the occasion he described to Manning:—

Do you know that daily intercourse and co-operation with men upon matters of great anxiety and moment interweaves much of one's being with theirs, and parting with them, leaving them under the pressure of their work and setting myself free, feels, I think, much like dying: more like it than if I were turning my back altogether upon public life. I have received great kindness, and so far as personal sentiments are concerned, I believe they are as well among us as they can be.

One other incident he describes to his wife:—

Peel thought I should ask an audience of the Queen on my retirement, and accordingly at the palace to-day (Feb. 3) he intimated, and then the lord-in-waiting, as is the usage, formally requested it. I saw the Queen in her private sitting-room. As she did not commence speaking immediately after the first bow, I thought it my part to do so; and I said, 'I have had the boldness to request an audience, madam, that I might say with how much pain it is that I find myself separated from your Majesty's service, and how gratefully I feel your Majesty's many acts of kindness.' She replied that she regretted it very much, and that it was a great loss. I resumed that I had the greatest comfort I could enjoy under the circumstances in the knowledge that my feelings towards her Majesty's person and service, and also towards Sir R. Peel and my late colleagues, were altogether unchanged by my retirement. After a few words more she spoke of the state of the country and the reduced condition of Chartism, of which I said I believed the main feeder was want of employment. At the pauses I watched her eye for the first sign to retire. But she asked me about you before we concluded. Then one bow at the spot and another at the door, which was very near, and so it was all over.

Feb. 4.—Ruminated on the dangers of my explanation right and left, and it made me unusually nervous. H. of C. 41/2-9. I was kindly spoken of and heard, and I hope attained practically purposes I had in view, but I think the House felt that the last part by taking away the sting reduced the matter to flatness.

RESIGNATION OF OFFICE

According to what is perhaps a questionable usage, Lord John Russell invited the retiring minister to explain his secession from office to the House. In the suspicion, distraction, tension that marked that ominous hour in the history of English party, people insisted that the resignation of the head of the department of trade must be due to divergence of judgment upon protection. The prime minister, while expressing in terms of real feeling his admiration for Mr. Gladstone's character and ability, and his high regard for his colleague's private qualities, thought well to restate that the resignation came from no question of commercial policy. 'For three years,' he went on, 'I have been closely connected with Mr. Gladstone in the introduction of measures relating to the financial policy of the country, and I feel it my duty openly to avow that it seems almost impossible that two public men, acting together so long, should have had so little divergence in their opinions upon such questions.' If anybody found fault with Mr. Gladstone for not resigning earlier, the prime minister was himself responsible: 'I was unwilling to lose until the latest moment the advantages I derived from one whom I consider capable of the highest and most eminent services.'[168]

The point of Mr. Gladstone's reply was in fact an extremely simple and a highly honourable one. While carefully abstaining from laying down any theory of political affairs as under all circumstances inflexible and immutable, yet he thought that one who had borne such solemn testimony as he had borne in his book, to a particular view of a great question, ought not to make himself responsible for a material departure from it, without at least placing himself openly in a position to form a judgment that should be beyond all mistake at once independent and unsuspected. That position in respect of the Maynooth policy he could not hold, so long as he was a member of the cabinet proposing it, and therefore he had resigned, though it was understood that he would not resist the Maynooth increase itself. All this, I fancy, might easily have been made plain even to those who thought his action a display of overstrained moral delicacy. As it was, his anxiety to explore every nook and cranny of his case, and to defend or discover in it every point that human ingenuity could devise for attack, led him to speak for more than an hour; at the end of which even friendly and sympathetic listeners were left wholly at a loss for a clue to the labyrinth. 'What a marvellous talent is this,' Cobden exclaimed to a friend sitting near him; 'here have I been sitting listening with pleasure for an hour to his explanation, and yet I know no more why he left the government than before he began.' 'I could not but know,' Mr. Gladstone wrote on this incident long years after, 'that I should inevitably be regarded as fastidious and fanciful, fitter for a dreamer or possibly a schoolman, than for the active purposes of public life in a busy and moving age.'[169]

VIEWS OF HIS RESIGNATION

Sir Robert Inglis begged him to lead the opposition to the bill. In the course of the conversation Inglis went back to the fatal character and consequences of the Act of 1829; and wished that his advice had then been taken, which was that the Duke of Cumberland should be sent as lord lieutenant to Ireland with thirty thousand men. 'As that good and very kind man spoke the words,' Mr. Gladstone says, 'my blood ran cold, and he too had helped me onwards in the path before me.' William Palmer wrote that the grant to Maynooth was the sin of 1829 over again, and would bring with it the same destruction of the conservative party. Lord Winchilsea, one of his patrons at Newark, protested against anything that savoured of the national endowment of Romanism. Mr. Disraeli was reported as saying that with his resignation on Maynooth Mr. Gladstone's career was over.

The rough verdict pronounced his act a piece of political prudery. One journalistic wag observed, 'A lady's footman jumped off the Great Western train, going forty miles an hour, merely to pick up his hat. Pretty much like this act, so disproportional to the occasion, is Mr. Gladstone's leap out of the ministry to follow his book.' When the time came he voted for the second reading of the Maynooth bill (April 11) with remarkable emphasis. 'I am prepared, in opposition to what I believe to be the prevailing opinion of the people of England and of Scotland, in opposition to the judgment of my own constituents, from whom I greatly regret to differ, and in opposition to my own deeply cherished predilections, to give a deliberate and even anxious support to the measure.'

The 'dreamer and the schoolman' meanwhile had left behind him a towering monument of hard and strenuous labour in the shape of that second and greater reform of the tariff, in which, besides the removal of the export duty on coal and less serious commodities, no fewer than four hundred and thirty articles were swept altogether away from the list of the customs officer. Glass was freed from an excise amounting to twice or thrice the value of the article, and the whole figure of remission was nearly three times as large as the corresponding figure in the bold operations of 1842. Whether the budget of 1842 or that of 1845 marked the more extensive advance, we need not discuss; it is enough that Mr. Gladstone himself set down the construction of these two tariffs among the principal achievements in the history of his legislative works. His unofficial relations with the colleagues whom he had left were perfectly unchanged. 'You will be glad to know,' he writes to his father, 'that the best feeling, as I believe, subsists between us. Although our powers of entertaining guests are not of the first order, yet with a view partly to these occurrences we asked Sir R. and Lady Peel to dinner to-day, and also Lord and Lady Stanley and Lord Aberdeen. All accepted, but unfortunately an invitation to Windsor has carried off Sir R. and Lady Peel. A small matter, but I mention it as a symbol of what is material.'

Before many days were over, he was working day and night on a projected statement, involving much sifting and preparation, upon the recent commercial legislation. Lord John Russell had expressed a desire for a competent commentary on the results of the fiscal changes of 1842, and the pamphlet in which Mr. Gladstone showed what those results had been was the reply. Three editions of it were published within the year.[170]

This was not the only service that Mr. Gladstone had an opportunity of rendering in the course of the session to the government that he had quitted. 'Peel,' he says, 'had a plan for the admission of free labour sugar on terms of favour. Lord Palmerston made a motion to show that this involved a breach of our old treaties with Spain. I examined the case laboriously, and, though I think his facts could not be denied, I undertook (myself out of office) to answer him on behalf of the government. This I did, and Peel, who was the most conscientious man I ever knew in spareness of eulogium, said to me when I sat down, "That was a wonderful speech, Gladstone."' The speech took four hours, and was, I think, the last that he made in parliament for two years and a half, for reasons that we shall presently discover.

THOUGHTS OF VISITING IRELAND

In the autumn of 1845, Mr. Gladstone made a proposal to Hope-Scott. 'As Ireland,' he said, 'is likely to find this country and parliament so much employment for years to come, I feel rather oppressively an obligation to try and see it with my own eyes instead of using those of other people, according to the limited measure of my means.' He suggested that they should devote some time 'to a working tour in Ireland, eschewing all grandeur and taking little account of scenery, compared with the purpose of looking at close quarters at the institutions for religion and education of the country and at the character of the people.' Philip Pusey was inclined to join them. 'It will not alarm you,' says Pusey, 'if I state my belief that in these agrarian outrages the Irish peasants have been engaged in a justifiable civil war, because the peasant ejected from his land could no longer by any efforts of his own preserve his family from the risk of starvation. This view is that of a very calm utilitarian, George Lewis.'[171] They were to start from Cork and the south and work their way round by the west, carrying with them Lewis's book, blue books, and a volume or two of Plato, AEschylus, and the rest. The expedition was put off by Pusey's discovery that the Times was despatching a correspondent to carry on agrarian investigations. Mr. Gladstone urged that the Irish land question was large enough for two, and so indeed it swiftly proved, for Ireland was now on the edge of the black abysses of the famine.

FOOTNOTES:

[167] The letters from Mr. Gladstone to Peel on this topic are given by Mr. Parker, Peel, iii. pp. 160, 163, 166.

[168] In the course of May, 1845, Peel made some remarks on resignations, of which Mr. Gladstone thought the report worth preserving:—'I admit that there may be many occasions when it would be the duty of a public man to retire from office, rather than propose measures which are contrary to the principles he has heretofore supported. I think that the propriety of his taking that course will mainly depend upon the effect which his retirement will have upon the success of that public measure, which he believes to be necessary for the good of his country. I think it was perfectly honourable, perfectly just, in my right honourable friend the late president of the board of trade to relinquish office. The hon. gentleman thinks I ought to have pursued the same course in 1829. That was precisely the course I wished to pursue—it was precisely the course which I intended to pursue. Until within a month of the period when I consented to bring forward the measure for the relief of the Roman catholics, I did contemplate retiring from office—not because I shrank from the responsibility of proposing that measure—not from the fear of being charged with inconsistency—not because I was not prepared to make the painful sacrifice of private friendships and political connections, but because I believed that my retirement from office would promote the success of the measure. I thought that I should more efficiently assist my noble friend in carrying that measure if I retired from office, and gave the measure my cordial support in a private capacity. I changed my opinion when it was demonstrated to me that there was a necessity for sacrificing my own feelings by retaining office—when it was shown to me that, however humble my abilities, yet, considering the station which I occupied, my retiring from office would render the carrying of that measure totally impossible—when it was proved to me that there were objections in the highest quarters which would not be overcome unless I was prepared to sacrifice much that was dear to me—when it was intimated to my noble friend that there was an intention on the part of the highest authorities in the church of England to offer a decided opposition to the measure, and when my noble friend intimated to me that he thought, if I persevered in my intention to retire, success was out of the question. It was then I did not hesitate to say that I would not expose others to obloquy or suspicions from which I myself shrunk.'

[169] Gleanings, vii. p. 118.

[170] 'Remarks upon recent Commercial Legislation suggested by the expository statement of the Revenue from Customs, and other Papers lately submitted to Parliament, by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. for Newark.' London, Murray, 1845. Mr. Gladstone had written on the same subject in the Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review, January 1843.

[171] See his memorable work on Irish Disturbances, published in 1836.



CHAPTER X

TRIUMPH OF POLICY AND FALL OF THE MINISTER

(1846)

Change of opinion, in those to whose judgment the public looks more or less to assist its own, is an evil to the country, although a much smaller evil than their persistence in a course which they know to be wrong. It is not always to be blamed. But it is always to be watched with vigilance; always to be challenged and put upon its trial.—GLADSTONE.

Not lingering for the moment on Mr. Gladstone's varied pre-occupations during 1845, and not telling over again the well-known story of the circumstances that led to the repeal of the corn law, I pass rapidly to Mr. Gladstone's part—it was a secondary part—in the closing act of the exciting political drama on which the curtain had risen in 1841. The end of the session of 1845 had left the government in appearance even stronger than it was in the beginning of 1842. Two of the most sagacious actors knew better what this was worth. Disraeli was aware how the ties had been loosened between the minister and his supporters, and Cobden was aware that, in words used at the time, 'three weeks of rain when the wheat was ripening would rain away the corn law.'[172]

AN EXCITING DECEMBER

Everybody knows how the rain came, and alarming signs of a dreadful famine in Ireland came; how Peel advised his cabinet to open the ports for a limited period, but without promising them that if the corn duties were ever taken off, they could ever be put on again; how Lord John seized the moment, wrote an Edinburgh letter, and declared for total and immediate repeal; how the minister once more called his cabinet together, invited them to support him in settling the question, and as they would not all assent, resigned; how Lord John tried to form a government and failed; and how Sir Robert again became first minister of the crown, but not bringing all his colleagues back with him. 'I think,' said Mr. Gladstone in later days, 'he expected to carry the repeal of the corn law without breaking up his party, but meant at all hazard to carry it.'

Peel's conduct in 1846, Lord Aberdeen said to a friend ten years later, was very noble. With the exception of Graham and myself, his whole cabinet was against him. Lyndhurst, Goulburn, and Stanley were almost violent in their resistance. Still more opposed to him, if it were possible, was the Duke of Wellington. To break up the cabinet was an act of great courage. To resume office when Lord John had failed in constructing one, was still more courageous. He said to the Queen: 'I am ready to kiss hands as your minister to-night. I believe I can collect a ministry which will last long enough to carry free trade, and I am ready to make the attempt.' When he said this there were only two men on whom he could rely. One of the first to join him was Wellington. 'The Queen's government,' he said, 'must be carried on. We have done all that we could for the landed interest. Now we must do all that we can for the Queen.'[173]

On one of the days of this startling December, Mr. Gladstone writes to his father: 'If Peel determines to form a government, and if he sends for me (a compound uncertainty), I cannot judge what to do until I know much more than at present of the Irish case. It is there if anywhere that he must find his justification; there if anywhere that one returned to parliament as I am, can honestly find reason for departing at this time from the present corn law.' Two other letters of Mr. Gladstone's show us more fully why he followed Peel instead of joining the dissentients, of whom the most important was Lord Stanley. The first of these was written to his father four and a half years later:—

6 Carlton Gardens, June 30, 1849.—As respects my 'having made Peel a free trader,' I have never seen that idea expressed anywhere, and I think it is one that does great injustice to the character and power of his mind. In every case, however, the head of a government may be influenced more or less in the affairs of each department of state by the person in charge of that department. If, then, there was any influence at all upon Peel's mind proceeding from me between 1841 and 1845, I have no doubt it may have tended on the whole towards free trade.... But all this ceased with the measures of 1845, when I left office. It was during the alarm of a potato famine in the autumn of that year that the movement in the government about the corn laws began. I was then on the continent, looking after Helen [his sister], and not dreaming of office or public affairs.... I myself had invariably, during Peel's government, spoken of protection not as a thing good in principle, but to be dealt with as tenderly and cautiously as might be according to circumstances, always moving in the direction of free trade. It then appeared to me that the case was materially altered by events; it was no longer open to me to pursue that cautious course. A great struggle was imminent, in which it was plain that two parties only could really find place, on the one side for repeal, on the other side for permanent maintenance of a corn law and a protective system generally and on principle. It would have been more inconsistent in me, even if consistency had been the rule, to join the latter party than the former. But independently of that, I thought, and still think, that the circumstances of the case justified and required the change. So far as relates to the final change in the corn law, you will see that no influence proceeded from me, but rather that events over which I had no control, and steps taken by Sir R. Peel while I was out of the government, had an influence upon me in inducing me to take office. I noticed some days ago that you had made an observation on this subject, but I did not recollect that it was a question. Had I adverted to this I should have answered it at once. If I had any motive for avoiding the subject, it was, I think, this—that it is not easy to discuss such a question as that of an influence of mine over a mind so immeasurably superior, without something of egotism and vanity.

SECRETARY OF STATE

So much for the general situation. The second letter is to Mrs. Gladstone, and contributes some personal details:—

13 Carlton House Terrace, Dec. 22, 6 P.M., 1845.—It is offensive to begin about myself, but I must. Within the last two hours I have accepted the office of secretary for the colonies, succeeding Lord Stanley, who resigns. The last twenty-four have been very anxious hours. Yesterday afternoon (two hours after Holy Communion) Lincoln came to make an appointment on Peel's part. I went to meet him in Lincoln's house at five o'clock. He detailed to me the circumstances connected with the late political changes, asked me for no reply, and gave me quantities of papers to read, including letters of his own, the Queen's, and Lord J. Russell's, during the crisis. This morning I had a conversation with Bonham [the party whipper-in] upon the general merits, but without telling him precisely what the proposal made to me was. Upon the whole my mind, though I felt the weight of the question, was clear. I had to decide what was best to be done now. I arrived speedily at the conviction that now, at any rate, it is best that the question should be finally settled; that Peel ought and is bound now to try it; that I ought to support it in parliament; that if, in deciding the mode, he endeavours to include the most favourable terms for the agricultural body that it is in his power to obtain, I ought not only to support it, by which I mean vote for it in parliament, but likewise not to refuse to be a party to the proposal. I found from him that he entirely recognised this view, and did feel himself bound to make the best terms that he believed attainable, while, on the other hand, I am convinced that we are now in a position that requires provision to be made for the final abolition of the corn law. Such being the state of matters, with a clear conscience, but with a heavy heart, I accepted office. He was exceedingly warm and kind. But it was with a heavy heart.... I have seen Lord Stanley. 'I am extremely glad to hear you have taken office,' said he. We go to Windsor to-morrow to a council—he to resign the seals, and I to receive them.

In the diary he enters:—

Saw Sir R. Peel at 3, and accepted office—in opposition, as I have the consolation of feeling, to my leanings and desires, and with the most precarious prospects. Peel was most kind, nay fatherly. We held hands instinctively, and I could not but reciprocate with emphasis his 'God bless you.'

I well remember, Mr. Gladstone wrote in a memorandum of Oct. 4, 1851, Peel's using language to me in the Duke of Newcastle's house on Sunday, Dec. 21, 1845, which, as I conceive, distinctly intimated his belief that he would be able to carry his measure, and at the same time hold his party together. He spoke with a kind of glee and complacency in his tone when he said, making up his meaning by signs, 'I have not lived near forty years in public life to find myself wholly without the power of foreseeing the course of events in the House of Commons'—in reference to the very point of the success of his government.

One thing is worth noting as we pass. The exact proceedings of the memorable cabinets of November and the opening days of December are still obscure. It has generally been held that Disraeli planted a rather awkward stroke when he taunted Peel with his inconsistency in declaring that he was not the proper minister to propose repeal, and yet in trying to persuade his colleagues to make the attempt before giving the whigs a chance. The following note of Mr. Gladstone's (written in 1851 after reading Sir R. Peel's original memoir on the Corn Act of 1846) throws some light on the question:—

When Sir R. Peel invited me to take office in December 1845 he did not make me aware of the offer he had made to the cabinet in his memorandum, I think of Dec. 2, to propose a new corn law with a lowered sliding duty, which should diminish annually by a shilling until in some eight or ten years the trade would be free. No doubt he felt that after Lord John Russell had made his attempt to form a government, and after, by Lord Stanley's resignation, he had lost the advantages of unanimity, he could not be justified in a proposal involving so considerable an element of protection. It has become matter of history. But as matter of history it is important to show how honestly and perseveringly he strove to hold the balance fairly between contending claims, and how far he was from being the mere puppet of abstract theories.

That is to say, what he proposed to his cabinet early in December was not the total and immediate repeal to which he was led by events before the end of the month.

II

OUT OF PARLIAMENT

The acceptance of office vacated the seat at Newark, and Mr. Gladstone declined to offer himself again as a candidate. He had been member for Newark for thirteen years, and had been five times elected. So ended his connection with the first of the five constituencies that in his course he represented. 'I part from my constituents,' he tells his father, 'with deep regret. Though I took office under circumstances which might reasonably arouse the jealousy of my friends, an agricultural constituency, the great majority of my committee were prepared to support me, and took action and strong measures in my favour.' 'My deep obligation,' he says, 'to the Duke of Newcastle for the great benefit he conferred upon me, not only by his unbroken support, but, far above all, by his original introduction of me to the constituency, made it my duty at once to decline some overtures made to me for the support of my re-election, so it only remained to seek a seat elsewhere.' Some faint hopes were entertained by Mr. Gladstone's friends that the duke might allow him to sit for the rest of the parliament, but the duke was not the man to make concessions to a betrayer of the territorial interest. Mr. Gladstone, too, we must not forget, was still and for many years to come, a tory. When it was suggested that he might stand for North Notts, he wrote to Lord Lincoln:—'It is not for one of my political opinions without an extreme necessity to stand upon the basis of democratic or popular feeling against the local proprietary: for you who are placed in the soil the case is very different.'

Soon after the session of 1846 began, it became known that the protectionist petition against the Peelite or liberal sitting member for Wigan was likely to succeed in unseating him. 'Proposals were made to me to succeed him, which were held to be eligible. I even wrote my address; on a certain day, I was going down by the mail train. But it was an object for our opponents to keep a secretary of state out of parliament during the corn law crisis, and their petition was suddenly withdrawn. The consequence was that I remained until the resignation of the government in July a minister of the crown without a seat in parliament. This was a state of things not agreeable to the spirit of parliamentary government; and some objection was taken, but rather slightly, in the House of Commons. Sir R. Peel stood fire.' There can be little doubt that in our own day a cabinet minister without a seat in either House of parliament would be regarded, in Mr. Gladstone's words, as a public inconvenience and a political anomaly, too dark to be tolerated; and he naturally felt it his absolute duty to peep in at every chink and cranny where a seat in parliament could be had. A Peelite, however, had not a good chance at a by-election, and Mr. Gladstone remained out of the House until the general election in the year following.[174] Lord Lincoln, also a member of the cabinet, vacated his seat, but, unlike his friend, found a seat in the course of the session.

Mr. Gladstone's brother-in-law, Lyttelton, was invited to represent the colonial office in the Lords, but had qualms of conscience about the eternal question of the two Welsh bishoprics. 'How could the government of this wonderful empire,' Peel wrote to Mr. Gladstone, 'be ever constructed, if a difference on such a point were to be an obstruction to union? Might not any one now say with perfect honour and, what is of more importance (if they are not identical), perfect satisfaction to his own conscience, "I will not so far set up my own judgment on one isolated measure against that of a whole administration, to such an extent as to preclude me from co-operation with them at a critical period." This, of course, assumes general accordance of sentiment on the great outlines of public policy.' Wise words and sound, that might prevent some of the worst mistakes of some of the best men.

III

THE SESSION OF 1846

This memorable session of 1846 was not a session of argument, but of lobby computations. The case had been argued to the dregs, the conclusion was fixed, and all interest was centred in the play of forces, the working of high motives and low, the balance of parties, the secret ambitions and antagonism of persons. Mr. Gladstone therefore was not in the shaping of the parliamentary result seriously missed, as he had been missed in 1845. 'It soon became evident,' says a leading whig in his journal of the time, 'that Peel had very much over-rated his strength. Even the expectation of December that he could have carried with him enough of his own followers to enable Lord John, if that statesman had contrived to form a government, to pass the repeal of the corn law, was perceived to have been groundless, when the formidable number of the protectionist dissentients appeared. So many even of those who remained with Peel avowed that they disapproved of the measure, and only voted in its favour for the purpose of supporting Peel's government.'[175] The tyranny of the accomplished fact obscures one's sense of the danger that Peel's high courage averted. It is not certain that Lord John as head of a government could have carried the whole body of whigs for total and immediate repeal, Lord Lansdowne and Palmerston openly stating their preference for a fixed duty, and not a few of the smaller men cursing the precipitancy of the Edinburgh letter. It is certain, as is intimated above, that Peel could not have carried over to him the whole of the 112 men who voted for repeal solely because it was his measure. In the course of this session Sir John Hobhouse met Mr. Disraeli at an evening party, and expressed a fear lest Peel having broken up one party would also be the means of breaking up the other. 'That, you may depend upon it, he will,' replied Disraeli, 'or any other party that he has anything to do with.' It was not long after this, when all was over, that the Duke of Wellington told Lord John that he thought Peel was tired of party and was determined to destroy it. After the repeal of the corn law was safe, the minister was beaten on the Irish coercion bill by what Wellington called a 'blackguard combination' between the whigs and the protectionists. He resigned, and Lord John Russell at the head of the whigs came in.

'Until three or four days before the division on the coercion bill,' Mr. Gladstone says in a memorandum written at the time, 'I had not the smallest idea, beyond mere conjecture, of the views and intentions of Sir R. Peel with respect to himself or to his government. Only we had been governed in all questions, so far as I knew, by the determination to carry the corn bill and to let no collateral circumstance interfere with that main purpose.... He sent round a memorandum some days before the division arguing for resignation against dissolution. There was also a correspondence between the Duke of Wellington and him. The duke argued for holding our ground and dissolving. But when we met in cabinet on Friday the 26th of June, not an opposing voice was raised. It was the shortest cabinet I ever knew. Peel himself uttered two or three introductory sentences. He then said that he was convinced that the formation of a conservative party was impossible while he continued in office. That he had made up his mind to resign. That he strongly advised the resignation of the entire government. Some declared their assent. None objected; and when he asked whether it was unanimous, there was no voice in the negative.' 'This was simply,' as Mr. Gladstone added in later notes, 'because he had very distinctly and positively stated his own resolution to resign. It amounted therefore to this,—no one proposed to go on without him.' One other note of Mr. Gladstone's on this grave decision is worth quoting:—

I must put into words the opinion which I silently formed in my room at the colonial office in June 1846, when I got the circulation box with Peel's own memorandum not only arguing in favour of resignation but intimating his own intention to resign, and with the Duke of Wellington's in the opposite sense. The duke, in my opinion, was right and Peel wrong, but he had borne the brunt of battle already beyond the measure of human strength, and who can wonder that his heart and soul as well as his physical organisation needed rest?[176]

DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT

In announcing his retirement to the House (June 29), Peel passed a magnanimous and magnificent eulogium on Cobden.[177] Strange to say, the panegyric gave much offence, and among others to Mr. Gladstone. The next day he entered in his diary:—

Much comment is made upon Peel's declaration about Cobden last night. My objection to it is that it did not do full justice. For if his power of discussion has been great and his end good, his tone has been most harsh and his imputation of bad and vile motives to honourable men incessant. I do not think the thing was done in a manner altogether worthy of Peel's mind. But he, like some smaller men, is, I think, very sensible of the sweetness of the cheers of opponents.

He describes himself at the time as 'grieved and hurt' at these closing sentences; and even a year later, in answer to some inquiry from his father, who still remained protectionist, he wrote: 'July 1, '47.—I do not know anything about Peel's having repented of his speech about Cobden; but I hope that he has seen the great objection to which it is, as I think, fairly open.' Some of his own men who voted for Peel declared that after this speech they bitterly repented.

PEEL'S TRIBUTE TO COBDEN

The suspected personal significance of the Cobden panegyric is described in a memorandum written by Mr. Gladstone a few days later (July 12):—

A day or two afterwards I met Lord Stanley crossing the park, and we had some conversation, first on colonial matters. Then he said, 'Well, I think our friend Peel went rather far last night about Cobden, did he not?' I stated to him my very deep regret on reading that passage (as well as what followed about the monopolists), and that, not for its impolicy but for its injustice. All that he said was true, but he did not say the whole truth; and the effect of the whole, as a whole, was therefore untrue. Mr. Cobden has throughout argued the corn question on the principle of holding up the landlords of England to the people, as plunderers and as knaves for maintaining the corn law to save their rents, and as fools because it was not necessary for that purpose. This was passed by, while he was praised for sincerity, eloquence, indefatigable zeal.

On Thursday the 2nd I saw Lord Aberdeen. He agreed in the general regret at the tone of that part of the speech. He said he feared it was designed with a view to its effects, for the purpose of making it impossible that Peel should ever again be placed in connection with the conservative party as a party. He said that Peel had absolutely made up his mind never again to lead it, never again to enter office; that he had indeed made up his mind, at one time, to quit parliament, but that probably on the Queen's account, and in deference to her wishes, he had abandoned this part of his intentions. But that he was fixed in the idea to maintain his independent and separate position, taking part in public questions as his views of public interests might from time to time seem to require. I represented that this for him, and in the House of Commons, was an intention absolutely impossible to fulfil; that with his greatness he could not remain there overshadowing and eclipsing all governments, and yet have to do with no governments; that acts cannot for such a man be isolated, they must be in series, and his view of public affairs must coincide with one body of men rather than another, and that the attraction must place him in relations with them. Lord Aberdeen said that Earl Spencer in his later days was Sir R. Peel's ideal,—rare appearances for serious purposes, and without compromise generally to the independence of his personal habits. I put it that this was possible in the House of Lords, but only there.... On Saturday I saw him again as he came from the palace. He represented that the Queen was sorely grieved at this change; which indeed I had already heard from Catherine through Lady Lyttelton, but this showed that it continued. And again on Monday we heard through Lady Lyttelton that the Queen said it was a comfort to think that the work of that day would soon be over. It appears too that she spoke of the kindness she had received from her late ministers; and that the Prince's sentiments are quite as decided.

On Monday we delivered up the seals at our several audiences. Her Majesty said simply but very kindly to me, 'I am very sorry to receive them from you.' I thanked her for my father's baronetcy, and apologised for his not coming to court. She had her glove half off, which made me think I was to kiss hands; but she simply bowed and retired. Her eyes told tales, but she smiled and put on a cheerful countenance. It was in fact the 1st of September 1841 over again as to feelings; but this time with more mature judgment and longer experience. Lord Aberdeen and Sir J. Graham kissed hands, but this was by favour.

The same night I saw Sidney Herbert at Lady Pembroke's. He gave me in great part the same view of Sir R. Peel's speech, himself holding the same opinion with Lord Aberdeen. But he thought that Peel's natural temper, which he said is very violent though usually under thorough discipline, broke out and coloured that part of the speech, but that the end in view was to cut off all possibility of reunion. He referred to a late conversation with Peel, in which Peel had intimated his intention of remaining in parliament and acting for himself without party, to which Herbert replied that he knew of no minister who had done so except lord Bute, a bad precedent. Peel rejoined 'Lord Grenville,' showing that his mind had been at work upon the subject. He had heard him not long ago discussing his position with Lord Aberdeen and Sir James Graham, when he said, putting his hand up to the side of his head, 'Ah! you do not know what I suffer here.'

Yesterday Lord Lyndhurst called on me.... He proceeded to ask me what I thought with respect to our political course. He said he conceived that the quarrel was a bygone quarrel, that the animosities attending it ought now to be forgotten, and the old relations of amity and confidence among the members of the conservative body resumed. I told him, in the first place, that I felt some difficulty in answering him in my state of total ignorance, so far as direct communication is concerned, of Sir R. Peel's knowledge and intentions; that on Tuesday I had seen him on colonial matters, and had talked on the probable intentions of the new government as to the sugar duties, but that I did not like to ask what he did not seem to wish to tell, and that I did not obtain the smallest inkling of light as to his intentions in respect to that very matter now immediately pending. He observed it was a pity Sir R. Peel was so uncommunicative; but that after having been so long connected with him, he would certainly be very unwilling to do anything disagreeable to him; still, if I and others thought fit, he was ready to do what he could towards putting the party together again. I then replied that I thought, so far as extinguishing the animosities which had been raised in connection with the corn law was concerned, I could not doubt its propriety, that I thought we were bound to give a fair trial to the government, and not to assume beforehand an air of opposition, and that if so much of confidence is due to them, much more is it due towards friends from whom we have differed on the single question of free trade, that our confidence should be reposed in them. That I thought, however, that in any case, before acting together as a party, we ought to consider well the outline of our further course, particularly with reference to Irish questions and the church there, as I was of opinion that it was very doubtful whether we had now a justification for opposing any change with respect to it, meaning as to the property. He said with his accustomed facility, 'Ah yes, it will require to be considered what course we shall take.'[178]

CONVERSATIONS WITH COLLEAGUES

I met Lord Aberdeen the same afternoon in Bond Street, and told him the substance of this conversation. He said, 'It is stated that Lord G. Bentinck is to resign, and that they are to have you.' That, I replied, was quite new to me. The (late) chancellor had simply said, when I pointed out that the difficulties lay in the House of Commons, that it was true, and that my being there would make the way more open. I confess I am very doubtful of that, and much disposed to believe that I am regretted, as things and persons absent often are, in comparison with the present. At dinner I sat between Graham and Jocelyn. The latter observed particularly on the absence from Sir R. Peel's speech of any acknowledgment towards his supporters and his colleagues. These last, however, are named. Jocelyn said the new government were much divided.... Jocelyn believes that Lord Palmerston will not be very long in union with this cabinet.

With Sir J. Graham I had much interesting conversation. I told him, I thought it but fair to mention to him the regret and blame which I found to have been elicited from all persons whom I saw and conversed with, by the passage relating to Cobden. He said he believed it was the same on all hands; and that the new government in particular were most indignant at it. He feared that it was deliberately preconceived and for the purpose; and went on to repeat what Lord Aberdeen had told me, that Sir R. Peel had been within an ace of quitting parliament, and was determined to abjure party and stand aloof for ever, and never resume office. I replied as before, that in the House of Commons it was impossible. He went on to sketch the same kind of future for himself. He was weary of labour at thirteen or fourteen hours a day, and of the intolerable abuse to which he was obliged to submit; but his habits were formed in the House of Commons and for it, and he was desirous to continue there as an independent gentleman, taking part from time to time in public business as he might find occasion, and giving his leisure to his family and to books. I said, 'Are you not building houses of cards? Do you conceive that men who have played a great part, who have swayed the great moving forces of the state, who have led the House of Commons and given the tone to public policy, can at their will remain there, but renounce the consequences of their remaining, and refuse to fulfil what must fall to them in some contingency of public affairs? The country will demand that they who are the ablest shall not stand by inactive.' He said Sir Robert Peel had all but given up his seat. I answered that would at any rate have made his resolution a practicable one.

He said, 'You can have no conception of what the virulence is against Peel and me.' I said, No; that from having been out of parliament during these debates my sense of these things was less lively and my position in some respects different. He replied, 'Your position is quite different. You are free to take any course you please with perfect honour.' I told him of Lord Lyndhurst's visit and the purport of his conversation, of the meaning of the junction on the opposition bench in the Lords, and of what we had said of the difficulties in the Commons. He said, 'My resentment is not against the new government, but against the seventy-three conservative members of parliament who displaced the late government by a factious vote; nearly all of them believed the bill to be necessary for Ireland; and they knew that our removal was not desired by the crown, not desired by the country. I find no fault with the new ministers, they are fairly in possession of power—but with those gentlemen I can never unite.' Later, however, in the evening he relented somewhat, and said he must admit that what they did was done under great provocation; that it was no wonder they regarded themselves as betrayed; and that unfortunately it had been the fate of Sir R. Peel to perform a similar operation twice....