Goldwin Smith

“ Russell had for some time been busy with reform, and had more than once moved in that direction, but had been deftly put aside by Palmerston, who, though a Liberal by profession, and revolutionary or affecting that character in foreign affairs, was in home politics a Tory at heart, and met general assertions of the right of men to the suffrage as “partakers of our flesh and blood” and presumptively entitled to a place “within the pale of the constitution,” with the aphorism that “the one right of every man, woman, [35] and child was to be well governed.” ”

“ The political movement, apart from the agrarian insurrection, had never shown much force. It was not on political change that the heart of the Irish people was set, but on the secure possession of their holdings and their deliverance from the grasp of famine. But the new leader, Charles Stewart Parnell, a real statesman in his way, combined the two objects, and the movement, carrying the people with it, became formidable in its [60] political as well as in its agrarian form. ”

“ It was, in fact, that the Government [50] was sick, and that the election would put it out of its misery, thereby declaring the situation. But did Mr. Gladstone overlook the fact that he would be depriving a number of his followers of their seats? Why was the stroke so sudden? On the other hand, the charge of bribing the constituencies by promising to repeal the income tax, Mr. Morley is perfectly right in dismissing as baseless. Such expectations are held out by all competitors for power. What is the game of party but that of outbidding the other side? ”

“ It must be owned that Gladstone was impulsive, and that impulsiveness was the source not only of gibes to his enemies, but sometimes of anxiety to his friends. “What I fear in Gladstone,” said Archbishop Tait, “is his levity.” That he could easily throw off responsibility, I think I have myself seen. But a man on whom so heavy a load of responsibility rests, [19] if he felt its full weight would be killed by it, and want of conscientiousness is not to be inferred from lightness of heart. ”

“ But, besides this, Disraeli looked out of window, which Gladstone’s critics, perhaps not wholly without ground for their gibes, said that he did not, and had perceived and laid to heart the great fact that there were many in the masses who cared little for Liberalism or progress, and who would be apt under skilful management to vote Tory. ”

“ It is a great evil. To say nothing of its effect upon the passions of the audience, it wears out the statesman; it deprives him, in the intervals of Parliament, of leisure for study and reflection; worst of all, it tempts him imprudently to commit himself.
In the case of armed intervention in Egypt, Gladstone seemed to swerve from his usual fidelity to a policy of moderation and peace. It lost him Bright, to whom as he advanced in Liberalism he had been drawing closer, [53] and who had been induced to take office in his Government. ”

“ The schism between the Free and Slave States was inevitable, and the war was from the outset one between nations. That Gladstone subscribed to the Confederate loan was false, nor is there the slightest reason for believing that he was less faithful than any of his colleagues to the policy of strict neutrality, however ready he may have been, in common [43] with the rest, to tender good offices in a contest in which, as it deprived millions of British artisans of the materials of their industry, Great Britain had a manifest and pressing interest. ”

“ The only remedy for over-population, apart from the fell agencies of famine and disease, was emigration. The remedy for the agrarian evil and grievance, so far as it could be reached by legislation, apparently was some measure which would give the Irish [58] tenant-at-will the same security for his holding which had been given to the English copyholder by custom and the favour of the courts. To buy out the Irish landlord was hardly just to the British people, and was a measure in itself of dangerous import. ”

“ If after the equitable settlement of the agrarian question and the reduction of the population to the number which the island can maintain, the political enmity generated by the long struggle continues unassuaged, and the Irish contingent remains, as it has now for many years been, an alien and rebellious element in the British Parliament, disturbing and distracting British councils, there may be a sufficient reason for letting Ireland go. It [69] would be folly to keep her as a mere thorn in the side of Great Britain. It would be more than folly to attempt to hold her in bondage. ”

“ Not only the Cabinet system but the party system, on which the Cabinet system was based, had begun to show signs of disintegration. Sectionalism had set in, as it was pretty sure to do when political speculation had grown more free and there was no controlling issue, like that of Parliamentary Reform in 1832, to hold a party together. Personal ambition was also becoming restless and difficult to control. More than once, Gladstone’s Government was [47] defeated by the bolting of its own supporters. The task of a Premier was not easy. ”

“ If the death of a man and his restoration to life were witnessed and certified by a great body of men of science, in circumstances such as to preclude the possibility of imposture, we should not withhold our belief, however contrary the occurrence might be to the ordinary course of nature. ”

“ Moreover, the legislative preponderance of the landed interest, which had the House of Lords to itself and a large section of the Commons, was too great for the general good. These were the best reasons for an extension of the suffrage, while the Whig party and its leader Russell, perhaps, as is the [34] way of parties, finding their sails flapping against the mast, wished to raise a little popular wind. It is by the bidding of parties against each other for popularity, largely, that the suffrage has been extended. ”

“ He was a party leader; a full believer in the party system; and his party wanted to prevail over its rival. It is only by contention for power that party government can be carried on.
Gladstone proposed in effect to break the legislative Union by giving Ireland a Parliament of her own. This Parliament he styled “statutory.” Restrictions were to be laid upon it which would have made its relation to the British Parliament one of [67] vassalage, and against which it would almost certainly have commenced, from the moment of its birth, a struggle for equality and independence. ”

“ To her, progressive Liberalism could hardly be very congenial. Moreover, she was a woman, and in a competition in flattery Gladstone would have had no chance with his rival.
It is rather startling to learn from this Life how much there is of interference [41] on the part of irresponsibility with the responsible Government of the Kingdom, and what drafts are made upon the time and energy of one who has the burden of Atlas on his shoulders by the demands of correspondence with the Court. ”

“ As the most conspicuous seceder from the Tory camp, he became the special object of antipathy to the Carlton Club, which was fond of speaking of him as insane. A member of the Carlton was reported to have said to a member of the Reform Club, “I am much better off for a leader than you are, my leader is only an unscrupulous intriguer; [18] yours is a dangerous lunatic.” The story was current that Gladstone had bought the whole contents of a toyshop and ordered them to be sent to his house. ”

“ One fruit, distinctly Gladstonian, the Palmerston Government bore. That fruit was the commercial treaty with [24] France, negotiated through Cobden, who shared, with Bright, Palmerston’s particular dislike. Cobden even suspected that Palmerston would not have been sorry if the treaty had miscarried, and that he betrayed his feeling in his bearing and language towards France while negotiations were going on. There was nothing in the treaty which could militate against a rational policy of free trade. ”

“ Gladstone was, in the best sense, a man of the people; and the heart of the people seldom failed to respond to his appeal. As an embodiment of some great qualities, especially of loyalty to righteousness, he has left no equal behind him, and deeply in this hour of trial we feel his loss.
FOOTNOTES
[1] I used to think that an occasional session, or even a single session, of the United Parliament at Dublin, for the special settlement of Irish affairs, Irish character being what it is, might have a good effect on the Irish heart. ”

“ The famous letters sent a thrill through Europe and made all the powers of tyranny and iniquity tremble on their thrones. Seldom, if ever, has a private manifesto had such effect. Combined with [17] humanity and zeal for righteousness, in Gladstone’s heart was a strong feeling in favour of nationality, which he showed in promoting, as he did, the emancipation of the Ionian Islands and their union with Greece.
Once launched in any career, Gladstone was sure to imbibe the full spirit of the movement and lead the way. His Liberalism presently outstripped that of the Whigs. ”

“ Among other relics of Gladstone’s Conservatism was his clinging to his seat in Parliament for the University of Oxford, in which he was supported by a rather strange and precarious alliance of High Churchmen voting for the High Churchman and Liberals voting [27] for the progressive Liberal; a combination the strain upon which became extreme when Palmerston, in whose Government Gladstone was, made Shaftesbury, the lay leader of the Evangelicals, his Minister for ecclesiastical affairs, and allowed him to go on promoting Low Churchmen. ”

“ The large measure of extension brought in by Gladstone was opposed, in some very memorable speeches, by Robert Lowe, a high aristocrat not of birth but of intellect, who made the last stand against democracy and in favour of government by mind. He and his section, dubbed by regular party men “the Cave of Adullam,” helped Disraeli to kill the Bill. Disraeli then brought in and carried a Bill, not less radical, of his own, to which the Conservative gentry under the party whip, styled by Disraeli “education,” lent a doleful support ”

“ He had also a dislike of owning change, and a habit of setting his retroactive imagination at work to prove that there was no inconsistency, which had a bad effect, especially in such a case as his sudden coalition with Parnell.
The value of the recruit was at once recognized and the door of office was presently opened to him by Peel, who was always on the look-out for youthful promise, and set himself, perhaps more than any other Prime Minister ever did, to train up a succession of statesmen for the country. ”

“ The people were reduced to a state bordering on absolute barbarism, a state in which they could look for nothing beyond bare food, while even bare food, the treacherous potato being its staple, periodically failed. ”

“ Such a subject as the French war lent transcendent interest to the great speeches of Pitt and Fox. Otherwise, their best efforts are not superior to Gladstone’s speech in favour of extension of the suffrage, though Gladstone’s [37] style is different from theirs. Gladstone’s speeches are not literature. He spoke without notes, and no man can speak literature ex tempore. ”

“ The assumption that the wills of Founders were for ever inviolable, in spite of the lapse of ages and the total change of circumstances, had led, as it must always lead, to a perpetuity of perversion and to the defeat of the main object of the Founders themselves. ”

“ Gladstone or by anyone who took part in the discussion. Cromwell had given Ireland, with union, the indispensable boon of free trade with Great Britain. Succeeding Governments, less wise and magnanimous, had allowed British protectionism [56] to kill the great Irish industries, the cattle trade and the wool trade. The people were thus thrown for subsistence entirely on the cultivation of the soil, in an island far the greater part of which is too wet for profitable tillage, and lends itself only to grazing. ”

“ The Bill was defeated in the House of Commons by a majority of thirty votes; and, on an appeal to the country, the Liberal-Unionists combining with the Conservatives on the special question, the Opposition won by upwards of a hundred. Six years afterwards, by another turn of the wheel, the Salisbury Government losing strength, Gladstone found himself again at the head of the [76] Government, but with a weak majority made up largely of the Irish vote. Then came the catastrophe of Parnell, who, at the critical moment, was convicted of crim. con. It is impossible to read Mr. ”