Footnotes

Above, vol. ii. pp. 563-8.

March 25-6, 1881.

Bradlaugh, who was a little vain of his legal skill, founded this claim upon the Evidence Amendment Act, taken in connection with the Parliamentary Oaths and other Acts.

4.

See vol. i. p. 138.

5.

Speech on second reading of Affirmation bill, 1883.

6.

Lord Hampden's Diaries.

7.

Perhaps the best equivalent for begeistert here is “daemonic.”

8.

Lucretius, ii. 646. “For the nature of the gods must ever of itself enjoy repose supreme through endless time, far withdrawn from all concerns of ours; free from all our pains, free from all our perils, strong in resources of its own, needing nought from us, no favours win it, no anger moves.”

9.

Religious Disabilities Removal bill, Feb. 4, 1891.

10.

Vol. ii. p. 583.

11.

Sir Garnet Wolseley to Sir M. Hicks Beach, Nov. 13, 1879.

12.

In H. of C, Jan. 21, 1881.

13.

Speeches in Scotland, i. pp. 48, 63.

14.

C, 2586, No. 3.

15.

Mr. Grant Duff, then colonial under-secretary, said in the House of Commons, May 21, 1880, “Under the very difficult circumstances of the case, the plan which seemed likely best to conciliate the interests at once of the Boers, the natives and the English population, was that the Transvaal should receive, and receive with promptitude, as a portion of confederation, the largest possible measure of local liberties that could be granted, and that was the direction in which her Majesty's present advisers meant to move.”

16.

At Birmingham, June 1881.

17.

C, 2367, p. 55.

18.

Afghanistan and S. Africa: A letter to Mr. Gladstone by Sir Bartle Frere. Murray, 1891, pp. 24-6. Frere, on his return to England, once more impressed on the colonial office the necessity of speedily granting the Boers a constitution, otherwise there would be serious trouble. (Life, ii. p. 408.)

19.

Sir George Colley pressed Lord Kimberley in his correspondence with the reality of this grievance, and the urgency of trying to remove it. This was after the Boers had taken to arms at the end of 1880.

20.

Before the Gladstone government came into office, between August 1879 and April 1880, whilst General Wolseley was in command, the force in Natal and the Transvaal had been reduced by six batteries of artillery, three companies of engineers, one cavalry regiment, eleven battalions of infantry, and five companies of army service corps. The force at the time of the outbreak was: in Natal 1772, and in the Transvaal 1759—a total of 3531. As soon as the news of the insurrection reached London, large reinforcements were at once despatched to Colley, the first of them leaving Gibraltar on Dec. 27, 1880.

21.

Sir B. Frere was recalled on August 1, 1880, and sailed for England September 15. Sir Hercules Robinson, his successor, did not reach the Cape until the end of January 1881. In the interval Sir George Strahan was acting governor.

22.

Lord Kimberley justified this decision on the ground that it was impossible to send a commissioner to inquire and report, at a moment when our garrisons were besieged, and we had collected no troops to relieve them, and when we had just received the news that the detachment of the 94th had been cut off on the march from Lydenberg to Pretoria. “Is it not practically certain,” he wrote, “that the Boers would have refused at that time to listen to any reasonable terms, and would have simply insisted that we should withdraw our troops and quit the country?” Of course, the Boer overture, some six weeks after the rejection by Lord Kimberley of the Cape proposal, and after continued military success on the side of the Boers, showed that this supposed practical certainty was the exact reverse of certain.

23.

“I do not know whether I am indebted to you or to Mr. Childers or to both, for the continuance of H.M.'s confidence, but I shall always feel more deeply grateful than I can express; and can never forget H.M.'s gracious message of encouragement at a time of great trouble.”—Colley to Kimberley, Jan. 31, 1881.

24.

“The directions to Colley,” says Mr. Bright in a cabinet minute, “intended to convey the offer of a suspension of hostilities on both sides, with a proposal that a commissioner should be appointed to enter into negotiations and arrangements with a view to peace.”

25.

Life of Childers, ii. p. 24.

26.

Colley's letter to Childers, Feb. 23, Life of Childers, ii. p. 24.

27.

See Selborne's Memorials, ii. p. 3, and also a speech by Lord Kimberley at Newcastle, Nov. 14, 1899.

28.

In a speech at Edinburgh (Sept. 1, 1884), Mr. Gladstone put the same argument—“The people of the Transvaal, few in number, were in close and strong sympathy with their brethren in race, language, and religion. Throughout South Africa these men, partly British subjects and partly not, were as one man associated in feeling with the people of the Transvaal; and had we persisted in that dishonourable attempt, against all our own interests, to coerce the Transvaal as we attempted to coerce Afghanistan, we should have had the whole mass of the Dutch population at the Cape and throughout South Africa rising in arms against us.”

29.

July 25, 1881.

30.

One of the most determined enemies of the government in 1881, ten years later, in a visit to South Africa, changed his mind. “The Dutch sentiment in the Cape Colony, wrote Lord Randolph Churchill, 'had been so exasperated by what it considered the unjust, faithless, and arbitrary policy pursued towards the free Dutchmen of the Transvaal by Frere, Shepstone, and Lanyon, that the final triumph of the British arms, mainly by brute force, would have permanently and hopelessly alienated it from Great Britain.... On the whole, I find myself free to confess, and without reluctance to admit, that the English escaped from a wretched and discreditable muddle, not without harm and damage, but perhaps in the best possible manner.”

31.

“I apprehend, whether you call it a Protectorate, or a Suzerainty, or the recognition of England as a Paramount Power, the fact is that a certain controlling power is retained when the state which exercises this suzerainty has a right to veto any negotiations into which the dependent state may enter with foreign powers. Whatever suzerainty meant in the Convention of Pretoria, the condition of things which it implied still remains; although the word is not actually employed, we have kept the substance. We have abstained from using the word because it was not capable of legal definition, and because it seemed to be a word which was likely to lead to misconception and misunderstanding.”—Lord Derby in the House of Lords, March 17, 1884. I do not desire to multiply points of controversy, but the ill-starred raising of the ghost of suzerainty in 1897-9 calls for the twofold remark that the preamble was struck out by Lord Derby's own hand, and that alike when Lord Knutsford and Lord Ripon were at the colonial office, answers were given in the House of Commons practically admitting that no claim of suzerainty could be put forward.

32.

Works of T. H. Green, iii. 382.

33.

House of Commons, April 4, 1882.

34.

Edinburgh, Sept. 1, 1884.

35.

See vol. ii. book vi. chap. II.

36.

Proceedings had been instituted in the Dublin courts against Parnell and others for seditious conspiracy. The jury were unable to agree on a verdict.

37.

Tried by Lord Spencer in Westmeath in 1871, it had been successful, but the area of disturbance was there comparatively insignificant.

38.

For a plain and precise description of the Coercion Act of 1881, see Dicey's Law of the Constitution, pp. 243-8.

39.

See vol. ii. p. 284.

40.

At the Cloth Hall banquet, Leeds, Oct. 8, 1881.

41.

Speech to the Leeds Chamber of Commerce, Oct. 8, 1881.

42.

Introduced by Mr. Redmond.

43.

It had been Mr. Burke's practice to drive from the Castle to the Park gate, then to descend and walk home, followed by two detectives. On this occasion he found at the gate that the chief secretary had passed, and drove forward to overtake him. The detectives did not follow him as usual. If they had followed, he would have been saved.

44.

Life of Dean Church, p. 299.

45.

Nineteenth Century, August, 1877; Gleanings, iv. p. 357.

46.

July 27, 1882.

47.

Granville and Malet, November 4, 1881.

48.

Before Midlothian, however, Mr. Gladstone had in 1877 drawn an important distinction: “If I find the Turk incapable of establishing a good, just, and well-proportioned government over civilised and Christian races, it does not follow that he is under a similar incapacity when his task shall only be to hold empire over populations wholly or principally Orientals and Mahomedans. On this head I do not know that any verdict of guilty has yet been found by a competent tribunal.”—Gleanings, iv. p. 364.

49.

Fortnightly Review, July 1882.

50.

Defining the claims of the European bondholder on revenue.

51.

Fortnightly Review, July 1882.

52.

Lord Granville to Lord Dufferin. Oct. 5, 1882.

53.

A share of the credit of success is due to the admirable efficiency of Mr. Childers at the War Office. See Sir Garnet's letter to him, Life of Childers, ii. p. 117.

54.

Considerate la vostra semenza:
Fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
Ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza.
—Inferno, xxvi. 118.

55.

Times, Dec. 8, 1882.

56.

Standard, Nov. 16, 1882.

57.

Morning Post, Oct. 20, 1882.

58.

Traill's New Lucian, pp. 305-6,—in spite of politics, a book of admirable wit, scholarship, and ingenious play of mind.

59.

To Mr. Hazzopolo, Dec. 22, 1882.

60.

Life of Tait, i. p. 109.

61.

Bishop Browne writes to a friend (Life, p. 457): “Gladstone, I learned both from himself and others, searched into all precedents from the Commonwealth to the present day for a primate who began his work at seventy, and found none but Juxon. Curiously, I have been reading that he himself, prompted by Bishop Wilberforce, wanted Palmerston to appoint Sumner (of Winchester) when he was seventy-two. It was when they feared they could not get Longley (who was sixty-eight).”

62.

Life and Letters of Dean Church, p. 307.

63.

Life and Letters of Dean Church, p. 307.

64.

See vol. i. p. 47.

65.

Gleanings, ii. p. 287.

66.

Lord Derby had refused office in the previous May.

67.

The matter itself has no importance, but a point of principle or etiquette at one time connected with it is perhaps worth mentioning. To a colleague earlier in the year Mr. Gladstone wrote: “I can affirm with confidence that the notion of a title in the cabinet to be consulted on the succession to a cabinet office is absurd. It is a title which cabinet ministers do not possess. During thirty-eight years since I first entered the cabinet, I have never known more than a friendly announcement before publicity, and very partial consultation perhaps with one or two, especially the leaders in the second House.”

68.

See Appendix.

69.

The lines from Lucretius (in his speech on the Affirmation bill). See above, p. 19.

70.

In a party sense, as he told the cabinet, it might be wise enough to grant it, as it would please the public, displease the tories, and widen the breach between the fourth party and their front bench. Mr. Gladstone had suffered an unpleasant experience in another case, of the relations brought about by the refusal of a political pension after inquiry as to the accuracy of the necessary statement as to the applicant's need for it.

71.

By an odd coincidence, on the day after my selection of this letter, I read that the French prime minister, M. Combes, laid down the doctrine that the government is never committed by a minister's individual declarations, but only by those of the head of the government. He alone has the power of making known the direction given to policy, and each minister individually has authority only for the administration of his department (September 25, 1902). Of course this is wholly incompatible with Mr. Gladstone's ideas of parliamentary responsibility and the cabinet system.

72.

Many indications of this could be cited, if there were room. A parade of the victors of Tel-el-Kebir through the streets of London stirred little excitement. Two ministers went to make speeches at Liverpool, and had to report on returning to town that references to Egypt fell altogether flat.

73.

Milner's England in Egypt, p. 185.

74.

Saturday Review, April 12, 1884.

75.

Edinburgh, August 30, 1884.

76.

Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, August 30, 1884.

77.

Dinner of the Eighty Club, July 11, 1884.

78.

Lord Waterford, July 7, 1884.

79.

December 11, 1883.

80.

“I am not at all sure,” Mr. Forster rashly said (March 31, 1884), “that Mr. Parnell will increase his followers by means of this bill.”

81.

This was only the second occasion on which his party in cardinal divisions voted with the government.

82.

Wingate, pp. 50, 51.

83.

The Soudan was conquered in 1819 by Ismail Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali, and from that date Egypt had a more or less insecure hold over the country. In 1870 Sir Samuel Baker added the equatorial provinces to the Egyptian Soudan.

84.

Mr. Gladstone said on Nov. 2, 1882: “It is no part of the duty incumbent upon us to restore order in the Soudan. It is politically connected with Egypt in consequence of its very recent conquest; but it has not been included within the sphere of our operations, and we are by no means disposed to admit without qualification that it is within the sphere of our responsibility.” Lord Granville, May 7, 1883: “H.M. government are in no way responsible for the operations in the Soudan, which have been undertaken under the authority of the Egyptian government, or for the appointment or actions of General Hicks.”

85.

It was a general mistake at that time to suppose that wherever a garrison fell into the hands of the Mahdi, they were massacred. At Tokar, for instance, the soldiers were incorporated by the victors. See Wingate, p. 553.

86.

Granville to Baring, Dec. 1, 1883; Jan. 10, 1884.

87.

Gordon had suppressed the Taiping rising in China in 1863. In 1874 he was appointed by the Egyptian government governor-general of the equatorial provinces of central Africa. In 1876 he resigned owing to trouble with the governor-general of the Soudan upon the suppression of the slave trade, but was appointed (1877) governor-general of the Soudan, Darfur, the equatorial provinces, and the Red Sea littoral. He held this position till the end of 1879, suppressing the slave trade with a strong hand and improving the means of communication throughout the Soudan. He succeeded in establishing comparative order. Then the new Egyptian government reversed Gordon's policy, and the result of his six years' work soon fell to pieces.

88.

Gordon's Letters to Barnes, 1885. Lord Granville took his ticket, Lord Wolseley carried the General's bag, and the Duke of Cambridge held open the carriage door.

89.

Baring's Instructions to Gordon (Jan. 25, 1884).

90.

Gladstone to Granville, Jan. 19, 1884.—“I telegraphed last night my concurrence in your proceedings about Gordon: but Chester would not awake and the message only went on this morning.”

91.

Dilke in House of Commons, Feb. 14, 1884. See also Lord Granville to Sir E. Baring, March 28, 1884. In recapitulating the instructions given to General Gordon, Lord Granville says: “His (Gordon's) first proposal was to proceed to Suakin with the object of reporting from thence on the best method of effecting the evacuation of the Soudan.... His instructions, drawn up in accordance with his own views, were to report to her Majesty's government on the military situation in the Soudan,” etc.

92.

For the full text of these instructions, see Appendix.

93.

Baring to Granville, January 28, 1884.

94.

Dated, Steamship “Tanjore,” at Sea, Jan. 22, 1884.

95.

Granville to Baring, March 28.

96.

Feb. 23, 1885.

97.

May 13, 1884.

98.

Wingate's Mahdism, p. 109.

99.

Baring to Granville, Jan. 28.—“I had a good deal of conversation with General Gordon as to the manner in which Zobeir Pasha should be treated. Gen. Gordon entertains a high opinion of Zobeir Pasha's energy and ability. He possesses great influence in the Soudan, and General Gordon is of opinion that circumstances might arise which would render it desirable that he should be sent back to the Soudan.”

100.

(From his diary.) March 9.—... At night recognised the fact of a cold, and began to deal with it. 10th. Kept my bed all day. 11th. The cabinet sat, and Granville came to and fro with the communications, Clark having prohibited my attendance. Read Sybil. 12th. Bed as yesterday. 13th. Got to my sitting-room in the evening. It has, however, taken longer this time to clear the chest, and Clark reports the pulse still too high by ten. Saw Granville. Conclave, 7-½ to 8-½, on telegram to Baring for Gordon. I was not allowed to attend the cabinet.

101.

The case of the government was stated with all the force and reason of which it admitted, in Lord Granville's despatch of March 28, 1884.

102.

In the light of this proceeding, the following is curious: “There is one subject which I cannot imagine any one differing about. That is the impolicy of announcing our intention to evacuate Khartoum. Even if we were bound to do so we should have said nothing about it. The moment it is known we have given up the game, every man will go over to the Mahdi. All men worship the rising sun. The difficulties of evacuation will be enormously increased, if, indeed, the withdrawal of our garrison is not rendered impossible.”—Interview with General Gordon, Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 8, 1884.

... “In the afternoon of Feb. 13 Gordon assembled all the influential men of the province and showed them the secret firman. The reading of this document caused great excitement, but at the same time its purport was received evidently with much gratification. It is worthy of note that the whole of the notables present at this meeting subsequently threw in their cause with the Mahdi.”—Henry William Gordon's Events in the Life of Charles George Gordon, p. 340.

103.

Wingate, p. 110.

104.

Lord Hartington, House of Commons, May 13, 1884. An admirable speech, and the best defence of ministers up to this date.

105.

Address to the electors of Midlothian, September 17, 1885.

106.

See the official History of the Soudan Campaign, by Colonel Colvile, Part 1. pp. 45-9.

107.

February 27, 1885.

108.

Colvile, II., Appendix 47, p. 274. Apart from the authority of Kitchener, Gordon's own language shows that he knew himself to be in extremis by the end of December.

109.

The story that he went to the theatre the same night is untrue.

110.

Belford's Magazine (New York), Sept. 1890. A French translation of this letter will be found in L'Égypte et ses Provinces Perdues, by the recipient, Colonel C. Chaillé-Long Bey (1892), pp. 196-7. He was chief of the staff to Gordon in the Soudan, and consular-agent for the United States at Alexandria. Another book of his, published in 1884, is The Three Prophets; Chinese Gordon, El Mahdi, and Arabi Pasha. Burton reviewed Gordon's Khartoum Journals, Academy, June 11, 1885.

111.

Above, p. 166.

112.

For the censure, 288; against, 302.

113.

I often tried to persuade him that our retreat was to be explained apart from pusillanimity, but he would not listen.

114.

See Appendix.

115.

For instance when Mr. Gladstone fell from office in 1874, Lord Odo Russell wrote to him, “how sorry I feel at your retirement, and how grateful I am to you for the great advantage and encouragement I have enjoyed while serving under your great administration, in Rome and Berlin.”

116.

“We do not depart in any degree from the policy of leaving the Soudan. As to the civilisation which the noble and gallant earl [Lord Dundonald] would impose upon us the duty of restoring, it could only be carried out by a large and costly expedition, entailing enormous sacrifice of blood and treasure, and for the present a continuous expenditure, which I do not think the people of this country would sanction.... The defence of our retention of Suakin is that it is a very serious obstacle to the renewal and the conduct of that slave trade which is always trying to pass over from Africa into Asia. I do not think that the retention of Suakin is of any advantage to the Egyptian government. If I were to speak purely from the point of view of that government's own interest, I should say, ‘Abandon Suakin at once.’ ”—Lord Salisbury, in the House of Lords, March 16, 1888.

117.

Above, vol. ii. p. 49.

118.

Edinburgh, March 17, 1880.

119.

In the letter to Mr. Bright (July 14, 1882) already given, Mr. Gladstone went somewhat nearer to the Manchester school, and expressed his agreement with Bright in believing most wars to have been sad errors.

120.

West Calder, November 17, 1885.

121.

May 20, 1885.

122.

The story was told by Lord R. Churchill in a speech at Sheffield, Sept 4, 1885.

123.

Mr. McCarthy's speech at Hull, Dec. 15, 1887.

124.

Duke of Argyll, July 10, 1885.

125.

As the reader will remember (vol. i. pp. 436-440), on Dec. 16, 1852, Mr. Disraeli's motion for imposing a house duty of a shilling in the pound was rejected by 305 to 286. Mr. Gladstone also referred to the case of the expulsion of the whigs by Peel. On May 13, 1841, after eight nights' debate, the government were defeated by a majority of 36 on their budget proposals in regard to sugar. Ministers not resigning, Sir Robert Peel moved a vote of want of confidence on May 27, which was carried by a majority of 1 (312-311), June 4, 1841. Parliament thereupon was dissolved.

126.

Memo. by Mr. Gladstone, on a sheet of notepaper, June 20, 1885.

127.

Mr. Gladstone was reminded by a colleague that when Sir Robert Peel resumed office in 1845, at the request of the Queen, he did so before and without consultation with his colleagues. In the end they all, excepting Lord Stanley, supported him.

128.

June 25, 1885.

129.

The correspondence with the Queen up to June 21 was read by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons on June 24, and Lord Salisbury made his statement in the House of Lords on the next day. Mr. Gladstone told the House of Commons that he omitted one or two sentences from one of his letters, as having hardly any bearing on the real points of the correspondence. The omitted sentences related to the Afghan frontier, and the state of the negotiations with Russia.

130.

This proceeding was so unusual as to be almost without a precedent. Lord Mulgrave had addressed the House of Lords in 1837, and Lord Clarendon in 1850. But on each of these occasions the viceroy's administration had been the object of vigorous attack, and no one but the viceroy himself was capable of making an effective parliamentary defence.

131.

July 6, 1885. Hans. 298, p. 1659.

132.

Sir M. H. Beach, July 17, 1885. Hans. 299, p. 1085.

133.

Hans. 299, p. 1098.

134.

Ibid. p. 1119.

135.

In The Contemporary Review, October 1885, p. 491.

136.

See Spectator, Sept. 26, 1885.

137.

Mr. Chamberlain has been good enough to read these two letters, and he assents to their substantial accuracy, with a demurrer on two or three points, justly observing that anybody reporting a very long and varied conversation is almost certain, however scrupulous in intention, to insert in places what were thoughts much in his own mind, rather than words actually spoken. In inserting these two letters, it may tend to prevent controversy if we print such corrective hints as are desired.

138.

In connection with a local government bill for small holdings and allotments, subsequently passed.

139.

He suggested, for instance, the appointment of a committee.

140.

Mr. Chamberlain puts it that he proposed to exclude home rule as impossible, and to offer a local government bill which he thought that Parnell might accept. Mr. Gladstone's statement that he and his visitor were “pretty well agreed” on Ireland, cannot mean therefore that the visitor was in favour of home rule.

141.

This is not remembered.

142.

“Some misunderstanding here.”

143.

That is, in his seventy-sixth year.

144.

This episode was first mentioned in the House of Commons, June 7, 1886. Lord Carnarvon explained in the Lords, June 10. Mr. Parnell replied in a letter to the Times, June 12. He revived the subject in the House of Commons, Feb. 13, 1888, and Lord Carnarvon explained a second time in the Lords on May 3. On Lord Carnarvon's first explanation, the Duke of Argyll, while placing the utmost reliance on his personal honour and accuracy, “felt bound to observe that the statement did not appear to be complete, for he had omitted to explain what the nature of the communication [with Mr. Parnell] absolutely was.” Neither then nor two years later was the omission made good. Curiously enough on the first occasion Lord Carnarvon did not even mention that Lord Salisbury in any way shared his responsibility for the interview, and in fact his language pointed the other way. What remains is his asseveration, supported by Lord Salisbury, that he had made no formal bargain with Mr. Parnell, and gave him no sort of promise, assurance, or pledge. This is not only entirely credible, it is certain; for the only body that could carry out such a promise had not been consulted. “I may at least say this of what went on outside the cabinet—that I had no communication on the subject, no authorisation, and that I never communicated to them even that which I had done.”—Hansard, 306, p. 1258.

145.

E.g. Hans. 306, pp. 1181, 1199.

146.

Letter to the Times, June 12, 1886.

147.

Hans. 332, p. 336.

148.

August 24, 1885.

149.

Lord Hartington at Waterfoot, August 29.

150.

June 17, 1885.

151.

Warrington, September 8.

152.

Life of Childers, ii. p. 230.

153.

Sept. 18, 1885.

154.

Nov. 9, 1885.

155.

Midlothian Speeches, p. 49.

156.

Ibid. p. 39.

157.

Some of them are set out in Special Commission Report, pp. 99, 100.

158.

See Mr. Gladstone upon these tactics in his fifth Midlothian speech, Nov. 24, 1885. Also in the seventh, Nov. 28, pp. 159-60.

159.

Nineteenth Century, November 1885; reprinted in Later Gleanings.

160.

Speech in the Free Assembly Hall, Nov. 11, 1885.

161.

November 26, 1885.

162.

Result of General Election of 1885:—

English and Welsh boroughs and universities, 93 L., 86 C., 1 P.
Metropolis, 26, 36, 0
English and Welsh counties, 152, 101, 0
Scottish boroughs, 30, 3, 0
Scottish counties, 32, 7, 0
Ireland, 0, 18, 85
Totals, 333 L., 251 C., 86 P.

The following figures may also be found interesting:—

Election of 1868—

English and Welsh Liberals, 267
Tories, 225
Majority, 42

In 1880—

English and Welsh Liberals, 284
Tories, 205
Majority, 79

In 1885—

English and Welsh Liberals, 270
Tories, 223
Majority, 47

163.

Mr. Chamberlain at Leicester, December 3, 1885.

164.

Macknight's Ulster as it Is, ii. p. 108.

165.

Mr. Forster, March 11, 1881.

166.

Lord Salisbury, at a dinner given in London to the four conservative members for Hertfordshire, February 17, 1886.

167.

Special Aspects of the Irish Question, p. 18.

168.

These statements first appeared in the Leeds Mercury and the Standard on Dec. 17, and in a communication from the National Press Agency issued on the night of Dec. 16. They were not published in the Times and other London morning papers until Dec. 18. Mr. Gladstone's telegram was printed in the evening papers on Dec. 17.

169.

Speech on the Address, January 21, 1886.

170.

At the Birmingham Reform Club, Dec. 17, 1885.

171.

Correspondence between Lord Salisbury and Lord Carnarvon, Times, Jan. 16, 1886.

172.

Hans. 302, pp. 1929-1993, March 4, 1886. See also Lord Randolph Churchill at Paddington, Feb. 13, 1886.

173.

Maxwell's Life of W. H. Smith, ii. p. 163.

174.

If this seems hyperbole, let the reader remember an entry in Macaulay's diary: “I have now finished reading again most of Burke's works. Admirable! The greatest man since Milton.” Trevelyan's Life, ii. p. 377.

175.

In 1833 the King's Speech represented the state of Ireland in words that might be used at the present time, and expressed confidence that parliament would entrust the King with “such additional powers as may be necessary for punishing the disturbers of the public peace and for preserving and strengthening the legislative union between the two countries, which with your support and under the blessing of divine Providence I am determined to maintain by all the means in my power.” The Address in answer assured his Majesty that his confidence should not be disappointed, and that “we shall be ready to entrust to H.M. such additional measures, etc., for preserving and strengthening the legislative union which we have determined,” etc. This was the address that Mr. O'Connell denounced as a “bloody and brutal address,” and he moved as an amendment that the House do resolve itself into a committee of the whole House to consider of an humble address to his Majesty. Feb. 8. Amendment negatived, Ayes being 428, Noes 40.—Memo. by Sir T. E. May for Mr. Gladstone, Jan. 18, 1886. O'Connell, that is to say, did not move an amendment in favour of repeal, but proposed the consideration of the Address in committee of the whole House.

176.

Hans. 302, p. 128.

177.

Lord Carnarvon left Ireland on Jan. 28, and Lord Justices were then appointed. But the lawyers seem to hold that there cannot be Lord Justices without a viceroy, and Lord Carnarvon was therefore technically viceroy out of the kingdom (of Ireland), until Lord Aberdeen was sworn in upon Feb. 10, 1886. He must, accordingly, have signed the minute appointing Mr. Smith chief secretary, though of course Mr. Smith had gone over to reverse the Carnarvon policy.

178.

Hans. 302, p. 112.

179.

Mr. Gladstone was often taunted with having got in upon the question of allotments, and then throwing the agricultural labourer overboard. “The proposition,” he said, “is not only untrue but ridiculous. If true, it would prove that Lord Grey in 1830 came in upon the pension list, and Lord Derby in 1852 on the militia.... For myself, I may say personally that I made my public declaration on behalf of allotments in 1832, when Mr. Jesse Collings was just born.”—To Mr. C. A. Fyffe, May 6, 1890.

180.

Diary.

181.

“When the matter was finally adjusted by Chamberlain's retirement, we had against us—Derby, Northbrook, Carlingford, Selborne, Dodson, Chamberlain, Hartington, Trevelyan, Bright; and for—Granville, Spencer, Kimberley, Ripon, Rosebery, Harcourt, Childers, Lefevre, Dilke (unavailable).” Mr. Goschen was not in the cabinet of 1880.

182.

A few weeks later, Lord Hartington said on the point of Mr. Gladstone's consistency: “When I look back to the declarations that Mr. Gladstone made in parliament, which have not been infrequent; when I look back to the increased definiteness given to these declarations in his address to the electors of Midlothian and in his Midlothian speeches; when I consider all these things, I feel that I have not, and that no one has, any right to complain of the declaration that Mr. Gladstone has recently made.”—Speech at the Eighty Club, March 5, 1886.

183.

Hans. 304, p. 1106.

184.

January 30, 1886. Hans. 304, p. 1185.

185.

As for the story of my being concerned in Mr. Gladstone's conversion to home rule, it is, of course, pure moonshine. I only glance at it because in politics people are ready to believe anything. At the general election of 1880, I had declined to support home rule. In the press, however, I had strenuously opposed the Forster Coercion bill of the following winter, as involving a radical misapprehension of the nature and magnitude of the case. In the course of that controversy, arguments pressed themselves forward which led much further than mere resistance to the policy of coercion. Without having had the advantage of any communication whatever with Mr. Gladstone upon Irish subjects for some years before, I had still pointed out to my constituents at Newcastle in the previous November, that there was nothing in Mr. Gladstone's electoral manifesto to prevent him from proposing a colonial plan for Ireland, and I had expressed my own conviction that this was the right direction in which to look. A few days before the fall of the tory government, I had advocated the exclusion of Irish members from Westminster, and the production of measures dealing with the land.—Speech at Chelmsford, January 7, 1886.

186.

The cabinet was finally composed as follows:—

Mr. Gladstone, First lord of the treasury.
Lord Herschell, Lord chancellor.
Lord Spencer, President of council.
Sir W. Harcourt, Chancellor of exchequer.
Mr. Childers, Home secretary.
Lord Rosebery, Foreign secretary.
Lord Granville, Colonial secretary.
Lord Kimberley, Indian secretary.
Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, War secretary.
Lord Ripon, Admiralty.
Mr. Chamberlain, Local government.
Mr. Morley, Irish secretary.
Mr. Trevelyan, Scotch secretary.
Mr. Mundella, Board of trade.

The Lord chancellor, Mr. C.-Bannerman, Mr. Mundella, and myself now sat in cabinet for the first time. After the two resignations at the end of March, Mr. Stansfeld came in as head of the Local government board, and we sat with the ominous number of thirteen at table.

187.

See Mr. Chamberlain's speech, June 1, 1886. Hans. 306, p. 677. Also Lord Hartington at Bradford, May 18, 1886.

188.

June 1, 1833. Hans. 18, p. 186.

189.

June 13, 1833. Ibid. p. 700.

190.

May 14, 1833. Hans. 17, p. 1230.

191.

There is also the case of the Reform bill of 1867. Disraeli laid thirteen resolutions on the table. Lowe and Bright both agreed in urging that the resolutions should be dropped and the bill at once printed. A meeting of liberal members at Mr. Gladstone's house unanimously resolved to support an amendment setting aside the resolutions. Disraeli at once abandoned them.

192.

Lord Hartington's argument on the second reading shows how a resolution would have fared. Hans. 305, p. 610.

193.

Hans. 304, p. 1116.

194.

Hans. 304, p. 1190.

195.

Faint hopes were nourished that Mr. Bright might be induced to join, but there was unfortunately no ground for them. Mr. Whitbread was invited, but preferred to lend staunch and important support outside. Lord Dalhousie, one of the truest hearts that ever was attracted to public life, too early lost to his country, took the Scottish secretaryship, not in the cabinet.

196.

See Appendix.

197.

First reading, April 13. Motion made for second reading and amendment, May 10. Land bill introduced and first reading, April 16.

198.

April 9, May 10.

199.

Hans. 304, pp. 1204-6.

Hans. 306, p. 697.

Hans. 304, p. 1202.

May 15, 1886.

See for instance, Irish Times, May 8, and Belfast Newsletter, May 17, 18, 21, 1886.

204.

Hans. 304, p. 1134. Also 305, p. 1252.

205.

When the bill was practically settled, he asked if he might have a draft of the main provisions, for communication to half a dozen of his confidential colleagues. After some demur, the Irish secretary consented, warning him of the damaging consequences of any premature divulgation. The draft was duly returned, and not a word leaked out. Some time afterwards Mr. Parnell recalled the incident to me. “Three of the men to whom I showed the draft were newspaper men, and they were poor men, and any newspaper would have given them a thousand pounds for it. No very wonderful virtue, you may say. But how many of your House of Commons would believe it?”

206.

For this point, see the Times report of the famous proceedings in Committee-room Fifteen, collected in the volume entitled The Parnellite Split (1891).

207.

Letter to Mr. T. H. Bolton, M.P. Times, May 8, 1886.

208.

Hans. 306, p. 698.

209.

Hans. 306, p. 1218.

210.

In the end exactly 93 liberals did vote against the bill.

211.

Hans. 306, p. 322.

212.

He was returned without opposition.

213.

On the Irish Question.—“The History of an Idea and the Lesson of the Elections,” a fifty-page pamphlet prepared before leaving England.

214.

Speaker, Jan. 1, 1890.

215.

Conversations of Döllinger. By L. von Köbell, pp. 100, 102.

216.

Nineteenth Century, January 1887. See also speech at Hawarden, on the Queen's Reign, August 30, 1887. The reader will remember Mr. Gladstone's contrast between poet and active statesman at Kirkwall in 1883.

217.

Robert Elsmere: the Battle of Belief (1888). Republished from the Nineteenth Century in Later Gleanings, 1898.

218.

May 2, 1888.

219.

See vol. i. p. 423.

220.

Sir W. Harcourt, Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Herschell, Sir George Trevelyan, and myself.

221.

See speeches at Hawick, Jan. 22, and at Birmingham, Jan. 29, 1887.

222.

Baptist article, in Times, Feb. 25, 1887.

223.

If anybody should ever wish further to disinter the history of this fruitless episode, he will find all the details in a speech by Sir William Harcourt at Derby, Feb, 27, 1889. See also Sir G. O. Trevelyan, Times, July 26, 1887, Mr. Chamberlain's letter to Mr. Evelyn Ashley, Times, July 29, 1887, and a speech of my own at Wolverhampton, April 19, 1887.

224.

Hans. 309, Sept. 21, 1886.

225.

See United Ireland, Oct. 23, 1886.

226.

Lord Randolph had encouraged a plan of campaign in Ulster against home rule.

227.

Speech at the Memorial Hall, July 29, 1887.

228.

Report, p. 8, sect. 15.

229.

Freeman, Jan. 1887.

230.

Questions 16, 473-5.

231.

Hans. August 19, 1886.

232.

Ibid. 313, March 22, 1887.

233.

Ibid. 312, April 22, 1887.

234.

Speech on Criminal Law Amendment (Ireland) bill, March 29, 1887.

235.

This vital feature of the bill was discussed in the report stage, on a motion limiting the operation of the Act to three years. June 27, 1887. Hans. 316, p. 1013. The clause was rejected by 180 to 119, or a majority of 61.

236.

See Palles, C. B., in Walsh's case. Judgments of Superior Courts in cases under the Criminal Law and Procedure Amendment Act, 1887, p. 110.

237.

On September 9, 1887.

238.

Sept. 12, 1887. Hans. 321, p. 327.

239.

Dec. 3, 1888. Hans. 331, p. 916.

240.

May 8, 1888.

241.

Tablet, Jan. 5, 1889.

242.

Iliad, x. 317. See Homer and Homeric Age, iii. 467 n.

243.

House of Lords, August 10, 1888.

244.

Here is the text of this once famous piece:—

'15/5/82.

“Dear Sir,—I am not surprised at your friend's anger, but he and you should know that to denounce the murders was the only course open to us. To do that promptly was plainly our best policy. But you can tell him and all others concerned, that though I regret the accident of Lord F. Cavendish's death, I cannot refuse to admit that Burke got no more than his deserts. You are at liberty to show him this, and others whom you can trust also, but let not my address be known. He can write to the House of Commons.—Yours very truly,

“Chas. S. Parnell.”

245.

The three judges held this to be a correct interpretation of the language used in the article of March 10th, 1887. Report, pp. 57-8.

246.

April 20, 1887.

247.

Hans. July 12, 1888, p. 1102.

248.

Hans. July 16, p. 1410.

249.

Hans. July 16, 1888, p. 1495.

250.

Hans. 329, July 23, 1888, p. 263.

251.

Hans. Aug. 2, 1888, p. 1282.

252.

Report, p. 5.

253.

Hans. 342, p. 1357.

254.

Evidence, iv. p. 219.

255.

The common-sense view of the employment of such a man seems to be set out in the speech of Sir Henry James (Cassell and Co.), pp. 149-51, and 494-5.

256.

Feb. 24, 1889. Evidence, vi. p. 20.

257.

See above, vol. iii. p. 56.

258.

“The Triple Alliance and Italy's Place in It.” By Outidanos. Contemporary Review, October 1889. See Appendix.

259.

See above, vol. i. pp. 99, 568.

260.

Third Part, vol. i. p. 62.

261.

Vol. i. p. 206.

262.

These articles appeared in Good Words (March-November 1900), and were subsequently published in volume form under the title of The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture.

263.

Speaker, Aug. 30, 1890.

264.

Inf. v. 98: “Where Po descends for rest with his tributary streams.”

265.

Od. xx. 82.

266.

Mr. Hanbury, August 1, 1889. Hans. 339, p. 98.

267.

At Birmingham, July 30, 1889.

268.

E.g. Northern Whig, February 21, 1889.

269.

Mr. Balfour at Manchester. Times, October 21, 1889.

270.

October 22, 1890.

271.

See Mr. Roby's speech at the Manchester Reform Club, Oct. 24, and articles in Manchester Guardian, Oct. 16 and 25, 1890. The Times (Oct. 23), while denying the inference that the Irish question was the question most prominent in the minds of large numbers of the electors, admitted that this was the vital question really before the constituency, and says generally, “The election, like so many other bye-elections, has been decided by the return to their party allegiance of numbers of Gladstonians who in 1886 absented themselves from the polling booths.”

272.

“That the effect of this trial will be to relegate Mr. Parnell for a time, at any rate, to private life, must we think be assumed.... Special exemptions from penalties which should apply to all public men alike cannot possibly be made in favour of exceptionally valuable politicians to suit the convenience of their parties. He must cease, for the present at any rate, to lead the nationalist party; and conscious as we are of the loss our opponents will sustain by his resignation, we trust that they will believe us when we say that we are in no mood to exult in it.... It is no satisfaction to us to feel that a political adversary whose abilities and prowess it was impossible not to respect, has been overthrown by irrelevant accident, wholly unconnected with the struggle in which we are engaged.”—Daily Telegraph, Nov. 17, 1890.

273.

Speech at Retford, Dec. 11, 1890. Antony and Cleopatra, Act I. Sc. 2.

274.

Lord Granville, Sir W. Harcourt, Mr. Arnold Morley, and myself.

275.

If anybody cares to follow all this up, he may read a speech of Mr. Parnell's at Kells, Aug. 16, 1891, and a full reply of mine sent to the press, Aug. 17.

276.

On the day after leaving Hawarden Mr. Parnell spoke at Liverpool, calling on Lancashire to rally to their “grand old leader.” “My countrymen rejoice,” he said, “for we are on the safe path to our legitimate freedom and our future prosperity.” December 19, 1889.

277.

See The Parnell Split, reprinted from the Times in 1891. Especially also The Story of Room 15, by Donal Sullivan, M.P., the accuracy of which seems not to have been challenged.

278.

The case for the change of mind which induced the majority who had elected Mr. Parnell to the chair less than a fortnight before, now to depose him, was clearly put by Mr. Sexton at a later date. To the considerations adduced by him nobody has ever made a serious political answer. The reader will find Mr. Sexton's argument in the reports of these proceedings already referred to.

279.

Od. xi. 200. “It was not sickness that came upon me; it was wearying for thee and thy lost counsels, glorious Odysseus, and for all thy gentle kindness, this it was that broke the heart within me.”

Hor. Carm. i. 24.

December 23, 1890.

April 3, 1891.

July 8, 1891.

October 6. He was in his forty-sixth year (b. June 1846), and had been sixteen years in parliament.

285.

Vol. i. p. 387.

286.

See above, vol. ii. p. 76.

287.

Once Mr. Gladstone presented him with a piece of plate, and set upon it one of those little Latin inscriptions to which he was so much addicted, and which must serve here instead of further commemoration of a remarkable friendship: Georgio Armitstead, Armigero, D.D. Gul. E. Gladstone. Amicitiæ Benevolentiæ Beneficiorum delatorum Valde memor Mense Augusti A.D., 1894.

288.

Era già l'ora, che volge 'l disio
A' naviganti, e 'ntenerisce 'l cuore
Lo di ch' han detto a' dolci amici addio, etc.

Purg. viii.

Byron's rendering is well enough known.

289.

On some other occasion he set this against Macaulay's praise of a passage in Barrow mentioned above, ii. p. 536.

290.

Iliad, ix. 32.

291.

ναυτίλε, μὴ πεύθου τίνος ἐνθάδε τύμβος ὅδ᾽ εἰμί,
ἀλλ αὐτὸς πόντου τύγχανε χρηστοτέρου.

“Ask not, mariner, whose tomb I am here, but be thine own fortune a kinder sea.”—Mackail.

292.

I have not succeeded in hitting on the passage in the History.

293.

Boswell, March 21, 1776. Repeated, with a very remarkable qualification, Sept. 19, 1777. Birkbeck Hill's edition, iii. p. 162.

294.

Carm. iii. 5.

295.

Translations by Lyttelton and Gladstone, p. 166.

296.

Thou shalt possess thy soul without care among the living, and lighter when thou goest to the place where most are.

297.

See Appendix, Hor. Carm. i. 12, 25.

298.

Lord Palmerston's government of 1859 was shorter by only a few days.

299.

Here is the Fourth Cabinet:—

First lord of the treasury and privy seal, W. E. Gladstone.
Lord chancellor, Lord Herschell.
President of the council and Indian secretary, Earl of Kimberley.
Chancellor of the exchequer, Sir W. V. Harcourt.
Home secretary, H. H. Asquith.
Foreign secretary, Earl of Rosebery.
Colonial secretary, Marquis of Ripon.
Secretary for war, H. Campbell-Bannerman.
First lord of the admiralty, Earl Spencer.
Chief secretary for Ireland, John Morley.
Secretary for Scotland, Sir G. O. Trevelyan.
President of the board of trade, A. J. Mundella.
President of the local government board, H. H. Fowler.
Chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, James Bryce.
Postmaster-general, Arnold Morley.
First commissioner of works, J. G. Shaw Lefevre.
Vice-president of the council, A. H. D. Acland.

300.

See Mr. Gladstone's speeches and answers to questions in the House of Commons, Jan. 1, Feb. 3, and May 1, 1893. See also the French Yellow Book for 1893, for M. Waddington's despatches of Nov. 1, 1892, May 5, 1893, and Feb. 1, 1893.

301.

I hope I am not betraying a cabinet secret if I mention that this committee was composed of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Spencer, Lord Herschell, Mr. Campbell-Bannermann, Mr. Bryce, and myself.

302.

See above, p. 386.

303.

One poor biographic item perhaps the tolerant reader will not grudge me leave to copy from Mr. Gladstone's diary:—“October 6, 1892. Saw J. Morley and made him envoy to ——. He is on the whole ... about the best stay I have.”

304.