... Cette prétendue sagacité qui se croit profonde, quand elle suppose partout des intrigues savantes, et met de petits drames arrangés a la place de la vérité. II n'y a pas tant de préméditation dans les affaires humaines, et leur cours est plus naturel, que ne le croit le vulgaire.—Guizot.
The spurious sagacity that thinks itself deep, because it everywhere takes for granted all sorts of knowing intrigues, and puts little artful dramas in the place of truth. There is less premeditation in human affairs, and their course is more natural than people commonly believe.
In the summer of 1873 before leaving London for Hawarden, Mr. Gladstone sent for the chairman of the board of inland revenue and for the head of the finance department of the treasury; he directed them to get certain information into order for him. His requests at once struck these experienced officers with a surmise that he was nursing some design of dealing with the income-tax. Here are two entries from his diary:—
So much for the charitable tale that he only bethought him of the income-tax, when desperately hunting for a card to play at a general election.
The prospect was dubious and dark. To Mr. Bright he wrote from Hawarden (Aug. 14):—
In the early part of the year his mind was drawing towards a decision of moment. On January 8, 1874, he wrote a letter to Lord Granville, and the copy of it is docketed, “First idea of Dissolution.” It contains a full examination of the actual case in which they found themselves; it is instructive on more than one constitutional point, and it gives an entirely intelligible explanation of a step that was often imputed to injurious and low-minded motives:—
Hawarden, Jan. 8, 1874.—The signs of weakness multiply, and for some time have multiplied, upon the government, in the loss of control over the legislative action of the House of Lords, the diminution of the majority in the House of Commons without its natural compensation in increase of unity and discipline, and the [pg 480] almost unbroken series of defeats at single elections in the country.301 In truth the government is approaching, though I will not say it has yet reached, the condition in which it will have ceased to possess that amount of power which is necessary for the dignity of the crown and the welfare of the country; and in which it might be a godsend if some perfectly honourable difference of opinion among ourselves on a question requiring immediate action were to arise, and to take such a course as to release us collectively from the responsibilities of office.
The general situation being thus unfavourable, the ordinary remedies are not available. A ministry with a majority, and with that majority not in rebellion, could not resign on account of adverse manifestations even of very numerous single constituencies, without making a precedent, and constitutionally a bad precedent; and only a very definite and substantive difficulty could warrant resignation without dissolution, after the proceedings of the opposition in March last, when they, or at any rate their leaders and their whips, brought the Queen into a ministerial crisis, and deserted her when there. If then we turn to consider dissolution, what would be its results? In my opinion the very best that could happen would be that we should come back with a small majority composed of Irish home rulers and a decided minority without them; while to me it seems very doubtful whether even with home rulers counted in, we should command a full half of the House of Commons. In a word, dissolution means either immediate death, or at the best death a little postponed, and the party either way shattered for the time. For one I am anxious to continue where we are, because I am very loath to leave the party in its present menacing condition, without having first made every effort in our power to avert this public mischief.
If I have made myself intelligible up to this point, the question that arises is, can we make out such a course of policy for the session, either in the general conduct of business, or in some departments and by certain measures, as will with reasonable likelihood reanimate some portion of that sentiment in our favour, [pg 481] which carried us in a manner so remarkable through the election of 1868? I discuss the matter now in its aspect towards party: it is not necessary to make an argument to show that our option can only be among things all of which are sound in principle. First, then, I do not believe that we can find this recovery of vital force in our general administration of public business. As men, notwithstanding the advantage drawn from Bright's return, the nation appears to think that it has had enough of us, that our lease is out. It is a question of measures then: can we by any measures materially mend the position of the party for an impending election?...
Looking to legislation, there are but three subjects which appear to me to be even capable of discussion in the view I have presented. They are local taxation, the county suffrage, and finance. I am convinced it is not in our power to draw any great advantage, as a party, from the subject of local taxation.... Equally strong is my opinion with respect to the party bearings of the question of the county franchise. We have indeed already determined not to propose it as a government. Had we done so, a case would have opened at once, comfortably furnished not with men opposing us on principle, like a part of those who opposed in 1866, but with the men of pretext and the men of disappointment, with intriguers and with egotists. And I believe that in the present state of opinion they would gain their end by something like the old game of playing redistribution against the franchise....
Can we then look to finance as supplying what we want? This is the only remaining question. It does not admit, as yet, of a positive answer, but it admits conditionally of a negative answer. It is easy to show what will prevent our realising our design through the finance of the year. We cannot do it, unless the circumstances shall be such as to put it in our power, by the possession of a very wide margin, to propose something large and strong and telling upon both the popular mind and the leading elements of the constituency.... We cannot do it, without running certain risks of the kind that were run in the budget of 1853: I mean without some impositions, as well as remissions, of taxes. We cannot do it, without a continuance of [pg 482] the favourable prospects of harvest and of business. Lastly, we cannot do it unless we can frame our estimates in a manner to show our desire to adhere to the principles of economy which we proposed and applied with such considerable effect in 1868-70. But, subject to the fulfilment of these conditions, my opinion is that we can do it: can frame a budget large enough and palpably beneficial enough, not only to do much good to the country, but sensibly to lift the party in the public view and estimation. And this, although a serious sum will have to be set apart, even in the present year, for the claims of local taxation....
If we can get from three-quarters of a million upwards towards a million off the naval and military estimates jointly, then as far as I can judge we shall have left the country no reason to complain, and may proceed cheerily with our work; though we should not escape the fire of the opposition for having failed to maintain the level of Feb. 1870; which indeed we never announced as our ultimatum of reduction. I have had no communication with those of our colleagues who would most keenly desire reductions; I might say, with any one.... I will only add that I think a broad difference of opinion among us on such a question as this would be a difference of the kind which I described near the opening of this letter, as what might be in certain circumstances, however unwelcome in itself, an escape from a difficulty otherwise incapable of solution.
Let me now wind up this long story by saying that my desire in framing it has been simply to grasp the facts, and to set aside illusions which appear to me to prevail among sections of the liberal party, nowhere so much as in that section which believes itself to be the most enlightened. If we can only get a correct appreciation of the position, I do not think we shall fail in readiness to suit our action to it; but I am bound to confess myself not very sanguine, if the best come to the best, as to immediate results, though full of confidence, if we act aright, as to the future and early reward.
In notes written in the last year of his life, Mr. Gladstone adds a detail of importance to the considerations set out in the letter to Lord Granville. The reader will have observed [pg 483] that among the conditions required for his operation on the income-tax he names economic estimates. In this quarter, he tells us, grave difficulties arose:—
No trustworthy account of the dissolution of parliament which took place early in 1874 has ever been published. When I proposed the dissolution to the cabinet, they acceded to it without opposition, or, I think, even discussion. The actual occasion of the measure was known, I think, only to Lord Granville and Lord Cardwell with myself, it having a sufficient warrant from other sources.
In 1871, the year of the abolition of purchase and other important army reforms, I had, in full understanding with Cardwell, made a lengthened speech, in which I referred to the immediate augmentations of military expenditure which the reforms demanded, but held out to the House of Commons the prospect of compensating abatements at early dates through the operation of the new system of relying considerably upon reserves for imperial defence.
When Cardwell laid before me at the proper time, in view of the approaching session, his proposed estimates for 1874-5, I was strongly of opinion that the time had arrived for our furnishing by a very moderate reduction of expenditure on the army, some earnest of the reality of the promise made in 1871 which had been so efficacious in procuring the enlargement that we had then required. Cardwell, though not an extravagant minister, objected to my demand of (I think) £200,000. I conferred with Granville, who, without any direct knowledge of the subject, took my side, and thought Cardwell would give way. But he continued to resist; and, viewing the age of the parliament, I was thus driven to the idea of dissolution, for I regarded the matter as virtually involving the whole question of the value of our promises, an anticipation which has proved to be correct. Cardwell entered readily into the plan of dissolving, and moreover thought that if my views carried the day with the constituencies, this would enable him to comply.
The papers in my hands confirm Mr. Gladstone's recollection on this part of the transaction, except that Mr. Goschen, then at the head of the admiralty, was to some [pg 484] extent in the same position as Mr. Cardwell. The prime minister was in active controversy with both the great spending departments, and with little chance of prevailing. It was this controversy that opened the door for immediate dissolution, though the general grounds for dissolution at some near time were only too abundant. Here is his note of the position,—in a minute addressed to Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Goschen:—
Cardwell, in the few words of his minute in reply makes no objection. Mr. Goschen says: “I quite take the same view as you do. Indeed, I had proposed myself to ask you whether what had passed between us had not better remain entirely confidential for the present, as it is best not to state differences where the statement of them is not indispensable.”
The diary for these important days is interesting:—
In the letter of Jan. 21 to the Queen, Mr. Gladstone recapitulates the general elements of difficulty, and apprises her Majesty that it will be his duty at the meeting of the cabinet fixed for the 23rd, to recommend his colleagues humbly and dutifully to advise an immediate dissolution, as the best means of putting an end to the disadvantage and the weakness of a false position. He trusts that the Queen may be pleased to assent. The Queen (Jan. 22) acknowledged the receipt of his letter “with some surprise,” as she had understood him to say when last at Windsor that he did not think of recommending a dissolution until the end of the session or later. But she expressed her “full appreciation of the difficulties of Mr. Gladstone's position,” and assented, thinking that “in the present circumstances it would be desirable to obtain an expression of the national opinion.”
The next day (23rd) the cabinet met, and Mr. Gladstone in the evening reported the proceedings to the Queen:—
To the Queen.
Jan. 23, 1874.—... Mr. Gladstone laid before the cabinet a pretty full outline of the case as to the weakness of the government since the crisis of last March, and the increase of that weakness, especially of late, from the unfavourable character of [pg 486] local indications; as to the false position in which both the crown and the House of Commons are placed when there can be no other government than the one actually existing; finally, as to the present calls of business and prospects of the country, especially as to its finance, which are such as in Mr. Gladstone's judgment, to warrant the presentation of a very favourable picture of what may be effected with energy and prudence during the present year. In this picture is included, as Mr. Gladstone on Wednesday intimated might be the case, the total repeal of the income-tax. The cabinet unanimously concurred, upon a review of its grounds, in the wisdom of the proposed measure. It is as yet profoundly secret, but to-morrow morning it will be placed before the world with a lengthened and elaborate exposition, in the shape of an address from Mr. Gladstone to his constituents at Greenwich. There can be no doubt that a large portion of the public will at first experience that emotion of surprise which your Majesty so very naturally felt on receiving Mr. Gladstone's letter. But, judging from such indications as have reached them, the cabinet are disposed to anticipate that this course will be approved by all those who are in any degree inclined to view their general policy with sympathy or favour. Large portions, and the most important portions, of Mr. Gladstone's address were read to and considered by the cabinet, and it was in some respects amended at the suggestion of his esteemed colleagues. It is, however, so framed as not to commit them equally with himself, except only as to the remissions of taxes and aid to local rates contemplated in the finance of the year. This method of stating generally the case of the government in substance corresponds to the proceedings of Sir R. Peel in 1834-5, when he addressed the electors of Tamworth. Before concluding, Mr. Gladstone will humbly offer to your Majesty a brief explanation. When he last adverted to the duration of the present parliament, his object was to remind your Majesty of the extreme point to which that duration might extend. When he had the honour of seeing your Majesty at Windsor,302 the course of the local elections had been more favourable, and Mr. Gladstone had not abandoned the hope of retaining sufficient strength for the due conduct of affairs [pg 487] in the present House. On this question, the events of the last few weeks and the prospects of the present moment have somewhat tended to turn the scale in his mind and that of his colleagues.303 But finally it was not within his power, until the fourth quarter of the financial year had well begun, to forecast the financial policy and measures which form a necessary and indeed the most vital part of the matter to be stated to the public. Immediately after he had been able sufficiently to ripen his own thoughts on the matter, he did not scruple to lay them before your Majesty; and your Majesty had yourself in one sense contributed to the present conclusion by forcibly pointing out to Mr. Gladstone on one or more occasions that in the event of difficulty, under the present peculiar circumstances, no alternative remained except a dissolution. The mild weather is very favourable to Mr. Gladstone, and if as he has prayed there shall be a council on Monday, he hopes to have the honour of coming down to Osborne.
To his eldest son he wrote on the following day:—
The prime minister's manifesto to his constituents at Greenwich was elaborate and sustained. In substance it [pg 488] did no more than amplify the various considerations that he had set forth in his letter to Lord Granville. The pith of it was a promise to diminish local taxation, and to repeal the income-tax. At the same time marked relief was to be given to the general consumer in respect of articles of popular consumption. One effective passage dealt with the charge that the liberal party had endangered the institutions of the country. “It is time,” said Mr. Gladstone, “to test this trite and vague allegation. There has elapsed a period of forty, or more exactly forty-three years, since the liberal party acquired the main direction of public affairs. This followed another period of about forty years beginning with the outbreak of the revolutionary war, during which there had been an almost unbroken rule of their opponents, who claimed and were reputed to be the great preservers of the institutions of the country.” He then invited men to judge by general results, and declared that the forty years of tory rule closing in 1830 left institutions weaker than it had found them, whereas the liberal term of forty years left throne, laws, and institutions not weaker but much stronger. The address was a fine bold composition, but perhaps it would have been more effective with a public that was impatient and out of humour, if it had been shorter.
The performance was styled by his rival “a prolix narrative,” but it is said that in spite of this Mr. Disraeli read it with much alarm. He thought its freshness and boldness would revive Mr. Gladstone's authority, and carry the elections. His own counter-manifesto was highly artificial. He launched sarcasms about the Greenwich seat, about too much energy in domestic legislation, and too little in foreign policy; about an act of folly or of ignorance rarely equalled in dealing with the straits of Malacca (though for that matter not one elector in a hundred thousand had ever heard of this nefarious act). While absolving the prime minister himself, “certainly at present,” from hostility to our national institutions and the integrity of the empire, he drew a picture of unfortunate adherents—some assailed the monarchy, others impugned the independence of the House of [pg 489] Lords, while others would relieve parliament altogether from any share in the government of one portion of the United Kingdom; others, again, urged Mr. Gladstone to pursue his peculiar policy by disestablishing the anglican as he has despoiled the Irish church; even trusted colleagues in his cabinet openly concurred with them in their desire altogether to thrust religion from the place which it ought to occupy in national education. What is remarkable in Disraeli's address is that to the central proposal of his adversary he offered no objection. As for remission of taxation, he said, that would be the course of any party or any ministry. As for the promise of reduced local burdens and the abolition of the income-tax, why, these “were measures which the conservative party have always favoured and which the prime minister and his friends have always opposed.”
By critics of the peevish school who cry for better bread than can be made of political wheat, Mr. Gladstone's proffer to do away with the income-tax has been contumeliously treated as dangling a shameful bait. Such talk is surely pharisaic stuff. As if in 1852 Disraeli in his own address had not declared that the government would have for its first object to relieve the agricultural interest from certain taxes. Was that a bribe? As if Peel in 1834-5 had not set forth in the utmost detail all the measures that he intended to submit to parliament if the constituencies would give him a majority. Was this to drive an unprincipled bargain? As if every minister does not always go to the country on promises, and as if the material of any promise could be more legitimate than a readjustment of taxation. The proceeding was styled a sordid huckstering of a financial secret for a majority. Why was it more sordid to seek a majority for abolition of the income-tax, than it was sordid in Peel in 1841 to seek a majority for corn laws, or in whigs and Manchester men to seek to win upon free trade? Why is it an ignoble bargain to promise to remove the tax from income, and pure statesmanship to remove the tax from bread? “Give us a majority,” said Mr. Gladstone, “and we will do away with income-tax, lighten local burdens, and help to free the breakfast table.” If people believed him, what better reason could they have [pg 490] than such a prospect as this for retaining him in the place of their chief ruler?
Parliament was dissolved on January 26, and the contending forces instantly engaged. Mr. Gladstone did not spare himself:—
The Greenwich seat, the cause of such long perturbation, was saved after all, but as Mr. Gladstone wrote to a defeated colleague, “In some points of view it is better to be defeated outright, than to be pitched in like me at Greenwich.” The numbers were Boord (C.) 6193, Gladstone (L.) 5968, Liardet (C.) 5561, Langley (L.) 5255.
The conservative reaction was general. Scotland and Wales still returned a liberal majority, but even in these strongholds a breach was made—a net loss of 3 in Wales, of 9 in Scotland. From the English counties 145 tories were returned, and no more than 27 liberals, a loss of 13. In the greater boroughs, hitherto regarded as staunchly [pg 491] ministerial, some of the most populous returned tories. The metropolitan elections went against the government, and 7 seats were lost—three in the city, one in Westminster, in both cases by immense majorities. The net liberal loss in the English boroughs was 32. In England and Wales the tory majority was 105; in Great Britain it stood at 83. When all was over, the new House contained a conservative majority of 48, or on another estimate, of 50, but really, in Mr. Gladstone's words, “of much greater strength.”
Numbers, as Mr. Gladstone said afterwards, did not exhibit the whole measure of the calamity. An extraordinary portent arose in that quarter from which so many portents spring. “The liberal majority reckoned to have been returned from Ireland was at once found to be illusory. Out of the 105 members the liberals were little more than a dozen. The period immediately following the Church Act and Land Act had been chosen as one appropriate for a formal severance of the Irish national party from the general body of British liberals. Their number was no less than fifty-eight, an actual majority of the Irish representation. They assumed the name of home rulers, and established a separate parliamentary organisation. On some questions of liberal opinion co-operation was still continued. But, as regards the party, the weight of the home rulers clearly told more in favour of the conservative ministry than of the opposition; and the liberal party would have been stronger not weaker had the entire body been systematically absent.”306 Before the election was over, Mr. Chichester Fortescue had warned him that he expected defeat in the county of Louth, for which he had sat ever since 1847; the defeat came. Mr. Gladstone wrote to him (Feb. 11):—
Mr. Parnell, by the way, was not elected for Meath until April 1875.
As the adverse verdict became more and more emphatic, Mr. Gladstone stated to the Queen (Feb. 13) what was the bias of his mind, on the question whether the expiring government should await its sentence from parliament. He had no doubt, he said, that this course was the one most agreeable to usage, and to the rules of parliamentary government; any departure from it could only be justified upon exceptional grounds. He was not, however, clear that this case, like that of 1868, was to be treated as exceptional, partly by reason of prevalent opinion, partly because it should be considered what is fair to an incoming administration with reference to the business, especially the financial business, of the year. Lord Granville from the first seems to have been against waiting for formal decapitation by the new House of Commons. To him Mr. Gladstone wrote (Feb. 7):—
“It is parliament,” he argued, “not the constituencies, that ought to dismiss the government, and the proper function of the House of Commons cannot be taken from it without [pg 493] diminishing somewhat in dignity and authority.” There would be reproach either way, he said; either it would be clinging to office, or it would be running away. To run away was in every circumstance of politics the thing to Mr. Gladstone most unbearable. According to Sir Robert Phillimore (Feb. 8) “Gladstone would have met parliament but his colleagues objected, though it seems they would have stood by him if he had pressed them to do so; but as he did not mean, or was not going, to fight in the van of opposition, he thought it unfair to press them.”
The Queen repeated a former proposal of a peerage. In returning some submissions for her approval, she wished “likewise to record her offer to Mr. Gladstone of a mark of her recognition of his services which, however, he [pg 494] declines from motives which she fully appreciates.” Mr. Gladstone writes to his brother Sir Thomas (Feb. 13):—
Letters from two of his colleagues explain the catastrophe. The shrewd Lord Halifax says to him (Feb 12):—
Mr. Bright wrote to him that as things had turned out, it would perhaps have been wiser first to secure the budget; with that and better organisation, the result might have been better three or six months later. In Lancashire, said Bright, publicans and Irishmen had joined together, one for delirium tremens and the other for religious education. The 25th clause and Mr. Forster's obstinacy, he added, had done much to wreck the ship. Mr. Gladstone's own diagnosis was not very different. To his brother Robertson he wrote (Feb. 6):—
For many years in the House of Commons I have had more fighting than any other man. For the last five years I have had it almost all, and of it a considerable part has been against those “independent” liberals whose characters and talents seem to be much more appreciated by the press and general public, than the characters and talents of quieter members of the party. I do not speak of such men as ——, who leave office or otherwise find occasion to vindicate their independence, and vote against us on the questions immediately concerned. These men make very little noise and get very little applause. But there is another and more popular class of independent liberals who have been represented by the Daily News, and who have been one main cause of the weakness of the government, though they (generally) and their organ have rallied to us too late during the election. We have never recovered from the blow which they helped to strike on the Irish Education bill.
But more immediately operative causes have determined the elections. I have no doubt what is the principal. We have been borne down in a torrent of gin and beer. Next to this has been the action of the Education Act of 1870, and the subsequent controversies. Many of the Roman catholics have voted against us because we are not denominational; and many of the dissenters have at least abstained from voting because we are. Doubtless there have been other minor agencies; but these are the chief ones. The effect must be our early removal from office. For me that will be a very great change, for I do not intend to assume the general functions of leader of the opposition, and my great ambition or design will be to spend the remainder of my [pg 496] days, if it please God, in tranquillity, and at any rate in freedom from political strife.
When a short idle attempt was made in the new parliament to raise a debate upon the date and circumstances of the dissolution, Disraeli used language rightly called by Mr. Gladstone “generous.” “The right honourable gentleman's friends,” he said, “were silent, and I must confess I admire their taste and feeling. If I had been a follower of a parliamentary chief as eminent, even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed rather to exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism. I should remember the great victories which he had fought and won; I should remember his illustrious career; its continuous success and splendour, not its accidental or even disastrous mistakes.”308
One word upon the place of this election in our financial history. In 1874, the prosperity of the country and the movement of the revenue gave an opportunity for repeal of the income-tax. That opportunity never recurred. The election of 1874 was the fall of the curtain; the play that had begun in 1842 came to its last scene. It marked the decision of the electorate that the income-tax—introduced in time of peace by Peel and continued by Mr. Gladstone, for the purpose of simplifying the tariff and expanding trade—should be retained for general objects of government and should be a permanent element of our finance. It marked at the same time the prospect of a new era of indefinitely enlarged expenditure, with the income-tax as a main engine for raising ways and means. Whether this decision was wise or unwise, we need not here discuss.