It is interesting to get what light we may on Mr. Gladstone's frame of mind between his first astounding triumph in Midlothian and the crowning mercy of the general election. In October he had written to his son Henry in India as to the probable date of the dissolution, that the government had in his opinion “to choose between a minor or a less smashing defeat now, or probably a more smashing one after the disclosure and real presentation of their most discreditable finance, which can hardly be delayed beyond the spring.” They had a chance of better trade, but the likelihood also of worse revenue. The great reason against dissolution was that they were in possession, and every day's delay was another day's exercise of power. He then proceeds to mention his personal position:—
Before leaving Dalmeny at the end of his campaign, Mr. Gladstone wrote a letter to Mr. Bright, a copy of which, along with the reply, and two letters from Lord Wolverton, he left tied up in a separate packet.
To Mr. Bright.
Nov. 28, 1879.—You will probably recollect that during your last visit to Hawarden you suggested to me in a walk the expectation or the possibility that when the return of liberals to power seemed probable, there might be a popular call for my resuming the leadership of the party, and that I stated to you what I believed, and you I think admitted, to be the reasons against it. These, if I remember right, were four, and I attached to them differing degrees of weight.
The first was that my health and strength would be unequal to the strain at my time of life.
The second, that the work to be done was so formidable that hardly any amount of courage availed to look it in the face.
The third, weightier than these, was that a liberal government under me would be the object from the first of an amount and kind of hostility, such as materially to prejudice its acts and weaken or, in given circumstances, neutralise its power for good.
The fourth, that I was absolutely precluded under present circumstances, being bound by the clearest considerations of honour and duty to render a loyal allegiance to Granville as leader of the party, and to Hartington as leader in the Commons, and was entirely disabled from so much as entertaining any proposition that could directly or indirectly tend to their displacement.
There is a fifth consideration that now presses me, of which the grounds had hardly emerged in regard to myself personally at the time when we conversed together. Nothing could be so painful, I may almost say so odious to me, as to force myself, or to be forced, upon the Queen, under circumstances where the choice of another from the ranks of the same party would save her from being placed in a difficulty of that peculiar kind. This, it may be said, belongs to the same category as my first and second objections; but there it is.
The enthusiasm of Scotland is something wonderful. As to the [pg 600] county of Midlothian, I doubt whether the well-informed tories themselves in the least expect to win. We go to Taymouth on Monday. I hope you are well and hearty and see cause to be contented with the progress of opinion. The more I think about the matter, the more strange and mysterious does it seem to me that any party in this free nation should be found to sanction and uphold policy and proceedings like those of the last two years in particular. I have written this because I am desirous you should have clearly before you the matter of my conversation with you, and the means of verifying it.
Mr. Bright to Mr. Gladstone.
Rochdale, Dec. 12, 1879.—Perhaps I ought to have written to you sooner to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 28th ult., but I preferred to let you get home before I wrote, and I was in truth rather puzzled as to what I ought to say.
You, with sufficient accuracy, describe the purport of your remarks during our conversation when I was with you a year ago. I saw the difficulty, then in the future, now perhaps near upon us. But it is one in which nothing can be done, and “a masterly inactivity” seems the only wise course. If a break-up of the present concern comes, the Queen will be advised to send, for Granville or Hartington. The one sent for will accept and attempt to form a government, or he may have grave doubts, and say that you are the only man, etc.; he will consult the other, and will consult you. Meantime there may be a “pronouncement” on the part of the people, through the press and public meetings, which will have a sudden effect on negotiations and on the views of the Queen, and may decide the question. If such a time should come, then you will have to say what is possible, and I hope you will be able to decide rightly, and with reference solely to the interests of the country and the service you owe to the crown as representing the nation. You will act with a most strict honour to Granville and Hartington, as I believe they will act to you. If, as I hope for and believe, no selfish ambition will come in to make mischief, the question will be determined in such a manner as to content all honest men, and what is best for all will be done. I am often asked as to the future. I reply only so as to say nothing to add to the evident difficulty of the situation.
[pg 601]Your Scotch expedition has been one of discovery and of conquest. The tory press and partizans are evidently astonished at it. The government speakers have no new defence, and they want the past to be forgotten. Mr. Smith, first lord, I see, entirely rejoices in what has been done in South Africa, though “a few lives” have been lost by it. This official life seems sorely to demoralise some homely and decent people. I am fairly well so far during the winter, but I seem feeble when I compare myself with your activity and power.... We are to have meetings in Birmingham during January. I should prefer the quiet of obscurity to these meetings. I hope Mrs. Gladstone and your daughter have enjoyed their Scotch trip and are well after it.
Five days later came Lord Wolverton's report of the state of feeling on these delicate topics in high places in London. He had seen Lord Granville on the evening of the 16th:—
To most affectionate inquiries as to your health and powers, I gave a most satisfactory account, and the conversation then went to the question as to the effect which your recent triumphant progress in Midlothian and the North had produced upon your mind. I frankly said that you had in my opinion not anticipated such a marked expression of public feeling, and that it had doubtless tended to lead your mind to the consideration of the position of the party, and to the fact that public opinion might call upon you to an extent which no one could have looked for. I then (with anxiety to convey what I know to be your desire) most earnestly impressed upon Lord Granville that you had upon every occasion when the subject was alluded to, prefaced all you had to say with the strongest expressions of loyalty to Hartington and himself. That I felt convinced that nothing would induce you to encourage, or to even listen to, any attempt which others might make to disturb the existing state of things as to the leadership, unless the wish was very clearly expressed to you by Hartington and himself, and you would demand full proof that their interests and that of the party strongly pointed to the reconsideration of your own position. I need hardly say that, though I felt it my duty to take care that I did not understate your feelings, it was not necessary to reassure Granville upon that point.
The conversation then went to the state of the party and its [pg 602] present position. I learnt that a private meeting had been held at Devonshire House in the morning. I believe Hartington, Granville, Cardwell, Adam, and Harcourt were present. My impression is that the advice Adam gave as to the elections, was that “union in the party at this moment would not be promoted by a change of front.” I do not mean to say that the question of leadership was actually discussed, but I suspect the conversation turned somewhat upon the point which you place “third” in your letter to Bright. To sum it all up, I do not think you will at present be troubled by any application to you from Granville and Hartington.361
The third point in the letter to Mr. Bright was the question whether a liberal government under Mr. Gladstone would not be exposed to a special degree of hostility, due to the peculiar antagonism that his personality excited. In a later letter (December 20), Wolverton tells Mr. Gladstone that in the conversation of the 16th, “Lord Granville raised the point you made your third in your note to Bright, and that he did converse upon at some length, evidently having real fears that many of our weak-kneed ones would feel some alarm if Hartington went from the front now, and that the tories would intensify this to the uttermost. I think this was all.” Another sentence indicates Lord Wolverton's own view:—
To all this Mr. Gladstone replied to Wolverton as follows:—
As usual with him, these grave political preoccupations were not engrossing, but only a part of the day's task. He carried on a pretty profuse correspondence, he worked hard on his favourite diversion of arranging books and papers, he gave much thought and time to estate matters with his eldest son, with him too he felled now a chestnut, now a sycamore; he corrected the proofs of his speeches and wrote an article for Mr. Knowles; he read books and articles about Eleusis, and the Hebrew migration from Egypt, and the Olympian system, and Newman on the Eirenicon, and Westcott on St. John, and somebody else upon St. Thomas Aquinas. For two or three days he was partially disabled by “a low face-ache: the reaction after heavy pressure, under which [pg 604] I received from the mercy of God such remarkable support.” In the middle of January alarming accounts came from his sister Helen, who lay dying at Cologne. Thither he sped with his eldest brother and his sister-in-law. They found life fast ebbing, and four days after their arrival the end came, in the midst of pious exercises and affectionate care. They were satisfied that she had been “freely restored to the unity of spirit and the bond of peace,” and had died not in the actual Roman communion. A few days after his return home he records: “Wrote a long memorandum of the evidence in regard to dear Helen's religious profession.” The remains they bore to Fasque, and by the end of the month he was again at Hawarden, once more at work with his eldest son upon the “accumulated disorder,” and the rest of the round of his familiar employments. Among other things he read Cowper's Task—“the fifth book very noble in its moral strain”; and another entry will interest many,—“Feb. 15.—Read the biography of noble Dora Pattison. How by reflex action it stings.... Yet even to her (like Bishop Butler), death was terrible.” “He was haunted,” he writes, “with recollections of Sister Dora.” Then after a Sunday passed in church exercises, and “skimming many theological books,” on February 23 he “left Hawarden with a heavy heart.”
He quickly found himself in the London whirlpool, attending conclaves of his political friends, dining out, seeing Irving in the Merchant of Venice (“his best, I think”), speaking once or twice in the House, and twice at London meetings in St. Pancras and Marylebone, where the popular enthusiasm made even his most hardened critics begin to suspect that the tide had really turned since the days when the Londoners mobbed him in the street and broke his windows.
—Ov. Trist., iii. xi. 21.
In an easy case any man can plead, and against shattered walls the puniest strength prevails; 'tis the overthrow of standing towers and frowning ramparts that tests manhood.
At last one day (March 8) when Mr. Gladstone was “writing a little on Homer,” he heard the fated news that the dissolution was announced. Lord Beaconsfield published the famous letter to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, and in deep accents and sonorous sentences endeavoured to make home rule the issue of the election. Shrewd politicians, with time to reflect, found it not easy to divine why the government had chosen the particular moment. It might be, as some supposed, that they thought the opposition had lately got into bad odour with the country by coquetting with home rulers, as shown by the elections at Liverpool and Southwark. But, in fact, little importance was to be attached to these two defeats of the opposition, for Liverpool had always been conservative, and Southwark was thoroughly disorganised by liberal divisions. “The general opinion seems to be,” says Speaker Brand (Mar. 15), “that the opposition may gain slightly at the general election, but not to an extent to break down altogether the conservative majority.”
In what was in effect his election address, Lord Beaconsfield warned the country that a danger, in its ultimate [pg 606] results scarcely less disastrous than pestilence and famine, distracted Ireland. A portion of its population was endeavouring to sever the constitutional tie that united it to Great Britain in that bond which was favourable to the power and prosperity of both. “It is to be hoped,” he went on, “that all men of light and leading will resist this destructive doctrine. The strength of this action depends on the unity of feeling which should pervade the United Kingdom and its widespread dependencies. The first duty of an English minister should be to consolidate that co-operation which renders irresistible the community educated, as our own, in an equal love of liberty and law. And yet there are some who challenge the expediency of the imperial character of this realm. Having attempted and failed to enfeeble our colonies by their policy of decomposition, they may perhaps now recognise in the disintegration of the United Kingdom, a mode which will not only accomplish, but precipitate their purpose.... Rarely in this century has there been an occasion more critical. The power of England and the peace of Europe will largely depend upon the verdict of the country.... Peace rests on the presence, not to say the ascendency of England in the councils of Europe. Even at this moment the doubt supposed to be inseparable from popular elections, if it does not diminish, certainly arrests her influence, and is a main reason for not delaying an appeal to the national voice.”
To this manifesto Mr. Gladstone, with his usual long pains in the drafting of such pieces, prepared his counterblast. He went with direct force to what Lord Beaconsfield had striven to make the centre of his appeal:—
To those ministerial misdeeds he proceeded to draw the attention of the electors, though he declared with threescore years and ten upon his head, how irksome he felt the task. “At home,” he said, “the ministers have neglected legislation, aggravated the public distress by continual shocks to confidence which is the life of enterprise, augmented the public expenditure and taxation for purposes not merely unnecessary but mischievous, and plunged the finances, which were handed over to them in a state of singular prosperity, into a series of deficits unexampled in modern times.” After shooting this heavy bolt he looked abroad. “Abroad they have strained, if they have not endangered, the prerogative by gross misuse, and have weakened the empire by needless wars, unprofitable extensions, and unwise engagements, and have dishonoured it in the eyes of Europe by filching the island of Cyprus from the Porte under a treaty clause distinctly concluded in violation of the treaty of Paris, which formed part of the international law of Christendom.” As to the domestic legislation of the future, it was in the election address of the prime minister a perfect blank. It was true that in default of reform in this kingdom, the nation was promised the advantages of “presence, not to say ascendency,” in the councils of Europe.
Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Acton on March 14:—
On the morning of the 16th, Mr. Gladstone started. Hundreds of people grew to thousands long before his train left King's Cross, and all the way to Edinburgh he found the same vivid interest and acclamation on the east coast that had greeted him in November on the west. At Grantham the mayor and a crowd estimated by nimble statisticians at two thousand, awaited him at the station; at York the lord mayor and six thousand; at Newcastle-on-Tyne too many thousands to count. The little addresses made at these stopping-places were described as a sort of table of contents of the more elaborate speeches to be delivered in Midlothian itself. As he crossed the Tweed the fervour did not cool, and when at last he reached Edinburgh, he encountered a scene almost as wonderful as that which had met him four months before.
[pg 609]Again he was the guest at Dalmeny, and again he renewed his prodigious exertions amid a vehemence of admiration and delight that became more intense as the days passed. Here is an entry or two from the diary:—
And so day after day did panting time toil after him in vain. Many of us have known long spells of hard electioneering—but not in one's seventy-first year, with every single word as it fell into print on the morrow watched with the lynx eyes of party scrutiny, and all loaded with the heaviest personal responsibility.
On March 24 the parliament was dissolved. On March 30 the first elections took place, and the first pollings on the day following. From the early returns it was pretty evident that the liberals would have a majority. On the first day they made a net gain of fifteen seats in sixty-nine constituencies. By the end of the fourth day a total net gain of fifty seats was recorded. The ministerial majority was already gone. The county elections brought new surprises, and by the end of the second week the liberal gains were reckoned at ninety-nine.
Mr. Gladstone's fortnight of discourse ended on the 2nd of April. “So,” he records, “ends the second series of the speeches in which I have hammered with all my poor might at the fabric of the present tory power. April 3.—Cut down [pg 610] a Spanish chestnut in Dalmeny Park by order. The day was quiet, but my papers and letters and the incoming news made it busy. It seemed as if the arm of the Lord had bared itself for work that He has made His own. 4.—A lull in election news, but the reflections on what has passed are overpowering.” Here are his closing words, and they are not without historic import:—
Mr. Gladstone was already member for Leeds. So far back as the March of 1878 Sir James Kitson had written to ask him to become a candidate for the great city of the West Siding, but Mr. Gladstone declined the proposal. Then a deputation came to him in Harley Street, and he made them a speech on the Eastern question, but avoided any reference to the subject which they had come to handle. The stout Yorkshiremen were not to be baffled, and Mr. Gladstone, nominated without action of his own, was now returned by the unprecedented vote of 24,622.363 He was right in calling the Leeds election “one of the most conspicuous and imposing victories ever won for the liberal cause.”364 Still public interest was concentrated upon Midlothian, and the might with which he prevailed over men's minds there, was admitted by his foes to be the most impressive tribute ever paid to political man and his vast powers as orator and popular leader. In Midlothian the crusade had been opened, and in Midlothian its triumph was sealed.
The poll was declared in Edinburgh soon after seven on the evening of April 5, and a few minutes later the result, amid every demonstration of extravagant delight from the triumphant multitude as they rushed away from the courthouse, [pg 612] was made known to Mr. Gladstone at a house in George Street taken by Lord Rosebery for the occasion. A couple of candles were brought from the dining-table and held on each side of him, so that his face might be seen, as from the balcony he spoke a few words of thanks.365 “Drove into Edinburgh about four,” Mr. Gladstone records. “At 7.20 Mr. Reid brought the figures of the poll—Gladstone, 1579; Dalkeith, 1368; quite satisfactory. Soon after, 15,000 people being gathered in George Street, I spoke very shortly from the windows, and Rosebery followed, excellently well. Home about 10. Wonderful and nothing less has been the disposing guiding hand of God in all this matter.” The majority was not of great dimensions, but it was adequate and sufficient, and the victory was celebrated half through the night with bonfires, illuminations, fireworks, and all the other fashions of signifying public joy, throughout Scotland and the north of England. The astrologers, meteorologists, and prognosticators of Pall Mall and Fleet Street felt that this time at least they had not rightly plumbed the depths of the democratic seas.
Lord Beaconsfield was staying alone at that time in the historic halls of Hatfield, their master being then abroad. There, hour by hour and day after day, news of the long train of disasters reached him. From one in confidential relations with him, and who saw much of him at this moment, I have heard that the fallen minister, who had counted on a very different result, now faced the ruin of his government, the end of his career, and the overwhelming triumph of his antagonist, with an unclouded serenity and a greatness of mind, worthy of a man who had known high fortunes and filled to the full the measure of his gifts and his ambitions.
Some writers complained that the language of Midlothian was as solemn as if the verdict of the country were about to settle the issues of the battle of Armageddon. It was not exactly the battle of Armageddon, but the election of [pg 613] 1880 was, at any rate, one of the most remarkable in party history. For one thing, activity was unprecedented, and Mr. Gladstone's fiery spirit seemed to have spread over the country. A list prepared by the liberal whips, and preserved by Mr. Gladstone, describes the new parliament as composed of 347 liberals, 240 conservatives, and 65 nationalists. Looking at the divisions of the three kingdoms, we find England and Wales contributing 282 liberals against 207 tories; Scotland 52 liberals against 8 tories; and Ireland, 13 liberals against 25 tories. The Irish nationalists were of two shades: 35 followers of Mr. Parnell, 26 moderate home rulers who followed Mr. Shaw, and 4 dubious. In England and Wales therefore the liberal majority was 75, and in Scotland it was 44. Turning to electoral aspects with special social significance, we note that of the county constituencies 63 sent liberal members as against 124 tories. In the metropolis, as a whole, the government gained one seat and lost four, with the result that London was represented in the new parliament by 8 tories and 14 liberals. One victory of real importance was won by the government, for they beat the liberal by two to one in the City of London, the heart and centre of many of those powerful influences that Mr. Gladstone had described in his last speech in the Midlothian election as determined foes from whom the liberal party had no tolerance to expect. “The tory party,” Mr. Gladstone noted, “has never had a majority on any one of its own four dissolutions—1852, 1859, 1868, 1880.”
Mr. Gladstone to Lord Rosebery.
Hawarden, April 10, 1880.—... I should like to write about these marvellous events, but how can I? The romance of politics which befel my old age in Scotland, has spread over the whole land. You remember perhaps my series of fractions, comparing daily the net gains with the gross returns. The first day began with 1/13 or thereabouts. It had got to 1/10 or 1/9 when we left you. It is now 1/6. How idle to talk about the caprice of household suffrage; the counties have given quite as remarkable results as the boroughs. I was stunned at the end of the first night; and [pg 614] I am still out of breath from the endeavour to keep up with the rapidity of events. I suppose the conservative Scotch will fill the first class compartment, or nearly so, but no more. Wales, I beg you to observe, has not (as I think) been behind Scotland in her achievements. Most of the wretched percentage of compensation on “tory gains” on the general list is wretched in quality as well as quantity, and consists of the district places. To scarcely one of these gains can they point with any keen satisfaction. As to Midlothian the moral effect, before and after, has I think surpassed all our hopes. The feeling until it was over (since which there has justly been a centring of thought on E. Lancashire) was so fastened on it, that it was almost like one of the occasions of old when the issue of battle was referred to single combat. The great merit of it I apprehend lay in the original conception, which I take to have been yours, and to overshadow even your operations towards the direct production of the result. But one thing it cannot overshadow in my mind: the sense of the inexpressible aid and comfort derived day by day from your considerate ever-watchful care and tact. [Latin not to be identified.] Let me apply these same words (calling on you for a translation if needful) to Lady Rosebery. I should feel profoundly ashamed of the burdens we brought you, had I not seen how truly they were borne in the spirit, which alone makes all burdens light. It is a very pleasant subject of reflection to me that the riveting effect of companionship in a struggle like this, does not pass away with the struggle itself but abides.
Our stratagem for a quiet exit was on the whole successful. At Carlisle there was perfect quiet. At most of the few places where the train stopped there were a score or two of people and no more. At Hawarden, arriving between 9 and 10 a.m., we cheated the triumphal preparations; but made amends by carrying them over to Herbert the following day. We now become eager for the East Worcestershire election and are sanguine about my son's return. At Warrington we got over the three hours wonderfully, and succeeded in sleeping, though not exactly μαλθακῶς κατακείμενος through a succession of the most violent and unearthly noises, banging, crashing, roaring, squealing, that a railway station traversed by innumerable goods' trains can supply..... [pg 615] I will not trouble you with, more words of thanks, I feel them so poor and idle.
Two days later Mr. Gladstone wrote to the Duke of Argyll:—