Gladstone

Vol. I. JULY, 1898. No. 9. GLADSTONE, GLIMPSES OF HIS CHARACTER THROUGH HIS LIFE'S WORK. BY BISHOP O F. WHITNEY, AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF UTAH, ETC. "Now is the stately column broke; The beacon light is quenched in smoke; The trumpet's silver voice is still; The warder silent on the hill." In the death of William Ewart Gladstone there passed from earth not only the greatest English statesman of the Victorian era, but also one of the most remarkable men of modern times. In an age that has produced so many great and remarkable men,—the laurel-crowned victors of war, science, art, philosophy and statecraft, not to mention social and religious reform,—this is saying much; but even a cursory study of the man and his motives, as reflected in the mirror of his life's work, shows that the subject merits the eulogy. One of the signs of a truly great man is a cosmopolitan character and disposition. A man whose sympathies are not bounded by family, state, or national lines; whose heart goes out to all humanity; who is patriotic, loyal and loving to his 47

626 IMPROVEMENT ERA. own, but can see good in others, and is interested in the pro- gress and emancipation of the human race;—this is the truly great man, who must be good as well as great, must have a conscience as well as an intellect, and must be guided by principle in all that he says and does. Such a man was William Ewart Gladstone, scholar, ora- tor and statesman, but more than all, friend of the oppressed and benefactor to mankind; whose broad, luminous mind and philanthropic soul have shed upon the nineteenth century, not a blinding Napoleonic or Byronic glare—for his was not a meteoric genius—but a starlike, sunlike radiance that has warmed and cheered the hearts of millions of his fellow-men upon both hemispheres. This great man was born in the city of Liverpool on the 29th of December, 1 809. He was an Englishman only by birth. Both his parents were Scotch. The name Gladstone was formerly Gledstane, (literally Hawk-stone) and those bear- ing it dwelt in Lanarkshire, and were numbered among the Scottish nobility. The family estates gradually dwindled to nothing, and the Gladstones, or some of them—no longer a titled race—finally left their native land to try their fortunes elsewhere. John Gladstone, a man of great energy and ability, settled in Liverpool, where he became a merchant prince, a member of Parliament, and later on a baronet. Six children were the issue of his marriage, the third son being William E., the future statesman and Prime Minister. The eldest son, though he inherited his father's title and became Sir Thomas Gladstone, did not inherit that father's ability. The second son, Robertson, a man six feet seven inches high, while not the equal of his younger brother either in talent or education, was "a powerful and impressive speaker," a sort of rough-hewn model for the rising Cicero. Sir John Gladstone gave his sons every opportunity for education that wealth and influence could command, and was especially careful to cultivate their reasoning powers, even in childhood. The home circle often took on the aspect of an amateur debating society, where each urchin was free to express his views upon this or that side of any question in- troduced for the purpose by the sire or some other member

GLADSTONE. 627 of the household. To this early training the great orator un- doubtedly owed much of his almost unexampled skill as a debater. He received his first schooling at the vicarage of Seaforth, near Liverpool. At the age of eleven he was sent to Eton College, where he remained until 1827, when he studied un- der private tutors, preparatory to entering Oxford University. At Eton his most intimate friend was Arthur Hallam, to whom Tennyson inscribed "In Memoriam." He loved the poets, and was continually quoting them, his special admira- tion among English bards being Wordsworth, with whom when a man he became acquainted, as also with Tennyson and Browning. Himself of a semi-poetic turn, he occasionally wrote verses, but they were not of a very high order. Glad- stone was said to be "the prettiest little boy that ever went to Eton." He was also a very studious boy, and withal a very manly one. Profoundly religious, he would not counten- ance anything that savored of irreverence or mockery of sacred things, and though peaceably disposed would fight rather than see cruelty practiced, even in sport, upon human beings or dumb animals. Everywhere he was a defender of the op- pressed. He opposed the custom of pig-torturing at Eton Fair on Ash Wednesday, and when bantered by his school fellows for championing the cause of the wretched porkers, "offered to write his reply in good round hand on their faces." It was the same instinct exercised on a higher plane, that led him in after years to espouse the cause of the down-trodden Irish, and the persecuted Neapolitans, Bulgarians and Ar- menians. Though serious, he was not always solemn; he had his seasons of jollity, and was a very entertaining companion; but all his merriment was wholesome and pure. An unchaste allusion, an obscene jest excited in him the deepest disgust. "Do you call that amusing? I call it devilish," he would say, when told a story depending for its point on anything low and depraved. He had a passion for acquiring information, and knew something of almost everything. His predilections were literary and oratorical, but he was also very apt at mathematics. He distinguished himself in the debates of the "Eton Society," and in the editorship of

628 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the "Eton Miscellany." One of his first addresses before that society was on the subject of "Popular Education." He was untiring at Greek and Latin, and during vacations studied mathematics. At Oxford he mastered Hebrew, and later on French and Italian. He also acquired some knowl- edge of German. Though freely indulging in open-air exercise, he cared nothing for athletic games. He was fond of boating, and de- lighted in long and rapid walks, and in rambles through the woods, with or without a companion. He afterwards de- veloped a liking for gymnastics. It was in October, 1828, that Gladstone—then a youth of nineteen—entered Christchurch, one of a group of colleges forming the University of Oxford. The atmosphere of this famous institution was essentially aristocratic. Its general prin- ciples were devotion to the state church and to Toryism, as the political faith of the supporters of royal and ecclesiastical authority was called. Gladstone partook of the prevailing spirit. His mind, says his biographer, Justin McCarthy, was "a mirror of the general mind of Oxford—veneration for the past, love of tradition, romantic sentiment of reverence for the ancient institutions of the country; and yet a mind open to see the inevitable tendencies of the future." Ox- ford was termed "the training school for Prime Ministers," Christchurch alone having given several premiers to the British crown. Gladstone's first speech before the Oxford Union—a debating society of which he became Secretary and afterwards President—caused one of his fellows to predict that he would yet be Prime Minister of England. In the de- bates of the Union he defended Catholic emancipation, but opposed the removal of Jewish disabilities; argued against the immediate abolition of slavery, but favored its gradual ex- tinction. He opposed nearly all the movements toward re- form that were then being inaugurated and were looked upon, especially by the Tories, as well nigh revolutionary. Not content with the discipline afforded by the debating society, he founded the "Oxford Essay Club," called by his associates "The Weg," from the initials of its founder. Gladstone studied hard for classical honors and divinity;

GLADSTONE. 629 for he had a strong desire to enter the church; which had he done he would doubtless have shone there as a star of the first magnitude. He was abstemious and pious, though not ostentatiously so, and his example had a good effect upon his associates. Notwithstanding his strong desire to become a churchman, he dutifully yielded to the wishes of his father and sacrificed that inclination His religious enthusiasm re- mained, however, and to the end of his days he was deeply interested in theological studies and controversies. Gladstone entered upon his great political and Parlia- mentary career in the year 1832. It was an epoch of reform. Old things were passing away. All things were about to be made new. Invention was active; the powers of steam were already known; the miracles of electricity were waiting to be made manifest. Institutions that had survived their usefulness were crumbling. The iconoclast was abroad. Men's minds were restive; the times were rife with change; progress was on the wing, and emancipation was the watch- word of the hour. The two great parties in English politics at this period were the Whigs and the Tories, afterwards cal- led Liberals and Conservatives. The Whigs were the advo- cates of progress and reform; the Tories upheld the aristo- cracy and opposed changes in the existing order of things. Both parties were represented in Parliament, not only in the House of Commons, whose members were elected by the people, but in the House of Lords, whose members held their seats by right of title and heredity. The House of Com- mons, however, was the great battle-ground. Gladstone's invitation to begin a Parliamentary career came from the Duke of Newcastle, one of a class styled by Macaulay "the stern and unbending Tories of that day." Not that there was anything particularly stern about the Duke, a good-natured, thick-headed sort of a man, who im- agined the political opinions and acts of those living upon or near his estates to be his private property, and sought to con- trol them accordingly. Alarmed at the reform movements in progress—one of which was a "Reform Bill" to abolish slavery, which still existed in certain of the British colonies; to do away with "rotten boroughs," "pocket boroughs," and

630 IMPROVEMENT ERA. give the great middle classes and the middle class cities and towns the suffrage, with representation in Parliament—for up to this time merchants, tradespeople and artizans, unless land owners, could not vote—he was casting about for a suitable candidate for the constituency of Newark, one of the boroughs that he was said to "carry in his pocket." Hear- ing from his son, Lord Lincoln, a college friend of Glad- stone's, of the latter's ability and anti-reform ideas, the Duke eagerly accepted his son's suggestion that the young man be sent for (he was then in Italy) and invited to stand as a can- didate at the Newark election. The invitation was accepted, and Gladstone, victorious after a stubborn and passionate contest, took his seat in the House of Commons at the open- ing of the "Reformed Parliament." He was now twenty-two years of age, the possesser of a splendid physique, and a capacious, versatile, and well- stored mind. Handsome, hawklike features, pale face, dark hair, flashing eyes,—he was a striking personality, one that could not fail to attract attention in whatever society he moved. The Reformed Parliament opened on the 20th of Jan- uary, 1833. The most conspicuous figure in the House of Lords was the famous Duke of Wellington, the rock upon which Napoleon "foamed himself away" at Waterloo. Every inch a Tory, he was for the maintenance of the existing order of things, as against everything savoring of revolution or rad- ical change. He would accept change if he had to, just as he would bow to the inevitable upon the battlefield and re- treat in good order from a position no longer tenable; but, like Rolla the Peruvian, he would "seek no change." He styled the Reform Bill—which Gladstone said proposed "a partial good with a melancholy preponderance of mischief" —as "a revolution by due process of law." The two most prominent characters in the House of Commons were Sir Robert Peel and Daniel O'Connel. Peel was a great states- man and political leader, to whom even Wellington deferred; he had been a rank Tory, but was beginning to yield to the liberal tendencies of the times. O'Connel was a broad- minded, generous-hearted Irishman, having, as Gladstone

GLADSTONE. 631 said, "a passion for philanthropy," but especially mindful of the interests of the Emerald Isle. For these two men—Peel and O'Connel—the young member from Newark conceived a strong friendship. Other notables in the House were the liter- ary giantsMacaulay and Bulwer. Disraeli had not yet appeared. Viscount Althorp was the Whig or Liberal leader in the Re- presentative chamber, having with him a considerable major- ity. Opposed to these were the Tories, with whom Glad- stone was numbered; a minority, but a compact and influen- tial one, closely united under the leadership of the great Peel. Gladstone made it a rule to maintain silence unless he had something to say. He would never talk for talk's sake. Consequently, when he did speak, he was always sure of a respectful and interested hearing. He had a marvelous flow of language. His style was animated, though somewhat dif- fuse and rhetorical, and in phrasing he was usually very happy. He could invest the dullest subject, even one of mere arithmetic, with an indescribable charm that held his hearers spell-bound. His reasoning was at times casuistic, and his explanations sometimes failed to explain, but gen- erally his arguments were lucid, pointed and powerful. His first important speech in Parliament was upon the slave question. His father was a slave-holder, and it was to defend him against an imputation of countenancing harsh dealings with the slaves upon his plantation at Demarara, in the West Indies, that he was drawn into his first discussion of the subject in the House of Commons. A few weeks later he spoke upon the general question. Slavery, he contended, was sanctioned by the scriptures, but it should be practiced humanely and morally. The slaves should be freed, but freed gradually, and not before they had been educated for self- mastery and citizenship. It was an interesting theme, but Gladstone, who afterwards admitted that his Oxford training had not impressed him with a due regard for the sacredness of individual liberty, was not upon the side of the question where his talents could shine most, and to which his poetic and phil- anthropic temperament would inevitably have taken him had his traditions not been in the way. His defense of his father

632 IMPROVEMENT ERA. was well received, but his other speech made no particular impression. It was about this time that the two future Parliamentary rivals, Gladstone and Disraeli, met in society. The latter, writ- ing to his sister, said of Gladstone: "That young man has no future before him;" a prediction as strikingly false as that other prediction of Disraeli's was strikingly true, in which, after the ghastly failure of his own maiden effort at oratory in Parlia- ment, he shouted defiantly above a storm of hisses, "The time will come when you will hear me!" Gladstone's first impres- sion of Disraeli is not recorded. It is said, however, that in after years, when both men were in the prime of their powers, Gladstone, being asked who was the greatest living genius, answered without hesitation, "Disraeli." He admired his great rival's splendid abilities, but doubted, as did many others, his sincerity. Gladstone's first office was Junior Lord of the Treasury, in a Tory ministry formed by Wellington and Peel after the blunt dismissal of the Whig ministry by the old king William the Fourth. He was soon promoted to Under Secretary for the Colonies, a far more important office, which he held until Peel resigned his place in the government. An interval of rest from the cares of office—though not from the duties of a private member of Parliament—was wisely improved, as all Gladstone's leisure seems to have been, in study and wholesome recreation. At his bachelor chambers in Piccadilly, he gave musicales, in which he him- self took part, "delighting his hearers with the cultivated beauty of his tenor voice." He studied law, devoured Homer and Dante, and read St. Augustine in twenty-two volumes. Victoria now ascended the throne, and another great stride was taken in the cause of reform. Personal govern- ment came to an end; or if perpetuated it was in the Prime Minister rather than the monarch, who henceforth was to be little more than the sign of power in Great Britain. The Prime Minister reflected the monarch's policy, which was the policy of the majority in Parliament, and especially in the House of Commons. A new Parliament was convoked and in it William E. Gladstone took his accustomed seat. He

GLADSTONE. 633 was now looked upon as a distinctly rising man. Without his consent he had been put up for Manchester, and defeated. With his consent he had been put up for Newark and again returned. Meantime he had published his first book, "The State in its Relations to the Church." It created a great sensation and was attacked by Macaulay in one of his most famous es- says. The author of the book had made a bold effort to prove that every state must have a conscience, and with the con- science, must profess a state religion. Macaulay defied anyone to explain how the state could have a conscience, wholly apart from the changing condition of things, and the new ar- rangements constantly demanded by new difficulties. On the 25th of July, 1839, Gladstone's days of bachelor- hood came to an end in his marriage with Miss Catharine Glynne, daughter of Lady Glynne, widow of Sir Stephen Richard Glynne, of Hawarden Castle, Flintshire, Wales. He had met the family the winter before in Italy, whither he had gone for his health, his eyesight having been injured by too much night reading. It proved a most happy and congenial union. Herbert Gladstone, one of several children born to the worthy pair, is a rising young English statesman. Stephen Gladstone, another son, is a minister of the Church of England. Hawarden Castle fell to Mrs. Gladstone on the death of her brother, Sir Stephen Glynne, and thus became the home of the Gladstone family. In 1841 Mr. Gladstone became Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, in Peel's ministry, formed after the defeat of the Liberals, who had got into deep water over finance. Finance was Gladstone's forte, and in the debates over the revised tariff of 1842—which he took the leading part in preparing—he shone conspicuously both as a financier and a debater. In 1843 he rose to be a member of the cabinet, succeed- ing Lord Ripon as President of the Board of Trade, but soon resigned, for conscientious reasons, on a proposition being made by the government to increase the grant to the Catholic college of Maynooth. Upon mature consideration he voted for the grant as a private member of the House of Commons.

634 IMPROVEMENT ERA. In the great Free Trade struggle of 1845—brought to a climax by the Irish famine—Gladstone, who had inspired Peel to make war upon the Corn Laws—the laws imposing a duty on imported breadstuffs—curiously enough took no part. The reason was that he had retired from the represen- tation of the borough of Newark, (which was still controlled by the Duke of Newcastle, a staunch protectionist) and as the result was excluded from Parliament during the whole of the Free Trade controversy. His heart was in the move- ment, however, and he did as much as anyone for its triumph. Though not in Parliament, he was a member of the Peel cabinet at this period, holding the office of Colonial Secre- tary. His next appearance in the House of Commons was in 1847, as a representative of his alma mater, the University of Oxford. Baron Rothschild, a Jew, had been elected at the same time for the City of London. Gladstone, reversing his former position, now advocated the admission of Jews to Parliament, and supported a successful resolution making them eligible to all places and functions for which Roman Catholics might lawfully be chosen. Thus the way was opened for Disraeli's Parliamentary career. Gladstone was ever a pronounced opponent of what is known in politics as "Jingoism." He cared nothing for "a dazzling policy," however calculated to enhance British influ- ence abroad, if it was not at the same time a policy of justice, of morality and Christianity. This was never more conspicu- ously shown than in the Greek embroglio over the claims of Don Pacifico, a Portuguese subject of Great Britian, for pro- perty losses sustained at the hands of an Athenian mob. The claims were extravagant and the Greek government declined to pay them, whereupon a British fleet, under orders from Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister, seized all Greek vessels in the harbor of Piraeus, and thus gave great offence, not only to Greece, but to France and Russia, powers joined with England in a treaty to protect Greek independence. All Europe was in alarm at the prospect of war, and Parliament witnessed some stirring scenes in consequence. Gladstone, opposed by Palmerston, Disraeli and others in magnificent

GLADSTONE. 635 speeches, carried all before him in a most eloquent and logical assault upon the action of the Liberal government toward the Kingdom of Greece. An amicable adjustment followed. Later, when a Tory ministry, in which Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton was Colonial Secretary, wanted a commissioner to visit the Ionian Islands, then under a British protectorate, and inquire into the grievances of the islanders, who were anxious to be annexed to Greece, Gladstone was selected as the most fitting person to be entrusted with such a mission. But while not in sympathy with a policy that interfered unjustly in the affairs of other nations, neither would Glad- stone countenance cruelty and wrong committed in any part of the earth. His Neapolitan Letters, protesting against in- humane treatment of state prisoners in the dungeons of Naples, and written as the result of a visit with his family to that country in the winter of 1850, furnish proof in point. Though a staunch Church-of-Englander, he was always liberal to other religious faiths, and would never sanction or encourage the spirit of persecution. In Parliament he opposed the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, forbidding the use of local titles by the Catholic clergy. He led the opposition purely as a question of public liberty. Said he, "If you tolerate the Cath- olic faith at all, you must allow it the use of whatever titles it sees fit to adopt." All remember his reply to the American Secretary of State, Mr. Evarts, who had asked him to assist in preventing Mormon converts, especially young English women, from emigrating to Utah. "I presume," said the Grand Old Man, "that the young people go there of their own accord." A humble and unlettered Mormon missionary, traveling in Great Britain, sent Mr. Gladstone some gospel tracts, requesting that he read them. The next mail brought from London a kind and courteous answer from the great statesman, acknowledging the receipt of the tracts and thanking the sender. It was his custom to treat everyone with courtesy, never arrogating to himself superiority over those with whom he came in contact. It was the debates upon the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill that pushed Gladstone to the front as a great Parliamentary leader and at the same time rendered very prominent the man des-

636 IMPROVEMENT ERA. tined to be his life-long antagonist, the only political foeman worthy of his steel—Benjamin Disraeli. These men were curiously unlike each other in almost every respect. Nature seemed to have formed them for an- tagonists. Gladstone, the son of a wealthy baronet, had been thoroughly, classically educated, and given a seat in Parlia- ment; Disraeli, the son of an obscure literary man, had re- ceived but "a scrambling education," and had fought his way against great odds into the House of Commons. Gladstone was there for the good he could do his country; Disraeli, it was thought, for the good he could do himself. Beginning as a Tory, Gladstone changed into a Liberal and then into an extreme Liberal, or Radical. Beginning as a Radical, Disraeli changed into a Tory. The transformation in the former case was certainly due to conviction; in the latter it was believed to be purely for self interest. Gladstone was lucid and happy in statement, and in eloquence and reasoning irresis- tible; Disraeli was dull in ordinary statement, but when aroused was a whirlwind of invective, especially skillful in the use of sarcasm and epithets. Gladstone's voice was high, penetrating, resonant and exquisitely modulated; Disraeli's deep, powerful and monotonous. Gladstone was an eager and ever-ready conversationalist; Disraeli taciturn and often morose. Gladstone in his leisure wrote theologi- cal treatises and translated Greek and Latin odes; Disraeli dashed off political novels. Gladstone took little pains with his apparel; Disraeli dressed like a fop. Each was offered an earldom by the queen; Gladstone declined and Disraeli accepted the glittering bauble. Both men possessed genius, and of the two Disraeli's mind was probably the brighter; but it hardly held its own against the capacious, well-stored, highly trained intellect of his adversary. Disraeli's genius was dashingly brilliant, like a cavalry charge of Murat's; Gladstone's steady and strong, like the iron tramp of a Roman legion. In one thing only—and it was a great thing—their records ran parallel; publicly and privately their moral con- duct was above reproach. Such in brief were the two champions who now crossed swords upon the floor of the House of Commons and for

GLADSTONE. 637 twenty-four years kept up that mighty duel of debate that has passed into history as the most remarkable tournament of argument and oratory known in Parliament since the days of Fox and Pitt. It virtually resolved itself into a struggle as to which of the two should be Prime Minister of England; a place predicted for Mr. Gladstone by his friends, and for Mr. Disraeli by himself. Disraeli secured it twice; Glad- stone four times,—twice after Disraeli's death. The contest between the rivals began with the ele- vation of Disraeli to the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1852. He presented his budget—the Chancellor's exposi- tion of financial policy—and Gladstone tore it to pieces. The debate upon it lasted all night; it being two o'clock in the morning when Disraeli closed his final speech, and Glad- stone rose to reply. Both speeches were great, but Glad- stone's, though unpremeditated, was the greater. Before it Disraeli's financial scheme melted into thin air. The Tory government crumbled to pieces, and was succeeded by a coalition government with Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He introduced his first budget April 18, 1853, and in a speech of five hours displayed to the full his wonderful powers as a financial statesman and Parliamentary debater. "The speech," says Mr. George Russell, "held the House spell-bound. Here was an orator who could apply all the re- sources of burnished rhetoric to the illustration of figures, who could make pippins and cheese interesting, and tea serious; who could sweep the widest horizon of the financial future and yet stop to bestow the minutest attention on the microcosm of penny stamps and post-horses." Since the days of Pitt nothing like it had been heard in Parliament. Other political economists produced surpluses by putting taxes on; Gladstone by taking them off. Says William T. Stead: "He remitted more taxes than any Chancellor of the Exchequer before or since, and the result was a series of un- exampled surpluses." The disasters incident to the Crimean War told heavily against the Coalition Government, which went to pieces and was succeeded by another of like character, in which Glad-

638 IMPROVEMENT ERA. stone was given his former place. He was recognized as "the inevitable and only Chancellor of the Exchequer." This was his first acceptance of office under a Whig leader — Lord Palmerston. He did not admire Palmerston, but was done with the Tories, who hated him as an apostate from anti-reform principles. He now began to be known as "the leader of the English democracy." His attitude in favor of Secession, at the outbreak of our Civil War, was a great disappointment to the majority of Americans, and created some consternation among his friends and followers at home; for though the sympathies of the English aristocracy were generally with the South in the great struggle, the British democratic sentiment was almost en- tirely with the North. What was the surprise, therefore, when Gladstone, at a public meeting at Newcastle-on-Tyne, October 7, 1862, declared that Jefferson Davis "had made an army, had made a navy, and, more than that, had made a nation." Five years later he frankly acknowledged his error. His sympathies, he said, had always been with the whole American people, and he had always contended that it was best for British interests that the Union should be kept entire; but he had imbibed conscientiously, if erroneously, an opinion that the North would be happier without the South than with it, and that the negroes would be much nearer to emancipa- tion under a Southern government than under the old system of the Union, which appeared to him to place the whole power of the North at the command of the slave-holding in- terests of the South. When the time came for Great Britain to pay the Ala- bama claims, for damages done to American commerce by Confederate privateers fitted out in British ports, Gladstone showed himself the friend of the United States and the lover of peace and justice that all knew him to be. It was mainly through his influence, (he being then Prime Minister), that arbitration was resorted to for the settlement of those claims, and a costly and terrible war between the two great Anglo-Saxon nations averted. He was abused by the Jin- goites for "knuckling down to the Yankees," but his con- science told him that he was right, and no one now disputes it.

GLADSTONE. 639 He never asked himself, when confronted by a duty, will this make me popular or unpopular? Is it right or wrong, was all he wanted to know in relation to any step that he was called upon to take. If he felt it to be right, he took it re- gardless of consequences. Gladstone, once an anti-reform advocate, "the hope of the stern and unbending Tories" (as Macaulay styled him) became more and more a reformer, an iconoclast of the cherished traditions of Toryism; a hewer down of dried up trees growing in and blocking up the path of progress. "Just like Gladstone,"—said apolitical enemy on learning that his favorite outdoor pastime was felling trees in the forest of Hawarden—"always chopping down something that he can- not cause to grow again." His object in chopping down Tory traditions, however, was not to lay waste, not to make desolate, but to clear the ground of dead and useless timber and prepare the way for newer and better growths. Among his most notable reforms were the abolition of the duty on paper, which had prevented the establishment of cheap newspapers for the education of the masses; the substi- tution of the ballot box for open voting; and the abolition of the purchase of commissions in the army, a reform effected by the Queen upon his advice as Prime Minister. Among the measures that he opposed was the Divorce Bill, making divorce, hitherto "a luxury of the rich," (to quote the language of its advocates), cheaper and easier to obtain. Gladstone contended that marriage was a mystery of the Christian religion, and divorce immoral and contrary to the law of God. The bill passed, but not before he had pointed out, as a fundamental injustice, that part of it which would entitle the husband to a divorce from an unfaithful wife for a single act of infidelity, but would not entitle the wife to a divorce unless the husband had been physically cruel as well as morally unfaithful. The reclamation of fallen women, it may be added, was a subject that lay near to this good and great man's heart. In 1866 he declared for popular suffrage, proposing to extend the franchise to "the better conditioned among the working classes." He was opposed by Disraeli and Sir

640 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Robert Lowe and the measure defeated, but Gladstone hope- fully predicted the eventual triumph of the great principle in- volved. "You cannot fight against the future," said he, "time is on our side." The Tories now took the government. No sooner were they in power than Disraeli, their leader in the House, proposed to "pile Pelion on Ossa," in other words, to extend the suffrage much lower than Mr. Gladstone had proposed. The latter supported the measure and it was victorious. Disraeli now became Prime Minister, and it was regarded as certain that the next defeat of the Tories would elevate Gladstone to the same high seat of power. That defeat and elevation came sooner than expected. Gladstone, in 1865, had broken with his Oxford constituency on the question of the Irish State Church, a branch of the Church of England, which though the whole population of Ireland was taxed for its support, ministered to but one-eighth or one-ninth of that population, the vast majority of whom were Roman Catholics. Protesting against this injustice, he retired from the representation of Oxford, and was next sent to Parliament from South Lancashire. On the 30th of March, 1868, he gave notice of a series of resolutions condemning the existence of the Irish Church as a state institution These resolutions were carried by a large majority. Disraeli dis- solved Parliament and "appealed to the country," and the country stood by Gladstone. Defeated in South Lancashire, but elected from Greenwich, he now succeeded Disraeli as Prime Minister of England. He next undertook to reform the land system of Ireland, a system condemned, says Mr. McCarthy, by every civilized nation in the world. Ireland being almost entirely an agri- cultural country, the demand for land was in most cases a demand for the first necessity of life. Hence the landlords had it almost all their own way. "Pay what the landlord asks or go out of the farm and starve," expressed the situa- tion. The tenant took the farm in "a prairie condition," and converted some patch of worthless bog into a farm capable of growing food for his family—then the landlord would raise the rent because of the improvements the ten- ant had made. The tenant complained, and was turned out,

GLADSTONE. 641 and the land let to a higher bidder. Gladstone, in 1870, in- troduced a bill securing the Irish tenant in his holding so long as he paid the rent agreed upon and making him a sharer in the improvements that he had made. The passage of this bill was the opening of a new era for Ireland. Less fortunate was the great reformer in his effort to set- tle the Irish University question. Failing, he resigned, but as no one cared to take the Premiership, (Disraeli declining it because his party was not in power), he reluctantly returned and held on until January, 1874 In the elections following the dissolution of Parliament, the country, tired of reforms, gave the government to Disraeli and the Conservatives. Gladstone now went into retirement, resigning the leader- ship of the Liberal Party, and devoting himself to his books and to theological controversies, notably with Cardinals Newman and Manning. But it was not for long. Disraeli's popularity began to wane. His daring diplomatic seizure of Cyprus, while it pleased the Jingoites, displeased the majority of his country- men, and his inaction at home, so different from Gladstone's ceaseless activity—created considerable dissatisfaction. His attitude on the Bulgarian atrocities was simply suicidal. These atrocities, disbelieved and made light of by Disraeli, aroused all England to a fever of agitation against the Turks, and Gladstone, coming out of retirement, put himself at the head of the agitation. The Conservatives, challenged by the Liberals, hazarded an election, and were completely over- thrown, their opponents securing in the House of Commons the magnificent majority of one hundred and twenty. Glad- stone took his seat as a member from Midlothian. Disraeli accepted defeat and the title of Earl Beaconsfield almost sim- ultaneously, and on the nth of August, 1876, passed into the House of Lords, closing his brilliant political career. Gladstone, who had declined an earldom, resumed simultan- eously the leadership of the Liberal Party and the helm of government, becoming for the second time Prime Minister. He had inherited a world of trouble. The Irish, Egypt- ian, and Transvaal questions all confronted him, each brist- ling like an angry porcupine. Parnell's imprisonment and 48

642 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the Coercion Acts—the latter resulting from the Phoenix Park murders—alienated from him the sympathies of the Irish people; while the bombardment of Alexandria and the occu- pation of Egypt—wearing, as was said, "an unpleasant and close resemblance to the antics of Lord Beaconsfield" — caused many of his own followers to complain. The death of General Gordon at Khartoum was unjustly laid at his doors. Added to this, the Premier's brave, just and honorable con- cession to the Boers in South Africa, restoring the Transvaal Republic, which British jingoism had attempted to overthrow, counted against him with those of his countrymen who thought British prestige would suffer from that concession. The one great domestic work of the administration was the passing of the Franchise Bill, recasting the Parliamentary constituencies and extending the suffrage. It was the writer's good fortune about this time to see Gladstone; once when politely lifting his hat to a surging, cheering throng that parted to allow his barouche to roll through the gates of Westminister Hall, and once upon the floor of the House of Commons. He was an old man, but almost as active as ever, and the readiness and fluency with which he met and parried every thrust made in his direction, answering questions almost before they were asked, and deal- ing the most dexterous blows in return, was beautiful and wonderful to behold. "The People's William," they now called him; probably from that episode in which he incurred the Queen's displeasure by retorting, when she asked him if he was aware that he was speaking to the Queen of England, "Is Your Majesty aware that you are speaking to the People of England?" Though still active, age and hard work were beginning to tell upon him. At the close of 1884 he retired from office well-nigh prostrate from toil and care. In February, 1886, having succeeded Lord Salisbury as premier, Gladstone brought forward his first measure of Home Rule for Ireland. It proposed to leave to Irishmen the man- agement of their own affairs in a Dublin Parliament, and to have no Irish representatives in the Imperial Parliament at Westminister. The Liberal Party split upon a proposition that would tax Ireland without Ireland's consent, and leave

GLADSTONE. 643 nobody in the Imperial Parliament to look after the interests of Irishmen living in Great Britain. Bright, Chamberlain and others seceded, and the faction calling themselves "Union- ists" joined with the Conservatives and defeated the meas- ure. Gladstone bore no ill-will on account of this defection, much as it pained him to part company with his old friend John Bright. Like all men truly great, he was magnani- mous, and as a Christian forgave even his enemies. In February, 1893, Gladstone—for the fourth time Prime Minister—presented his second measure for Home Rule. Ireland was now to have, in addition to the Dublin Parliament, eighty members in the Imperial House of Commons, but these members were not to vote on any measure exclusively affect- ing Great Britain. This measure passed the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords. Gladstone's last speech in Par- liament, March 1, 1894, was an emphatic protest against this obstructive action of the Hereditary Chamber. For some reason the matter was pressed no further. The aged premier once more resigned, passing out of Parliamentary life, as a few years later out of earthly life, without witnessing what he so ardently longed to see—the political emancipation of Ireland. His closing years were devoted to literary and contro- versial labors, his last book being a treatise on Butler's "An- alogy of Religion," and his last theological epistle a state- ment on the advisability of a closer union among Christian churches, answering a letter from the Pope of Rome to the English people on the same subject. His clarion protest against the Armenian massacres rang out as a thrilling re- minder of the time when, as the Coeur de Leon of his age, full panoplied at the front of militant Christendom, he stood with the uplifted battle-axe of an empire's power protesting against like atrocities in Bulgaria. In the summer of 1897, while the whole British Empire was celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Victoria's coronation—the Diamond Jubilee of her reign—the great statesman who had wrought so mightily to render that reign illustrious, was slowly succumbing to the disease that was destined to terminate his mortal life. He died at Hawarden

644 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Castle on Thursday, May 19, 1898, at five o'clock a. m. As the morning came in, his great soul went out, —perhaps to meet it and usher it into the world, which his own light, his own genius had done so much to illumine. His remains, followed by a nation's nobility, titled and untitled, were en- tombed in Westminister Abbey, beside those of his old antagonist, the Earl of Beaconsfield. From the foregoing sketch of his life and character, it will be seen that William Ewart Gladstone was indeed a friend of the oppressed, a benefactor to mankind. He was an emancipator, an apostle of liberty. Much has been said of inconsistency, of changeability in his career. Such charges are easily brought, and easily made to appear plausible against any man who is progressive, who is conscientious, and possessed of the courage of his convictions. This man was a beacon-light of progress and reform. That implies change, and he was changeful; not in a fickle, but in a pro- gressive sense. Change in him, which was always due to conviction, meant growth and improvement. He was always "struggling towards the light." Generally his intuitions were true, but he sometimes made mistakes. He was not afraid to own it, and was willing and anxious to correct them. Only the truly brave do this. Many, physically courageous, are too cowardly to confess themselves in error. Such was not the case with Gladstone. Firm, but not immovable, when it was right that he should be moved, he was in no sense a "Bourbon" except in the sense that he never forgot anything. He was ever learning and ever coming to a knowl- edge of the truth. He thought less of a reputation for con- sistency—a consistency that means once wrong stay wrong — than of the approval of his conscience, which became more and more enlightened as he advanced, until like a conquer- ing king it dragged tradition captive at its chariot wheels. He was what John Bright named him, "The Grand Old Man;" and of him it may be said, as it was said of that other uncrowned monarch—England's great Lord Protector: "He lived to make his simple oaken chair More terrible and grandly beautiful, More full of majesty than any throne, Before or after, of a British king "