III
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.
Electoral Manifesto
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?