IV
In 1872 the wide popularity of the government underwent a marked decline. The award at Geneva caused lively [pg 388] irritation. The most active nonconformists were in active revolt. The Licensing bills infuriated the most powerful of all trade interests. The Collier case and the Ewelme case seemed superfluous and provoking blunders. A strong military section thirsted for revenge on the royal warrant. Mr. Goschen's threatened bill on local rating spread vague terrors. Individual ministers began to excite particular odium.
As time went on, the essentially composite character of a majority that was only held together by Mr. Gladstone's personality, his authority in the House, and his enormous strength outside, revealed itself in awkward fissures. The majority was described by good critics of the time, as made up of three sections, almost well defined enough to deserve the name of three separate parties. First were the whigs, who never forgot that the prime minister had been for half his life a tory; who always suspected him, and felt no personal attachment to him, though they valued his respect for property and tradition, and knew in any case that he was the only possible man. Then came the middle-class liberals, who had held predominance since 1832, who were captivated by Mr. Gladstone's genius for finance and business, and who revered his high moral ideals. Third, there was the left wing, not strong in parliament but with a certain backing among the workmen, who thought their leader too fond of the church, too deferential to the aristocracy, and not plain enough and thorough enough for a reforming age. The murmurs and suspicions of these hard and logical utilitarians of the left galled Mr. Gladstone as ungrateful. Phillimore records of him at this moment:—
Feb. 21, 1872.—Gladstone in high spirits and in rather a conservative mood. 29.—Gladstone sees that the time is fast coming when he must sever himself from his extreme supporters. He means to take the opportunity of retiring on the fair plea that he does not like to oppose those who have shown such great confidence in him, or to join their and his opponents. The plea seems good for retirement, but not for refraining in his individual [pg 389] capacity from supporting a government which is liberal and conservative.
Here is a sketch from the Aberdare papers of the temper and proceedings of the session:—
April 19.—We have had a disastrous week—three defeats, of which much the least damaging was that on local taxation, where we defended the public purse against a dangerous raid. There is no immediate danger to be apprehended from them. But these defeats lower prestige, encourage the discontented and envious, and animate the opposition. I think that Gladstone, who behaved yesterday with consummate judgment and temper, is personally very indifferent at the result. He is vexed at the ingratitude of men for whom he has done such great things which would have been simply impossible without him, and would not be unwilling to leave them for a while to their own guidance, and his feeling is shared by many of the ministry. Our measures must for the most part be taken up by our successors, and we should of course be too happy to help them. But I don't see the end near, although, of course, everybody is speculating.
Yet business was done. Progress of a certain kind was made in the thorny field of the better regulation of public houses, but Mr. Gladstone seems never to have spoken upon it in parliament. The subject was in the hands of Mr. Bruce, the home secretary, an accomplished and amiable man of the purest public spirit, and he passed his bill; but nothing did more to bring himself and his colleagues into stern disfavour among the especially pagan strata of the population. An entry or two from Mr. Bruce's papers will suffice to show Mr. Gladstone's attitude:—
Home Office, Dec. 9, 1869.—I am just returned from the cabinet, where my Licensing bill went through with flying colours. I was questioned a great deal as to details, but was ready, and I think that Gladstone was very well pleased.
Jan. 16, 1871.—I called upon Gladstone yesterday evening. He was in high spirits and full of kindness. He said that he had told Cardwell that I must be at the bottom of the abuse the press was pouring upon him, as I had contrived to relieve myself [pg 390] of it. “Some one minister,” he added, “is sure to be assailed. You caught it in the autumn, and now poor Cardwell is having a hard time of it.” I went with him afterwards to the Chapel Royal, which he never fails to attend.
Dec. 14.—We have a cabinet to-day, when I hope to have my Licensing bill in its main principles definitely settled. Unfortunately Gladstone cares for nothing but “free trade” [in the sale of liquor], which the House won't have, and I cannot get him really to interest himself in the subject.
This is Speaker Brand's account of the general position:—
Throughout the session the opposition, ably led by Disraeli, were in an attitude of watchfulness. He kept his eye on the proceedings of the government day by day on the Alabama treaty. Had that treaty failed, no doubt Disraeli would have taken the sense of the House on the conduct of the government. For the larger part of the session the Alabama question hung like a cloud over the proceedings, but as soon as that was settled, the sky cleared. It has been a good working session.... Of the two leading men, Gladstone and Disraeli, neither has a strong hold on his followers. The radicals below the right gangway are turbulent and disaffected, and the same may be said of the independent obstruction below the left gangway.... B., E., H., L. avowedly obstruct all legislation, and thus bring the House into discredit.
Disraeli Takes The Field
It was now that Mr. Disraeli discerned the first great opportunity approaching, and he took the field. At Manchester (April 3) he drew the famous picture of the government, one of the few classic pieces of the oratory of the century:—
Extravagance is being substituted for energy by the government. The unnatural stimulus is subsiding. Their paroxysms end in prostration. Some take refuge in melancholy, and their eminent chief alternates between a menace and a sigh. As I sit opposite the treasury bench, the ministers remind me of one of those marine landscapes not very unusual on the coasts of South America. You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers upon a single pallid crest. But the situation [pg 391] is still dangerous. There are occasional earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumblings of the sea.
On midsummer day he essayed at the Crystal Palace a higher flight, and first struck the imperialist note. He agreed that distant colonies could only have their affairs administered by self-government. “Self-government, when it was conceded, ought to have been conceded as part of a great policy of imperial consolidation. It ought to have been accomplished by an imperial tariff, by securities for the people of England, for the enjoyment of the unappropriated lands which belonged to the sovereign as their trustee, and by a military code which should have precisely defined the means and the responsibilities by which the colonies should have been defended, and by which, if necessary, this country should call for aid from the colonies themselves. It ought further to have been accompanied by the institution of some representative council in the metropolis which would have brought the colonies into constant and continuous relations with the home government.” He confessed that he had himself at one time been so far caught by the subtle views of the disintegrationists, that he thought the tie was broken. Opinion in the country was at last rising against disintegration. The people had decided that the empire should not be destroyed. “In my judgment,” he said, “no minister in this country will do his duty who neglects any opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible our colonial empire, and of responding to those distant sympathies which may become the source of incalculable strength and happiness to this land.” Toryism now sought three great objects: “the maintenance of our institutions, the preservation of our empire, and the improvement of the condition of the people.” The time was at hand when England would have to decide between national and cosmopolitan principles, and the issue was no mean one. “You must remember,” he concluded, “that in fighting against liberalism or the continental system, you are fighting against those who have the advantage of power—against those who have been high in place for nearly half a century. You have nothing to trust to but your own energy and the sublime instinct of an ancient people.”
Disraeli's genius, at once brooding over conceptions and penetrating in discernment of fact, had shown him the vast tory reserves that his household suffrage of 1867 would rally to his flag. The same genius again scanning the skies read aright the signs and characteristics of the time. Nobody would seriously have counselled intervention in arms between France and Germany, yet many felt a vague humiliation at a resettlement of Europe without England. Nobody seriously objected to the opening of the Black Sea, yet many were affected by a restive consciousness of diplomatic defeat. Everybody was glad that—as I am about to describe in the following chapter—we had settled the outstanding quarrel with America, yet most people were sore at the audacity of the indirect claims, followed by the award of swingeing damages. National pride in short was silently but deeply stirred; the steady splendour of the economic era for a season paled in uncalculating minds. This coming mood the tory leader, with his rare faculty of wide and sweeping forecast, confidently divined, and he found for it the oracle of a party cry in phrases about Empire and Social Reform. When power fell into his hands, he made no single move of solid effect for either social reform or imperial unity. When Mr. Gladstone committed himself to a policy, he brought in bills to carry it out. Forecast without a bill is interesting, but not to be trusted.