Your suggestion of a visit to Hawarden is as tempting as it is kind. I should like nothing so much if I thought it suited Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone; but at this moment I am wanted, sadly wanted, here; and the ingenious indiscretion of somebody has provoked a demonstration more impressive than any arguments of mine. It has shown what the triumph of the Tories, what the helplessness of the Liberals would be. Mr. Gladstone must see now that his resolution must depend on facts, and not on wishes. What he is to the cause and the party I fear he will never understand.
Touching the future, I can abate nothing of what I said. It is odd, especially for me to say, who often disagree with him in maxims if not in aims, but you undervalue him in comparison with other men. Is it the strife in the Cabinet, the defection of friends, the zeal of opponents, the slow growth of results, the versatility of popular feeling, the coldness of Continental opinion, that depresses you? or is it Morley's book?[[149]] T. B. Potter has just arrived, I hope with a copy for me. I see from the extracts that it is a piece of very superior work. At first I expected an oblique attack on your father, as a dilatory and inconsistent convert, prompted by Cobden's long distrust, by Bright's early denunciations, by the aversion of literal economists, of Equalitarian Democrats, of stubborn unbelievers in those qualities which raise him above the highest level of Liberalism. But I can fancy that you might be impressed by so vigorous, sincere, and complete a system of politics very distinct from his own. The lieutenants of Alexander, Napoleon and his Marshals, are the only fit comparisons to describe the interval between the P.M. and the best of those who come next to him.
We lose a weak, an ornamental, an unstable, but patriotic man in ——. As he has been the guiltiest misleader in ecclesiastical questions, his retirement is appropriate at the moment when we are trying to get the ear of the Pope. There are, of course, better reasons for that just now than the state of Ireland, and I think he (the Pope) deserves the kind of help it must give him. His impulses seem almost always right, whilst his execution, depending on others, and requiring force of character as well as good intentions, is generally poor and shabby. If the Powers had been quicker to understand how strongly he contrasts with his predecessor they might have enabled him to prevail against his court.
John O'Hagan, the chief of the new Land Court, is a man whom I tried to bring forward, and made much of in the beginning of his career. He has the stamp of 1848 upon him as deep as Duffy,[[150]] and I found him rather literary than politic, more full of good and gracious aspiration than practical and solid. The Court has done two things which must, I imagine, raise doubts at Hawarden. They undertake to fix a rent such as will fairly enable a man to live—that is a rule which would reduce rent per acre in proportion to the smallness of the holding, and would extinguish it altogether in the smallest. And they judge not by the land and buildings, but by the capacity of the tenant—that will lead them to do more for the worse farmer and less for the better. On the other hand, it is terrible to read that farmers cultivating 20 or 30 acres never eat butcher's meat. In France I find that the families of day labourers have meat for dinner every day. I am told that there is scarcely an exception.
Hawarden after Knowsley must have been a relief, especially with Lightfoot, Goldwin Smith, and may I say Harcourt? There is no room—there never is—for what I have to say.
Cannes Nov. 25, 1881
I have been away from Cannes for a few days, and am ashamed to be again behindhand.
If I had not known it before, I should discover now what a good fellow Alfred Lyttelton is. F. C.'s view does not convince me. The impeding facts will be there, but the strong will[[151]] and the untimely gift of self-disparagement may be too much for the facts.
I am struck by what you say of the omission in Morley's book, which I am to receive in a few days. A person who has had a large and legitimate share in its preparation spoke to me some time ago in a manner which led me to expect that the Treaty narrative would be hostile to Mr. Gladstone, and would reveal soreness against him on the part of Cobden. I discussed the thing with him a good deal, but without materials which would justify me in hoping that I had made an impression. Since then, Mr. Gladstone has become P.M. and Morley is editor of one of the principal organs of a part of the ministry. That explains some degree of reticence, if my former impression was correct. I do not think such reticence quite worthy of the occasion and the men; and it would be well that the true story should be told, unless it should be likely in any way to embarrass the new negotiation. That is a question that can only be settled at Hawarden.
Knowles proposed that I should review the book, having a Tory review already undertaken. He offered to bring the volumes to Cannes before the end of this month. That would not give me the needful time. It would be necessary, in the dearth of books here, and of all sources of information besides T. B. Potter, to have some things looked up in England, by slow process of post. And it would be quite essential to ascertain how much of what is omitted may be supplied. Not feeling sure of that, and of the time, I was obliged to decline. If Knowles comes here, as he portended, I shall have an opportunity of talking it over with him.