In the October of that year Bishop Wilberforce was at Hawarden, and had much talk with Gladstone. He said: ‘I greatly feel being turned out of office. I saw great things to do; I longed to do them. I am losing the best years of my life out of my natural service, yet I have never ceased to rejoice that I am not in office with Palmerston. When I have seen the tricks, the shufflings, he daily has recourse to, as to his business, I rejoice not to sit on the Treasury Bench with him.’
Of course, the Divorce Bill intensified his dislike to the Palmerston regime. Never was there a severer fight than that which took place in Committee. Clause by clause, line by line, almost word by word, the progress of the measure was challenged by an acute and determined opposition. One of the most important amendments was made by Lord John Manners, to give jurisdiction to local courts in cases of judicial separation. A still more important amendment was proposed with the object of extending to the wife the same right of divorce as was given to the husband. On this proposal Mr. Gladstone made a telling speech, founding his argument on the equality of the sexes in the highest relations of life. A further amendment in the same direction was attacked with such ardour by Mr. Gladstone, Lord John Manners, and Mr. Henly, that at length the Attorney-General claimed the right, as having official charge of the Bill, to be treated with some consideration, and then he carried the war into the enemy’s country so as to bring Mr. Gladstone again to his feet. He complained bitterly of Sir Richard Bethell’s charges of inconsistency and insincerity—‘charges which,’ he said, ‘have not only proceeded from his mouth, but gleamed from those eloquent eyes of his which have turned continuously on me for the last ten minutes.’ He commented severely on the Attorney-General’s statement of his duty with regard to the Bill. It was pushed by him through the House as a Ministerial duty; he received it from the Cabinet, for whom he considered it his duty to hew wood and draw water. In the course of the discussion of this clause, which occupied ten hours, Mr. Gladstone made upwards of twenty speeches, some of them of considerable length. He was on his legs every three minutes, in a white heat of excitement. Mr. Gladstone is stated to have told Lord Palmerston that the Bill should not be carried till the Greek Calends, and in reply to the question put to him in the lobby by Sir Richard Bethell—‘Is it to be peace or war?’—fiercely replied, ‘War, Mr. Attorney—war even to the knife.’ ‘Gladstone,’ he wrote to his wife, ‘gives a personal character to the debates.’ One of Mr. Gladstone’s amendments—to the effect that clergymen having conscientious objections to remarrying of divorced persons were to be exempt from any penalty for refusing to solemnize such marriages—which he was unable to move on account of a domestic calamity, was put forward by Sir W. Heathcote and accepted by the Government, and the long and bitter battle came to an end on August 31, when the third reading passed without a division.
Writing as late as 1887, Mr. Gladstone contends that the Divorce Bill was an error. ‘My objection,’ writes Mr. Gladstone, ‘to the Divorce Bill was very greatly sharpened by its introduction of the principle of inequality. But there is behind this the fact that I have no belief whatever in the operation of Parliamentary enactments upon a vow—a case which appears to me wholly different from that of the Coronation Oath. I think it would have been better to attempt civil legislation only, as in the case of the Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill. Lord Westbury and I were pitted in conflict by the Divorce Bill; but he was the representative of a prevailing public opinion, as well as of an Administration—I of an opinion which had become isolated and unpopular. I remember hearing with some consolation from Lord Wensleydale that he was against the principle of the Bill.’ It is but fair to add that, after the Act had passed, Mr. Gladstone, with the generous frankness which distinguishes all great men, wrote a letter to the Attorney-General, expressing regret for any language he had used during debates on the Bill which might have given pain. Sir Richard used to say during the course of the debates that Mr. Gladstone was the only debater in the House of Commons whose subtlety of intellect and didactic skill made it a pleasure to cross swords with him.
CHAPTER VII.
POLITICS AGAIN.
When Parliament met in 1859, an amendment was moved to the Address in a maiden speech from Lord Hartington, which was carried after a three nights’ debate, Mr. Gladstone voting with the Government. Lord Derby and his colleagues instantly resigned. A new Government was formed—Lord Palmerston Premier, Lord John Russell leader of the House of Commons, with Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer. A spirited opposition to Mr. Gladstone’s re-election for the University took place. Lord Chandos—afterwards the Duke of Buckingham—came forward as the Conservative candidate. In an address put forward on his behalf by Professor Mansel, it was stated: ‘By his acceptance of office Mr. Gladstone must now be considered as having given his adherence to the Liberal party as at present reconstructed, and as approving of the policy of those who overthrew Lord Derby’s Government at the late division. By his vote on that division Mr. Gladstone expressed his confidence in the Administration of Lord Derby. By accepting office he now expresses his confidence in the administration of Lord Derby’s opponent and successor.’ In a letter to Dr. Hawkins, the Provost of Oriel, Mr. Gladstone wrote: ‘Various differences of opinion, both on foreign and domestic matters, separated me during great part of the Administration of Lord Palmerston from a body of men with the majority of whom I had acted in perfect harmony under Lord Aberdeen. I promoted the vote of the House of Commons, which in February led to the downfall of that Ministry. Such having been the case, I thought it my clear duty to support, as far as I was able, the Government of Lord Derby. Accordingly, on the various occasions during the existence of the late Parliament when they were seriously threatened with danger of embarrassment, I found myself, like many other independent members, lending them such assistance as was in my power.’
The Oxford election terminated in Mr. Gladstone’s triumph over his opponent. It is curious to note how entirely Mr. Gladstone concurred with Lord John Russell. He worked hard in the Cabinet and in Parliament for his lordship’s Reform Bill, and regarded with aversion Lord Palmerston’s fortifications. In a letter to Her Majesty we read: ‘Viscount Palmerston hopes to be able to overcome his objections, but if that should prove impossible, however great the loss to the Government by the retirement of Mr. Gladstone, it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk of losing Portsmouth or Plymouth.’ When his colleague’s scruples had been overcome, Lord Palmerston wrote to his Sovereign: ‘Mr. Gladstone told Lord Palmerston this evening that he wished it to be understood that, though acquiescing in the step now taken about the fortifications, he kept himself free to take such course as he might think fit upon the subject next year; to which Lord Palmerston consented. That course will probably be the same which Mr. Gladstone took last year—namely, ineffectual opposition and ultimate acquiescence.’
Mr. Gavan Duffy has given us a correct picture of Gladstone as he appeared to him about this time: ‘Mr. Gladstone was not yet the official leader of the Peelites, but he was the most noteworthy of them, and attracted close observation. He was habitually grave, it seemed to me, and spoke as if he uttered oracles; yet he left the impression that his speeches were not only improvised, but that the process of adopting a conclusion was not always complete when he rose to speak. But the vigour and grace of his rhetoric put criticism to flight. The House, which relished the persiflage of Palmerston, thought Gladstone too serious, and resented a little, I think, the subdued tone of contemptuous superiority in which he addressed the leader of the House. He was as smooth as silk, but there was manifestly a reserve of vehement and angry passion ready to break out when it was provoked.’
In a book just published by Mr. Hogan we get a glance at Mr. Gladstone as Colonial Secretary. In Queensland a town still bears his name. The town of Gladstone, which is now within the limits of North Queensland, has been somewhat overshadowed by Rockhampton, which owes its existence to the gold fever which, at the time when folk began to talk of ‘North Australia,’ nobody foresaw. The period, indeed, seems to us now curiously remote, though it is still fresh in the mind of the statesman whose name was bestowed upon the capital of the intended new colony. So much, at least, appears from the prefatory note addressed to the author:
‘My recollections of “Gladstone” were most copious, and are now nearly half a century old.
‘The period, December, 1845, when I became Colonial Secretary, was one when the British Government had begun to feel nonplussed by the question of Transportation. Under the pressure of this difficulty, Lord Stanley, or the Colonial Office of his day, framed a plan for the establishment, as an experiment, of a pure penal colony without free settlers (at least, at the outset).
‘When I came in, the plan might have been arrested in the event of disapproval; but the Government were, I think, committed, and I had only to put the last hand to the scheme.
‘So it went on towards execution.
‘In July, 1846, the Government was changed, and Lord Grey succeeded me. He said he would make none but necessary changes in pending measures. He, however, annihilated this scheme. For that I do not know that he is to be severely blamed. But he went on and dealt with the question in such a way as to produce a mess—I think more than one—far worse than any that he found. The result was the total and rather violent and summary extinction of the entire system.
‘Here I lost sight of the fate of “Gladstone.” It has my good wishes, but I have nothing else to give.
‘Yours very faithful,
‘W. E. Gladstone.’
Mr. Hogan deals with the decline and fall of transportation. It had ceased in New South Wales before Mr. Gladstone came into office. It had broken down also in Norfolk Island, and the hideous practice in Van Diemen’s Land, known as ‘the probation system,’ was causing considerable excitement. It was at this time that Lord Stanley conceived the notion of a new penal colony in North Australia, and it fell to his successor, Mr. Gladstone, to give it form and substance. Mr. Hogan does not spare Mr. Gladstone’s political errors; he is, on the contrary, rather given to dwelling upon them with an acerbity which is to be regretted. We all know that the venerable statesman, who has now well-nigh outlived the bitterness of party rancour, had in those days much to learn. He was undoubtedly, at one time, of opinion that the right of the mother country to found penal settlements at the Antipodes was incontestable; but this view was then shared by most politicians outside the thoughtful circle of the Philosophical Radicals. It is clear, moreover, that Mr. Gladstone came to the subject of transportation with a sincere conviction that it was possible to convert criminals into good citizens, whose presence on the soil would be, not a curse, but an advantage. There is a remarkable State paper in the shape of a memorandum addressed to Sir Eardley Wilmot, who had been sent out specially to inaugurate the probation system. In this, after commenting with the enthusiasm natural to a young statesman on the practicability of reformation, he goes on to say: ‘Considerations yet more sacred enhance the importance of it, for it is impossible to forget in how large a proportion of cases these unhappy people have every claim on our sympathy which the force of temptation, adverse circumstances of life, ignorance and neglected education, can afford to those who have incurred the penalty of the law.’