I receive with great concern your dark prognostication of the result of the Louth election. It would be so painful in a public view with regard to the gratitude of Irishmen, that I will still hope for a better result. But with reference to the latter part of your letter, I at once write to say that in the double event of your rejection and your wish, I consider your claim to a peerage [pg 492] indisputable. It would be hard to name the man who has done for Ireland all that you have done, or any man that knew the greatest Irish questions as you know them.
Mr. Parnell, by the way, was not elected for Meath until April 1875.
V
As the adverse verdict became more and more emphatic, Mr. Gladstone stated to the Queen (Feb. 13) what was the bias of his mind, on the question whether the expiring government should await its sentence from parliament. He had no doubt, he said, that this course was the one most agreeable to usage, and to the rules of parliamentary government; any departure from it could only be justified upon exceptional grounds. He was not, however, clear that this case, like that of 1868, was to be treated as exceptional, partly by reason of prevalent opinion, partly because it should be considered what is fair to an incoming administration with reference to the business, especially the financial business, of the year. Lord Granville from the first seems to have been against waiting for formal decapitation by the new House of Commons. To him Mr. Gladstone wrote (Feb. 7):—
I presume you will answer Bismarck's kind telegram. Please to mention me in your reply or not as you think proper. As to the impending crisis of our fate, one important element, I admit, will be the feeling of the party. I have asked Peel (whose first feeling seems rather to be with you) to learn what he can. I tend to harden in my own view, principle and precedent seeming to me alike clear. There are four precedents of our own time—1835, 1841, 1852, 1859, under three ministers. The only case the other way is that of 1868 of which the circumstances were altogether peculiar. But I admit it to be very doubtful whether we should get beyond the address. On the other hand I admit freely that I have no title to press my view beyond a certain point.
To Meet Parliament Or Resign
“It is parliament,” he argued, “not the constituencies, that ought to dismiss the government, and the proper function of the House of Commons cannot be taken from it without [pg 493] diminishing somewhat in dignity and authority.” There would be reproach either way, he said; either it would be clinging to office, or it would be running away. To run away was in every circumstance of politics the thing to Mr. Gladstone most unbearable. According to Sir Robert Phillimore (Feb. 8) “Gladstone would have met parliament but his colleagues objected, though it seems they would have stood by him if he had pressed them to do so; but as he did not mean, or was not going, to fight in the van of opposition, he thought it unfair to press them.”
Feb. 16, '74.—Cabinet dinner 8-12. It went well. I did something towards snapping the ties and winding out of the coil. Conversation afterwards with Granville, on the flags up and down. Then with Wolverton. To bed at 1-3/4, but lay three hours awake (rare with me) with an overwrought brain. ... 17.—12-½-6. Went to Windsor, and on behalf of the cabinet resigned. Took with me Merchant of Venice and Thomas à Kempis, each how admirable in its way![307] 20.—Went by 5.10 to Windsor, final audience and kissed hands. Her Majesty very kind, the topics of conversation were of course rather limited. 21.—I cleared my room in Downing Street and bade it farewell, giving up my keys except the cabinet key. 28.—Set aside about 300 vols. of pamphlets for the shambles. March 3.—I have given up all my keys; quitted Downing Street a week ago; not an official box remains. But I have still the daily visit of a kind private secretary; when that drops all is over. 5.—Hamilton paid me his last visit. To-morrow I encounter my own correspondence single-handed.
The Queen repeated a former proposal of a peerage. In returning some submissions for her approval, she wished “likewise to record her offer to Mr. Gladstone of a mark of her recognition of his services which, however, he [pg 494] declines from motives which she fully appreciates.” Mr. Gladstone writes to his brother Sir Thomas (Feb. 13):—
Accept my best thanks for your kind note of yesterday. My reply to the Queen was first made twelve months ago when we proposed to resign simply from the failure of a great measure in H. of C. I repeated it this year with similar expressions of gratitude, but with the remark that even if my mind had been open on the question, I did not think I could have accepted anything while under that national condemnation which has been emphatically enough pronounced at the elections. I may be wrong in my view of the matter generally; but I can only judge for the best. I do not see that I am wanted or should be of use in the House of Lords, and there would be more discrepancy between rank and fortune, which is a thing on the whole rather to be deprecated. On the other hand, I know that the line I have marked out for myself in the H. of C. is one not altogether easy to hold; but I have every disposition to remain quiet there, and shall be very glad if I can do so.