VI
Letters from two of his colleagues explain the catastrophe. The shrewd Lord Halifax says to him (Feb 12):—
As far as I can make out people are frightened—the masters were afraid of their workmen, manufacturers afraid of strikes, churchmen afraid of the nonconformists, many afraid of what is going on in France and Spain—and in very unreasoning fear have all taken refuge in conservatism. Ballot enabled them to do this without apparently deserting their principles and party. Things in this country as elsewhere are apt to run for a time in opposite directions. The reaction from the quiet of Palmerston's government gave you strength to remove four or five old-standing abuses which nobody had ventured to touch for years. The feelings of those who suffer from the removal of abuses are always stronger than those of the general public who are benefited. Gratitude for the Reform bill and its sequel of improvements hardly gave a liberal majority in 1835, and gratitude for the removal of the Irish church, purchase, etc., has not given us a majority in 1874.
Explanations Of Defeat
Mr. Bright wrote to him that as things had turned out, it would perhaps have been wiser first to secure the budget; with that and better organisation, the result might have been better three or six months later. In Lancashire, said Bright, publicans and Irishmen had joined together, one for delirium tremens and the other for religious education. The 25th clause and Mr. Forster's obstinacy, he added, had done much to wreck the ship. Mr. Gladstone's own diagnosis was not very different. To his brother Robertson he wrote (Feb. 6):—
For many years in the House of Commons I have had more fighting than any other man. For the last five years I have had it almost all, and of it a considerable part has been against those “independent” liberals whose characters and talents seem to be much more appreciated by the press and general public, than the characters and talents of quieter members of the party. I do not speak of such men as ——, who leave office or otherwise find occasion to vindicate their independence, and vote against us on the questions immediately concerned. These men make very little noise and get very little applause. But there is another and more popular class of independent liberals who have been represented by the Daily News, and who have been one main cause of the weakness of the government, though they (generally) and their organ have rallied to us too late during the election. We have never recovered from the blow which they helped to strike on the Irish Education bill.
But more immediately operative causes have determined the elections. I have no doubt what is the principal. We have been borne down in a torrent of gin and beer. Next to this has been the action of the Education Act of 1870, and the subsequent controversies. Many of the Roman catholics have voted against us because we are not denominational; and many of the dissenters have at least abstained from voting because we are. Doubtless there have been other minor agencies; but these are the chief ones. The effect must be our early removal from office. For me that will be a very great change, for I do not intend to assume the general functions of leader of the opposition, and my great ambition or design will be to spend the remainder of my [pg 496] days, if it please God, in tranquillity, and at any rate in freedom from political strife.
When a short idle attempt was made in the new parliament to raise a debate upon the date and circumstances of the dissolution, Disraeli used language rightly called by Mr. Gladstone “generous.” “The right honourable gentleman's friends,” he said, “were silent, and I must confess I admire their taste and feeling. If I had been a follower of a parliamentary chief as eminent, even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed rather to exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism. I should remember the great victories which he had fought and won; I should remember his illustrious career; its continuous success and splendour, not its accidental or even disastrous mistakes.”[308]
One word upon the place of this election in our financial history. In 1874, the prosperity of the country and the movement of the revenue gave an opportunity for repeal of the income-tax. That opportunity never recurred. The election of 1874 was the fall of the curtain; the play that had begun in 1842 came to its last scene. It marked the decision of the electorate that the income-tax—introduced in time of peace by Peel and continued by Mr. Gladstone, for the purpose of simplifying the tariff and expanding trade—should be retained for general objects of government and should be a permanent element of our finance. It marked at the same time the prospect of a new era of indefinitely enlarged expenditure, with the income-tax as a main engine for raising ways and means. Whether this decision was wise or unwise, we need not here discuss.