I
At last one day (March 8) when Mr. Gladstone was “writing a little on Homer,” he heard the fated news that the dissolution was announced. Lord Beaconsfield published the famous letter to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, and in deep accents and sonorous sentences endeavoured to make home rule the issue of the election. Shrewd politicians, with time to reflect, found it not easy to divine why the government had chosen the particular moment. It might be, as some supposed, that they thought the opposition had lately got into bad odour with the country by coquetting with home rulers, as shown by the elections at Liverpool and Southwark. But, in fact, little importance was to be attached to these two defeats of the opposition, for Liverpool had always been conservative, and Southwark was thoroughly disorganised by liberal divisions. “The general opinion seems to be,” says Speaker Brand (Mar. 15), “that the opposition may gain slightly at the general election, but not to an extent to break down altogether the conservative majority.”
In what was in effect his election address, Lord Beaconsfield warned the country that a danger, in its ultimate [pg 606] results scarcely less disastrous than pestilence and famine, distracted Ireland. A portion of its population was endeavouring to sever the constitutional tie that united it to Great Britain in that bond which was favourable to the power and prosperity of both. “It is to be hoped,” he went on, “that all men of light and leading will resist this destructive doctrine. The strength of this action depends on the unity of feeling which should pervade the United Kingdom and its widespread dependencies. The first duty of an English minister should be to consolidate that co-operation which renders irresistible the community educated, as our own, in an equal love of liberty and law. And yet there are some who challenge the expediency of the imperial character of this realm. Having attempted and failed to enfeeble our colonies by their policy of decomposition, they may perhaps now recognise in the disintegration of the United Kingdom, a mode which will not only accomplish, but precipitate their purpose.... Rarely in this century has there been an occasion more critical. The power of England and the peace of Europe will largely depend upon the verdict of the country.... Peace rests on the presence, not to say the ascendency of England in the councils of Europe. Even at this moment the doubt supposed to be inseparable from popular elections, if it does not diminish, certainly arrests her influence, and is a main reason for not delaying an appeal to the national voice.”
To this manifesto Mr. Gladstone, with his usual long pains in the drafting of such pieces, prepared his counterblast. He went with direct force to what Lord Beaconsfield had striven to make the centre of his appeal:—
In the electioneering address which the prime minister has issued, an attempt is made to work upon your fears by dark allusions to the repeal of the union and the abandonment of the colonies. Gentlemen, those who endangered the union with Ireland were the party that maintained there an alien church, an unjust land law, and franchises inferior to our own; and the true supporters of the union are those who firmly uphold the supreme authority of parliament, but exercise that authority to bind the [pg 607] three nations by the indissoluble tie of liberal and equal laws. As to the colonies, liberal administrations set free their trade with all the world, gave them popular and responsible government, undertook to defend Canada with the whole strength of the empire, and organised the great scheme for uniting the several settlements of British North America into one dominion, to which, when we quitted office in 1866, it only remained for our successors to ask the ready assent of parliament. It is by these measures that the colonies have been bound in affection to the empire, and the authors of them can afford to smile at baseless insinuations. Gentlemen, the true purpose of these terrifying insinuations is to hide from view the acts of the ministry, and their effect upon the character and condition, of the country.
To those ministerial misdeeds he proceeded to draw the attention of the electors, though he declared with threescore years and ten upon his head, how irksome he felt the task. “At home,” he said, “the ministers have neglected legislation, aggravated the public distress by continual shocks to confidence which is the life of enterprise, augmented the public expenditure and taxation for purposes not merely unnecessary but mischievous, and plunged the finances, which were handed over to them in a state of singular prosperity, into a series of deficits unexampled in modern times.” After shooting this heavy bolt he looked abroad. “Abroad they have strained, if they have not endangered, the prerogative by gross misuse, and have weakened the empire by needless wars, unprofitable extensions, and unwise engagements, and have dishonoured it in the eyes of Europe by filching the island of Cyprus from the Porte under a treaty clause distinctly concluded in violation of the treaty of Paris, which formed part of the international law of Christendom.” As to the domestic legislation of the future, it was in the election address of the prime minister a perfect blank. It was true that in default of reform in this kingdom, the nation was promised the advantages of “presence, not to say ascendency,” in the councils of Europe.
There is indeed, he said, an ascendency in European councils to which Great Britain might reasonably aspire, by steadily [pg 608] sustaining the character of a Power no less just than strong; attached to liberty and law, jealous of peace, and therefore opposed to intrigue and aggrandizement, from whatever quarter they may come; jealous of honour, and therefore averse to the clandestine engagements which have marked our two latest years. To attain a moral and envied ascendency such as this, is indeed a noble object for any minister or any empire.
II
Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Acton on March 14:—
On Tuesday I am to set out for Midlothian and my last general election. My general elections have been 1832, 1835, 1837, 1841, 1847, 1852, 1857, 1859, 1865, 1874, and now 1880—what a list! I believe that among the official men of this century I am now beaten only by Lord Palmerston in the length of my career in the House of Commons. A clear answer from the nation, a clear answer in the right sense, and a decisive accession of the liberal party to power without me, this is what I hope and pray. I think that the experts and the party generally are pretty sanguine. None doubt that the government are to lose; a few doubt whether they will be weaker than liberals and home rulers; very many whether weaker than liberals alone. All agree that Scotland will do its duty.