On the morning of the 16th, Mr. Gladstone started. Hundreds of people grew to thousands long before his train left King's Cross, and all the way to Edinburgh he found the same vivid interest and acclamation on the east coast that had greeted him in November on the west. At Grantham the mayor and a crowd estimated by nimble statisticians at two thousand, awaited him at the station; at York the lord mayor and six thousand; at Newcastle-on-Tyne too many thousands to count. The little addresses made at these stopping-places were described as a sort of table of contents of the more elaborate speeches to be delivered in Midlothian itself. As he crossed the Tweed the fervour did not cool, and when at last he reached Edinburgh, he encountered a scene almost as wonderful as that which had met him four months before.
Again he was the guest at Dalmeny, and again he renewed his prodigious exertions amid a vehemence of admiration and delight that became more intense as the days passed. Here is an entry or two from the diary:—
Travelled forty miles and delivered three speeches of forty-five or fifty minutes each, at Juniper Green, Colinton, and Mid Calder. Enthusiasm unabated.... Corrected and despatched proofs of Religion, Achaian and Semitic. Mar. 21, Palm Sunday.—Drove to Edinburgh cathedral; service 11-1-½. Free St. George's in the afternoon. Walked out seven miles with Lord Rosebery. 22.—To Edinburgh (after working as usual on my papers) at 1.15. Short complimentary address at liberal club. Then to George Street and on to the city election committee; short speech. Then by train to Gilmerton; spoke forty-five or fifty minutes; next after tea to Loanhead, and after more tea, spoke again for some time on Russian aggrandizement. Everywhere the greatest enthusiasm. Mr. C[owan] gave me interesting details about Magyar and Bohemian students. Back to Dalmeny at 7.20.
And so day after day did panting time toil after him in vain. Many of us have known long spells of hard electioneering—but not in one's seventy-first year, with every single word as it fell into print on the morrow watched with the lynx eyes of party scrutiny, and all loaded with the heaviest personal responsibility.
Dissolution
On March 24 the parliament was dissolved. On March 30 the first elections took place, and the first pollings on the day following. From the early returns it was pretty evident that the liberals would have a majority. On the first day they made a net gain of fifteen seats in sixty-nine constituencies. By the end of the fourth day a total net gain of fifty seats was recorded. The ministerial majority was already gone. The county elections brought new surprises, and by the end of the second week the liberal gains were reckoned at ninety-nine.
Mr. Gladstone's fortnight of discourse ended on the 2nd of April. “So,” he records, “ends the second series of the speeches in which I have hammered with all my poor might at the fabric of the present tory power. April 3.—Cut down [pg 610] a Spanish chestnut in Dalmeny Park by order. The day was quiet, but my papers and letters and the incoming news made it busy. It seemed as if the arm of the Lord had bared itself for work that He has made His own. 4.—A lull in election news, but the reflections on what has passed are overpowering.” Here are his closing words, and they are not without historic import:—
The great trial, gentlemen, proceeds. You have great forces arrayed against you. I say “You”; if you will permit me to identify myself with you, I will say, We have great forces arrayed against us, and apparently we cannot make our appeal to the aristocracy, excepting that which must never be forgotten, the distinguished and enlightened minority of that body of able, energetic, patriotic, liberal-minded men, whose feelings are with those of the people, and who decorate and dignify their rank by their strong sympathy with the entire community. With that exception, in all the classes of which I speak, I am sorry to say we cannot reckon upon what is called the landed interest, we cannot reckon upon the clergy of the established church either in England or in Scotland, subject again and always in each case to the most noble exceptions—exceptions, I trust, likely to enlarge and multiply from day to day. On none of these can we place our trust. We cannot reckon on the wealth of the country, nor upon the rank of the country, nor upon the influence which rank and wealth usually bring. In the main these powers are against us, for wherever there is a close corporation, wherever there is a spirit of organised monopoly, wherever there is a narrow and sectional interest apart from that of the country, and desiring to be set up above the interest of the public, there, gentlemen, we, the liberal party, have no friendship and no tolerance to expect. Above all these, and behind all these, there is something greater than these—there is the nation itself. This great trial is now proceeding before the nation. The nation is a power hard to rouse, but when roused, harder still and more hopeless to resist.... I figure to myself those who have constituted the majority of the late House of Commons as the persons arraigned, and the constituencies of the country as those who are called together in the solemn order of the constitution to hear the evidence, and to pronounce the verdict. That evidence has [pg 611] been pretty largely given. That verdict we await. We have none of the forms of a judicial trial. There are no peers in Westminster Hall, there are no judges on the woolsack; but if we concentrate our minds upon the truth of the case as apart from its mere exterior, it is a grander and a more august spectacle than was ever exhibited either in Westminster Hall or in the House of Lords. For a nation, called to undertake a great and responsible duty,—a duty which is to tell, as we are informed from high authority, on the peace of Europe and on the destinies of England,—has found its interests mismanaged, its honour tarnished, and its strength burdened and weakened by needless, mischievous, unauthorised, and unprofitable engagements, and it has resolved that this state of things shall cease, and that right and justice shall be done.[362]
Elected For Midlothian And Leeds
Mr. Gladstone was already member for Leeds. So far back as the March of 1878 Sir James Kitson had written to ask him to become a candidate for the great city of the West Siding, but Mr. Gladstone declined the proposal. Then a deputation came to him in Harley Street, and he made them a speech on the Eastern question, but avoided any reference to the subject which they had come to handle. The stout Yorkshiremen were not to be baffled, and Mr. Gladstone, nominated without action of his own, was now returned by the unprecedented vote of 24,622.[363] He was right in calling the Leeds election “one of the most conspicuous and imposing victories ever won for the liberal cause.”[364] Still public interest was concentrated upon Midlothian, and the might with which he prevailed over men's minds there, was admitted by his foes to be the most impressive tribute ever paid to political man and his vast powers as orator and popular leader. In Midlothian the crusade had been opened, and in Midlothian its triumph was sealed.