III
On the day after his death, in each of the two Houses the leader made the motion, identical in language in both cases save the few final words about financial provision in the resolution of the Commons:—
That an humble Address be presented to her Majesty praying that her Majesty will be graciously pleased to give directions that the remains of the Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone be interred at the public charge, and that a monument be erected in the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster, with an inscription expressive of the public admiration and attachment and of the high sense entertained of his rare and splendid gifts, and of his devoted labours to parliament and in great offices of state, and to assure her Majesty that this House will make good the expenses attending the same.
The language of the movers was worthy of the British parliament at its best, worthy of the station of those who [pg 529]
Parliamentary Tributes
used it, and worthy of the figure commemorated. Lord Salisbury was thought by most to go nearest to the core of the solemnity:—
What is the cause of this unanimous feeling? Of course, he had qualities that distinguished him from all other men; and you may say that it was his transcendent intellect, his astonishing power of attaching men to him, and the great influence he was able to exert upon the thought and convictions of his contemporaries. But these things, which explain the attachment, the adoration of those whose ideas he represented, would not explain why it is that sentiments almost as fervent are felt and expressed by those whose ideas were not carried out by his policy. My Lords, I do not think the reason is to be found in anything so far removed from the common feelings of mankind as the abstruse and controversial questions of the policy of the day. They had nothing to do with it. Whether he was right, or whether he was wrong, in all the measures, or in most of the measures which he proposed—those are matters of which the discussion has passed by, and would certainly be singularly inappropriate here; they are really remitted to the judgment of future generations, who will securely judge from experience what we can only decide by forecast. It was on account of considerations more common to the masses of human beings, to the general working of the human mind, than any controversial questions of policy that men recognised in him a man guided—whether under mistaken impressions or not, it matters not—but guided in all the steps he took, in all the efforts that he made, by a high moral ideal. What he sought were the attainments of great ideals, and, whether they were based on sound convictions or not, they could have issued from nothing but the greatest and the purest moral aspirations; and he is honoured by his countrymen, because through so many years, across so many vicissitudes and conflicts, they had recognised this one characteristic of his action, which has never ceased to be felt. He will leave behind him, especially to those who have followed with deep interest the history of the later years—I might almost say the later months of his life—he will leave behind him the memory of a great Christian statesman. Set up necessarily on high—the sight of [pg 530] his character, his motives, and his intentions would strike all the world. They will have left a deep and most salutary influence on the political thought and the social thought of the generation in which he lived, and he will be long remembered not so much for the causes in which he was engaged or the political projects which he favoured, but as a great example, to which history hardly furnishes a parallel, of a great Christian man.
Mr. Balfour, the leader in the Commons, specially spoke of him as “the greatest member of the greatest deliberative assembly that the world has seen,” and most aptly pointed to Mr. Gladstone's special service in respect of that assembly.
One service he did, in my opinion incalculable, which is altogether apart from the judgment that we may be disposed to pass upon particular opinions, or particular lines of policy which Mr. Gladstone may from time to time have advocated. Sir, he added a dignity, as he added a weight, to the deliberations of this House by his genius, which I think it is impossible adequately to replace. It is not enough for us to keep up simply a level, though it be a high level, of probity and of patriotism. The mere average of civic virtue is not sufficient to preserve this Assembly from the fate that has overcome so many other Assemblies, products of democratic forces. More than this is required; more than this was given to us by Mr. Gladstone. He brought to our debates a genius which compelled attention, he raised in the public estimation the whole level of our proceedings, and they will be most ready to admit the infinite value of his service who realise how much of public prosperity is involved in the maintenance of the worth of public life, and how perilously difficult most democracies apparently feel it to be to avoid the opposite dangers into which so many of them have fallen.
Sir William Harcourt spoke of him as friend and official colleague:—