Another period has opened and is opening still—a period possibly of yet greater moral dangers, certainly a great ordeal for those classes which are now becoming largely conscious of power, and never heretofore subject to its deteriorating influences. These have been confined in their actions to the classes above them, because they were its sole possessors. Now is the time for the true friend of his country to remind the masses that their present political elevation is owing to no principles less broad and noble than these—the love of liberty, of liberty for all without distinction of class, creed or country, and the resolute preference of the interests of the whole to any interest, be it what it may, of a narrower scope.[315]
A year later, in bidding farewell to his constituents “with [pg 536] sentiments of gratitude and attachment that can never be effaced,” he proceeds:—
Though in regard to public affairs many things are disputable, there are some which belong to history and which have passed out of the region of contention. It is, for example as I conceive, beyond question that the century now expiring has exhibited since the close of its first quarter a period of unexampled activity both in legislative and administrative changes; that these changes, taken in the mass, have been in the direction of true and most beneficial progress; that both the conditions and the franchises of the people have made in relation to the former state of things, an extraordinary advance; that of these reforms an overwhelming proportion have been effected by direct action of the liberal party, or of statesmen such as Peel and Canning, ready to meet odium or to forfeit power for the public good; and that in every one of the fifteen parliaments the people of Scotland have decisively expressed their convictions in favour of this wise, temperate, and in every way remarkable policy.[316]
To charge him with habitually rousing popular forces into dangerous excitement, is to ignore or misread his action in some of the most critical of his movements. “Here is a man,” said Huxley, “with the greatest intellect in Europe, and yet he debases it by simply following majorities and the crowd.” He was called a mere mirror of the passing humours and intellectual confusions of the popular mind. He had nothing, said his detractors, but a sort of clever pilot's eye for winds and currents, and the rising of the tide to the exact height that would float him and his cargo over the bar. All this is the exact opposite of the truth. What he thought was that the statesman's gift consisted in insight into the facts of a particular era, disclosing the existence of material for forming public opinion and directing public opinion to a given purpose. In every one of his achievements of high mark—even in his last marked failure of achievement—he expressly formed, or endeavoured to form and create, the public opinion upon which he knew that in the last resort he must depend.
Leader, Not Follower
We have seen the triumph of 1853.[317] Did he, in renewing the most hated of taxes, run about anxiously feeling the pulse of public opinion? On the contrary, he grappled with the facts with infinite labour—and half his genius was labour—he built up a great plan; he carried it to the cabinet; they warned him that the House of Commons would be against him; the officials of the treasury told him the Bank would be against him; that a strong press of commercial interests would be against him. Like the bold and sinewy athlete that he always was, he stood to his plan; he carried the cabinet; he persuaded the House of Commons; he vanquished the Bank and the hostile interests; and in the words of Sir Stafford Northcote, he changed and turned for many years to come, a current of public opinion that seemed far too powerful for any minister to resist. In the tempestuous discussions during the seventies on the policy of this country in respect of the Christian races of the Balkan Peninsula, he with his own voice created, moulded, inspired, and kindled with resistless flame the whole of the public opinion that eventually guided the policy of the nation with such admirable effect both for its own fame, and for the good of the world. Take again the Land Act of 1881, in some ways the most deep-reaching of all his legislative achievements. Here he had no flowing tide, every current was against him. He carried his scheme against the ignorance of the country, against the prejudice of the country, and against the standing prejudices of both branches of the legislature, who were steeped from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot in the strictest doctrines of contract.
Then his passion for economy, his ceaseless war against public profusion, his insistence upon rigorous keeping of the national accounts—in this great department of affairs he led and did not follow. In no sphere of his activities was he more strenuous, and in no sphere, as he must well have known, was he less likely to win popularity. For democracy is spendthrift; if, to be sure, we may not say that most forms of government are apt to be the same.
In a survey of Mr. Gladstone's performances, some would [pg 538] place this of which I have last spoken, as foremost among his services to the country. Others would call him greatest in the associated service of a skilful handling and adjustment of the burden of taxation; or the strengthening of the foundations of national prosperity and well-being by his reformation of the tariff. Yet others again choose to remember him for his share in guiding the successive extensions of popular power, and simplifying and purifying electoral machinery. Irishmen at least, and others so far as they are able to comprehend the history and vile wrongs and sharp needs of Ireland, will have no doubt what rank in legislation they will assign to the establishment of religious equality and agrarian justice in that portion of the realm. Not a few will count first the vigour with which he repaired what had been an erroneous judgment of his own and of vast hosts of his countrymen, by his courage in carrying through the submission of the Alabama claims to arbitration. Still more, looking from west to east, in this comparison among his achievements, will judge alike in its result and in the effort that produced it, nothing equal to the valour and insight with which he burst the chains of a mischievous and degrading policy as to the Ottoman empire. When we look at this exploit, how in face of an opponent of genius and authority and a tenacity not inferior to his own, in face of strongly rooted tradition on behalf of the Turk, and an easily roused antipathy against the Russian, by his own energy and strength of arm he wrested the rudder from the hand of the helmsman and put about the course of the ship, and held England back from the enormity of trying to keep several millions of men and women under the yoke of barbaric oppression and misrule,—we may say that this great feat alone was fame enough for one statesman. Let us make what choice we will of this or that particular achievement, how splendid a list it is of benefits conferred and public work effectually performed. Was he a good parliamentary tactician, they ask? Was his eye sure, his hand firm, his measurement of forces, distances, and possibilities of change in wind and tide accurate? Did he usually hit the proper moment for a magisterial intervention? Experts did not [pg 539]
Achievements Compared
always agree on his quality as tactician. At least he was pilot enough to bring many valuable cargoes safely home.