Political Pensions.
July 4, 1883.—You are probably aware that during the fifty years which have passed since the system of political and civil pensions was essentially remodelled, no political pension has been granted by any minister except to one of those with whom he stood on terms of general confidence and co-operation. It is needless to refer to older practice.
This is not to be accounted for by the fact that after meeting the just claims of political adherents, there has been nothing left to bestow. For, although it has happened that the list of pensions of the first class has usually been full, it has not been so with political pensions of the other classes, which have, I think, rarely if ever been granted to the fullest extent that the Acts have allowed. At the present time, out of twelve pensions which may legally be conferred, only seven have been actually given, if I reckon rightly. I do not think that this state of facts can have been due to the absence of cases entitled to consideration, and I am quite certain that it is not to be accounted for by what are commonly termed party motives. It was obvious to me that I [pg 108] could not create a precedent of deviation from a course undeviatingly pursued by my predecessors of all parties, without satisfying myself that a new form of proceeding would be reasonable and safe. The examination of private circumstances, such as I consider the Act to require, is from its own nature difficult and invidious: but the examination of competing cases in the ex-official corps is a function that could not, I think, be discharged with the necessary combination of free responsible action, and of exemption from offence and suspicion. Such cases plainly may occur.[70]
To H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.
August 14th.—I am much shocked at an omission which I made last night in failing to ask your royal Highness's leave to be the first to quit Lord Alcester's agreeable party, in order that I might attend to my duties in the House of Commons. In my early days not only did the whole company remain united, if a member of the royal family were present, until the exalted personage had departed; but I well recollect the application of the same rule in the case of the Archbishop (Howley) of Canterbury. I am sorry to say that I reached the House of Commons in time to hear some outrageous speeches from the ultra Irish members. I will not say that they were meant to encourage crime, but they tended directly to teach the Irish people to withhold their confidence from the law and its administrators; and they seemed to exhibit Lord Spencer as the enemy to the mass of the community—a sad and disgraceful fact, though I need not qualify what I told your royal Highness, that they had for some time past not been guilty of obstruction.
Even in pieces that were in their nature more or less official, he touched the occasions of life by a note that was not merely official, or was official in its best form. To Mrs. Garfield he wrote (July 21, 1881):—
You will, I am sure, excuse me, though a personal stranger, for addressing you by letter, to convey to you the assurance of my [pg 109] own feelings and those of my countrymen on the occasion of the late horrible attempt to murder the President of the United States, in a form more palpable at least than that of messages conveyed by telegraph. Those feelings have been feelings in the first instance of sympathy, and afterwards of joy and thankfulness, almost comparable, and I venture to say only second to the strong emotions of the great nation, of which he is the appointed head. Individually I have, let me beg you to believe, had my full share in the sentiments which have possessed the British nation. They have been prompted and quickened largely by what I venture to think is the ever-growing sense of harmony and mutual respect and affection between the two countries, and of a relationship which from year to year becomes more and more a practical bond of union between us. But they have also drawn much of their strength from a cordial admiration of the simple heroism which has marked the personal conduct of the President, for we have not yet wholly lost the capacity of appreciating such an example of Christian faith and manly fortitude. This exemplary picture has been made complete by your own contribution to its noble and touching features, on which I only forbear to dwell because I am directly addressing you.
Under all the conventional solemnities in Mr. Gladstone on such occasions, we are conscious of a sincere feeling that they were in real relation to human life and all its chances and changes.