In order to test the question, must we not bear in mind that the liberty claimed in one wing of a cabinet may also be claimed in another, and that while one minister says I support this measure, though it does not go far enough, another may just as lawfully say I support this measure, though it goes too far? For example, Argyll agreed to the Disturbance Compensation bill in 1880, [pg 114] mainly out of regard to his colleagues and their authority. What if he had used in the House of Lords language like that I have just supposed? Every extravagance of this kind puts weapons into the hands of opponents, and weakens the authority of government, which is hardly ever too strong, and is often too weak already.
In a letter written some years before when he was leader of the House, Mr. Gladstone on the subject of the internal discipline of a ministerial corps told one, who was at that time and now his colleague, a little story:—
As the subject is one of interest, perhaps you will let me mention the incident which first obliged me to reflect upon it. Nearly thirty years ago, my leader, Sir R. Peel, agreed in the Irish Tithes bills to give 25 per cent. of the tithe to the landlord in return for that “Commutation.” Thinking this too much (you see that twist was then already in me), I happened to say so in a private letter to an Irish clergyman. Very shortly after I had a note from Peel, which inclosed one from Shaw, his head man in Ireland, complaining of my letter as making his work impossible if such things were allowed to go on. Sir R. Peel indorsed the remonstrance, and I had to sing small. The discipline was very tight in those days (and we were in opposition, not in government). But it worked well on the whole, and I must say it was accompanied on Sir R. Peel's part with a most rigid regard to rights of all kinds within the official or quasi-official corps, which has somewhat declined in more recent times.
A minister had made some reference in a public speech, to what happened in the cabinet of which he was a member. “I am sure it cannot have occurred to you,” Mr. Gladstone wrote, “that the cabinet is the operative part of the privy council, that the privy councillor's oath is applicable to its proceedings, that this is a very high obligation, and that no one can dispense with it except the Queen. I may add that I believe no one is entitled even to make a note of the proceedings except the prime minister, who has to report its proceedings on every occasion of its meeting to the Queen, and who must by a few scraps assist his memory.”
By the end of the session, although its labours had not [pg 115]
Official Discipline
been on the level of either 1881 or 1882, Mr. Gladstone was somewhat strained. On Aug. 22 he writes to Mrs. Gladstone at Hawarden: “Yesterday at 4½ I entered the House hoping to get out soon and write you a letter, when the Speaker told me Northcote was going to raise a debate on the Appropriation bill, and I had to wait, listen, and then to speak for more than an hour, which tired me a good deal, finding me weak after sitting till 2.30 the night before, and a long cabinet in the interval. Rough work for 73!”
II
In September he took a holiday in a shape that, though he was no hearty sailor, was always a pleasure and a relief to him. Three letters to the Queen tell the story, and give a glimpse of court punctilio:—
On the North Sea, Sept. 15. Posted at Copenhagen, Sept. 16, 1883.—Mr. Gladstone presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and has to offer his humble apology for not having sought from your Majesty the usual gracious permission before setting foot on a foreign shore. He embarked on the 8th in a steamer of the Castles Company under the auspices of Sir Donald Currie, with no more ambitious expectation than that of a cruise among the Western Isles. But the extraordinary solidity, so to call it, of a very fine ship (the Pembroke Castle, 4000 tons, 410 feet long) on the water, rendering her in no small degree independent of weather, encouraged his fellow-voyagers, and even himself, though a most indifferent sailor, to extend their views, and the vessel is now on the North Sea running over to Christiansand in Norway, from whence it is proposed to go to Copenhagen, with the expectation, however, of again touching British soil in the middle of next week. Mr. Gladstone humbly trusts that, under these circumstances, his omission may be excused.