At the third cabinet the decision was taken to retire from the Soudan, and to fix the southern frontier of Egypt at the line where it was left for twelve years, until apprehension of designs of another European power on the upper waters of the Nile was held to demand a new policy. Meanwhile, the policy of Mr. Gladstone's cabinet was adopted and followed by Lord Salisbury when he came into office. He was sometimes pressed to reverse it, and to overthrow the dervish power at Khartoum. To any importunity of this kind, Lord Salisbury's answer was until 1896 unwavering.[116]
It may be worth noting that, in the course of his correspondence with the Queen on the change of policy in the Soudan, Mr. Gladstone casually indulged in the luxury of a historical parallel. “He must assure your Majesty,” he wrote in a closing sentence (April 20), “that at least he has never in any cabinet known any question more laboriously or more conscientiously discussed; and he is confident that the basis of action has not been the mere change in the public view (which, however, is in some cases imperative, as [pg 181] it was with King George iii. in the case of the American war), but a deep conviction of what the honour and interest of the empire require them as faithful servants of your Majesty to advise.”
A Historical Parallel
The most harmless parallel is apt to be a challenge to discussion, and the parenthesis seems to have provoked some rejoinder from the Queen, for on April 28 Mr. Gladstone wrote to her secretary a letter which takes him away from Khartoum to a famous piece of the world's history:—
To Sir Henry Ponsonby.
In further prosecution of my reply to your letter of the 25th, I advert to your remarks upon Lord North. I made no reference to his conduct, I believe, in writing to her Majesty. What I endeavoured to show was that King George iii., without changing his opinion of the justice of his war against the colonies, was obliged to give it up on account of a change of public opinion, and was not open to blame for so doing.
You state to me that Lord North never flinched from his task till it became hopeless, that he then resigned office, but did not change his opinions to suit the popular cry. The implied contrast to be drawn with the present is obvious. I admit none of your three propositions. Lord North did not, as I read history, require to change his opinions to suit the popular cry. They were already in accordance with the popular cry; and it is a serious reproach against him that without sharing his master's belief in the propriety of the war, he long persisted in carrying it on, through subserviency to that master.
Lord North did not resign office for any reason but because he could not help it, being driven from it by some adverse votes of the House of Commons, to which he submitted with great good humour, and probably with satisfaction.
Lord North did not, so far as I know, state the cause to be hopeless. Nor did those who were opposed to him. The movers of the resolution that drove him out of office did not proceed upon that ground. General Conway in his speech advised the retention of the ground we held in the colonies, and the resolution, which expressed the sense of the House as a body, bears a singular resemblance to the announcement we have lately made, [pg 182] as it declares, in its first clause, that the further prosecution of offensive war (on the continent of America) “will be the means of weakening the efforts of this country against her European enemies,” February 27, 1782. This was followed, on March 4, by an address on the same basis; and by a resolution declaring that any ministers who should advise or attempt to frustrate it should be considered “as enemies to his Majesty and to this country.” I ought, perhaps, to add that I have never stated, and I do not conceive, that a change in the public opinion of the country is the ground on which the cabinet have founded the change in their advice concerning the Soudan.