CHAPTER XVIII
THIRD ADMINISTRATION AND HOME RULE
It is our purpose next to trace the events that led to the overthrow of the Second Administration of Mr. Gladstone, and to the formation of his Third Cabinet. The question that seemed to begin the work of weakening the foundations of his existing government was their policy in regard to Egypt, which began with the occupation of Egypt in 1882.
The budget of the session of 1882 was presented by Mr. Gladstone April 24th. It was not expected that anything novel in the way of legislation would be attempted in it. But its main interest was in this, that it proposed a vote of credit for the Egyptian Expedition, which was to be provided for by addition to the income-tax, making it sixpence half-penny in the pound for the year. The financial proposals were agreed to. In the course of the session Mr. Bright resigned his place in the Cabinet on the ground that the intervention in Egypt was a manifest violation of the moral law, that the Government had interfered by force of arms in Egypt, and directed the bombardment of Alexandria. Mr. Gladstone denied that the Ministry were at war with Egypt, and stated that the measures taken at Alexandria were strictly measures of self-defence. In justifying his resignation Mr. Bright said there had been a manifest violation of the moral law; but the Premier, while agreeing with his late colleague generally on the question of the moral law differed from him as to this particular application of it.
The Prime Minister attended the Lord Mayor's Banquet at the Mansion House, August 9, 1882. In replying to the toast to Her Majesty's Ministers, after some preliminary remarks, Mr. Gladstone alluded to the campaign in Egypt, which had been so much discussed, and said: "Let it be well understood for what we go and for what we do not go to Egypt. We do not go to make war on its people, but to rescue them from the oppression of a military tyranny which at present extinguishes every free voice and chains every man of the people of that country. We do not go to make war on the Mohammedan religion, for it is amongst the proudest distinctions of Christianity to establish tolerance, and we know that wherever the British rule exists, the same respect which we claim for the exercise of our own conscientious convictions is yielded to the professors of every other faith on the surface of the globe. We do not, my Lord Mayor, go to repress the growth of Egyptian liberties. We wish them well; for we have no other interest in Egypt, which cannot in any other way so well and so effectually attain her own prosperity as by the enjoyment of a well regulated, and an expanding freedom."
Mr. Gladstone's confidence respecting the early termination of the war in Egypt was somewhat justified by Sir Garnet Wolseley's victory at Tel-el-Kebir, but the future relations of England with Egypt were still left an open subject of discussion and speculation. Again, November 9th, at the banquet at the Guildhall, to the Cabinet Ministers, Mr. Gladstone spoke. He called attention to the settlement of the troubles in the East of Europe, congratulating his hearers on the removal by the naval and military forces of the Egyptian difficulty, and calling attention to Ireland, compared its condition with that of the previous March and October, 1881, showing a diminution of agrarian crime to the extent of four-fifths. This happy result had been brought about, not by coercive means alone, but by the exercise of remedial measures. "If the people of Ireland were willing to walk in the ways of legality, England was strong, and generous, and free enough to entertain in a friendly and kindly spirit any demand which they might make."
On the 13th of December, 1882, Mr. Gladstone's political jubilee was celebrated. Fifty years before, on that day, he had been returned to Parliament as member for Newark. A large number of congratulatory addresses, letters, and telegrams complimenting him on the completion of his fifty years of parliamentary service were received by him. He had entered the first Reformed Parliament as a conservative, had gone ever forward in the path of reform, and was yet to lead in greater measures of reform.
The excellent prospects regarding domestic measures with which the session of 1883 was opened were dispelled by prolonged and fruitless debates on measures proposed and on the address from the Queen. But Mr. Gladstone was absent, the state of his health requiring him to pass several weeks at Cannes. He returned home in March greatly invigorated, and at once threw himself with wonted ardour into the parliamentary conflict. Mr. Parnell offered a bill to amend the Irish Land Act of 1887, which was opposed by the Premier and lost.
An affirmation bill was introduced at this session by the Government, which provided that members who objected to taking the oath might have the privilege of affirming. The opposition spoke of the measure as a "Bradlaugh Relief Bill." Its rejection was moved, and in its defense Mr. Gladstone made one of his best speeches, which was warmly applauded. He said: "I must painfully record my opinion, that grave injury has been done to religion in many minds—not in instructed minds, but in those which are ill-instructed or partially instructed—in consequence of things which ought never to have occurred. Great mischief has been done in many minds by a resistance offered to the man elected by the constituency of Northampton, which a portion of the people believe to be unjust. When they see the profession of religion and the interests of religion, ostensibly associated with what they are deeply convinced is injustice, it leads to questions about religion itself, which commonly end in impairing those convictions, and that belief, the loss of which I believe to be the most inexpressible calamity which can fall either upon a man or upon a nation." But the measure was lost.