LORD SALISBURY.
(From a Photograph by Bassano, Old Bond Street, W.)
Mr. Gladstone tendered his resignation at once when the results of the Elections were known, and Mr. Disraeli on being sent for formed a Cabinet, in which the offices were distributed as follows:—First Lord of the Treasury, Mr. Disraeli; Lord Chancellor, Lord Cairns; Lord President of the Council, Duke of Richmond; Lord Privy Seal, Lord Malmesbury; Foreign Secretary, Lord Derby; Secretary for India, Lord Salisbury; Colonial Secretary, Lord Carnarvon; Home Secretary, Mr. R. A. Cross; War Secretary, Mr. Gathorne-Hardy; First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Ward Hunt; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Northcote; Postmaster-General, Lord John Manners. The minor offices were distributed either among administrators and men of business, or young men of high birth and promising abilities, who were thus put in training for the duties of leadership in the future.[66]
Ministers and ex-Ministers soon had their troubles thick upon them. The “interests” were impatient for satisfaction, and there was an ugly rush after the surplus. Deputations of Income Tax repealers, Local Taxation Leaguers, clergymen demanding subsidies to Consular chaplains, brewers demanding the repeal of their licence, Malt Tax repealers, Sugar Duty repealers, clerical supporters of voluntary schools, who, according to Lord Sandon, virtually asked for the suspension of payment by results, waited on Sir Stafford Northcote to claim their share of Mr. Gladstone’s surplus. Other Ministers, too, were pestered by the various “interests” who had worked for the Tory Party at the General Election on the understanding that Mr. Gladstone’s “harassing” legislation would be undone if Mr. Disraeli came back to power. The new Government were sufficiently courageous to resist this pressure. Indeed, they were generous enough to retract much of the hostile criticism which in the heat of electioneering contests had been hurled against Mr. Gladstone’s Administration. The Liberal Party, on the other hand, was not only shattered, but practically leaderless. Its chiefs, it was said, were fighting among themselves. Stories flew about to the effect that Mr. Lowe declared he would never again follow Mr. Gladstone, that Sir William Harcourt was convinced he must lead the Party himself if it was to be saved from extinction, and that Sir Henry James vowed that he would never permit Mr. Gladstone to sit as his colleague in any future Liberal Cabinet. Naturally Mr. Gladstone retired from the duties of leadership, but pressure was put upon him to resume them. He consented, but only on the understanding that his service was to be temporary, and that he should not be expected to be in regular attendance in the House of Commons. His advanced age, his broken health, and his need of rest, were the reasons which he gave publicly for his action. His real motive, however, he confided to Mr. Hayward, who, in a letter to Lady Emily Peel (27th of February, 1874), says, “I had a long talk with Gladstone yesterday. He thinks the Party in too heterogeneous a state for regular leadership, that it must be let alone to shake itself into consistency. He will attend till Easter, and then quit the field for a time. He does not talk of permanent abdication.”[67] Mr. Gladstone, it would seem, at this time considered his functions as a leader ended after he had shattered his Party. Not till it had been reorganised by somebody else, or had reorganised itself, did he apparently deem it worthy of his guidance.
On the 19th of March the Queen’s Speech was read to both Houses of Parliament. It referred joyfully to the termination of the war with the Ashantis, the marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh, but mournfully to the famine which was then devastating Bengal. It promised a Land Transfer Bill, the extension of the Judicature Act fusing law and equity to Ireland and Scotland, a Bill to remedy the grievances of the publicans, a Bill dealing with Friendly Societies, and a Royal Commission on the Labour Laws.[68] In the debate on the Address several Peers took occasion to make sport of the great Minister who had fallen from power. But the Commons were spared this exhibition of political vulgarity, mainly because Mr. Disraeli snubbed most mercilessly the first of his followers who attempted to indulge in it.
When Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, who moved the Address, taunted Mr. Gladstone with his defeat, Mr. Disraeli assured the House that Sir William had, contrary to custom, spoken without consulting him as to what he should say—in fact, without consulting anybody. As for the silence of the Liberal Members on the results of the Dissolution, “I admire,” said Mr. Disraeli, “their taste and feeling. If I had been a follower of a Parliamentary chief as eminent as the Right Honourable gentleman, even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed rather to exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism; I should remember the great victories he had fought and won. I should remember his illustrious career; its continuous success and splendour; not its accidental or even disastrous mistakes.” Mr. Gladstone’s frank and candid statement was a model of dignified simplicity well worthy of Mr. Disraeli’s chivalrous admiration. The defeated Minister simply said that his policy of fiscal reorganisation in his judgment could not be carried save by a Government possessing the full confidence of the country. The bye-elections—notably the Liberal defeat at Stroud—during the recess rendered it doubtful if his Administration possessed this confidence. His appeal to the country confirmed that doubt. Nay, the verdict of the electors so emphatically declared their desire to entrust power to the Tory Party, that he felt it his duty to make way for Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues as soon as possible, and to afford them every reasonable facility for giving effect to the will of the people. [69]
These chivalrous courtesies foretold a dull Session. Nor did the statements of Ministers seem promising to the “young bloods” of the Tory Party, who held it as an axiom that they were badly led if their leaders did not show them plenty of “sport.” What did Lord Derby mean, for example, by telling the House of Lords that Lord Granville had left the Foreign Affairs of the country in the most satisfactory condition? Had they not all assured their constituents that he had brought England to such a depth of degradation that there were now none so poor as do her reverence? What did Mr. Disraeli mean in moving the Vote of Thanks to the Ashanti troops by praising Mr. Cardwell for the preparations he made for bringing the war to a speedy and victorious conclusion? Had they not all declared on the hustings that the conduct of the war was a model of mismanagement? Moreover, was it necessary for Lord Salisbury to exhaust the vocabulary of eulogy on Lord Northbrook for his energy in dealing with the Indian Famine? and was Mr. Hardy true to his followers and supporters when, on moving the Army Estimates (30th March), he contradicted every one of the charges that had been made against Mr. Cardwell, who had been accused of stopping Volunteering, exhausting stores, wrecking fortifications, and failing to arm the troops?[70] One passing gleam of hope shot across the horizon when Mr. Ward Hunt in his speech on the Naval Estimates stood by the wild and whirling rhetoric of Opposition criticism. He declared that the Fleet was inefficient, and warned the House he might need a Supplementary Estimate. Whilst he, at least, remained at the Admiralty he would not tolerate a “fleet on paper” or “dummy ships.” But alas! even Mr. Ward Hunt’s alarmist statement vanished in a peal of laughter when it was discovered that all he asked for to convert his “paper fleet” into a real one was £100,000! Cynical critics soon reassured a scared populace. The best proof that the Services had not been starved or rendered inefficient by Mr. Gladstone’s Administration was afforded by Sir Stafford Northcote, who made no secret of his intention to distribute the surplus of £6,000,000 which every one regarded with hungry eyes.