Time went on, and the adverse interpretation of the American Government oozed out, and was noticed by the press. Public alarm and public indignation were excited; and it was only seven weeks afterward, on the very eve of the meeting of Parliament—some twenty-four hours before the meeting of Parliament—that her Majesty’s Government felt they were absolutely obliged to make a “friendly communication” to the United States that they had arrived at an interpretation of the treaty the reverse of that of the American Government. What was the position of the American Government. Seven weeks had passed without their having received the slightest intimation from her Majesty’s ministers. They had circulated their case throughout the world. They had translated it into every European language. It had been sent to every court and cabinet, to every sovereign and prime-minister. It was impossible for the American Government to recede from their position, even if they had believed it to be an erroneous one. And then, to aggravate the difficulty, the Prime-Minister goes down to Parliament, declares that there is only one interpretation to be placed on the treaty, and defies and attacks everybody who believes it susceptible of another.
Was there ever such a combination of negligence and blundering? And now, gentlemen, what is about to happen? All we know is that her Majesty’s ministers are doing everything in their power to evade the cognizance and criticism of Parliament. They have received an answer to their “friendly communication”; of which, I believe, it has been ascertained that the American Government adhere to their interpretation; and yet they prolong the controversy. What is about to occur it is unnecessary for one to predict; but if it be this—if after a fruitless ratiocination worthy of a schoolman, we ultimately agree so far to the interpretation of the American Government as to submit the whole case to arbitration, with feeble reservation of a protest, if it be decided against us, I venture to say that we shall be entering on a course not more distinguished by its feebleness than by its impending peril. There is before us every prospect of the same incompetence that distinguished our negotiations respecting the independence of the Black Sea; and I fear that there is every chance that this incompetence will be sealed by our ultimately acknowledging these direct claims of the United States, which, both as regards principle and practical results, are fraught with the utmost danger to this country. Gentlemen, don’t suppose, because I counsel firmness and decision at the right moment, that I am of that school of statesmen who are favorable to a turbulent and aggressive diplomacy. I have resisted it during a great part of my life. I am not unaware that the relations of England to Europe have undergone a vast change during the century that has just elapsed. The relations of England to Europe are not the same as they were in the days of Lord Chatham or Frederick the Great. The Queen of England has become the sovereign of the most powerful of Oriental states. On the other side of the globe there are now establishments belonging to her, teeming with wealth and population, which will, in due time, exercise their influence over the distribution of power. The old establishments of this country, now the United States of America, throw their lengthening shades over the Atlantic, which mix with European waters. These are vast and novel elements in the distribution of power. I acknowledge that the policy of England with respect to Europe should be a policy of reserve, but proud reserve; and in answer to those statesmen—those mistaken statesmen who have intimated the decay of the power of England and the decline of its resources, I express here my confident conviction that there never was a moment in our history when the power of England was so great and her resources so vast and inexhaustible.[65]
And yet, gentlemen, it is not merely our fleets and armies, our powerful artillery, our accumulated capital, and our unlimited credit on which I so much depend, as upon that unbroken spirit of her people, which I believe was never prouder of the imperial country to which they belong. Gentlemen, it is to that spirit that I above all things trust. I look upon the people of Lancashire as a fair representative of the people of England. I think the manner in which they have invited me here, locally a stranger, to receive the expression of their cordial sympathy, and only because they recognize some effort on my part to maintain the greatness of their country, is evidence of the spirit of the land. I must express to you again my deep sense of the generous manner in which you have welcomed me, and in which you have permitted me to express to you my views upon public affairs. Proud of your confidence, and encouraged by your sympathy, I now deliver to you, as my last words, the cause of the Tory party, the English constitution, and of the British empire.
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.
Mr. Gladstone, the fourth son of the late Sir John Gladstone, a prominent and prosperous merchant of Liverpool, was born in 1809. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where his scholarship was at once so thorough and so comprehensive as to win for him at his graduation in 1831 the great distinction of a double first-class. Having spent nearly a year in a continental tour, he was elected to the House of Commons in December, 1832, at the election which immediately followed the passage of the great reform bill. In political sympathies he ranked with the Tories, and followed with little reserve the leadership of Sir Robert Peel. The great reputation he had acquired at the university, his mercantile habits, his high character, and his manifest abilities as a speaker, recommended him at once to the favor of the Premier, who admitted him to the ministry as Junior Lord of the Treasury, in December of 1834, and as Under-Secretary for Colonial Affairs in February of the following year. In 1841 Mr. Gladstone became Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, and in the same year was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council. In the position now held it devolved upon him to explain and defend the commercial policy of the government. The revision of the tariff in 1842 was entrusted to his energy and industry, as a part of this duty, and so admirably was the laborious task executed, not only in its mastery of general principles, but in its command of details, that the bill received the sanction of both Houses with scarcely an alteration. Gladstone’s great abilities as a financier were at once universally recognized; and, accordingly, his appointment as President of the Board of Trade and his admission to the cabinet in 1843 were generally approved.
In 1846, Sir Robert Peel, who up to this time had been regarded as the most strenuous opponent of free trade, announced his intention of bringing in a bill to modify the existing Corn Laws. The announcement created great popular agitation. Gladstone determined to support Peel; but holding his seat from Newark, the property of the Duke of Newcastle, who sympathized strongly with the Opposition, he was unwilling to appear to be in a false position, and accordingly he resigned, and remained out of Parliament for about a year. This voluntary withdrawal from the House is worthy of note, not only on account of the honorable motives which prompted it, but also as the only interruption of a parliamentary career of more than half a century. His parliamentary abilities, however, were not long permitted to be idle, for in 1847 he was returned as one of the members for the University of Oxford.
Up to this time he had appeared to sympathize strongly with the principles of the Tory party. His work on “The State in its Relations with the Church,” published in 1838, had not only proved him to be, even when still a young man, a deep and original thinker, but had also shown that his sympathies were unmistakably with the Tories and the High Church. Macaulay, in his elaborate and critical review of the work, introduced Gladstone to his readers as “the rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader whose experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor.” But if the “stern and unbending Tories” had any such “rising hope” in Mr. Gladstone, they were destined to be disappointed. In the four years that followed 1847 the member for Oxford found himself frequently opposed to his former friends; and in 1851 he formally separated himself from the great body of the Conservative party. He was re-elected for Oxford, though as the result of a very bitter contest; and on the defeat of the Derby-Disraeli ministry and the succession of the “Coalition” under Lord Aberdeen in 1852, he was appointed to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, where his thorough knowledge of finance was of the greatest assistance to the government during the Crimean War.
In the fifteen years that followed, Mr. Gladstone came to be more and more generally recognized, not only as one of the ablest, but also as one of the most influential members of the House of Commons. Meanwhile his reputation was considerably advanced by the numerous literary productions which came from his pen. On the death of Lord Palmerston in 1865, he became leader of the House of Commons, retaining the Chancellorship of the Exchequer in the second administration of Earl Russell. It was at this time that Gladstone’s career as the leader of the great reformatory movement may be said to have begun.
Early in the session of 1866, he brought forward a reform bill designed to extend the franchise substantially on the line of advance that had been adopted in 1832. On the 18th of June, the measure was defeated by a majority of eleven votes, and Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues at once resigned. During the next administration, the ranks of the Liberal party, however, were divided, and therefore it was found impossible to defeat the Derby-Disraeli reform bill, which Mr. Gladstone strenuously opposed. The Conservatives, however, were unable to hold their position, and when the Ministry resigned, in December of 1868, Mr. Gladstone succeeded Disraeli as Prime-Minister.