That he was right in 1876-78 in the view he took of the line of conduct England should adopt towards the Turks has been now virtually admitted even by his opponents. That he was also right in 1896, when urging action to protect 446 the Eastern Christians, will probably be admitted ten years hence, when the facts of the case and the nature of the opportunity that existed for taking prompt action without the risk of a European war have become better known. In both cases it was not merely religious sympathy, but also a far-sighted view of policy that governed his judgment. He held that the faults of Turkish rule are incurable, and that the Powers of Western and Central Europe ought to aim at protecting the subject nationalities and by degrees extending self-government to them, so that they may grow into states, and in time be able to restore prosperity to regions ruined by long misgovernment, while constituting an effective barrier to the advance of Russia. The jealousies of the Powers throw obstacles in the way of this policy, but it is a safe policy for England, and offers the best hope for the peoples of the East.
The facts just noted prove that he possessed and exerted a capacity for initiative in foreign as well as in domestic affairs. In the Neapolitan case, in the Alabama case, in the Bulgarian case, he acted from his own convictions, with no previous suggestion of encouragement from his party; and in the last-mentioned instance he took a course which did not at the moment promise any political gain, and which seemed to the English political world so novel and even startling that no ordinary statesman would have ventured on it.
His courage was indeed one of the most striking parts of the man.[68] It was not the rashness of an impetuous nature, for, impetuous as he was when stirred by some sudden excitement, he showed an Ulyssean caution whenever he took a deliberate survey of the conditions that surrounded him. It was the proud self-confidence of a strong character, which was willing to risk fame and fortune in pursuing a course it had once resolved upon; a character which had faith in its own conclusions, and in the success of a cause consecrated by principle; a character which obstacles did not affright, but rather roused to a higher combative energy. Few English statesmen have done anything so bold as was Mr. Gladstone’s declaration for Irish Home Rule in 1886. He took not only his political power but the fame and credit of his whole past life in his hand when he set out on this new journey at seventy-seven years of age; for it was quite possible that the great bulk of his party might refuse to follow him, and he be left exposed to derision as the chief of an insignificant group. As it happened, the bulk of the party did follow him, though many of the most influential refused to do so. 448 But neither he nor any one else could have foretold this when his intentions were first announced.
We may now, before passing away from the public side of Mr. Gladstone’s career, return for a moment to the opposite views of his character which were indicated some pages back. He was accused of sophistry, of unwisdom, of want of patriotism, of lust for power. Though it is difficult to sift these charges without discussing the conduct which gave rise to them, a task impossible here, each of them must be briefly examined.
The first charge is the most plausible. His ingenuity in discovering arguments and stating fine verbal distinctions, his subtlety in discriminating between views or courses apparently similar, were excessive, and invited misconstruction. He had a tendency to persuade himself, quite unconsciously, that the course he desired to take was a course which the public interest required. His acuteness soon found reasons for that course; the warmth of his emotions enforced the reasons. It was a dangerous tendency, but it does not impeach his honesty of purpose, for the influence which his predilections unconsciously exerted upon his judgment appeared also in his theological and literary inquiries. I can recall no instance in which he wilfully misstated a fact, or simulated a feeling, or used an argument which he knew to be unsound. He did not, as does the sophist, attempt “to make the worse appear the better reason.”
His wisdom will be differently judged by those who condemn or approve the chief acts of his policy. But it deserves to be noted that all the legislation he passed, even the measures which, like the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill, exposed him to angry attacks at the time, have now been approved by the all but unanimous judgment of Englishmen.[69] The same may be said of two acts which brought much invective upon him—his settlement of the Alabama claims, one of the wisest strokes of foreign policy ever accomplished by a British minister, and his protest against a support of the Turks in and after 1876. I pass by Irish Home Rule, because the wisdom of the course he took must be tested by results that are yet unborn, as I pass by his Egyptian policy in 1882-85, because it cannot be fairly judged till the facts have been fully made public. He may be open to blame for his participation in the Crimean War, for his mistaken view of the American Civil War, for his neglect of the Transvaal question when he took office in 1880, and for his omission during his earlier career to recognise the gravity of Irish disaffection and to study its causes. I have heard him lament that he had not twenty years earlier given the same attention to that abiding source of 450 the difficulties of England which he gave from 1866 onwards. If in these instances he erred, it must be remembered that he erred in company with nine-tenths of British statesmen in both political parties.
Their admiration did not prevent his friends from noting tendencies which sometimes led him to miscalculate the forces he had to deal with. Being, like the younger Pitt, extremely sanguine, he was prone to underrate difficulties. Hopefulness is a splendid quality. It is both the child and the parent of faith. Without it neither Mr. Pitt nor Mr. Gladstone could have done what they did. But it disposes its possessor not sufficiently to allow for the dulness or the prejudice of others. So too the intensity of Mr. Gladstone’s own feeling made him fail to realise how many of his fellow-countrymen did not know of, or were not shocked by, acts of cruelty and injustice which had roused his indignation. If his hatred of ostentation suffered him to perceive that a nation, however well assured of the reality of its power and influence in the world, may also desire that this power and influence should be asserted and proclaimed to other nations, he refused to humour that desire. He had a contempt for what is called “playing to the gallery,” with a deep sense of the danger of stimulating the passions which lead to aggression and war. To national honour, as he conceived it, national righteousness was vital. His spirit was that of Lowell’s lines—