A short life of William Ewart Gladstone, with extracts from his speeches and writings

Preface

In the long roll of English statesmen and party leaders there is none, probably, who has won such cordial sympathy and esteem from the American public as Mr. Gladstone. Our own political struggles are so absorbing and exhausting that in general we have .little interest to spare for those electoral contests which occasionally disturb the quiet of European countries ; but the 1879- '80 " campaign " in Great Britain aroused an excitement among our more intelligent classes which was only less intense than that which was seething in England itself, and here, as there, the interest centred around the stalwart figure of Mr. Gladstone. Here, as in Europe, his splendid triumph was felt to be something more than the victory of one party or " chieftain " over another — a triumph far-reaching in its consequences, and

4 PREFACE.

calculated to "strengthen the friends of pure popular government all over the world."

At the moment when this great career reached its culminating phase, it seemed to the author that a concise popular account of its various stages might prove interesting, and could hardly fail to prove instructive. In the following pages the aim has been, not so much to trace with minute precision each successive step, as to furnish material for a fairly accurate general estimate of Mr. Gladstone's varied labors as statesman, orator, and author; and to portray as graphically as we may that noble and opulent personality which lies behind them all.

Contents

PAOB

I. Introductory . . . . .7

II. Birth, Childhood, and Education . . 10

II. BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, Al^D EDUCATION"

Lancashire has had the honor of furnishing to the British Parliament the three greatest orators that have shed luster upon its recent annals — Gladstone, Bright, and the late Lord Derby. The greatest of these, William Ewart Gladstone, was born in Liverpool on the 29th of December, 1809. By his mother's side, according to Sir Bernard Burke, he has in his veins the blood of Henry III of England, and Robert Bruce of Scotland ; but he himself has never laid claim to such an august lineage, and has always declared himself proud to be in all respects a representative of that sturdy middle class which has ever constituted the bone and sinew of his country's greatness. Another fact in which he takes pride is that on both sides he is of Scotch descent. Referring to this in 1865, in response to an address from the Parliamentary Reform Union, in the Glasgow Trade Hall, he said : " If Scotland is not ashamed of her sons, her sons are not ashamed of Scotland ; and the memory of the parents to whom I owe my being combines, with various other considerations, to make me glad and thankful to remember that the blood which runs in my veins is exclusively Scottish."

The family name, which can be traced back in

BIRTH, CHILDnOOD, AND EDUCATION. H

legal documents to the year 1621, appears to have undergone several changes in recent times. It was Gledstanes or Gladstanes, until the grandfather of the Liberal statesman, a corn merchant of Leith, changed it to Gladstones, and it was not until 1835 that his father was legally authorized to drop the final letter ; so that Mr. Gladstone was twenty-six years old and a member of Parliament before he was entitled to the name which he has since rendered famous throughout the world.

His father, John Gladstone, removed in early life from Leith to Liverpool, where he became one of the most prosperous and enterprising merchants of the place, extending his commercial operations to all parts of the world. His firm **were among the earliest traders with Russia, and they snatched at the East India trade when the monopoly of the old East India Company was broken down. But their principal business was with the West Indies, where John Gladstone had large sugar plantations — a circumstance which, as we shall see, had a great deal to do with molding the early political career of his illustrious son. " It is not the most pleasing feature of English social life that those who have risen to opulence and position by trade are usually ashamed of the fact, and not indisposed to conceal it. Mr. Gladstone, of course, is incapable of any such ignoble sentiment, and in 1872, while Prime Minister of England, took occasion to say (in an address delivered at the Liverpool Collegiate Institute) : "I know not why commerce in England should not have its old families, rejoicing to be connected with commerce from generation to generation. It has been so in other countries ; I trust it will be so in this country. I think it a subject of sorrow, and almost of scandal, when those families, who have either acquired or recovered station and wealth through commerce, turn their backs upon it, and seem to be ashamed of it. It certainly is not so with my brother or with me. His sons are treading in his steps, and one of my sons, I rejoice to say, is treading in the steps of my father and my brother."

Mr. John Gladstone prosecuted his commercial enterprises to such good purpose that he was able to make comfortable provision for each of his seven sons as they came of age ; but he was also remarkable for combining great business ability and zeal with a keen interest m public affairs, and with something of the graces and amenities of literary culture. In the local affairs of Liverpool he took an active and prominent part, and to his efforts much of its ever-increasing prosperity was due. In politics, also, he took an active interest. '* When, in 1812," says Mr. Lucy, " Canning fought a famous election in Liverpool, John Gladstone threw himself heart and soul into the advocacy of the cause of the great minister. He addressed public meetings on his behaK, and it was

BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION. 13

from the balcony of his house in Rodney Street that Mr. Canning spoke to the enthusiastic crowd who, as the result of the election, hailed him Member for Liverpool. There was in the house at the time a little boy destined to fill a larger space in history even than Canning. William Ewart Gladstone was in his third year at this time, and doubtless from some upper window looked out with wondering eyes on the turbulent crowd, and heard the Minister talking of Catholic Emancipation and other strange matters. In fact, we have his personal testimony on this interesting point. On the 29th December, 1879, on the occasion of his reaching his seventieth year, Mr. Gladstone received at Hawarden a deputation of Liverpool gentlemen who brought hearty congratulations and a costly present. In the course of his acknowledgment the right honorable gentleman said : * You have referred to my connection with Liverpool, and it has happened to me singularly enough to have the incidents of my personality, the association of my personality, if I may so speak, curiously divided between the Scotch extraction, which is purely and absolutely Scotch as to every drop of blood in my veins, and, on the other hand, a nativity in Liverpool, which is the scene of my earliest recollections. And very early those recollections are, for I remember, gentlemen, what none of you could possibly recollect : I remember the first election of Mr. Canning in Liverpool.' "

At a later period, owing probably to the influence of Mr. Canning, Mr. John Gladstone presented himself as a candidate for Woodstock, a pocket borough of the Marlborough family ; and subsequently represented Lancaster and other constituencies, being, altogether, a member of the House of Commons for nine years. He was in the House at tlie same time with his son, and must have listened to many of his earlier efforts in Parliamentary oratory. ^' In 1845, Sir Robert Peel, partly in recognition of his own merit, but, doubtless, in compliment to the brilliant young colleague who was the bright particular star of his ministry, made the elder Gladstone a baronet. Six years later, in the year of the Great Exhibition, Sir John died, full of years and honors and riches. His title went to Thomas, his eldest son, now the only surviving brother of the subject of this sketch."

During all this period the house of Sir John in Liverpool was a sort of rendezvous for the leaders of his party, and the home-life of the family was deeply tinctured with political thought and feeling. Sir John early discovered the keen intellectual powers of his son, and it is said that before the boy had reached his teens father and son were in the habit of conversing together on the various tojiics of public interest. The boyhood of William Ewart, like that of William Pitt, was thus .passed in the midst of associations which were best calculated to foster and en*

BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION. 15

courage the natural development of his special genius.

About the first steps in the future statesman's education very little is known. He probably received his earliest instruction at home and from his parents, and Archdeacon Jones was his first school-master. The most interesting reminiscence of his school-days is preserved in an anecdote told recently by Dean Stanley: ^' There is a small scliool near Liverpool," said the Dean, "at which Mr. Gladstone was brought up before he went to Eton. A few years afterward another little boy, who went to this school, and whose name I will not mention, called upon the old clergyman who was the head master. The boy was now a young man, and he said to the old clergyman, ^ There is one thing in which I have never in the least degree improved since I was at school — the casting up of figures.' *Well,' replied the master, * it is very extraordinary that it should be so, because certainly no one could be a more incapable arithmetician at school than you were ; but I will tell you a curious thing. When Mr. Gladstone was at the school, he was just as incapable at addition and subtraction as you were : now you see what he has become. He is one of the greatest of our financiers.'"

In September, 1821, Mr. Gladstone, then in his twelfth year, was entered at Eton, where he remained for the ensuing six years. It is not recorded that he especially distinguished himself in the ordinary work of the school, except that on several occasions he was "sent up for good" on account of verses ; but he was one of the founders of, and by far the most copious contributor to, the "Eton Miscellany." Among other contributors to the "Miscellany" were G. A. (afterward Bishop) Selwyn, Arthur Henry Hallam, and F. H. (now Sir Francis Hastings) Doyle ; but young Gladstone took the lion's share of the work upon himself, writing with equal facility in prose and verse, translating from the Greek and Latin, indulging in humorous extravagances, and inditing, among other things, a tremendous " heroic " poem of two hundred and fifty lines on Kichard Coeur de Lion.

Leaving Eton in 1827, he became the private pupil of Dr. Turner, afterward Bishop of Calcutta, with whom he continued for two years ; and in 1829, being then in his twenty-first year, he was sent to Christ Church College, Oxford, where, in 1831, he graduated with the rare honors of a " double first-class " — first-class both in classics and in mathematics. Perhaps the thing by which he profited most during his stay at Oxford was the Debating Society, or Oxford Union, in connection with which we get the most interesting and characteristic glimpses of him at this period. Says Mr. Smith, his most painstaking biographer : " Mr. Gladstone made his first

BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATIOX. 17

speech on the 11th of February, 1830, and was the same night elected a member of the committee. The following year he succeeded Mr. Milnes Gaskell in the office of secretary. 'His minutes are neat ; proper names are underlined and half printed. As secretary, he opposed a motion for the removal of Jewish disabilities. He also moved that the Wellington administration was undeserving of the country's confidence : Gaskell, Lyall, and Lord Lincoln supported, Sidney Herbert and the Marquis (now Duke) of Abercorn opposed him. The motion was carried by 57 to 56, and the natural exultation of the mover betrayed itself in such irregular entries as * ' tremendous cheers, " * ' repeated cheering. " The following week he was elected president.' Mr. Gladstone spoke in three other debates upon important public questions. In common with the Archbishop of Canterbury, he defended the results of Catholic relief, and, on the occasion of a vote of want of confidence in Earl Grey's government being proposed [on account of the first movement toward Parliamentary Eeform], he moved the following rider : ' That the ministry has unwisely introduced, and most unscrupulously forwarded, a measure which threatens not only to change our form of government, but ultimately to break up the very foundation of social order, as well as materially to foward the views of those who are pursuing this project throughout the civilized world. ' 2

These terrible prognostications have been defeated, but the terror engendered in the University by national progress led 94 out of 130 undergraduates to endorse the prophecies of the new Cassandra. Mr. Gladstone closed his career at the Oxford Union by proposing an amendment to a motion for the immediate emancipation of our slaves in the West Indies. This was on June 2, 1831, and the young orator's amendment ran as follows : ' That legislative enactments ought to be made, and, if necessary, to be enforced — 1st, for better guarding the personal and civil rights of the negroes in our West Indian colonies ; 2d, for establishing compulsory manumission ; 3d, for securing universally the receiving of a Christian education, under the clergy and teachers, independent of the planters ; a measure of which total but gradual emancipation will be the natural consequence, as it was of a similar procedure in the first ages of Christianity. ' "

Read in the light of his later opinions, and of the acts which have secured his fame as a statesman, these records are very curious. Home influences, together with that peculiar fascination which the name and personality of Canning seem always to have possessed for him, had early imbued the youthful Gladstone with Tory sentiments of the most rigid and bigoted type ; and these sentiments were confirmed and strengthened by his University career, the traditions of

BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION. 19

Oxford being all in that direction, while the collegians with whom he was more intimately associated were for the most part both Tories and High Churchmen. Summing up at a much later period (in a speech delivered at the opening of the Palmerston Club, Oxford, in December, 1878) the general effect of his University training, Mr. Gladstone said :

" I trace in the education of Oxford of my own time one great defect. Perhaps it was my own fault ; but I must admit that I did not learn, when at Oxford, that which I have learned since, viz., to set a due value on the imperishable and the inestimable principles of human liberty. The temper which, I think, too much prevailed in academic circles was, that liberty was regarded with jealousy, and fear could not be wholly dispensed with. .... I think that the principle of the Conservative party is jealousy of liberty and of the people, only qualified by fear ; but I think the policy of the Liberal party is trust in the people, only qualified by prudence. I can only assure you, gentlemen, that, now I am in front of extended popular privileges, I have no fear of those enlargements of the constitution that seem to be approaching. On the contrary, I hail them with desire. I am not in the least degree conscious that I have less reverence for antiquity, for the beautiful, and good, and glorious charges that our ancestors have handed down to us as a patrimony to our race, than I had in other days when I held other political opinions. I have learned to set the true value upon human liberty, and in whatever I have changed, there, and there only, has been the explanation of the change."

On the completion of his University course Mr. Gladstone spent a short time at home, and then proceeded to the Continent for travel and recreation, spending several months in Italy, whence he was hastily recalled by an ofier of a seat in the House of Commons.

III. In Parliament

"Mr. Gladstone," says Mr. Lucy, "was in Italy when the summons came in obedience to which he placed his foot on the first rung in the ladder of fame. It was in the year 1832. The Reform Bill had just been passed, and the United Kingdom was in the throes of expectation as to what might follow on the summoning of the first Reform Parliament. It was the Duke of Newcastle, registered owner of the borough of Newark, who was immediately instrumental in bringing Mr. Gladstone into the House of Commons. In a conversation which took place upon the hustings on the day of nomination, there is something eminently characteristic of Mr. Gladstone as we know him in these days. A matter-of-fact elector, who probably did not rent his house or shop from the Duke, asked the young candidate,

'Whether he was not the Duke of Newcastle's nominee ? ' This was an exceedingly embarrassing question. If the candidate said 'No,' he would be convicted, within every man's knowledge, of a falsehood. If he said ' Yes,' what a farce was this nomination and bustle at the poll ! But Mr. Gladstone, though an exceedingly young bird at this date, was not to be caught by chaff. He asked the honorable elector to do him the favor of defining the term nominee. The unwary elector fell into the trap, and Mr. Gladstone was, of course, able to declare that in such a sense he was not the Duke's nominee.* As a matter of fact he certainly was, and the preponderance of the Duke's influence was indicated by his being returned at the head of the poll."

* The question and answer were as follows, as reported in one of the local journals :

"Mr. Gillson inquired of Mr. Gladstone how he came to Newark, after he had neglected to attend a meeting of the electors to which he was invited, and whether he was not the Duke of Newcastle's nominee.

" Mr. Gladstone wished to have Mr. Gillson's definition of the term ' nominee,' and then he would answer.

" Mr. Gillson said he meant a person sent by the Duke of Newcastle to be pushed down the electors' throats, whether they would or not.

" Mr. Gladstone replied, then, according to that definition, he was not a nominee. He came to Newark by the invitation of the Red Club, than whom none were more respectable and intelligent. The Club sent to the Duke of Newcastle to know if he could recommend a candidate to them, and in consequence

22 ^^ILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.

A further proof that he was the Duke's nominee is to be found in the fact that when, several years later, Mr. Gladstone had resolved to support Sir Eobert Peel's free-trade policy, he felt obliged to resign his seat for Newark solely because the Duke of Newcastle was opposed to that policy ; but this only fortifies the one strong argument in favor of pocket or nomination boroughs, namely, that they gave the opportunity for introducing into the House of Commons young men of promise, who would never have secured such an advantage on their own merits alone. It will be remembered that Macaulay was introduced in the same way by Lord Lansdowne ; and certainly, if no worse abuses were connected with pocket boroughs than furnishing opportunities to such young men as Macaulay and Gladstone, there would have been very little to say against them.

In spite of the support of the Duke, however, the youthful candidate encountered vigorous opposition, and was subjected by one of the local journals to the following sharp criticism, which is particularly interesting, in view of the fact that the object of it was destined to equip the voters with that very ballot which is here appealed to against him : *' Mr. Gladstone is the son of Gladstone, of Liverpool, a person who (we are

he was appealed to, and accepted the invitation of the Red Club."

speaking of the father) had amassed a large fortune by West India dealings. In other words, a great part of his gold has sprung from the blood of black slaves. Respecting the youth himself — a person fresh from college, and whose mind is as much like a sheet of white foolscap as possible — he was utterly unknown. He came recommended by no claim in the world except the will of the Duke. The Duke nodded unto Newark, and Newark sent back the man, or rather the boy, of his choice. What ! Is this to be, now that the Reform Bill has done its work ? Are sixteen hundred men still to bow down to a wooden-headed lord, as the people of Egypt used to do to their beasts, to their reptiles, and their ropes of onions ? There must be something wrong — something imperfect. What is it ? What is wanting ? Why, the ballot ! If there be a doubt of this (and we believe there is a doubt even among intelligent men), the tale of Newark must set the question at rest. Serjeant Wilde was met on his entry into the town by almost the whole population. He was greeted everywhere, cheered everywhere. He was received with delight by his friends, and with good and earnest wishes for his success by his nominal foes. The voters for Gladstone went up to that candidate's booth (the slave-driver, as they called him) with Wilde's colors. People who had before voted for Wilde, on being asked to give up their suffrage, said : ' "We can not, we dare not. We have lost half our business, and shall lose the rest if we go against the Duke. We would do anything in our power for Serjeant Wilde, and for the cause, but we can not starve ! ' Now, what say ye, our merry men, touching the ballot ? "

On the other hand, his personal appearance was very much in his favor, and the speeches he delivered made such an impression that another journalist *^ ventures to predict, without the slightest exaggeration, that he will one day be classed amongst the most able statesmen in the British senate. " But the most interesting feature of the contest was the ** Election Address," which is Mr. Gladstone's first authentic public utterance, and which is worth preserving as the startingpoint of that great career which has since swept so widely away from the principles and sentiments therein laid down. The document is dated *' Clinton Arms, Newark, October 9, 1832," is inscribed '*To the worthy and independent electors of the Borough of Newark," and is as follows :

" Having now completed my canvass, I think it my duty as well to remind you of the principles on which I have solicited your votes, as freely to assure my friends that its result has placed my success beyond a doubt.

" I have not requested your favor on the ground of adherence to the opinions of any man or party, further than such adherence can be fairly understood from the conviction I have not hesitated to avow, that we must watch and resist that uninquiring and indiscriminating desire for change among us, which threatens to produce, along with partial good, a melancholy preponderance of mischief; which, I am persuaded, would aggravate beyond computation the deep-seated evils of our social state, and the heavy burdens of our industrial classes ; which, by disturbing our peace, destroys confidence, and strikes at the root of prosperity. Thus it has done already ; and thus, we must therefore believe, it will do.

" For the mitigation of those evils, we must, I think, look not only to particular measures, but to the restoration of sounder general principles. I mean especially that principle on which alone the incorporation of religion with the State in our constitution can be defended ; that the duties of governors are strictly and peculiarly religious ; and that legislatures, like individuals, are bound to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the high truths they have acknowledged. Principles are now arrayed against our institutions ; and not by truckling nor by temporizing — not by oppression nor corruption — but by principles, they must be met.

" Among their first results should be a sedulous and special attention to the interest of the poor, founded upon the rule that those who are the least able to take care of themselves should be most regarded by others. Particularly it is a duty to endeavor, by every means, that lahor may receive adequate remuneration; which, unhappily, among several classes of our fellow countrymen is not now the case. Whatever measures therefore — whether by correction of the poor laws, allotment of cottage grounds, or otherwise — tend to promote this object, I deem entitled to the warmest support, with all such as are calculated to secure sound moral conduct in any class of society.

"I proceed to the momentous question of slavery, which I have found entertained among you in that candid and temperate spirit which alone befits its nature, or promises to remove its difficulties. If I have not recognized the right of an irresponsible society to interpose between me and the electors, it has not been from any disrespect to its members, nor from unwillingness to answer theirs or any other questions on which the electors may desire to know my views. To the esteemed secretary of the society I submitted my reasons for silence; and I made a point of stating these views to him, in his character of a voter.

" As regards the abstract lawfulness of slavery, I acknowledge it simply as importing the right of one man to the labor of another ; and I rest it upon the fact that Scripture, the paramount authority upon such a point, gives directions to persons standing in the relation of master to slave, for their conduct in that direction; whereas, were the matter absolutely and necessarily sinful^ it would not regulate the manner. Assuming sin as the cause of degradation, it strives, and strives most effectually, to cure the latter by extirpating the former. We are agreed that both the physical and the moral bondage of the slave are to be abolished. The question is as to the order^ and the order only ; now Scripture attacks the moral evil 'before the temporal one, and the temporal through the moral one, and I am content with the order which Scripture has established.

" To this end, I desire to see immediately set on foot, by impartial and sovereign authority, a universal and efficient system of Christian instruction, not intended to resist designs of individual piety and wisdom for the religious improvement of the negroes, but to do thoroughly what they can only do partially.

*' As regards immediate emancipation, whether with or without compensation, there are several minor reasons against it; but that which weighs with me is that it would, I much fear, exchange the evils now affecting the negro for others which are weightier — for a relapse into deeper debasement, if not for bloodshed and internal war. Let Jitness be made a condition for emancipation ; and let us strive to bring him to that fitness by the shortest possible course. Let him enjoy the means of earning his freedom through honest and industrious habits ; thus the same instruments which attain his liberty shall likewise render him competent to use it ; and thus, I earnestly trust, without risk of blood, without violation of property, with unimpaired benefit to the negro, and with the utmost speed which prudence will admit, we shall arrive at that exceedingly desirable consummation, the utter extinction of slavery.

" And now, gentlemen, as regards the enthusiasm with which you have rallied round your ancient flag, and welcomed the humble representative of those principles whose emblem it is, I trust that neither the lapse of time nor the seductions of prosperity can ever efface it from my memory. To my opponents, my acknowledgments are due for the good-humor and kindness with which they have received me; and, while I would thank my friends for their zealous and unwearied exertions in my favor, I briefly but emphatically assure them that, if promises be an adequate foundation of confidence, ot experience a reasonable ground of calculation, our Tictory K< sure.

*• I have the honor to be. gentlemen,

"Your obliged and obedient servant,

" W. E. Gladstone."

As has already been said, the result of the contest was that Mr. Gladstone came out at the head of the poll : and thus, at the age of twenty-three, he found himself in that position to which he had begun to aspire when, as a youth of seventeen, he was writing for the "Eton Miscellany." and avowing Canning to be his ideal of a statesman.

The first Reform Pivrliament met in January, 1833, and the young member from Xewiirk quietly entered upon the scene where for nearly fifty years he has played so conspicuous a piut. In his maiden speech, as in every other particular of his career, he differed as widely as possible from the great riral whose persistent efforts to obtain entrance to the House of Commons had hitherto failed, and whose mekxiramatic and pretentious " first speech " at a later period invited the mortifying failure which it achieved. Mr. Gladstone's nuiiden s]^>eech was not delivered in the course of a great debate, but ujx>n a sort of side issue, and, in fact, in defense of his father, to whom personal reference had been made in the course of a discussion on the abolition of slavery in the We^t Indies. It was modest ivnd ivrgumentative. adhering closely to facts, and making small attempt at oratorical display ; and it produced so favorable an impression upon the House that he was listened to respectfully whenever he rose thereafter. Mr. Justin McCarthy says that *'he was from the very first recognized as a brilliant debater, and as one who promised to be an orator " ; but this hardly applies to his very earliest efforts, when he w^as testing, as it were, the quality of his instruments, and catching the tone of the House.