The Real Gladstone: An Anecdotal Biography

The Irish Land Bill was the chief work of the session of 1881. Mr. Forster’s work at this time was arduous and untiring to keep the Cabinet up to duty. In October, 1881, Mr. Gladstone writes from Hawarden: ‘Your sad and saddening letter supplies much food for serious reflection; but I need not reply at great length, mainly because I practically agree with you. I almost take for granted, and I shall assume until you correct me, that your meaning about ruin to property is as follows: You do not mean the ruin to property which may directly result from exclusive dealing, but you mean ruin to property by violence —e. g., burning of a man’s haystack because he had let his cars on hire to the constabulary. On this assumption I feel politically quite prepared to concur with you in acting upon legal advice to this effect; nor do I dissent, under the circumstances, from the series of propositions by which you seek to connect Parnell and Co. with the prevalent intimidation. But I hardly think that so novel an application of the Protection Act should be undertaken without the Cabinet.’

In the same month Mr. Gladstone went to Leeds, where he had a reception which exceeded all expectations. In his speech he devoted himself to the Irish Question. Amidst enthusiastic cheers from the vast audience, he pointed to Mr. Forster’s name, and spoke in generous terms of the arduous and painful task in which he was then engaged; and then he went on in clear and forcible language to denounce the conduct of Mr. Parnell and of the other Land League leaders in striving to stand between the people of Ireland and the Land Act, in order that the beneficial effects of that measure might not be allowed to reach them. Such conduct, Mr. Gladstone declared, would not be tolerated. ‘The resources of civilization were,’ he observed, ‘not exhausted.’ Then followed the arrest of Mr. Parnell. Within twelve hours the news was spread over the civilized world, and everywhere it created a great sensation. Mr. Gladstone, speaking at a meeting at the Guildhall on the same day, first announced the fact of Mr. Parnell’s arrest to the people of England, and the statement was received with an enthusiastic outburst that startled even the speaker himself. It was hailed as if it were the news of a signal victory. Throughout England the belief – so soon to be dissipated – was held that the imprisonment of Mr. Parnell at Kilmainham must mean the downfall of his authority, and the extinction of the great organization of which he was the head; in reality, the outrages and assassinations became greater.

One result was a change in the policy of the Government. The English public was asked to believe that the Irish policy of the Government was not the policy of Mr. Gladstone, but of Mr. Forster alone. On March 24, 1882, Mr. Gladstone wrote to Mr. Forster, who was then in Dublin, pointing out to him the growing opposition to the Ministerial proposals for instituting the Closure, and the prevalent belief among the Irish members in the House that by stopping the Closure they might prevent the renewal of the Protection Act. The Prime Minister added ‘that, with the Land Act working briskly, resistance to process disappearing, and rents increasingly and even generally, though not uniformly, paid, a renewal of so odious a power as that we now hold is impossible, and that whatever may be needed by way of supplement to the ordinary law must be found in other forms.’

Mr. Parnell, speaking at Wexford on October 10, 1881, said: ‘He (Mr. Gladstone) would have you believe that he is not afraid of you, because he has disarmed you, because he has attempted to disorganize you, because he knows that the Irish nation is to-day disarmed as far as physical weapons go, but he does not hold this kind of language with the Boers (cheers for the Boers. A Voice: ‘We will be Boers too!’). What did he do at the commencement of the session? He said something of this kind with regard to the Boers. He said that he was going to put them down, and as soon as he discovered that they were able to shoot straighter than his own soldiers, he allowed those few men to put him and his Government down, and although he has attempted to regain some of his lost position in the Transvaal by subsequent chicanery and diplomatic negotiations, yet that sturdy and small people in the distant Transvaal have seen through William Ewart Gladstone; and they have told him again, for the second time, that they will not have their liberties filched from them; and I believe that, as a result, we shall see that William Ewart Gladstone will again yield to the people of the Transvaal (hear, hear). And I trust that, as the result of this great movement, we shall see that, just as Gladstone by the Act of 1881 has eaten all his old words, has departed from all his formerly declared principles, now we shall see that these brave words of this English Prime Minister will be scattered as chaff before the united and advancing determination of the Irish people to regain for themselves their lost land and their lost legislative independence (loud and continued cheering).’

Miss Parnell termed him a hoary-headed old miscreant; Miss Helen Taylor, of the London School Board, described him as a dastard and a recreant; Mr. O’Donnell, M.P., said Gladstone was a Judas, who had betrayed Ireland by the kiss of peace to the persecutor and tormentor. In Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, the effigy of Mr. Gladstone was burned by a crowd of fifteen hundred Irish under the direction of the League leaders. Even in Hawarden the magistrates had to place four additional constables to protect Mr. Gladstone from the effects of Irish revenge. Mr. Gladstone, said Mr. Parnell at Wexford just before he was arrested, was the greatest coercionist, the greatest and most unrivalled slanderer of the Irish nation, that ever lived.

The situation was gloomy. Naturally Mr. Gladstone made as light as possible of the situation in the speech he delivered at the Lord Mayor’s banquet. The speech for the moment silenced the murmurs of dissension inside the Cabinet. ‘You said,’ Mr. Gladstone wrote to Forster, ‘that if we are to ask for a suspension of Habeas Corpus, it must be on a case of great strength and clearness. But do these figures, after all the allowance to be made for protection, indicate such a case? As far as I can judge, there is a tendency in Ireland upon a series of years to a decline in the total number of homicides. The immense increase in property offences, agrarian, for 1880 seems to me to mark the true character of the crisis and the true source of the mischief of the Land League. But I incline to assume that any suspension of Habeas Corpus must be founded on danger to life.’

When Parliament met in 1881 began the long running fight between Mr. Forster and Mr. Parnell. As the chief representative of the Land League, Mr. Parnell had spoken defending the action of the League, and Mr. Forster retorted that the meetings of that body had constantly been followed by outrage, and that the object of the Land Leaguers was not to bring about an alteration in the law of the land by constitutional means, but to prevent any payment of rent save such as might be in accordance with the unwritten law of Mr. Parnell. In Parliament Government carried a Protection Act, an Arms Bill, and an Irish Land Bill. The Acts were of no avail. Outrages increased after the passing of the Protection Act. In May Mr. John Dillon was arrested and others of his party. In September it was resolved to arrest Mr. Parnell, ‘the uncrowned king,’ as his followers called him. Mr. Gladstone assented to the arrest if in the opinion of the law officers of the Crown he had by his speeches been guilty of treasonable practices.

On one occasion, when Mr. Forster had suggested that he had better retire, Mr. Gladstone wrote by return of post to acknowledge ‘the very grave letter,’ which he thought ought to be laid before the Cabinet. ‘With regard to your leaving Ireland,’ wrote the Prime Minister, ‘there is an analogy between your position and mine. Virtually abandoning the hope of vital change for the better, I come on my own behalf to an anticipation projected a little further into the future – that after the winter things may mend, and that my own retirement may give facilities for the fulfilment of your very natural desire.’ It was in a day or two after this Mr. Gladstone congratulated Forster upon the manner in which he had accomplished a difficult and delicate task in connection with the Irish Executive. ‘It is not every man,’ he writes, ‘who in difficult circumstances can keep a cool head with a warm heart – and that is what you are doing.’

In 1882 the situation in Ireland became increasingly difficult and dangerous. As the time drew near for the meeting of Parliament, it was evident that the session would be a stormy one. In all quarters attacks upon the Chief Secretary seemed to be in course of preparation. The Protection Act had not put an end to the outrages, despite the fact that hundreds of prisoners, including Mr. Parnell and other members of Parliament, were under lock and key. Above all, the Protection Act would expire during the year, and consequently Ministers must allow it to expire, or must ask Parliament to spend weeks, or possibly months, in renewing it. Yet in the Queen’s Speech it was stated that the condition of Ireland showed signs of improvement, and encouraged the hope that perseverance in the course hitherto pursued would be rewarded with the happy results which were so much to be desired. The Lords resolved to find fault with the working of the Land Act. The challenge of the Lords was taken up by the Government in the House of Commons, and a resolution moved by Mr. Gladstone, that any inquiry at that time into the working of the Land Act would defeat its operation, and must be injurious to the interests of good government in Ireland, was carried by a majority of 303 to 235.

After the Easter recess the attacks on Forster were renewed. It was demanded that he should be removed from office, and that the suspects should be immediately released, on the plea that their imprisonment had not prevented the continuance of the outrages. To make matters worse, the American Government became urgent in their demands for the release of those prisoners who could prove that they were citizens of the United States, while, in addition to the political perplexities thus created, the atrocious murder of Mrs. H. J. Smythe, as she was driving home from church in West Meath, sent a thrill of horror through the country. At this time Forster, in a letter to Mr. Gladstone, writes: ‘That if now or at any future time’ (the Pall Mall had been suggesting his resignation) ‘you think that from any cause it would be to the advantage of the public service or for the good of Ireland that I should resign, I most unreservedly place my resignation in your hands.’

In reply, Mr. Gladstone wrote from Hawarden, April 5, 1882: ‘Yesterday morning I was unwell, and did not see the papers, so that I have only just become aware of the obliging suggestion that you should retire. I suspect it is partly due to a few (not many) Tory eulogies. There is one consideration which grievously tempts me towards the acceptance of the offer conveyed in your most handsome letter. It is that if you go, and go on Irish grounds, surely I must go too… We must continue to face our difficulties with an unbroken front and with a stout heart. I do not admit your failure, and I think you have admitted it rather too much – at any rate, by omission – by not putting forward the main fact that in the deadly fight with the social revolution you have not failed, but are succeeding. Your failure, were it true, is our failure; and outrage, though a grave fact, is not the main one. Were there a change in the features of the case, I would not hesitate to recognise it, with whatever pain, as unreservedly as I now record their actual condition. I do not suppose we ought to think of legislating on the Irish case until after Whitsuntide.’

But, nevertheless, Mr. Forster did resign. In April Lord Spencer succeeded Earl Cowper as Irish Viceroy, and negotiations were carried on between Captain O’Shea and Mr. Parnell – known now as the Kilmainham Treaty – of which Mr. Forster strongly complained. Mr. Gladstone took a different view. Writing to Forster, he expressed the satisfaction with which he had read Mr. Parnell’s letter. With regard to the expression in the letter of the writer’s willingness to co-operate in future with the Liberal party, Mr. Gladstone wrote: ‘This is a hors d’œuvre which we had no right to expect. I may be far wide of the mark, but I can scarcely wonder at O’Shea saying, “The thing is done..” On the whole, Parnell’s letter is the most extraordinary I ever read. I cannot help feeling indebted to O’Shea.’

In May Mr. Forster resigned. Writing on the 2nd of that month, Mr. Gladstone, in reply, says: ‘I have received your letter with much grief, but on this it would be selfish to expatiate. I have no choice – followed or not followed, I must go on… One thing, however, I wish to say. You wish to minimize in any public statement the cause of your retreat. In my opinion, and I speak from experience, viewing the nature of the case, you will find this hardly possible. For a justification, I fear, you will have to found upon the doctrine of a new departure, or must protest against it and deny it with heart and soul.’

Speaking of the parting, Mr. Forster told his biographer that he had learned not merely to esteem, but to love Mr. Gladstone during their intercourse as colleagues, and he bore testimony to the fact that he had never ceased to be supported by him until the moment came when the Prime Minister found reason to change his policy. Then, however, the change of policy was swiftly followed by a change of attitude, so far as politics were concerned, deplored by both men, but, under the circumstances, inevitable.

Lord Frederick Cavendish was gazetted as Mr. Forster’s successor. He arrived in Dublin on May 6. On that day he and Mr. Burke, the Irish Under-Secretary, were foully murdered while crossing the Phœnix Park by a band of assassins, whose plans, it was evident, had been laid long beforehand with the utmost deliberation. Mr. Forster had escaped them on his departure from Dublin by what almost seemed a miracle. In a few days after, Sir William Harcourt introduced into the House of Commons a new Coercion Bill, which, although it was laid upon the lines introduced by Mr. Forster before he retired from office, was in many respects more severe and stringent in its character than anything which he had proposed.

Another difficulty which beset the Government was the occupation of Egypt in 1882. The bombardment of Alexandria led to the retirement of Mr. Bright from the Cabinet. Many Liberals were profoundly dissatisfied. In the early part of the session of 1883, the question of our obligations in South Africa, and our duties towards native chiefs who had trusted in our promises, arose in connection with Bechuanaland. In domestic politics the question was that of the Household Suffrage Bill, which, carried in the Commons, was thrown out in the House of Lords.

But a greater question was that of the abandonment of the Soudan and the failure to relieve Gordon at Khartoum. It was in the course of one of his most urgent appeals to Government not to delay the sending out of an expedition that Forster used words respecting Mr. Gladstone which were strangely misinterpreted at the time. Speaking of the dangers of Gordon’s position, he said: ‘I believe everyone but the Prime Minister is already convinced of that danger.. and I attribute his not being convinced to his wonderful power of persuasion. He can persuade most people of most things, and above all, he can persuade himself of almost anything.’ It is difficult now to realize that these words were resented by Lord Hartington as ‘a bitter and personal, and evidently highly-prepared and long-reflected-over, attack upon the sincerity of Mr. Gladstone.’ It is to be remembered that at this time Mr. Bright had resigned office, and the Government was daily growing weaker. The attack of the Tories was incessant, and the supporters of the Government became daily more faint-hearted. It is said of one of our months that it comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. In the present instance this was specially true of the Gladstone Government. In June, 1883, the Government were beaten on the Budget. In reference to this event Lord Shaftesbury writes: ‘I have just seen the defeat of Government on the Budget by Conservatives and Parnellites combined; an act of folly amounting to wickedness. God is not in all their thoughts, nor their country either. All seek their own, and their own is party spirit, momentary triumph, political hatred, and the indulgence of low political and unpatriotic passions.’

A more accurate observer, ‘I rather fancy,’ wrote Mr. W. H. Smith, M.P., ‘the Government look for it as a relief from their troubles.’ The last, and perhaps the most serious of all, was the manner in which they had allowed themselves to be outwitted by Russia in Afghanistan. This belief was generally entertained all over the land. Mr. Gladstone was glad to put an end to his perplexities by resigning office. The Queen offered to make him an Earl, which he had too much sense to accept – though in office no one was more ready to make peers of his friends. In his later years his trump card was an attack on the House of Lords. Lord Salisbury became Premier, all necessary business was quickly disposed of, and in the autumn a General Election took place. In the boroughs the Liberal losses were heavy; in the counties they increased their strength. One of Mr. Gladstone’s appeals to the country was sounded in his speech at Edinburgh to the electors of Midlothian. He passionately implored his party to hold together, in order, above all things, that they should return a Liberal majority so considerable as to make it independent of the Irish party. He expressed the hope that from one end of the country to the other there would not be a single representative returned to Parliament who would listen to any proposition tending to impair the visible empire. Whatever demands might be made on the part of Ireland, if they were to be entertained they must be subject to the condition that the union of the empire should be preserved. Mr. Parnell’s answer was to return eighty-six Home-Rulers for Ireland; Lord Salisbury remained Premier. Lord Shaftesbury wrote: ‘In a year or so we shall have Home Rule disposed of at all hazards to save us from hourly and daily bores.’ In the meanwhile the Conservatives held feebly to office till 1886, when in January Mr. Gladstone resumed office as Premier.