Read Gladstone: A Biography Online
Authors: Roy Jenkins
Tags: #History, #Politics, #Non-Fiction, #Biography
Gladstone: A Biography (100 page)
Gladstone’s oratorical performance on the first Home Rule Bill was uneven, but far from uneventful. His high point was on 8 April when he moved the first reading, a parliamentary stage now
fallen into desuetude, but which then gave an opportunity for exposition without decision, for the practice was not to oppose in the division lobby a motion of leave to bring in a bill, even when
it was as controversial as this one. But no decision in this instance was far from meaning no tension. Edward Hamilton described a commotion which makes a modern House of Commons day sound a sad
anti-climax.
Yesterday was indeed a notable day – the most notable day probably in the annals of the present Houses of Parliament [that is, since the completion of the rebuilding
in 1852]. . . . There being rumours that Members were going to appropriate the seats set aside for Strangers, I went down to the House [early]. . . . The scene in the lobby was a lively one.
Princes, Ambassadors, Peers, and distinguished strangers were jostling one another and besieging the doorways, ready to rush in the moment entrance was permitted. The Speaker took the Chair at
3.50; and then came the rush without respect to persons. . . . The scene in the Chamber was not less extraordinary than the scene outside. Every seat had been bespoken hours before; and up the
floor of the House were ranged rows of chairs. . . Mr. G. arrived punctually at 4.30; and his arrival was greeted with a perfect storm of applause – a reception which visibly told upon
him. Members stood up, waved their hats and literally shouted. No one dared to put a Question; and in five minutes time . . . Mr. G. rose, his rising being the signal for renewed shouts. He
spoke for 3 hours and 25 minutes; and held the rapt attention of the House throughout. I have often been more carried away and moved by speeches of his; but as a masterly exposition, as a piece
of rhetorical construction, and as a
tour
de force
the speech will always mark among his finest efforts. The old Parliamentary hand had certainly notyet lost its
cunning.
12
Gladstone himself who, among several other of the necessary requisites of a great orator, had the ability to rate with a deadly accuracy the varying quality of his performances, wrote with
some satisfaction of the day:
Finally settled my figures with Welby & Hamilton
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– on other points with Spencer and Morley. Reflected much. Took a short drive.
H of C
. Extraordinary scenes outside the House & in. My speech, which I sometimes have thought could never end, lasted nearly 3½ hours. Voice &
strength & freedom were granted to me in a degree beyond what I could have hoped. But many a prayer had gone up for me & not I believe in vain. Came home, & went early to bed: of
course much tired. My legs felt as after a great amount of muscular motion, not with the weariness of standing.
13
Gladstone’s vast speech was never again to be equalled in length or in expository quality by any of his subsequent efforts. In terms of Hansard columns it had, however,
often been exceeded in his elastic middle age. By this criterion it ranked only twelfth of his Commons orations. It was only a little longer than his Don Pacifico debate speech delivered thirty-six
years earlier. There has been no one else with the possible exception of Churchill (and one may doubt if he exactly commanded before 1914, in spite of his high offices) who has commanded the House
of Commons over such a span.
In content as opposed to length the speech was remarkable for its expository detail and for its peroration. The latter extended over perhaps ten minutes, yet never gave the impression that, like
Mahler’s sixth symphony or Ramsay MacDonald in his last phase, it could not stop because a conclusion proved elusive. Gladstone recalled Grattan’s aphorism in his speech of opposition
to Pitt’s Act: ‘The channel forbids union; the ocean forbids separation.’
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Then he dealt in high terms with two separate but related issues. First, were the Irish
capable of civic
virtue? This question, the posing of which may sound insulting, was more than justified within a few weeks by a rasping speech of Salisbury. On 15 May, in
the St James’s Hall, Piccadilly, he pronounced with a typically Cecilian mixture of originality and arrogance that democracy was suited only to those of Teutonic race (this would have
appeared an even odder choice of nomenclature fifty years later), which category he certainly did not see as embracing the Irish, who he thought were in this respect more akin to Hottentots or
Hindus. He added that the best use for public money in Ireland was in promoting emigration. These gracious comments added a good deal of fuel to the flames of the controversy.
Gladstone on the other hand totally rejected the widespread English view that the Irish had no taste for justice, common sense, moderation or national prosperity and looked only to perpetual
strife and dissension. If an Irishman’s loyalty had been checked in its development it was because ‘the laws by which he is governed do not present themselves to him, as they do to us
in England and Scotland, with a native and congenial aspect’. Where the Irish voluntarily took on an obligation, as when they joined the British army or the Irish constabulary, their loyalty
and bravery fully matched that of their ‘Scotch and English comrades’. The related question to which Gladstone also applied himself was that of the reconciliation of local patriotism,
‘which, in itself, is not bad, but good’, with a wider commitment to the cause of the Empire and indeed of mankind. The two he brought together with a fervour and a conviction which
would in the late twentieth century be of inestimable service in presenting the full compatibility of the high European case with a strong attachment to national cultures and to regional roots. In
Ireland ‘misfortune and calamity have wedded her sons to the soil’, but this need not close their minds to wider concepts. His final words were:
I ask that we should apply to Ireland that happy experience which we have gained in England and Scotland, where the course of generations has now taught us, not as a dream
or a theory, but as practice and as life, that the best and surest foundation we can find to build upon is the foundation afforded by the affections, the convictions and the will of the nation;
and it is there, by the decree of the Almighty, that we may be enabled to secure at once the social peace, the fame, the power and the permanence of the Empire.
14
This speech was a considerable success, its reception leaving such an experienced observer as Hamilton with the impression that the bill
would be carried on second
reading, even though it would probably be ‘scotched and killed in Committee or undergo most radical amendment’.
15
Gladstone was optimistic, hoping for a majority of well over
twenty. He needed such buoyancy for the parliamentary pressures upon him were formidable. On the day after it he had an uncomfortable procedural entanglement with Chamberlain (over the
latter’s desire to refer in his resignation speech to the details of the Irish Land Bill, discussed in Cabinet but not already presented to Parliament). In the following week he had on the
Monday to listen to the opposition of Hartington expressed in what was generally thought to be the most cogent and powerful speech of his life. (Opposing Gladstone instead of living on the same
side under his great shadow seems to have had a stimulating effect on oratorical prowess, as Chamberlain’s development also showed.) Then he wound up the first reading debate in a speech of
one and a quarter hours after midnight at the end of the Tuesday sitting. On the Thursday he had to pay a tribute appropriate to the retirement of that legendary clerk Sir Erskine May as well as
sustain Harcourt’s first budget. And on the Friday he moved the first reading of the Irish Land Bill in a speech of more than two hours. For the principal performers at least the idea of
nineteenth-century parliamentary life as a leisurely pursuit is untenable.
Moreover there was an uneasy feeling abroad that the movement of events was not favourable. This undercurrent surfaced disagreeably when Gladstone moved the second reading of the bill on 10 May.
Like all great performers, Gladstone was never one to miss the reaction of the audience. ‘Spoke 1¾ hours,’ he wrote. ‘The reception decidedly inferior to that of the
Introduction [that is, the speech of 9 April].’
16
Hamilton was equally honest and more specific:
It is clear that the speech will do little to improve the prospects of the measure. The concessions in the line of giving Ireland partial representation at Westminster will not
satisfy Chamberlain & Co; and the concessions, such as they were, were not clearly explained. His voice was in bad order. At times he was nearly inaudible; though there were bursts of rhetoric
occasionally when his animation and passion got the better of his huskiness I do not see now how defeat is to be avoided.
17
It was not. The second-reading debate was an extraordinarily strung-out affair, even by the standards of the time. Twelve parliamentary days were devoted to this stage, but even more remarkable
was the fact that they were spread out over a full lunar month. The vote on the motion
which Gladstone had proposed on the first Monday in May came only during the sitting on
the first Monday in June, and as was then usual barely before the next day’s dawn. There had been a spiral of hope after 27 May when he had summoned and addressed for an hour in notably
conciliatory terms a Liberal party meeting in the Foreign Office. If the bill were given a second reading, he almost pleaded, it would be withdrawn and reintroduced in the autumn with substantial
concessions, particularly in relation to Irish representation at Westminster. Then, the next day in the House of Commons, Hicks Beach successfully provoked him into a hardening which confined the
concessions to Clause 24 (Irish representation) points. He was also led into stressing (accurately but impolitically) that a vote for the bill was a vote for the bill and not just a vague
aspiration towards a solution of the Irish problem. Probably this fencing did not matter. The die was already cast.
Gladstone of course wound up on the last night. He never delegated the crucial occasions, whether they were pregnant with defeat or triumph. He spoke of Ireland standing ‘at your bar,
expectant, hopeful, almost suppliant . . .’, and the words might have applied to himself, except that he was not by that stage hopeful. The result was clear-cut. The bill was rejected by 341
to 311. Of the losing 311, 84 were Irish Nationalists, so that of the 333 members who had been elected as Liberals six months before only 229, including two tellers, went with Gladstone into the
division lobby. Of the missing 103, a remarkably high proportion cast positive votes the other way. Only 10 were absent or abstained. All the notables, Chamberlain, Hartington, Trevelyan, Bright,
Goschen, James, Collings, marched firmly into the Tory lobby.
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It was one of the biggest divisions, physically as well as symbolically, in the history of Parliament. Of a total
membership of 670, only 18 failed to vote. A curiosity was that a significantly higher proportion of Scottish than of English Liberal members – 37 per cent as against 19 per cent –
failed to support Gladstone.
In whatever way it was made up the defection was horrifyingly large. It can, however, be argued that what was more surprising than the number of those who went the other way was that so many
remained faithful, given the magnitude of the change and the abruptness with which the new policy was introduced, so soon after an election in which it had not figured either in the Liberal
programme or in any of
Gladstone’s own speeches. In whichever direction lay the reason for surprise there was no doubt that the vote had brought a phase of the
government’s life to an end. The possibilities were only resignation or dissolution. Gladstone was firmly for the latter, and had no difficulty in carrying his Cabinet with him.
‘Dissolve
nem. con.
,’ he minuted the decision at a noon meeting on the day after the vote. How sanguine he was about the result of an election is another matter. He ended a
twelve-clause memorandum which he had quickly drawn up for his own use with the words: ‘My conclusion is: a Dissolution is formidable but resignation would mean, for the present juncture,
abandonment of
the cause
.’
18
He had no trouble with the Queen on his request for a dissolution, young though the Parliament was. There were at least two reasons which would have weighed with her against the possibility of
refusing. The first was that the leader of the Conservative party had already made his attempt to live with the 1885 House of Commons and had failed. The second was that she probably had a shrewd
instinct for what the outcome of an election would be. There was unlikely to be any need for her to strain constitutional propriety and play around with the possibility of a Hartington-led and
Conservative-supported government in order to get rid of Gladstone. And the electorate did indeed perform its loyal duty, producing an anti-Home Rule majority still more decisive than the House of
Commons had done. But, unlike the House of Commons, which registered an almost uniquely full participation, the electorate did it largely by abstention.