Читать книгу The Life of William Ewart Gladstone - John Morley - Страница 104

The first Derby administration, thus formed and covering the year 1852, marks a highly interesting stage in Mr. Gladstone's career. 'The key to my position,' as he afterwards said, 'was that my opinions went one way, my lingering sympathies the other.' His opinions looked towards liberalism, his sympathies drew him to his first party. It was the Peelites who had now been thrown into the case of a dubious third party. At the end of February Mr. Gladstone sought Lord Aberdeen, looking 'to his weight, his prudence, and his kindliness of disposition as the main anchor of their section. His tone has usually been, during the last few years, that of anxiety to reunite the fragments and reconstruct the conservative party, but yesterday, particularly at the commencement of our conversation, he seemed to lean the other way; spoke kindly of Lord Derby and wished that he could be extricated from the company with which he is associated; said that though called a despot all his life, he himself had always been, and was now, friendly to a liberal policy. He did not, however, like the reform question in Lord John's hands; but he considered, I thought (and if so he differed from me), that on church questions we all might co-operate with him securely.' Mr. Gladstone, on the contrary, insisted that their duty plainly was to hold themselves clear and free from whig and Derbyite alike, so as to be prepared to take whatever of three courses might, after the defeat of protectionist proposals, seem most honourable—whether conservative reconstruction, or liberal conjunction, or Peelism single-handed. The last he described as their least natural position; for, he urged, they might be 'liberal in the sense of Peel, working out a liberal policy through the medium of the conservative party.' To that procrastinating view Mr. Gladstone stood tenaciously, and his course now is one of the multitudinous illustrations of his constant abhorrence of premature committal, and the taking of a second step before the first.

After Aberdeen he approached Graham, who proceeded to use language that seemed to point to his virtual return to his old friends of the liberal party, for the reader will not forget the striking circumstance that the new head of a conservative government, and the most trusted of the cabinet colleagues of Peel, had both of them begun official life in the reform ministry of Lord Grey. Graham said he had a very high opinion of Lord Derby's talents and character, and that Lord J. Russell had committed many errors, but that looking at the two as they stood, he thought that the opinions of Lord Derby as a whole were more dangerous to the country than those of Lord John. Mr. Gladstone said it did not appear to him that the question lay between these two; but Graham's reception of this remark implied a contrary opinion.

Lincoln, now Duke of Newcastle, he found obdurate in another direction, speaking with great asperity against Lord Derby and his party; he would make no vows as to junction, not even that he would not join Disraeli; but he thought this government must be opposed and overthrown; then those who led the charge against it would reap the reward; if the Peelites did not place themselves in a prominent position, others would. They had a further conversation. The duke told him that Beresford, the whip, had sent out orders to tory newspapers to run them down; that the same worthy had said 'The Peelites, let them go to hell.' Mr. Gladstone replied that Beresford's language was not a good test of the feelings of his party, and that his violence and that of other people was stimulated by what they imagined or heard of the Peelites. Newcastle persisted in his disbelief in the government. 'During this conversation, held on a sofa at the Carlton, we were rather warm; and I said to him, “It appears to me that you do not believe this party to be composed even of men of honour or of gentlemen.”... He clung to the idea that we were hereafter to form a party of our own, containing all the good elements of both parties. To which I replied, the country cannot be governed by a third or middle party unless it be for a time only, and on the whole I thought a liberal policy would be worked out with greater security to the country through the medium of the conservative party, and I thought a position like Peel's on the liberal side of that party preferable, comparing all advantages and disadvantages, to the conservative side of the liberal party. And when he spoke of the tories as the obstructive body I said not all of them—for instance Mr. Pitt, Mr. Canning, Mr. Huskisson, and in some degree Lord Londonderry and Lord Liverpool.'

FOUR SHADES OF PEELITES

The upshot of all these discussions was the discovery that there were at least four distinct shades among the Peelites. 'Newcastle stands nearly alone, if not quite, in the rather high-flown idea that we are to create and lead a great, virtuous, powerful intelligent party, neither the actual conservative nor the actual liberal party but a new one. Apart from these witcheries, Graham was ready to take his place in the liberal ranks; Cardwell, Fitzroy and Oswald would I think have gone with him, as F. Peel and Sir C. Douglas went before him. But this section has been arrested, not thoroughly amalgamated, owing to Graham. Thirdly, there are the great bulk of the Peelites from Goulburn downwards, more or less undisguisedly anticipating junction with Lord Derby, and avowing that free trade is their only point of difference. Lastly myself, and I think I am with Lord Aberdeen and S. Herbert, who have nearly the same desire, but feel that the matter is too crude, too difficult and important for anticipating any conclusion, and that our clear line of duty is independence, until the question of protection shall be settled.' (March 28, 1852.)

The personal composition of this section deserves a sentence. In 1835, during Peel's short government, the whig phalanx opposed to it in the House of Commons consisted of John Russell and seven others.265 Of these eight all were alive in 1851, seven of them in the then existing cabinet; six of the eight still in the Commons. On the other hand, Peel's cabinet began its career thus manned in the Commons—Peel, Stanley, Graham, Hardinge, Knatchbull, Goulburn. Of these only the last remained in his old position. Peel and Knatchbull were dead; Stanley in the Lords and separated; Graham isolated; Hardinge in the Lords and by way of having retired. Nor was the band very large even as recruited. Of ex-cabinet ministers there were but three commoners; Goulburn, Herbert, Gladstone. And of others who had held important offices there were only available, Clerk, Cardwell, Sir J. Young, H. Corry. The Lords contributed Aberdeen, Newcastle, Canning,266 St. Germains and the Duke of Argyll. Such, as counted off by Mr. Gladstone, was the Peelite staff.

Graham in April made his own position definitely liberal, or 'whig and something more,' in so pronounced a way as to cut him off from the Gladstonian subdivision or main body of the Peelites. Mr. Gladstone read the speech in which this departure was taken, 'with discomfort and surprise.' He instantly went to read to Lord Aberdeen some of the more pungent passages; one or two consultations were held with Newcastle and Goulburn; and all agreed that Graham's words were decisive. 'I mentioned that some of them were coming to 5 Carlton Gardens in the course of the afternoon (April 20); and my first wish was that now Lord Aberdeen himself would go and tell them how we stood upon Graham's speech. To this they were all opposed; and they seemed to feel that as we had had no meeting yet, it would seem ungracious and unkind to an old friend to hold one by way of ovation over his departure. It was therefore agreed that I should acquaint Young it was their wish that he should tell any one who might come, that we, who were there present, looked upon our political connection with Graham as dissolved by the Carlisle speech.'267

ATTITUDE OF GRAHAM

The temporary parting from Graham was conducted with a degree of good feeling that is a pattern for such occasions in politics. In writing to Mr. Gladstone (Mar. 29, 1852), and speaking of his colleagues in Peel's government, Graham says, 'I have always felt that my age and position were different from theirs: that the habits and connections of my early political life, though broken, gave to me a bias, which to them was not congenial; and since the death of our great master and friend, I have always feared that the time might arrive when we must separate. You intimate the decision that party connection must no longer subsist between us. I submit to your decision with regret; but at parting I hope that you will retain towards me some feelings of esteem and regard, such as I can never cease to entertain towards you; and though political friendships are often short-lived, having known each other well, we shall continue, I trust, to maintain kindly relations. It is a pleasure to me to remember that we have no cause of complaint against each other.' 'I have to thank you,' Mr. Gladstone replies, 'for the unvarying kindness of many years, to acknowledge all the advantages I have derived from communication with you, to accept and re-echo cordially your expressions of good will, and to convey the fervent hope that no act or word of mine may ever tend to impair these sentiments in my own mind or yours.'

When the others had withdrawn, Aberdeen told Mr. Gladstone that Lord John had been to call upon him the day before for the first time, and he believed that the visit had special reference to Mr. Gladstone himself. 'The tenor of his conversation,' Mr. Gladstone reports, 'was that my opinions were quite as liberal as his; that in regard to the colonies I went beyond him; that my Naples pamphlets could have been called revolutionary if he had written them; and in regard to church matters he saw no reason why there should not be joint action, for he was cordially disposed to maintain the church of England, and so, he believed, was I.' Lord John, however, we may be sure was the last man not to know how many another element, besides agreement in opinion, decides relations of party. Personal sympathies and antipathies, hosts of indirect affinities having apparently little to do with the main trunk of the school or the faction, hosts of motives only half disclosed, or not disclosed at all even to him in whom they are at work—all these intrude in the composition and management of parties whether religious or political.

Grave discussions turned on new nicknames. The tories had greatly gained by calling themselves conservatives after 1832. The name of whig had some associations that were only less unpopular in the country than the name of tory. It was pointed out that many people would on no account join the whigs, who yet would join a government of which Russells, Greys, Howards, Cavendishes, Villierses, were members. On the other hand Graham declared that Paley's maxim about religion was just as true in politics—that men often change their creed, but not so often the name of their sect. And as to the suggestion, constantly made at all times in our politics for the benefit of waverers, of the name of liberal-conservative, Lord John caustically observed that whig has the convenience of expressing in one syllable what liberal-conservative expresses in seven, and whiggism in two syllables what conservative progress expresses in six.

MR. GLADSTONE AND HIS GROUP

Connected with all this arose a geographical question—in what quarter of the House were the Peelites to sit? Hitherto the two wings of the broken tory party, protectionist and Peelite, had sat together on the opposition benches. The change of administration in 1852 sent the protectionists over to the Speaker's right, and brought the whigs to the natural place of opposition on his left. The Peelite leaders therefore had no other choice than to take their seats below the gangway, but on which side? Such a question is always graver than to the heedless outsider it may seem, and the Peelite discussions upon it were both copious and vehement.268 Graham at once resolved on sharing the front opposition bench with the whigs: he repeated that his own case was different from the others, because he had once been a whig himself. Herbert, who acted pretty strictly with Mr. Gladstone all this year, argued that they only held aloof from the new ministers on one question, and therefore that they ought not to sit opposite to them as adversaries, but should sit below the gangway on the ministerial side. Newcastle intimated dissent from both, looking to the formation of his virtuous and enlightened third party, but where they should sit in the meantime he did not seem to know. Mr. Gladstone expressed from the first a decided opinion in favour of going below the gangway on the opposition side. What they ought to desire was the promotion of a government conservative in its personal composition and traditions, as soon as the crisis of protection should be over. Taking a seat, he said, is an external sign and pledge that ought to follow upon full conviction of the thing it was understood to betoken; and to sit on the front opposition bench would indicate division from the conservative government as a party, while in fact they were not divided from them as a party, but only on a single question. In the end, Graham sat above the opposition gangway next to Lord John Russell and Cardwell. The Peelite body as a whole determined on giving the new government what is called a fair trial. 'Mr. Sidney Herbert and I,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'took pains to bring them together, in the recognised modes. They sat on the opposition side, but below the gangway, full, or about forty strong; and Sir James Graham, I recollect, once complimented me on the excellent appearance they had presented to him as he passed them in walking up the House.' Considerable uneasiness was felt among some of them at finding themselves neighbours on the benches to Cobden and Bright and Hume and their friends on the one hand, and 'the Irish Brass Band' on the other.

It depended entirely on the Peelites whether the new government should be permitted to conduct the business of the session (subject to conditions or otherwise), or whether they should be open to an instant attack as the enemies of free trade. The effect of such attack must have been defeat, followed by dissolution forthwith, and by the ejection of the Derby government in June (as happened in 1859) instead of in December. The tactics of giving the ministers a fair trial prevailed and were faithfully adhered to, Graham and Cardwell taking their own course. As the result of this and other conditions, for ten months ministers, greatly outnumbered, were maintained in power by the deliberate and united action of about forty Peelites.

Lord Derby had opened his administration with a pledge, as the Peelites understood, to confine himself during the session to business already open and advanced, or of an urgent character. When Mr. Disraeli gave notice of a bill to dispose of four seats which were vacant, this was regarded by them as a manner of opening new and important issues, and not within the definition that had been the condition of their provisional support.269 'Lord John Russell came and said to me,' says Mr. Gladstone, '“What will you do?” I admitted we were bound to act; and, joining the liberals, we threw over the proposal by a large majority. This was the only occasion of conflict that arose; and it was provoked, as we thought, by the government itself.'