<;L. \DSTU\I-: 



227 



\lr Gladstone, still accepted as a Tory, \\a- 

 cho-en on.' of tin- representatives for the university 

 ford. 



lp 1,1 ilir time of thf ;il.oliti.ni of the Corn 

 l.a\\s, or iii li-ii-i <>i ill-' iiiMSfini'iit which let! to 

 their iiliolition, Mr Gladstone had \>een a Tory of u 

 mi her old fa-lii.iiied school. The corn-law agita- 

 tion pi. il in l.|\ lii -i set Li in thinking over the 

 po-Ml.le defect- of mir social iiinl legislative system, 

 ami showed him the necessity for reform at least 

 in on-' direction. The interests of religion itself 

 at ope timr seemed to him to he hound up with the 

 principles of the Tory parly; and no doulit there 

 .1 period of his career when the principle of 

 Protection would have seemed to him as sacred as 

 any other part of the creed. With a mind like 

 his, iin|iiiry once started must go on. There was 

 ulsMiss something impetuous in the workings of 

 his intellect, us well as the rush of his sympathy, 

 lie startled Kmope, and indeed the whole civilised 

 world, by the terrible and only too truthful descrip- 

 tion which he gave in 1851 of the condition of the 

 prisons of Naples, under the king who was known 

 i>y the nickname of ' Uomba,' and the cruelties 

 which were inflicted on political prisoners in par- 

 ticular. Again and again in Mr Gladstone's public 

 life we shall see him carried away by the same 

 generous and passionate emotion on behalf of the 

 victims of despotic cruelty in anv part of the 

 world. Burke himself could not l)e more sym- 

 pathetic, more earnest, or more strong. 



By the death of Sir Robert Peel in 1850 Mr Glad- 

 stone had lost a trusted leader and a dear friend. 

 But the loss of his leader had brought Gladstone 

 himself more directly to the front. It was not 

 until after Peel's death that he compelled the 

 House of Commons and the country to recog- 

 nise in him a supreme master of parliamentary 

 debate. The first really great speech made by Mr 

 Gladstone in parliament the first speech which 

 could fairly challenge comparison with any of the 

 finest speeches of a past day was made in the 

 debate on Mr Disraeli's budget in the winter of 

 1852, the first session of the new parliament. Mr 

 Disraeli knew well that his government was 

 doomed to fall. He knew that it could not survive 

 that debate. It was always one of Mr Disraeli's 

 peculiarities that he could fight most brilliantly 

 when he knew that his cause was already lost. 

 That which would have disheartened and disarmed 

 other men seemed only to animate him with all 

 Macheth's wild courage of despair. Never did his 

 gift of satire, of invective, ami of epithet show to 

 more splendid effect than in the speech with which 

 he closed his part of the debate and mercilessly 

 assailed his opponents. Mr Disraeli sat down at 

 two o'clock in the morning, and then Mr Gladstone 

 rose to reply to him. Most men in the house, even 

 on the Opposition side, were filled with the belief 

 that it would be impossible to make any real im- 

 pression on the house after such a speech as that 

 of Mr Disraeli. Long liefore Mr Gladstone had 

 concluded every one admitted that the effect of Mr 

 I > Israeli's speech had been outdone and outshone. 

 From that hour Mr Gladstone was recognised as 

 one of the great historic orators of the English par- 

 liament a man to rank with Bolingbroke and 

 Chatham and Pitt and Fox. With that speech 

 began the long parliamentary duel between these 

 two great masters of debate, Mr Gladstone and Mr 

 Disraeli, which was carried on for four- and -twenty 

 years. 



On the fall of the short-lived Tory administration 

 Lord Aberdeen came into office. He formed the 

 famous Coalition Ministry. Lord Palmerston took 

 what most people would have thought the un- 

 congenial office of Home Secretary. Lord John 

 Russell became Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Mr 



(.lad-tone, who with others of the ' Peelitea,' as 

 they were called, had joined the new administra- 

 tion, was Chancellor of the Exchequer. II 

 on the introduction of his first budget wan waited 

 for with great expectation ; but it distanced all 

 expectation. It occupied se\eral hours in delivers, 

 but none of those wno listened to it would has < 

 wished it to he shortened by a sentence. It may 

 lw iiuestioned whether even the younger Pitt, with 

 all his magic of voice and style and phrase, could 

 lend such charm to each successive budget as Mr 

 ( iladstone was able to do. A budget speech from 

 Mr Gladstone came to be expected with the same 

 kind of keen artistic longing as waits the first 

 performance of a new opera by some great com- 

 poser. A budget speech by Mr Gladstone was a 

 triumph in the realm of the fine arts. 



The Crimean war broke up the Coalition 

 Ministry. A motion by Mr Roebuck for inquiry 

 into the condition of the army before Sebastopol 

 was carried by a large majority against the govern- 

 ment. Lord Aberdeen at once resigned. Lord 

 Derby was sent for by the Queen, but he could not 

 see his way to form a cabinet without Lord 

 Palmerston, and Lord Palmerston would not go 

 with him. Lord John Russell was summoned, but 

 did not believe he could succeed. In fact, Lord 

 Palmerston was the one indispensable man, and lie 

 became prime-minister. Mr Gladstone held his 

 former office for a short time ; but when Lord Palm- 

 erston gave way to the demand for the appoint- 

 ment or the committee of inquiry, Mr Gladstone 

 believed that as he had conscientiously opposed the 

 appointment of such a committee, he ougnt not to 

 remain a member of a cabinet which was willing to 

 accept it. His conviction was shared by his Peelite 

 colleagues, Sir James Graham and Mr Sidney Her- 

 bert, and they too retired from office. Mr Glad- 

 stone gave the government of Lord Palmerston a 

 general support, until, after the attempt of Orsini 

 on the life of the Emperor Napoleon III. in 1858, 

 Palmerston introduced his ill-fated Conspiracy to 

 Murder Bill. Mr Gladstone strongly supported 

 the amendment to the motion for the second read- 

 ing, which declared that before introducing any 

 proposal for an alteration in the law of conspiracy 

 the government ought to have replied to the 

 French despatch, which virtually accused England 

 of lending her protection to foreign assassins. The 

 government was defeated, Lord Palmerston re- 

 signed, and Lord Derby was called on to form a 

 new ministry. 



The short stay of the Conservative party in office 

 gave to Mr Gladstone an opportunity of accepting 

 a mission which must have been very much after 

 his own heart. This was the famous visit to the 

 Ionian Islands (q.v. ) in 1858. 



The year 1859 saw Lord Palmerston back again 

 in office and Mr Gladstone in his old place as 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer. The budget of 1860 

 was remarkable, as it contained the provisions for 

 the reduction of the wine-duties and the whole 

 simplified system of taxation intended to apply to 

 the commercial treaty which Mr Cobden had suc- 

 ceeded in persuading the emperor of the French to 

 accept. Mr Gladstone also introduced a provision 

 for the abolition of the duty on paper a duty 

 which was simply a tax upon reading, a tax upon 

 popular education. The House of Lords struck 

 out this clause ; a somewhat impassioned popular 

 agitation followed ; and in the next session the 

 Lords passed the measure for the repeal of the 

 duty without offering any further opposition. The 

 death of Lord Palmerston in 1865 called Lord 

 Russell to the position of prime-minister and made 

 Mr Gladstone leader of the House of Commons. 

 Mr Gladstone's mind had long been turning in the 

 direction of an extension or rather expansion of the 



