GLADSTONE, WILLIAM EWART. 



307 



at the other. A great Liberal majority was also 

 returned, and Dec. 3, 1868, Gladstone was sum- 

 moned to Windsor and commanded to form an 

 administration. 



Early in the Parliament of 1869 Gladstone began 

 his work by introducing the Irish Church bill, 

 which, after being hotly debated in both houses 

 of Parliament, received the royal sanction on July 

 26, 1869. Mr. Caldwell's military reorganization 

 scheme, now introduced, included the abolition of 

 the purchase of commissions in the army, future 

 promotions to be by merit only. Gladstone found 

 that vested interests made any action of this kind 

 like stirring a hornet's nest. The Lords had thrown 

 out the ballot bill, and they now threw out the pur- 

 chase bill. Gladstone took a step for which he was 

 much abused, some of his followers disapproving 

 the course. He found that purchase in the army 

 depended on royal sanction, and he persuaded the 

 Queen to abolish purchase by royal warrant. Much 

 as this act was deprecated, its effect has been most 

 salutary. In the general election in 1874 Gladstone 

 set himself to maintain his hold on Greenwich and 

 upon the country with great determination, fore- 

 seeing important Liberal measures, even the aboli- 

 tion of the income tax ; though he was elected for 

 Greenwich, a local Tory distiller headed the poll. 

 His followers were less fortunate, and when Parlia- 

 ment met the Tories had a majority of forty-six. 

 So great was Gladstone's disappointment at this 

 unforeseen result that he announced his intention 

 of quitting the political arena. This step greatly 

 embarrassed the Liberal party, but the Marquis of 

 Hartington stepped into the breach. 



Gladstone's retirement was not for long; the in- 

 troduction by Archbishop Tait of a public-worship- 

 regulation bill, which was receiving Disraeli's sup- 

 port, brought him back to fight it to the bitter end. 

 His action delighted the ritualists, and when the 

 bill became law Gladstone published in the " Con- 

 temporary Review " his celebrated article on " Ritual 

 and Ritualism," followed by another in 1875, " Is 

 the Church of England worth preserving?" In 

 that article occurred a passage that was plainly an 

 attack on Catholicism, and all the Catholic world 

 rose in arms against him. He replied in two strong 

 pamphlets, " The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing 

 on Civil Allegiance " and " Vaticanism." Both 

 were powerful, but he hardly decimated his op- 

 ponents. 



In the last eighteen years of his political life, 

 Gladstone entered the strife again with all the 

 energy of his younger days. The result may be 

 summed up in the Midlothian campaign against 

 the Bulgarian atrocities and Disraeli's administra- 

 tion ; the second Gladstone Government and its 

 i protracted conflict with the Parnell revolution ; 

 his third term of office devoted to the home-rule 

 bill ; the disruption of the Liberal party and the 

 defeat of that project as well as the land scheme ; 

 the carrying of the country for home rule at the 

 general election, and the passing of his home-rule 

 scheme through the House of Commons, to be re- 

 jected by the House of Lords. Gladstone was thus 

 debarred from putting the crowning act upon his 

 Irish policy. He had early seen the unmitigated 

 evils and injustice of the coercive legislation in 

 that xinhappy isle, and the best part of his life 

 and his mighty intellectual powers were devoted 

 to the noble cause of creating between the two so 

 closely allied countries a spirit of true harmony 

 and mutual confidence. He did much, however, to 

 insure the more friendly and sympathetic relations 

 in which the two countries now stand, by the relief 

 which was afforded by the passage of a bill for the 

 disestablishment and'disendowment of the Protes- 

 tant state Church in Ireland, an act in the interest 



lant 



of religious equality; but he achieved a greater 

 triumph when he caused to be placed on the statute 

 book, after most bitter opposition, the wise and equi- 

 table land acts of 1870 and 1881. The first of these 

 provided for giving the tenantry fairer rents and 

 due compensation for unexhausted improvements 

 on the land in case of eviction. The second act 

 went still further and, besides having for'its object 

 the reduction of the too often iniquitous evictions, 

 made provision for rents to be fixed by judicial 

 authority. Mr. Gladstone felt, however, that his 

 work for the Irish cause was at an end, and he 

 decided to retire from the active political life to 

 which he had been so long accustomed, impelled 

 also to this course by a severe affection of the 

 eyes, for which an operation was afterward found 

 necessary. 



On March 3, 1894, Mr. Gladstone and his wife 

 visited Windsor Castle, where he placed his resig- 

 nation in the hands of the Queen. Her Majesty had 

 earlier in her reign some suspicions of Gladstone's 

 policy and for some years was failing in apprecia- 

 tion of his great character and aims. Her opinion, 

 however, had undergone a complete change, and on 

 this visit she pressed on the veteran statesman the 

 acceptance of a peerage, and on his refusal it was 

 suggested that the honor be accorded to his wife ; 

 but Gladstone clearly saw that his life would be 

 more indelibly impressed on national history and 

 closer to the country's heart by the name of his 

 boyhood and of the mother and father to whose 

 loving care and religious guidance his proud career 

 was greatly due. He retired while yet vigorous 

 and in full possession of all his wonderful mental 

 activity. The evening of his life was spent in liter- 

 ary work and religious reflection, in those ideal 

 home surroundings which were one of the earthly 

 rewards of the great statesman. After his final re- 

 tirement he was on only one or two occasions 

 tempted into enthusiasm, once when aroused by the 

 massacre of Christians in Armenia, which evoked a 

 stirring speech from the " Grand Old Man," de- 

 livered in Liverpool to a wildly enthusiastic audi- 

 ence, and again when, in the Greco-Cretan trouble, 

 he thought it his duty to address a long, impressive 

 letter to the Duke of Westminster. 



To summarize the benefits Gladstone conferred on 

 his country during his four terms of office, it may 

 be stated that, though his spirit inspired each of 

 his administrations, he was personally responsible 

 for securing to the public parliamentary trains at 

 one penny a mile and the conveyance of children 

 at half price; the abolition of the paper tax, which 

 made the penny paper a possibility ; and the con- 

 struction of several budgets which removed large 

 burdens of taxation from ratepayers and consumers. 

 The bills relating to Ireland were, it is needless to 

 say, entirely of his personal initiation. During his 

 premiership the governments under his control also 

 passed an act that introduced national education 

 into England and secured to voters immunity from 

 espionage and coercion by means of the ballot act. 

 Socially, Gladstone was brilliant, and his wide 

 reading made his opinions valuable on nearly all 

 the diverse subjects that stir the soul of man. The 

 caution " Beware of the man of one book " could not 

 be applied to him, for it was his habit to have two 

 or three in use together, as a mental change. Glad- 

 stone was a good musician, and possessed a fine 

 baritone voice ; he was an enthusiastic equestrian, 

 and was exceedingly fond of the somewhat laborious 

 exercise of tree felling, for which the finely wooded 

 desmesne of Hawarden afforded him ample scope. 

 This habit became known, and led to his being pre- 

 sented with axes by his admirers, of all conceivable 

 designs and material, even up to the precious 

 metals. His metaphoric allusion to the upas tree 



