Part 13 (1/2)
The report of the committee, when presented, practically advised a vote of censure upon the Aberdeen Cabinet for the sufferings of the British army, hence the house declined to entertain it by a large majority of 107. As the appointment of the committee, however, was the only way to allay the popular excitement, there were many who thought that the Peelites would have done well to recognize the urgency of the crisis and not to have abandoned the Government.
The resignation of Mr. Gladstone made him very unpopular. However, ”the wave of unpopularity lasted perhaps for a couple of years, and was afterwards replaced by a long-sustained popularity, which has not been exceeded by any statesman of the country. Greville referred to Gladstone about this time as 'the most unpopular man in the country.'”
March 2d the Emperor Nicholas died suddenly, and there were momentary hopes of peace; but his successor, Alexander, resolved to prosecute the struggle rather than yield the positions taken by the late Czar. He issued a warlike proclamation, and though he agreed to take part in the Vienna Conference of European powers, to be held March 15th, there were no signs that he intended to recede from the Russian claims.
Lord John Russell was sent to Vienna as English Plenipotentiary. The English aimed to secure the limitation of the preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea, and the acknowledgment of Turkey as one of the great European powers. To gain these points would, it was thought, end the war. Russia ”would not consent to limit the number of her s.h.i.+ps--if she did so she forfeited her honor, she would be no longer Russia. They did not want Turkey, they would be glad to maintain the Sultan, but they knew it was impossible; he must perish; they were resolved not to let any other power have Constantinople--they must not have that door to their dominions in the Black Sea shut against them.” The Conference failed, and Lord John Russell was held responsible for its failure, and was eventually forced out of the Cabinet on that account. The failure of the Vienna negotiations produced great excitement, and the ministry were attacked and defeated in both Houses of Parliament. Mr. Disraeli offered a resolution of dissatisfaction in the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone spoke during the debate on the failure of the Vienna Conference, and defended the war of the Crimea. He did not consider it a failure, for Russia now agreed to most of the points raised by the allies, and the only matter to be adjusted, was the proposition to limit the power of Russia in the Black Sea. Personally, he had formerly favored the curtailment of Russia's power there, but he now thought that such a proposal implied a great indignity to Russia. He believed that the proposal of Russia to give to Turkey the power of opening and shutting the straits was one calculated to bring about a peaceful settlement. The time was favorable to make peace. Lord John Russell replied vigorously to Mr. Gladstone. The House decided by a majority of 100 to support the ministry in the further prosecution of the war until a safe and honorable peace could be secured.
But on the 10th of July Sir E. Bulwer Lytton offered the following resolution: ”That the conduct of our Ministry, in the recent negotiations at Vienna, has, in the opinion of this House, shaken the confidence of this country in those to whom its affairs are entrusted.”
Lord John Russell again declined to face discussion and resigned. During the debate on the motion Mr. Disraeli bitterly attacked Lord John Russell and the Premier, Lord Palmerston. But Mr. Gladstone said that so far from blaming the Ministry for hesitating about the offers of peace at Vienna, he blamed them for not giving the propositions that consideration which their gravity demanded, and for abruptly terminating the Conference and closing the hope of an honorable peace.
Mr. Gladstone, on the 3d of August, made another powerful appeal for the cessation of the war. He held that there was now no definite object for continuing the struggle; defended the Austrian proposals; defied the Western powers to control the future destinies of Russia, save for a moment; and he placed ”the individual responsibility of the continuance of the war on the head of the Ministry.”
But while Sebastopol held out there was no prospect of peace with Russia. Finally, in September, that fortress was taken and destroyed, and the Peace of Paris was concluded, March, 1856.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSE OF COMMONS.]
CHAPTER XI
IN OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT
It was in February, 1855, that Mr. Gladstone resigned his seat in the Cabinet. After the Treaty of Paris, March, 1856, which put an end to the Crimean War, Mr. Gladstone found himself in opposition to the Ministry of Lord Palmerston. He had a.s.sumed a position of independence, a.s.sociating politically with neither party. The political parties dreaded criticism and attack from him, for he was not properly constructed for the defense of either. He had himself declared his ”sympathies” were ”with the Conservatives, and his opinions with the Liberals,” and that he and his Peelite colleagues, during this period of political isolation, were like roving icebergs on which men could not land with safety, but with which s.h.i.+ps might come into perilous collision. Their weight was too great not to count, but it counted first this way and then that. Mr. Gladstone was conscientious in his opposition. He said: ”I greatly felt being turned out of office. I saw great things to do. I longed to do them. I am losing the best years of my life out of my natural service. Yet I have never ceased to rejoice that I am not in office with Palmerston, when I have seen the tricks, the shufflings, the frauds he daily has recourse to as to his business.
I rejoice not to sit on the Treasury Bench with him.”
In August, 1855, Lord Aberdeen said; ”Gladstone intends to be Prime Minister. He has great qualifications, but some serious defects. He is supreme in the House of Commons. He is too obstinate; if a man can be too honest, he is too honest. I have told Gladstone that when he is Prime Minister, I will have a seat in his Cabinet, if he desires it, without an office.”
During 1856, several measures came before Parliament which Mr. Gladstone opposed. He vindicated the freedom of the Belgian press, whose liberty some of the powers would curtail, and opposed resolutions to consider the state of education in England and Wales, as tending to create a central controlling power, involving secular instruction and endless religious quarrels. He also opposed the budget of Sir G.C. Lewis, which imposed more duties upon the tea and sugar of the working-man, and was said to be generally at variance with the policy pursued by every enlightened minister of finance. Besides, he condemned the continuance of the war duties in times of peace. ”He was a particularly acute thorn in the side of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and criticised the budget with unsparing vigor. 'Gladstone seems bent on leading Sir George Lewis a weary life,' wrote Mr. Greville. But finance was by no means the only subject of this terrible free-lance.”
A resolution was offered in the House of Commons expressing disapprobation with the English Cabinet for sanctioning, in 1855 and '56, the violation of international law, by secretly enlisting the subjects of the United States as recruits for the British army, by the intervention of the English Amba.s.sador. Mr. Gladstone said: ”It appears to me that the two cardinal aims that we ought to keep in view in the discussion of this question are peace and a thoroughly cordial understanding with America for one, the honor and fame of England for the other. I am bound to say that in regard to neither of these points am I satisfied with the existing state of things, or with the conduct of Her Majesty's Government. A cordial understanding with America has not been preserved, and the honor of this country has been compromised.”
Lord Palmerston, though very popular with the people, had greatly offended a large portion of the House of Commons by his interference in China. A lorcha, called the _Arrow_, flying the British flag, had been seized by the Chinese, and the question arose as to the right of the vessel to the protection of England. The opponents of the government contended that the vessel was built in China, was captured by pirates, and recaptured by the Chinese, and hence had no claim to British protection. To bring the matter to an issue Mr. Cobden introduced a resolution of inquiry and censure. For five nights the debate was protracted, and many able speeches were made on both sides, but Mr.
Gladstone made one of the most effective speeches, against the ministry.
He said: ”Every man, I trust, will give his vote with the consciousness that it may depend upon his single vote whether the miseries, the crimes, the atrocities that I fear are now proceeding in China are to be discountenanced or not. We have now come to the crisis of the case.
England is not yet committed. With you, then, with us, with every one of us, it rests to show that this House, which is the first, the most ancient, and the n.o.blest temple of freedom in the world, is also the temple of that everlasting justice without which freedom itself would only be a name or only a curse to mankind.”
The Premier ably defended himself, but the resolution of Mr. Cobden was pa.s.sed. Parliament was dissolved March 21, 1857, and Lord Palmerston appealed to the country. He was victorious at the polls. Among the prominent Liberals who lost their seats were Cobden, Bright, and Milner Gibson. The Peelites suffered loss too, but Mr. Gladstone was again elected for Oxford University. However, Mr. Greville writes, under date of June 3d: ”Gladstone hardly ever goes near the House of Commons, and never opens his lips.” But his indifference and silence were not to last long.
When the Divorce Bill, which originated in the Lords, came up in the Commons, Mr. Gladstone made an impa.s.sioned speech against the measure, contending for the equality of woman with man in all the rights pertaining to marriage. He dealt with the question on theological, legal and social grounds. He contended that marriage was not only or chiefly a civil contract, but a ”mystery” of the Christian religion. By the law of G.o.d it could not be so annulled as to permit of the re-marriage of the parties. ”Our Lord,” he says, ”has emphatically told us that, at and from the beginning, marriage was perpetual, and was on both sides single.” He dwelt with pathetic force on the injustice between man and woman of the proposed legislation, which would ent.i.tle the husband to divorce from an unfaithful wife, but would give no corresponding protection to the woman; and predicted the gloomiest consequences to the conjugal morality of the country from the erection of this new and odious tribunal. Nevertheless the bill became a law.
In 1858 a bill was introduced in the House of Commons by Lord Palmerston, to make conspiracy to murder a felony. It grew out of the attempt of Orsini upon the life of Napoleon III. The bill at first was carried by an immense majority, but the conviction spread that the measure was introduced solely at the dictation of the French Emperor, and hence the proposal was strongly opposed. Mr. Gladstone said: ”These times are grave for liberty. We live in the nineteenth century; we talk of progress; we believe we are advancing, but can any man of observation who has watched the events of the last few years in Europe have failed to perceive that there is a movement indeed, but a downward and backward movement? There are few spots in which inst.i.tutions that claim our sympathy still exist and flourish.... But in these times more than ever does responsibility centre upon the inst.i.tutions of England, and if it does centre upon England, upon her principles, upon her laws and upon her governors, then I say that a measure pa.s.sed by this House of Commons--the chief hope of freedom--which attempts to establish a moral complicity between us and those who seek safety in repressive measures, will be a blow and a discouragement to that sacred cause in every country in the world.”
The bill was defeated by a majority of nineteen, and Lord Palmerston again resigned. He was succeeded by Lord Derby, who once more came into power. Mr. Disraeli again became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the House of Commons. The new ministry, which existed largely on sufferance, pa.s.sed some good measures.
The one hundredth anniversary of the battle of Pla.s.sey was celebrated in England June 23, 1857, to obtain funds for a monument to Lord Clive, who secured India to England. The English then felt secure in the government of that land, yet at that very time one of the most wide-spread, destructive and cruel rebellions was raging, and shaking to its very foundations the English rule in Hindostan. Suddenly the news came of the terrible Indian mutiny and of the indiscriminate slaughter of men, women and children, filling all hearts with horror, and then of the crus.h.i.+ng out of the rebellion. Lord Canning, Governor-General, issued a proclamation to the chiefs of Oudh, looking to the confiscation of the possessions of mutineers who failed to return to the allegiance of England. It was meant as clemency. But Lord Ellenborough, the officer in charge of affairs in India, dispatched ”a rattling condemnation of the whole proceeding.” Says Justin McCarthy: ”It was absurd language for a man like Lord Ellenborough to address to a statesman like Lord Canning, who had just succeeded in keeping the fabric of English government in India together during the most terrible trial ever imposed on it by fate.” The matter was taken up by Parliament. Lord Shaftesbury moved that the Lords disprove the sending of the dispatch. In the Commons the ministry were arraigned. But Lord Ellenborough took upon himself the sole responsibility of the dispatch, and resigned. Mr. Gladstone was invited to the vacant place, but declined.
The most important among the bills pa.s.sed by Parliament was the India Bill, by which the government of India was transferred from the East India Company to the Crown and the Home government. Mr. Gladstone, who opposed the bill, proposed a clause providing that the Indian troops should not be employed in military operations beyond the frontiers of India.