Part 17 (1/2)
Gladstone initiated a great debate in the House of Commons, May 7th, which lasted five days. He presented a series of resolutions expressing grave dissatisfaction with the policy of Turkey, and declared that she had forfeited all claim to support, moral and material. Mr. Gladstone asked whether, with regard to the great battle of freedom against oppression then going on, ”we in England could lay our hands upon our hearts, and in the face of G.o.d and man, say, 'We have well and sufficiently performed our part?'”
These resolutions were of course hostile to the Government, and many Liberals refused to vote for them, because they pledged England to a policy of force in connection with Russia. Besides the Government gave a.s.surances to avail themselves of any opportunity of interposing their good offices. The resolutions consequently were lost. Mr. Gladstone was not quite the leader of his party again.
Shortly after this debate, and before the close of the session, Mr.
Gladstone addressed a large meeting at Birmingham on the Eastern question and the present condition of the Liberal party. Later on he visited Ireland. On his return he addressed, by their request, the people gathered to receive him. He expressed his belief that Turkey would have yielded to the concerted action of Europe; noticed the change in the tone of the ministry from the omission in the Premier's speech of the phrase, ”the independence of Turkey;” protested strongly against England being dragged into war, and warmly eulogized the non-conformists for the consistency and unanimity with which they had insisted on justice to the Eastern Christians. Political feeling entered into everything at this time, but as an evidence of the hold Mr. Gladstone retained in the Scottish heart, he was in November elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University by a large majority. Lord Beaconsfield was the retiring Lord Rector, and the Conservatives nominated Sir S. Northcote, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as Mr. Gladstone's opponent.
The war in the East went disastrously for the Ottoman arms. January 23, 1878, the Porte agreed to accept the terms of peace submitted by the Grand Duke Nicholas.
Mr. Gladstone was invited January 30, 1878, to attend a meeting of undergraduates at Oxford, held to celebrate the formation of a Liberal Palmerston Club. He strongly condemned the sending of the British fleet into the Dardanelles as a breach of European law; and confessed that he had been an agitator for the past eighteen months, day and night, to counteract what he believed to be the evil purposes of Lord Beaconsfield.
In February the House of Commons pa.s.sed a vote of credit, but on the 3d of March a treaty of peace was signed between Turkey and Russia, at Sanstefano, the terms of which in part were: Turkey to pay a large war indemnity; Servia and Montenegro to be independent and to receive accessions of territory; Bulgaria to be formed into a princ.i.p.ality with greatly extended boundaries, and to be governed by a prince elected by the inhabitants; the navigation of the Straits was declared free for merchant vessels, both in times of peace and war; Russian troops to occupy Bulgaria for two years; Batoum, Ardahan, Kars and Bayazid, with their territories, to be ceded to Russia, and Turkey to pay an indemnity to Roumania. The terms of the treaty were regarded oppressive to Turkey by the Beaconsfield Ministry, who proposed that the whole treaty be submitted to a congress at Berlin, to meet in June, 1878. The treaty was approved after some modifications. The English Plenipotentiaries were the Earl of Beaconsfield and Marquis of Salisbury, who, for their share in the treaty, received a popular ovation and rewards from the Queen.
Thus was Turkey humiliated and Russia benefited, having obtained her demands. To the people a.s.sembled Lord Beaconsfield said from the window of the Foreign Office: ”Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace, but a peace, I hope with honor, which may satisfy our Sovereign and tend to the welfare of the country.” But at this very time the envoy of Russia, whom the ministry thought to be circ.u.mvented, was entering the Afghan capital; so that, although there was peace on the Bosphorus, as a direct result of the Eastern policy, there was war in Afghanistan.
The Conservatives were very ready for awhile to use as a watchword the phrase, ”Peace and Honor,” but before long it became the occasion of ridicule.
Parliament was called upon to appropriate 8,000,000 to defray the cost of the Afghan and Zulu wars. When Mr. Gladstone's government retired from office, there was a surplus of over 3,000,000, but the budgets of 1878 and 1879 both showed large deficits. The people had applauded the ”imperial policy,” ”the jingoism” of Lord Beaconsfield's administration during the past two or three years, but they were not so appreciative when they found it so costly a policy to themselves. The depression in business also had its effect upon the country. The unpopularity of the Liberal government, which culminated in its defeat in 1873, was now, in 1879, being s.h.i.+fted to their Conservative opponents, whose term of office was fast drawing to a close.
”Mr. Gladstone's resolute and splendid hostility to Lord Beaconsfield's whole system of foreign policy restored him to his paramount place among English politicians. For four years--from 1876 to 1880--he sustained the high and holy strife with an enthusiasm, a versatility, a courage and a resourcefulness which raised the enthusiasm of his followers to the highest pitch, and filled his guilty and baffled antagonists with a rage which went near to frenzy. By frustrating Lord Beaconsfield's design of going to war on behalf of Turkey, he saved England from the indelible disgrace of a second and more gratuitous Crimea. But it was not only in Eastern Europe that his saving influence was felt. In Africa and India, and wherever British honor was involved, he was the resolute and unsparing enemy of that odious system of bl.u.s.ter and swagger and might against right, on which Lord Beaconsfield and his colleagues bestowed the tawdry nickname of Imperialism.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. GLADSTONE ON HIS WAY HOME]
CHAPTER XVII
MIDLOTHIAN AND THE SECOND PREMIERs.h.i.+P
The leaders.h.i.+p of the Liberal party had, upon the retirement of Mr.
Gladstone, been turned over to Lord Hartington. His sympathies were upon the right side on the Eastern question, but he was a calm, slow-moving man. At the proper time he would have taken the right measures in Parliament, but the temper of the Liberal party and of the people demanded present action and emphatic speech, then Mr. Gladstone came to the rescue, and Lord Hartington found himself pushed aside. Mr.
Gladstone was again in fact the leader of the Liberal party, whose standard he had carried aloft during those stirring times when the Eastern question was the all-absorbing topic of debate in Parliament and among the people of the land. The foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield in 1878 and 1879 found a sleepless critic in Mr. Gladstone.
The day after the Parliament of 1878 had adjourned for the Easter recess, it was announced that the Ministry had ordered the Indian Government to dispatch 7000 native troops to the Island of Malta. The order occasioned much discussion--political, legal, and const.i.tutional.
It was warmly debated. It was thought that Lord Beaconsfield had transcended his powers and done what could be done only by a vote of Parliament. In the House of Commons Mr. Gladstone condemned the proceedings as unconst.i.tutional, and pointed out the dangers of the Ministerial policy. Lord Beaconsfield received what he calculated upon--the support of the House. For a member to differ from his policy was almost to incur the imputation of disloyalty to Crown and country.
Indeed, Mr. Gladstone was seriously accused of treason by a member of the House for an article in the _Nineteenth Century_.
Mr. Gladstone undauntedly continued the contest. He addressed a meeting of Liberals in the Drill Hall, Bermondsey, July 20th, in which he said that the Dissolution of Parliament could not long be postponed, and urged the union and organization of all Liberals, and prompt measures to secure such representation as the Liberals deserved in the coming Parliament. Speaking of the Anglo-Turkish treaty, he pointed out the serious obligations which devolved upon England under it. He added, regarding the Turkish Convention, that, possibly it was necessary to sustain the credit of the country, but whether that credit should be sustained at such a price remained for the people to determine at the polls. He rejoiced that these most unwise, extravagant, unwarrantable, unconst.i.tutional and dangerous proceedings had not been the work of the Liberal party, but he was grieved to think that any party should be found in England to perform such transactions.
A great debate arose in the House of Commons, extending over the whole range of the Eastern question: The Treaty of Berlin, the Anglo-Turkish Convention, the acquisition of Cyprus, the claims of Greece, etc. It was begun by the Marquis of Hartington, who offered a resolution regretting the grave responsibilities the Ministry had a.s.sumed for England with no means of securing their fulfillment, and without the previous knowledge of Parliament. Mr. Gladstone's speech during this debate is described as ”a long and eloquent address, unsurpa.s.sable for its comprehensive grasp of the subject, its lucidity, point, and the high tone which animated it throughout.” Mr. Gladstone denied that his strictures upon the Government in a speech made out of Parliament could be construed as Lord Beaconsfield had taken them as a personal attack and provocation. If criticism of this kind is prohibited the doors of the House might as well be shut. He observed that, ”Liberty of speech is the liberty which secures all other liberties, and the abridgment of which would render all other liberties vain and useless possessions.” In discussing the Congress at Berlin, Mr. Gladstone said, that he could not shut his eyes to the fact that the Sclavs, looking to Russia had been freed, while the Greeks, looking to England, remained with all their aspirations unsatisfied; that Russia had secured much territory and large indemnity, with the sanction of Europe; that the English Plenipotentiaries at the Congress, Lord Salisbury and Lord Beaconsfield, as a general rule, took the side of servitude, and that opposed to freedom.
With regard to the English responsibilities in Asiatic Turkey put upon England at the Convention, he called them an ”unheard of,” and ”mad-undertaking,” accomplished ”in the dark,” by the present Ministry.
Dealing with the treaty-making power of the country, he claimed that it rested with Parliament in conjunction with the Executive. The strength and the eloquence were on the side of the opposition, but the votes were for the Government. The resolutions of Lord Hartington were defeated, and the ”imperial policy” of the Ministry was sustained. The _Spectator_ said, that, ”Reason, prudence, and patriotism have hardly ever in our times been voted down with so little show of argument, and even of plausible suggestion.”
The next step taken by the Ministry was to undertake war with Afghanistan, in hopes of checking the advances of Russia in that direction and of redressing grievances. England accomplished her purpose in part, but greatly suffered for her exploit. Mr. Gladstone could not remain quiet under the ”adventurous policy” of the Premier. He condemned the ministerial policy which had made the Queen an Empress, then manipulated the prerogative in a manner wholly unexampled in this age, and employed it in inaugurating policies about which neither the nation nor the Parliament had ever been consulted. But arguments were of no avail. The Conservative majority in Parliament had imbibed the idea that the honor of England had to be protected. Some thought it had never been a.s.sailed, but Lord Beaconsfield declared it was in peril, and men and money were voted to defend it. ”So the order was given for distant peoples to be attacked, English blood to be spilled, the burdens of the people, already too heavy, to be swollen, and the future liabilities of this country to be enormously increased.”
In November, at the Lord Mayor's banquet, Lord Beaconsfield, speaking of Eastern affairs, said that the Government was not afraid of any invasion of India by its northwestern frontier; but the frontier was ”haphazard and not a scientific one,” and the Government wanted a satisfactory frontier. Mr. Gladstone, in a letter to the Bedford Liberal a.s.sociation, asked: ”What right have we to annex by war, or to menace the territory of our neighbors, in order to make 'scientific' a frontier which is already safe?”
In the autumn of 1879 Mr. Gladstone, having resolved to retire from the representation of Greenwich at the next election, paid a farewell visit to his const.i.tuents. At a luncheon given by the Liberal a.s.sociation he dwelt upon the necessity of a Liberal union. The Liberals had, owing to their dissensions, given twenty-six votes to their opponents in 1874, while the Government had been carried on for years by a Conservative majority of less than twenty-six, showing the importance of organization. At night Mr. Gladstone attended a great public meeting in the Plumstead Skating Rink. On his entrance the whole audience rose and cheered for several minutes. An address was presented, expressing regret at his retirement, and the pride they would ever feel at having been a.s.sociated with his name and fame. Mr. Gladstone alluded to Lord Beaconsfield's phrase respecting ”hara.s.sed interests,” and said he knew of only one hara.s.sed interest, and that was the British nation. He protested against the words ”personal government” being taken to imply that the Sovereign desired to depart from the traditions of the const.i.tution, yet he charged the advisers of the Crown with having invidiously begun a system intended to narrow the liberties of the people of England and to reduce Parliament to the condition of the French Parliaments before the great Revolution.
Mr. Gladstone threw the whole responsibility of the Afghan war on the Ministry, and maintaining that England had departed from the customs of the forefathers, concluded as follows: ”It is written in the eternal laws of the universe of G.o.d that sin shall be followed by suffering. An unjust war is a tremendous sin. The question which you have to consider is whether this war is just or unjust. So far as I am able to collect the evidence, it is unjust.”
In December, 1878, the following resolution was offered in the House of Commons: ”That this House disapproves the conduct of her Majesty's Government, which has resulted in the war with Afghanistan.” Mr.