WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE

As he appeared forty years ago. From the painting by Mr. George Frederick Watts, R.A, Photographed by Mr. Frederick Hollyer, of London.

By Justin McCarthy

Author of "A History of Our Own Times," "The Four Georges," etc.

CHAPTER XVI.-THE CRIMEAN WAR

T

HE first time I ever heard a speech from Mr. Gladstone was on the 12th of October, 1853. It was on the occasion of the unveiling of a statue to Sir Robert Peel, erected in front of the Royal Infirmary in Manchester. On that occasion the freedom of the city was presented to Mr. Gladstone, and he delivered a speech in the Town Hall. That was a time when the Crimean War was impending but did not seem yet quite a certain fatality, and I well remember how intense was the interest with which everybody waited for any hint as to the possibility of peace that might be given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The speeches made by Mr. Gladstone on that memorable day were worthy of the man whom it commemorated, and of the man who was his most illustrious follower. I shall never forget the impression made on me by Mr. Gladstone's eloquence, and made still more, I think, by the sincerity and

the earnestness of the orator himself. Commemoration speeches are apt to be triumphs of phrase-making and of rhetoric, and of nothing more. But in this instance the whole soul of the orator seemed to inspire the language of his speech. Mr. Gladstone appeared to be simply pouring out his heart and thought to a sympathetic audience. He spoke of Peel as he alone was qualified to speak of him; but I think every one who listened to Mr. Gladstone that day felt convinced in his mind that a greater statesman and a greater orator than Peel had risen up to take the foremost place in the political life of England. As regards the Crimean War, it was plain enough that Mr. Gladstone was only hoping against hope. He still persisted

a lingering longing to look for the maintenance of peace, but nobody who heard him could have doubted for a moment that Mr. Gladstone's belief in the possibility of the maintenance of peace was a faith which seemed very like de

1Copyright, 1897, by The Outlook Company.

spair. Soon after, the country "drifted," to use a famous expression, into the war with Russia, and on March 27, 1854, the public announcement of the war was made.

I am not now going back to the old story of the Crimean War. The country had been lashed into a passion for war, and there is no argument, for any European popula tion at all events, when that passion for war lights up. The war had been opposed in the most earnest and vigorous manner by men like Cobden and Bright. Some of Bright's speeches against the war policy are models of reason, of feeling, and of eloquence. But they only served to make Mr. Bright unpopular for the moment with the majority of his countrymen, and he was burnt in effigy in several places as the friend of Russia. Everybody knew that Mr. Gladstone was, above all things, a votary of peace, of economy, and of everything which could add to the national prosperity. For him there was no glory about war. At a much later period of his career he declared that he did not understand what was meant by national prestige. He had to prepare a war budget, but even in the speech which introduced it he took care to express the profound dislike he felt to any war that was not actually inevitable. Much, no doubt, of the misery which the war entailed was due to the fact that many of those who, like Mr. Gladstone, were dragged into accepting it had no heart in the war policy and no sympathy with it. The Prime Minister of England himself, Lord Aberdeen, was anxious to the very last to keep out of the war. The trouble in all such cases is that patriotic Englishmen naturally shrink from abandoning the public service of their country at a time when the country is on the eve of a great can paign. Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone remained, therefore, at their posts after the war broke out.

There is not now, I believe, a single re

sponsible public man in England who does not utterly condemn the policy of that most unfortunate war. To England it brought

MANCHESTER: ESPLANADE IN FRONT OF THE ROYAL INFIRMARY

In the foreground is the statue of Sir Robert Peel, by Marshall. On the occasion of the statue's unveiling (1853) Mr.
Gladstone delivered a speech, and the freedom of the city was presented to him.

nothing but loss and misery. There was
no glory to be gained out of it, even if
England had wanted glory of that kind.
Never before in all her warlike history
had England been so poorly served by
her commanders in the field. No Henry
the Fifth was there, no Duke of Marl
borough, no Duke of Wellington. The
suffering inflicted on Englishmen was not
the work of the enemy; it was the work
of their own military administration. The
mismanagement, the perverse blundering,
the utter incapacity of those who looked
after the army on the field, were abso-
lutely without precedent. The whole com-
missariat and hospital organization utterly
broke down. England, as Mr. George
Russell very truly says, "lost some twenty-
four thousand men, of whom five-sixths
died from preventable disease and the
want of proper food, clothing, and shel-
ter."
With the help of the French and
the Sardinians, the English army defeated
the Russians time after time. Yet, when
the whole war was over and done, only
one great name came out of it, and that
was the name of the Russian general,
Todleben, who defended Sebastopol. If
I were to mention in succession the names
of the English commanders, very few of
my readers now would know about whom

I was talking. The war propped up for a short time the fabric of the French Second Empire. It made the fortune of the House of Piedmont. Count Cavour, not caring three straws about either Turkey or Russia, had seen his opportunity with the eye of genius and volunteered the alliance of Sardinia, and so obtained a right of representation at the Congress of Paris, where terms of peace were made, and thus laid the foundation of a United Italy under the House of Savoy. But for England the war did nothing whatever except to bring vast loss of treasure and vast sacrifice of gallant lives. No question in which we were concerned was settled by that war. What is called the Eastern Question remains unsettled still, or rather, indeed, I should say that it is in a far worse condition now than it was before the Crimean War broke out. The Ottoman Government, for whose sake we spent so much money and so much blood, has lately proved itself the most savage and tyrannical government known in civilization, and commits its Armenian massacres under our very eyes, metaphorically at least, and without the slightest regard to our expostulations. England fostered the Turkish Government to be an outrage upon civilization and a de

fiance to England herself. "We were fighting," said Mr. Bright, "for a hope less cause and a worthless ally."

Meantime the condition of the English troops in the Crimea began to be a public scandal and horror. Mr. Roebuck announced in the House of Commons his intention to move for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the state of our army before Sebastopol, and "into the conduct of those departments of the government whose duty it has been to minister to the wants of that army." There was no serious possibility of resisting such a motion. Such was the conviction of Lord John Russell, who instantly resigned his place in the Cabinet. Mr. Gladstone did not see his way to resign in the face of the debate and division which were about to take place. He even defended to the best of his power the policy and conduct of the administration. The result of the division was a majority of 157 against the Government. The Ministry of Lord Aberdeen-the Coalition Ministry, as it was called-broke down as a natural result of this declaration of the majority of the House of Commons. The Queen sent for Lord Derby, who endeavored to form an administration, but could not succeed. He offered a place to Mr. Gladstone, but Mr. Gladstone declined it. Two other eminent "Peelites," as they were called, Sir James Graham and Mr. Sidney Herbert, also refused to accept office under Lord Derby. All three gave as a reason that they had opposed the motion for a sort of amateur inquiry into the military organization in the Crimea, and that they could not countenance it by remaining members of the Government. There was nothing for it but to make Lord Palmerston Prime Minister. The Peelites were willing to join him, but on the understood condition that the amateur inquiry was not to take place. Mr. Gladstone was offered the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and accepted the office. Lord Palmerston had once described himself very correctly as, under the conditions, the inevitable" Prime Minister. Mr. Gladstone was certainly the inevitable Chancellor of the Exchequer. "He is indispensable," said a keen observer at the time, "if only because any other Chancellor of the Exchequer would be torn into pieces by him."

It has to be

observed that this was the first time that Gladstone consented to take office under a Whig leader. This was, therefore, a distinct advance on the way to Liberalism first, and to Radicalism afterwards. Lord Palmerston, of course, was not much of a Liberal, and was nothing of a Radical. Still, he stood up as an opponent to Toryism, and professed to be a man of progress; and therefore, when Gladstone joined his Cabinet, there was clear evidence that Gladstone had done forever with the "stern and unbending Tories," of whom, according to Macaulay, he was once the rising hope. He did not, however, serve for long under the new Government. As I have said, Lord Palmerston's administration was formed on the understanding that Mr. Roebuck's demand for a sort of amateur inquiry into the carrying on of the Crimean War was not to be granted. Lord Palmerston, however, soon saw that the country would not be satisfied without some form of inquiry. The mind and heart of England were sick and sore because of the stories of military maladministration and easily avoidable disaster. Palmerston consented to the inquiry, and thereupon Mr. Gladstone, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Sidney Herbert resigned office. They had been members of Lord Palmerston's Cabinet about three weeks. Sir George Cornewall Lewis became Chancellor of the Exchequer in place of Mr. Gladstone. Gladstone took his seat on one of the back benches, behind the bench on which the members of the Government have their places. I have many times seen him rise from that seat and heard him criticise the financial schemes of his successor. His criticisms had, it is needless to say, life and vigor in them. He was master of every subject which could be included in a budget. He knew all the details of every question. He could at any moment pour out a flood of criticism which dissolved the proposals of an opponent as a stream of corrosive acid might have done.

I must say for myself that I always had a very high idea of the ability of Sir George Cornewall Lewis. He is a man who is almost wholly forgotten in our time; but I am convinced that he was one of the most thoroughly intellectual men of his day. I know that it may fairly be asked of me, "How could a man come

30

to be forgotten if he had said or done
All I
anything worth remembering?"
can say is that I quite admit the fact
that Sir George Lewis is personally for-
insist
gotten, but
it that he
upon
seemed to me to have one of the greatest
intellects of his time, and I know that
some of his sayings, witty, sarcastic,
humorous, and profound, have passed
into our common literature and our com-
mon talk, and are quoted every day by
people who have some faint notion that
they are citations from Dean Swift or
Sydney Smith. Lewis had a miserably
poor voice, and had no ideas about elocu-
tion, and the House of Commons hardly
ever takes to a man whom it is difficult
In no case
to understand or follow.
whatever could he have been an equal of
Mr. Gladstone in financial argument, and
he must have had a hard time of it very
often while under the criticism of Mr.
Gladstone. There was, I am sure, a
great deal of the genuine philosopher
about him, and I have little doubt that he
said to himself now and again, "I am no
I
match for Gladstone, and I know it.
have not the voice or the fluency or the
eloquence. But there is one thing I can
do; I can thoroughly admire Gladstone,
and admit his superiority."

Gladstone, however, did not confine himself to criticisms merely of financial policy. He showed himself an independent critic on all subjects which aroused in him any question of principle. He made a great speech in the important debate on the manner in which the English authorities had behaved towards the Chinese in the once famous question of the lorcha Arrow. The Government was defeated on that question, and Parliament was dissolved. But Lord Palmerston was quite safe. He had appealed to what may be called the Jingo feeling of the country. He had denounced the Chinese Governor of Canton as "an insolent barbarian," and he came back into power with a strong majority. Mr. Gladstone was returned without opposition for the University of Oxford.

He seemed to many observers somewhat depressed and disgusted by the condition of affairs, and by the triumph of Lord Palmerston . over what appeared to Mr. Gladstone to be moral principle and national honor. On June the third, 1857, we find it noted in

Mr. Greville's journal that "Gladstone hardly ever goes near the House of Commons, and never opens his lips." He was destined, however, before long to open his lips to some purpose. The Divorce Bill was introduced by the Government, and there was no subject in human affairs on which Gladstone felt stronger convictions than the introduction of a measure to make divorce cheap and easy.

One

It is quite certain that Gladstone never liked being under the leadership of Lord Palmerston. It is quite certain that he was glad just at this time to be released from such a leadership. The natures of the two men were totally unlike. was earnest about everything; the other was earnest about nothing. But we may fairly assume that Gladstone, having so suddenly withdrawn from Lord Palmerston's administration, was not anxious, was indeed very unwilling, to start up in opposition to his late leader. The Divorce Bill was, however, too much for him, and he felt that he was bound to stand up and bear testimony against it.

ever.

It was not likely, in any case, that such a man as Gladstone could remain long away from the House of Commons, or, being there, could hold his peace forAt several periods in Mr. Gladstone's career there came a short season during which he seemed to have practically withdrawn from Parliamentary life; during which he seldom came near the House of Commons, and never opened Such a season never could his lips there. have occurred in the career of a man like PalmLord Palmerston or Mr. Disraeli. erston and Disraeli lived for the House of Commons and in the House of Commons. To attend its debates was a necessity to either man's existence. was not so with Mr. Gladstone. He went to the House of Commons because it gave him an opportunity of advocating some great measure of national importance, or of opposing some scheme which he believed to be wrong. Each short

It

secession came to an end the moment
when Mr. Gladstone saw that there was
work which he ought to do. In 1857
Mr. Gladstone found himself drawn back
to the House by his determination to
oppose
the Divorce Bill which
brought in by Lord Palmerston's Govern-
He fought this bill through its

ment.

was