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made a navy, and, more than that, had made a nation." This declaration was received in America with feelings of the most profound disappointment. It produced something like consternation among the English Radicals who were proud to follow Mr. Gladstone. The pity of it was that he should have spoken on the subject at all before he had made himself thoroughly acquainted with it. The pity of it was that he should have taken no account of the opinions of men like Cobden, who knew the American States well, like Bright, and like Stuart Mill. However, we must take Mr. Gladstone as Nature made him, impetuous, earnest, full of emotion, and quick of speech. "If I were always cool in council," says Schiller's hero, "I should not be William Tell." If Gladstone were always cool in council he would not be the great orator, philanthropist, and reformer that we know him to be. Five years later on Mr. Gladstone made a frank and ample admission of his mistake. "I must confess," he said, "that I was wrong; that I took too much upon myself in expressing such an opinion. Yet the motive was not bad. My sympathies were thenwhere they had long before been, where they are now-with the whole American people. I, probably, like many Europeans, did not understand the nature and the working of the American Union. I had imbibed conscientiously, if erroneously, an opinion that twenty or twentyfour millions of the North would be hap pier, and would be stronger-of course, assuming that they would hold togetherwithout the South than with it, and also that the negroes would be much nearer to emancipation under a Southern government than under the old system of the Union, which had not at that date been abandoned, and which always appeared to me to place the whole power of the North at the command of the slavehold

ing interests of the South. As far as regards the special or separate interest of England in the matter, I, differing from many others, had always contended that it was best for our interest that the Union should be kept entire." It is only fair to remember that many of the strongest abolitionists of the North had for

years been growing into the conviction that if the South did not secede from the

North, the North would have to secede from the South. It was perfectly true, as Mr. Gladstone said, that the whole power of the North had been for a long time at the command of the slaveholding people of the South. The election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency was the first signal that that time had gone by. Mr. Gladstone, however, had his attention closely occupied by domestic affairs and by his work as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had not traveled in America as Cobden and Harriet Martineau had done, nor had he, like Stuart Mill, the leisure to make himself master of the study of American politics and life. Anyhow, the mistake was amply atoned for. It was a mistake which hurt the best admirers of Mr. Gladstone in England even more than it hurt his best admirers in the Northern States of America, and it was fully atoned for by more than one admission of error and expression of regret. Nobody could have doubted for a moment that Mr. Gladstone's wishes thoroughly went for the prosperity and the progress of the great American Republic.

In 1865 the Parliament which had begun six years before came to its natural end. Mr. Gladstone presented himself again as a candidate to the electors of Oxford University. Times had changed, however, since his latest election. He was becoming more and more an advanced reformer. He had expressed himself in the House of Commons to the effect that the present position of the State Church in Ireland was unsatisfactory. The Irish Church, as he frankly admitted, ministered only to one-eighth or one-ninth of the whole Irish population. This speech created a profound sensation among his Oxford constitu

ents.

To many of the University dons it seemed like flat blasphemy. When the voting closed, Mr. Gladstone was at the bottom of the poll. He issued a parting address in which he said: "After an arduous connection of eighteen years, I bid you respectfully farewell. My earnest purpose to serve you, my many faults and shortcomings, the incidents of the poli'i cal relation between the University and myself, established in 1847, so often questioned in vain, and now at length finally dissolved, I leave to the judgment of the future. It is one imperative duty, and

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Photographed expressly for The Outlook by Mr. Watmough Webster, of Chester, from
the painting by Mr. W. B. Richmond, R.A.

one alone, which induces me to trouble
you with these few parting words-the
duty of expressing my profound and last-
ing gratitude for indulgence as generous,
and for support as warm and enthusiastic
in itself, and as honorable from the char-
acter and distinctions of those who have
given it, as has, in my belief, ever been
accorded by any constituency to any rep-
resentative." To the Bishop of Oxford,
who wrote him a most sympathetic letter,
Gladstone sent a reply in which occurs
the following passage:
"Do not join
with others in praising me because I am
not angry, only sorry, and that deeply.
For my revenge, which I do not desire,
but would baffle if I could, all lies in that
little word 'future' in my address, which I
wrote with a consciousness that it is deeply
charged with meaning, and that that which
shall come will come. There have been two
great deaths or transmigrations of spirit in
my political existence-one very slow, the

breaking of ties with my original party; and the other very short and sharp, the breaking of the tie with Oxford. There will probably be a third, and no more." This expression of Mr. Gladstone's aroused some alarm in the mind of the Bishop of Oxford. He asked for some explanation of its meaning. "You are not a Radical," the Bishop wrote, "and yet you may, by political exigencies, if you submit to be second, be led in heading a Radical party until its fully developed aims assault all that you most value in our country, and it, the Radical party, turns upon you and rends you." Mr. Gladstone's rejoinder, full as it is of gratitude and sympathy, was not likely to have quite cleared up the doubts of the Bishop of Oxford. Mr. Gladstone was not, however, left actually out in the cold by the decision of the Oxford elect

ors.

Some of his friends in South Lancashire had provided against such a possibility by nominating him as a candidate

for that northern constituency. At a general election a man may be nominated for several constituencies, and, if he be elected for more than one, he has only to choose which place he will sit for. Mr. Gladstone was elected for South Lancashire, but he came last on the list of the three representatives. The two others were strong local Tories-obscure men, comparatively.

Lord Palmerston had said, or was believed to have said, to a friend, that Gladstone was a dangerous man, and had best be kept in Oxford. "In Oxford," went on Lord Palmerston's phrase, "he is

SAMUEL WILBERFORCE

1805-1873

From an early photograph taken by Messrs. Maull & Fox, London. Wilberforce was Bishop of Oxford, 1845-1869; Bishop of Winchester, 1869-1873. He was a leader of the High Church party, but an opponent of ritualism. The versatility of his views gained for him the name of "Soapy Sam," but he was incontestably a great prelate, a powerful debater in the House of Lords, and a man of notable discernment in matters ecclesiastical and political. He declared his sobriquet to be due to the fact that, though "he was always in hot water, he always came out of it with clean hands." He was a friend and critic of Mr. Gladstone. Dean Church said that Wilberforce was "the greatest Bishop the English Church has seen for a century and a half."

muzzled, but send him elsewhere he will run wild." In one of the spirited speeches which Gladstone made to the electors of South Lancashire he referred good-humoredly to Palmerston's remark.

"At last, my friends," he said, "I am come among you; and I am come, to use an expression which has become very famous and is not likely to be forgotten, I am come unmuzzled." The general elections gave to the Government a slight majority, and Mr. Gladstone resumed his old office as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Everybody thoroughly understood the difference between his position as member for South Lancashire and member for Oxford University. We shall presently find that South Lancashire Toryism became too strong for him, and that he had to seek for a more liberal and progressive constituency. The Bishop of Oxford saw probably by this time that his fears about the possibility of Gladstone drifting on into genuine Radicalism were by no means unlikely to be justified. More than once after his election for South Lancashire he had to go on for new constituencies for constituents who were marching with the movement of his mind.

In truth, Mr. Gladstone's mere acceptance of office under Lord Palmerston marked a new stage in his political career. He had definitively broken away from the Tory party. While he still remained an independent member, he had given, up to the last, some votes now and then in support of the Tory Government where he believed that they were acting on a rightful principle. But even then he had voted with them only when it seemed to him that their action, however inspired, was tending towards a policy of Liberal reform. Now it was becoming every day more and more plain that Mr. Gladstone was growing out of the dusk of Toryism into the dawn of Liberalism. When he consented to take office under Lord Palmerston, it was proclaimed to every one that he had given up the last of his old traditions. Lord Palmerston, to be sure, was not much of a Liberal; he was not, indeed, much of anything except a Prime Minister and a very clever leader of the House of Commons. But Mr. Gladstone simply accepted Lord Palmerston as everybody else did. He regarded him as the man inevitable for the moment, the man who could, when occasion required, put on a decent show of leading the Liberals, and at the same time could to a certain extent propitiate and even manage the Tories. Mr. Gladstone's sym

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pathies were very cordially given to Lord John Russell, now Foreign Secretary, who was a sincere and a thorough Liberal reformer. Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone worked together most cordially. They were both strongly in favor of some measure of re form which should admit the mass of the people to the franchise. They both strongly disliked Lord Palmerston's bumptious and aggressive tone in foreign politics. They both disliked Lord Palmerston's plans for a vast expenditure on fortifications and on what Mr. Disraeli called "bloated armaments "" as a protection against possible or problematical invasion. Lord Palmerston, it is well known, was never drawn towards Mr. G'adstone, and was sometimes heedlessly outspoken in his disparagement of his great colleague.

CHAPTER XX.-GLADSTONE SUPPORTS POPULAR SUFFRAGE

JOHN STUART MILL 1806-1873

From a photograph taken by the London Stereoscopic Company. In the world of philosophy, logic, and political economy few names are quoted oftener than John Stuart Mill's. His well-known books command worldwide reading, and his influence has been extraordinary. He may be regarded as the founder of the inductive or empiric logic. In politics he is best remembered by his advocacy of suffrage extension, without distinction of sex, on the basis of educational qualifications. He should be equally remembered by all Americans as one who courageously and steadily espoused the Northern cause in our Civil War at a time when the Southern was far more popular in England.

Mr. Gladstone at last declared himself a convinced and definite supporter of the popular suffrage. The declaration came about in a sudden and unexpected sort of way. Wednesday in the House of Commons is one of the days which is considered to be the property of the private members until that period of the session comes when the Government, whatever it may be, having muddled away the time at its disposal, finds itself compelled by the necessities of the case to absorb all the sittings of the House. On Wednesday, the 11th of April, 1864, a bill was brought in by a private member for the extension of the franchise in boroughs. On such occasions it is usual for members of the Government to keep quiet and take no conspicuous part either way. Some Minister usually rises and utters a few careful and commonplace words, committing the Government to nothing in particular. On this occasion

"We are

Mr. Gladstone struck into the debate, and even with vehemence. He contended that the burden of proof rested, not upon those who claimed for the working classes the right to the franchise, but on those who denied that right. told," Mr. Gladstone said, "that the working classes do not agitate for the suffrage, but is it well that we should wait until they do agitate? In my opinion, agitation by the working classes upon any political subject whatever ought not

to be made a condition previous to any

Parliamentary movement, but, on the contrary, is to be deprecated, and, if possible, prevented by wise and provident meas

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