a 'X -^■^' . ^. m. . -. •^^♦«^^'-'i .^*»*^* ..hlfe^.^;^^. /S99 Cornell University Library JC 433.L46 1899 Introduction to Democracy and Liberty / 3 1924 024 864 617 (Jnrn^U ICaui ^rl^nol ICtbtary Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024864617 INTEODUCTION DBMOCEACY AND LIBBETY INTKODUCTION TO DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY BT WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY Beprinted from the Cabinet Edition V LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTBB BOW, LONDON NEW TOBK AND BOMBAY 1899 All rights reserved ^^^^y NOTE In consequence of very many requests from purchasers of the earlier editions of ' Democracy and Liberty,' I have determined to print separately, and uniformly with those editions, some copies of the Introduction to the revised Cabinet Edition which has recently appeared. This Intro- duction will also be printed in future issues of the Library Edition. W. E. H. L. February, 1899. INTEODUCTION In presenting to the public a new edition of a work which at its first appearance gave rise to a considerable amount of controversy, it is not, I think, inappropriate to devote a few pages to examining how far the experience of the last three years has confirmed or disproved the general prin- ciples it laid down. In some of its most melancholy predictions it has, I fear, been but too well confirmed. A great portion of it is devoted to describing the declining respect for parhamentary government and the great difficulty of re- conciling this form of government with extreme democracy. I have pointed out the tendency of modern democratic parhaments to break up more and more into small groups with the inevitable consequence of enfeebling the executive ; destroying or dislocating the party system ; giving a dis- proportionate power to extreme, self-seeking and skilfully organised minorities ; turning important branches of legisla- tion into something little better than a competition of class bribery, and thus lowering the tone of public life and the character and influence of public men. I have argued that parliaments of this type are much less truly representative of the best elements of the nation than parhaments established on a less democratic basis ; that they are peculiarly apt to lose the power of directing and guiding public opinion, and that . except in countries where a long experience of free government has produced an unusually vm INTRODUCTION high standard of poHtical intelligence they are very unfit to exercise uncontrolled and commanding power, or to deal efficiently with the more difficult problems of politics. Less than three years have passed since these views were put forward, yet in that short time how many illustrations of them have occurred! Two of the noblest works of statesmanship accomplished in Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century were the unity of Italy and the transformation and consolidation of the Austrian Empire into a free and constitutional power. Both of these achievements were eminently beneficial to Europe and both under the influence of high suffrage parliaments seemed to have been definitely and perma- nently accomplished. It is impossible to deny that the events of the last years have filled the well-wishers both of Italy and Austria with profound misgiving. The furious and sanguinary riots almost amounting to civil war that have taken place in Italian towns ; the crushing and ever- growing weight of taxation ; the steady growth of Italian Socialism ; and the manifest incapacity of a democratic parliament to command the confidence of the Italian people are signs that it is impossible to misread, while in the Austrian Empire race warfare has broken out with renewed intensity, and the Parliament at Vienna has presented a scene of anarchy and riot which seems to make it scarcely possible that parliamentary government on its present basis can long continue. In the French Parliament there has been a similar, though less prolonged, outbreak ; another general election has shown the incapacity of the electorate to put an end to the system of small and isolated groups which makes ministerial stability impossible, and public opinion in connection with the Dreyfus case has shown tendencies in which good observers see clearer signs of national decadence than in anything that has taken place in France since 1870. In Germany a strong executive INTRODUCTION IX exercises, much power independently of parliamentary control, but there too another general election has only accentuated that division into many groups which reduces the Beichstadt to comparative impotence and it has again illustrated two of the most ominous characteristics of continental democracy, the increased and disproportionate political power of Ultramontane Catholicism and the steady growth of Socialism. Other influences than pure democracy have no doubt contributed to these things, but no competent judge will deny that the connection is real and close, nor can it be doubted that they have greatly increased throughout Europe the distrust of parliamentary institutions. On the other side of the Atlantic Brazil, which during the period of its empire was a model of financial solvency and integrity, has passed, as was predicted in this work, and without the pressure of any foreign war, into the ranks of defaulting States. If we turn to the great English-speaking democracies, we find ourselves in presence of . communities long and thoroughly acquainted with the habits of freedom, and possessing to the highest degree the energy of character and the soundness and flexibility of judgment that are fitted to deal with the great problems that are before them. It has never been my intention to write of them in a pessimistic spirit, though I have endeavoured to point out certain evils which appear to me to be growing, and which seem likely to lead to grave difficulties and transformations in the future. There may be some difference of opinion about the justice and the necessity of the war which the United States has recently waged with Spain, but there can be no question that this war has furnished another conspicuous proof not only of the energy and resource, but also of the moderation, self-restraint and humanity of the American people. It is not improbable that the acquisition of foreign territory may react powerfully upon their internal poh tics, and it has X INTEODUCTION brought them face to face with a problem of great interest and difficulty— the possibility of a pure democracy, without any previous experience, governing successfully an alien people wholly unsuited to a democratic representative system. ■ It cannot, however, be denied that in the internal affairs of the United States some of the evils pointed out in the present work have, since its publication, rather increased than diminished. The admirable provisions in the American constitution guaranteeing the security of contracts have been indirectly menaced on the largest scale by the silver party which advocates the payment of all debts in a depre- ciated coinage. It is true that the last Presidential election resulted in their defeat and showed the essential soundness and integrity of American opinion, but it is impossible to observe without misgiving the ascendency which that party has obtained not only in the Southern States where former slavery may have depressed the moral level, but also in the Western States which are likely to gain a greatly increased power in the future. It is not indeed difficult to explain the fact. The rate of mortgages on land which had long pre- vailed in the Western States was so far higher than that in the Eastern States that when agricultural depression' came payment became impossible, and'»insolvent farmers not un- naturally grasped at the chance of extricating themselves from their difficulties, and it is certainly not surprising that the Southern States should have resented bitterly the enor- mous scandal and injustice of the Pension list, which is supported from the taxation of the whole country, but from the benefits of which the States inhabited by the old Con- federates are excluded. Another and very serious event has been the triumph of Tammany in New York. It has undoubtedly thrown back that movement towards municipal reform which has been one of the most satisfactory and one of the most needed improvements in American life. It is true that the contest INTRODUCTION Xi was not solely, though it was very largely a contest between corruption and municipal reform. The Puritanical spirit which irritated the German population by interfering with the sale of beer on Sunday introduced a new and powerful element into the conflict. But when all allowance for this has been made, it is impossible to deny the melancholy significance of an election which placed the government of the greatest city in America in the hands of a party with such a record of gigantic, notorious, undisguised corruption. Nor, as far as I can judge, have the events of the last few years at all diminished the belief of the most competent Americans that there has been a marked decline in the character of the American senate. In Great Britain the ccjirse of things has been some- what different. Few persons who had watched English politics since Mr. Gladstone dislocated the Liberal party on the question of Home Rule doubted that the Election of 1895 would involve the Home Eule party in disaster, but very few persons accurately measured the extent and the duration of the disaster. It was not simply that a Unionist Government came into power with a larger majority than that of any other Government since 1832. The Opposition which confronted it was so divided, disintegrated and dis- credited that it was in reality far weaker than might appear from its nominal numerical strength. In the three sessions that have elapsed since the election, the dominant power has conunitted several mistakes and sometimes shown much weakness, but, in spite of many predictions, the unity of the party remains unbroken and unforced, while its op- ponents have hitherto totally failed to attain any real or even apparent consolidation. There has been, indeed, scarcely any organised opposition, and the whole working of party government has been enfeebled by the fact. The chief difficulties of the Government have been the obstruc- tion of small groups who knew that under existing condi- Xll INTRODUCTION tions the only possible form of efficacious opposition was the waste of parliamentary time, and the difficulties of man- agement and arrangement that arise out of the incapacity of the front Opposition Bench to answer for the many di^ vergent groups behind them. There has been at the same time a great revival of commercial prosperity, accompanied by great disquiet in foreign affairs, and both of these influences have contributed to turn the minds of men from internal politics. The result of all this has been a period of parlia- mentary peace such as has not existed in England since the death of Lord Palmerston and it has been strengthened by the generally good relations existing between the two front benches in the House. One of its consequences has been that some of the tendencies of Democracy which have been most dwelt on in the present work have, for a time, almost disappeared. The group system certainly does not now dominate in English politics, for the Government have been able to count upon a vast and substantially homogeneous majority. The pressure of the Caucus, which was such a great and growing force in the Parliaments that preceded 1895, has manifestly diminished. No one can complain in England of a feeble executive and an unstable government, and close observers of parliamentary life seem agreed that one of its most characteristic recent features has been the greatly increased power of the Cabinet. Like most changes, this has been largely influenced by personal character. Whatever criti- cism may be passed on the later leadership of the House, no one can question that it has been carried on with singular tact, and in a spirit of great courtesy and conciliation, both to the Opposition at large and to the able, and for the most part moderate, men who are its leaders. Mistakes have sometimes been made, by-elections have been occasionally lost, ministerial measures have been severely criticised on both sides of the House, but on the whole the Government INTRODUCTION XlU have been able to do almost absolutely what they like, and parliament and the country have acquiesced with very little protest in what they do. If this state of things were likely to prove permanent, much that is said in the present work about the tendency of democracy to impair the stability of government and the working of parliamentary institutions might appear inapplic- able to England. Nobody, however, can suppose that the present enormous disproportion of parties can continue, and the law which is coming to be popularly known as the law of the pendulum will continue to work. It means that in England since the great lowering of the suffrage a very large body of voters will vote alternately for the opposite parties, not simply because they desire new hnes of poHcy; not simply because they are influenced by the mistakes which the existing government has committed, by the interests which it has injured or offended, or by the deserved or un- deserved misfortunes that have occurred during its reign, but also because they are wholly indifferent to party politics and think the turn about system the most fair. The existence of a large body of voters in English constituencies who vote habitually on this principle and justify themselves by saying ' these men have had their innings, it is now the turn of the others ' is clearly recognised by practical poli- ticians, though such voters are not common either in Scotland or Ireland. Political prediction is of all things the most fallible, but the strong probability appears to be that, before many years, a government resting upon a small majority will be again in power. Under such circumstances the dis- integration of one side of the House into a number of small groups cannot fail to have a great effect on English politics. Another fact which is very conspicuous in our present parliament is the complete reconciUation of the Unionist and Conservative party with Democracy. The old idea of XIV INTRODUCTION a good Conservative government was a government which systematically discouraged great organic changes, and which aimed at a wise, frugal, moderate and skilful administration of affairs on the existing lines, remedying such minor defects in our institutions as experience might disclose, but putting aside all experiment and leaving to its opponents all mea- sures of wide and ambitious reform. The modern idea of a Conservative government which takes its origin in a great degree from the policy of Disraeli in 1867 is essentially different. It is to take up one by one the great democratic questions which seem manifestly impending and to solve these questions on a broad democratic basis, with such con- ditions as may safeguard the special interests of which a Conservative government is the trustee. Democracy is accepted as an inevitable fact. The fear or distrust of it which so long prevailed in Conservative ranks has in a great degree passed away. It has been discovered that the Church, the Aristocracy and the landed interests, if they descend into the arena are fully able to hold their own in the competition for popular favour, and that some of the tendencies and doctrines which are specially associated with Conservative traditions are peculiarly fitted to blend with democratic politics. And the result is that on questions of Democracy there is no longer a party whose business is to initiate and a party whose business is to restrain. "Within wide limits the two parties move on the same lines, and are more like com- petitors in a race than adversaries in the field. The old ideal of conservative policy is indeed seldom likely to be realised except under a weak radical government confronted and controlled by a powerful opposition. Few graver experi- ments in democracy have been made than the Irish Local Government Act of the last session, which has placed the whole local government of a country which is profoundly disaffected to British rule and which returns more than eighty Home Eule members to parliament on the basis of INTRODUCTION XV the parliamentary franchise. It was a measure introduced in fulfilment of distinct pledges and it contains very skilful provisions intended to protect existing interests. But when all is said, it means a great transfer of power and influence from the loyal to the disloyal, and it goes in the direction of democracy far beyond anything that a few years ago would have been accepted either by the Conservatives or by the moderate Liberals. Much the same thing may be said of the Industrial Legislation of the present parliament. In this respect, indeed, the Tory party has changed less than its opponents. The Tudor regulations of industry which in part survived till the present century were chiefly associated with this party, and it bore a larger part than its opponents in the enactment of the early factory laws, while the Manchester School which desired to contract to the utmost the limits of Government interference with industry, was long regarded as the purest type of liberal orthodoxy. On both sides of the House, however, the pohcy of interfering with, regulating and protecting labour by legislative enactment continues with an uninterrupted popularity and the Com- pensation for Accidents Act of 1896 has in some ways gone further in this direction than any preceding measure. The Employers' Liability Act of 1880 granted compensation to all workmen who suffered from accidents due to the negli- gence of the employer, of his superintendent or of any one whose orders the workmen were bound to obey. The recent Act, while leaving the workman at liberty to claim his com- pensation if he pleases under the Act of 1880, provides that in some of the most dangerous employments, he has an absolute right to compensation from his employer in all cases of accidents ' arising out of and in the course of the employment ' and not due to his ' serious and wilful mis- conduct.' The element of negligence is altogether eliminated. It is not necessary to show that the accident XVI INTRODUCTION is even in the smallest degree the fault of the employer or of any one in his service. If, for example, an earthquake has destroyed a mine and killed or wounded the miners employed in it, the claim of these men or their representa- tives to compensation from the employer is indefeasible. The measure does not apply merely to industrial employ- ments established after its enactment, but extends to those which had long been established under the system of free contracts, and the masters and men have only the smallest power of contracting themselves out of its provisions. The liberty of contracting out, for which the Conservative party had so strenuously contended, is indeed not formally taken away, but it is only granted in cases in which the chief Eegistrar of Friendly Societies has certified that the master has granted to the persons in his employment a scheme of compensation not less favourable than that pro- vided in the Act. The whole matter is thus taken out of the domain of free contract ; the employer loses his power of deciding on what terms or conditions he will grant employment to his workmen, and by a provision which was not either in the Act of 1880 or in the Common law, in case of the death of the employer the claim for compensation arising out of the Act will stand against his estate. It is obvious how largely such a measure extends the area of State intervention in industry. By excluding all consideration of negligence as the ground for compensation, it introduces a new principle, and a principle which is certain to grow. A scale of compensation is laid down, but as it rests on no definite principle it is always possible that it may be raised. The Act applies to railways, mines, docks, factories and some other industries in which mechanical forces are employed, but it can scarcely be questioned that it is likely to be extended to other industries. The measure undoubtedly in the first instance confers an immense benefit on the British workmen, but if the burden it imposes on INTRODUCTION xvii native industries proves excessive it must end by driving many of them from employment, and its success or failure depends mainly upon the rate at which it will be possible for the employer to insure himself against the new claim — a question on which it is still too early to pronounce. It can- not, however, be doubted that this measure may easily lead to another and very grave extension of State obligation and responsibiUty. The tendency of modem industry is to take more and more the form of limited liability companies, and this tendency the new law will certainly accelerate. If, how- ever, some great colliery accident brings down a ruinous claim for compensation upon such a company, it will probably go into liquidation, and a great body of workmen will be deprived of their promised compensation. Can it be doubted that under such circumstances the demand for State Insur- ance will speedily arise ? It is a significant fact that this most important measure was carried with the concurrence of both of the great parties in the State. The representatives of menaced interests, it is true, opposed it, but the bulk of the Opposition was dis- tinctly favourable to it. Their chief criticism was that it did not go far enough; that important industries and large bodies of workmen remained excluded from its scope; that it retained some faint shadow of the hberty of contracting out ; that the credit of it belonged more to their own party than to the Government. The great majority of both parties were thoroughly committed by this system of legis- lative protection of workmen at the cost of the employer and under such circumstances efficacious resistance was impossi- ble. One of the most prominent members of the Opposition observed that it was a gratifying fact that from no section of the house was the old language about grandmotherly legislation interfering with the industry of grown-up men any longer heard. So completely, for the present, have the doctrines of the Manchester School been eclipsed. Whether xviii INTEODUCTION the report of the recent commission alleging that there are insuperable objections to the still larger scheme of old age pensions will lead to an abandonment of that measure is a question which still hes in the future. The same uniformity of principle exists to a large extent on questions of finance. It is true that the present govem-r ment has done something to give special financial relief to interests which it specially represents. The long period of agricultural depression has been met on the Continent by duties favouring native agriculture, but the free trade piolicy of England makes sufch duties impossible ; and in later Enghsh politics the interests of the country and of agricul- ture have, in a large degree^ been sacrificed to the interests of the towns and of manufactures, which under this legisla- tion have attained an unexampled prosperity. The present Government has done something to mitigate this injustice by a shght remodelling of taxation in favour of agriculture, and it has in the same spirit given additional assistance from the Consolidated Fund to the Voluntary Schools which are chiefly Church of England and denominational. These Schools are manifestly the most popular and efficient in the country districts, as the Board Schools are the most popular and efficient in the towns, and the maintenance of the two distinct types of' education meets the wishes of a very large proportion of the English people. As long as free education was confined to the children of paupers, the Voluntary Schools, though unsupported by the rates, were able without much difficulty to meet the competition of the Board Schools. The establishment, however,of free education in the Board Schools, and the introduction into them of higher standards of educa* tion and higher scales of salaries, as well as the increased requirements of the Education Board, had made it impos^ble for schools which could not fall back upon the rates to withstand the competition of rate supported schools. An additional grant, chiefly, though not exclusively, going to. the INTRODUCTION xix Voluntary Schools, gives them at least a chance of prolonged existence. But the most important recent change in our financial system continues substantially unchanged. It would be difficult to conceive a greater departure from what used to be called orthodox political economy than the death duties of Sir William Harcourt. The first principle of taxation according to the older economists, is that it ought to fall upon income and not upon capital. In England the largest direct tax annually raised is now a highly graduated tax falling directly upon capital. It was introduced by a weak radical government which, perceiving the impossibihty of carrying any great radical measure through the House of Lords, selected as its chief innovation a financial measure over which the House of Lords had no control. The Go- vernment, however, which followed was obliged to adcept it. It was said that it brought an enormous sum into the Exchequer ; that with the immense increase of Naval expenditure it was impossible to dispense -^ith such a sum ; that in the great probability of party governments alternating with each general election, each government must accept in its bulk the legislation of its predecessor, though it may do something to modify or mitigate its details. Some slight mitigations relating to works of historic interest and to the jointures of widows have been introduced and carried, but in its broad lines the financial system of the former govern- ment remains. Its most oppressive features are that there is no tiihe limit, so that in the not improbable event of two, three or even foui? owners of a great property dying in rapid succession, the tax has the effect of absolute confiscatioUj and that no distinction is drawn between prope^Hiy which produces income and is easily realisable and the kinds of property which produce little or no income and which it is difficult or impossible to realise. The strongest Govemmejit of our day has. done nothing to remedy th,ese defects. It a2 XX INTRODUCTION has, however, extended the principle of graduation in the income tax by the partial exemption of incomes up to £700 a year. It has extended to new classes of tenancies the Irish Land legislation which is the most evident instance of confiscatory violation of contract in modern legislation, thus convincing the Irish people that there is no flnaHty in the land question and that no government, however powerful and however Conservative, can be trusted to abstain from tampering with the rights of property in Ireland ; and it has abolished without compensation the saleable value of next presentations in the Church — a kind of property which pro- bably ought never to have been created, but which was at least fully recognised by law. This last measure was defended by arguments which would be equally applicable to the sale of advowsons. It will appear especially significant of the tendency of the times when it is remembered that in Glad- stone's Act disendowing the Irish Church, the pecuniary value of lay Church patronage was fully recognised and its owners were amply compensated. It is, I think, evident from these things that the kind of tendencies which it is the object of the present work to criticise, *are still dominant in England and that it woTild be a great mistake to suppose that the change which has taken place in the disposition of parties has seriously affected them. For good or for ill they are likely, for a considerable time to come, to be the regulating influences in English politics. Since this book was originally published, a great figure, closely connected with many of the subjects on which I have written, has passed away. The time has not yet come when the definite verdict of history can be pronounced upon the work and upon the highly complex character of Mr. Glad- stone, but some passages in this book are so little in harmony with the language of indiscriminating eulogy which followed his death, that a few pages on the subject can hardly be INTKODUCTIOlSr XXI thought misplaced. In some respects I believe posterity is likely to underrate him. No one who judged only from his published speeches could fully appreciate his extraordinary rhetorical powers. In mere literary form those speeches rank far below those of Bright or Canning, or of some of the great orators of France, and the reader will look in vain in them for the profound and original thought, the gleams of genuine imagination, the passages of highly finished and perennial beauty that place the speeches of Burke among the classics of the language. There was, indeed, a curious contrast between Gladstone and Burke. Both of them carried into political questions a passion seldom found among Statesmen, and also a range and versatility of knowledge that far sur- passed that of their contemporaries, but Gladstone was incomparably superior to Burke in the power of moving great masses of men, dominating in parliamentary debate, catching the tone and feehng of every audience he addressed, and carrying an immediate issue. On the other hand the texture of his intellect was commonplace. The subtleties and ingenuities of distinction in which he was inexhaustibly fertile were nearly always the mere subtleties of debate. His long and involved sentences and the extreme redundancy of his language scarcely impaired the effect of his speeches when they were set off by his clear, powerful and musical voice and by his admirable skill in enunciation and emphasis, but to the reader they wiU often appear intolerably verbose. He seemed sometimes to be labouring to show with how many words a simple thought could be expressed or obscured, and with few exceptions — those being chiefly on finance — even his most effective speeches will be seldom found to carry with them any great instruction. Even as an orator he was not indisputably the first. Many, if not most of the best judges placed Bright in his greatest speeches on a higher level, and old men like Lord EusseU and Lord Brougham used to maintain that in pure oratory XXll INTRODUCTION Plunket aii'd Canning soared to a greater height than any of their successors. But it is not too much to say that for one great speech made by Bright, Gladstone must have made fifty, and he had a range and variety of rhetorical powers which neither Canning nor Plunket could approach. Not a little of his influence wad due to physical gifts which in a great orator as in a great actor count for much. Pitt, Fox and Burke were painted by the best portrait painters that England has produced, but I much question whether a stranger who saw their portraits with no knowledge of the men they repre^ sented would recognise in any one of them a man of pre- eminent power. No one could stand before a good portrait of Gladstone without feeling that hei was in the presence of ah extraordinary man. Yet the 'greatest painter could only represent one of the many moods of that ever-changing and most expressive countenance. Few men have had so many faces, and the wonderful play of his features contributed very largely to the effectiveness of his speaking. It was a countenance Eminently fitted to express enthusiasm, pathos, profound melancholy, commanding power and lofty disdain ; there were moments when it could take an expression of intense cunning, and it often darkened into a scowl of passionate anger. In repose it did not seem to me good. With its tightly compressed lips and fierce, abstracted gaze it seemed to' express not only extreme determination, but also great vindictiveness, a quality, indeed, by no means wanting in his nature, though it was, I think, more frequently ditected against classes or parties than against individuals. He had a wonderful eye — a bird of prey eye^ fierce, luminous and restless. ' When he differed from you,' a great friend and admirer of his once said to me, ' there were moments when he would give you a glance as if he would stab you to the heart.' There was something, indeed, in his eye in which more than one experienced judge saw INTRODUCTION XXIU dangerous sjrmptoms of possible insanity. Its piercing glance added greatly to his eloquence, and was, no doubt, one of the chief elements of that strong personal magnetism which he undoubtedly possessed. Its power was, I believe, partly due to a rare physical pecuharity. Boehm, the sculptor, who was one of the best observers of the human face I have ever known, and who saw much of Gladstone and carefully studied him for a bust, was convinced of this. He told me that he was once present when an altercation between him and a Scotch professor took place and that the latter started up from the table to make an angry reply when he suddenly stopped as if paralysed or fascinated by the glance of Gladstone, and Boehm noticed that the pupil of Gladstone's eye was visibly dilating and the eyelid round the whole circle of the eye drawing back, as may be seen in a bird of prey. In conversation, as well as in public, these physical gifts added greatly to his ■ impressiveness. He spoke with slow, constant emphasis, — sometimes, indeed, in private conversa- tion too like a regular speech. I have never known any one who by look, gesture, emphasis and manner could make a sentence which was commonplace in thought, knowledge, and even in language appear for a moment so impressive. There are few kinds of eloquence which he did not possess. He excelled in noble, dignified declamation ap- pealing to the loftiest motives. No English. poUtician indeed so frequently introduced into the perorations of his poUtical and even party speeches God, duty, honour, justice, moral obligation. Divine guidance, and no one who knows the English people will wonder that this kind, of speaking stirred a fibre of enthusiasm that runs very deeply through the English nature. Me was also supremely great in what may be called ornamental or decorative speaking. In the lang- uage, of complimient, in tributes to departed statesmen, on the occasion of some great public function his speeches XXIV INTRODUCTION were almost always perfect. He scarcely ever failed to strike the true note and he never deviated into bad taste. He was pre-eminently a gentleman, and although in public life he could be in a high degree imperious, and intolerant of oppo- sition, he never descended to scurrility and very seldom to personal invective, and in his language and his manner he always upheld the dignity of the House of Commons. In after-dinner speeches and in the kindred forms of oratory, he was less successful. Wit, humour, the light touch, the tone of good-natured, well-bred banter in which Disraeli excelled were not among his many gifts. ' It is a great impediment to public business,' Disraeli once said, ' that Mr. Gladstone can- not be made to understand a joke.' Sometimes, however, in his lighter speeches and often in his conversation he would relate reminiscences of his early years, and he could do this with an inimitable charm and without the slightest tinge of egotism. In the eloquence of elaborate statements and especially in his financial statements, he had no contemporairy rival. The younger Pitt and also Sir Eobert Peel were supreme masters of the art of financial statement, but it is difficult to believe that any one can have surpassed Gladstone in the art of arranging great masses of complicated facts, illuminat- ing financial details by happy, well told historical episodes and carrying his audience with him through all the techni- calities of a budget speech. The only real criticism that could be made on these speeches is that they were apt to be inordinately long — on one or two occasions extending to five hours. It cannot be doubted that a very great part of his financial reputation was due not to the accuracy of his fore- casts, which often proved remarkably erroneous ; nor to the wisdom of his financial measures, which were sometimes very disputable, but to the almost unsurpassed rhetorical skill with which he introduced them. He was also a debater of the very highest order. He made his m^rk in this field from the moment when, fresh INTEODUCTION XXV from the Oxford Union, he entered the House, though for many years he was not regarded as the greatest. The reader will remember the emphatic language in which Macaulay assigned this place to Lord Stanley, and as far as we can judge there were qualities of a debater in which Charles Fox must have surpassed all successors. But in complete command of spontaneous and well-chosen language, in the power of following a long speech but just delivered, point by point, and argument by argument ; in quickness of argument ; in subtlety of distinction, in abundance and readi- ness of knowledge he was unrivalled. His knowledge, though not always accurate, was very great, but what struck men most was that it seemed always available at the moment. This was also one of the great gifts of Macaulay. ' Other men,' Dean Milman once said to me, ' might have a larger balance at their banker's — Macaulay always seemed to have his whole fortune in his breeches pocket.' The same thing was eminently true of Gladstone, and it was accompanied by a skill in drawing subtle distinctions and refinements of argument which was immensely useful in debate. This, which was one of the most marked character- istics of his mind, was probably in great degree fostered by the circumstances of his education. It is said to be a specially Oxford gift, and Oxford left its impression very deeply on his mind. It never was carried to a higher point at Oxford than in the early days of the Tractarian movement, and at the time when Newman was its most splendid intellect. Glad- stone, it is true, had left Oxford just before the Tractarian movement was formally started, but it rose to its height during his early manhood, and in those years it profoimdly influenced him. Though already in Parliament, he found time to write two elaborate books on Church questions ; his most successful speeches were connected with them and he was for some years much more really absorbed in theological speculation than in secular pohtics. The early Tractarian XXVI INTRODCJOTION school was a great school of casuistry. The object of it& leading intellects was to maintain by subtle distinctions an unnatural and, in truth, an untenable position ; to maintain in a Church which denounced the central doctrine of the Church of Eome as blasphemous and idolatrous and which for more than a century had been at deadly war with that Church, doctrines which on most essential points were truly Koman or were only divided from Eoman doctrines by the finest shades of difference. Hence the distinctions drawn between Eoman and Tridentine doctrines and the monstrous casuistry of Tract XC. But beyond this there were deeper questions relating to the foundations of belief which gave rise to a school of thought that was elaborated with extra- ordinary ingenuity by one of the subtlest intellects England has ever produced. The object of Newman was to reconcile what he believed the duty of arriving at a state of absolute certitude in religious belief with an intellectual perception that evidence could never lead him further tban probability. Those who have read his writings on this subject culminating in that most remarkable product of his old age ' The Granunar of Assent ' will appreciate the extraordinary powers of refined and subtle reasoning he devoted to the task. It might seem at first sight a paradox to draw any com- parison between Newman and Gladstone. The one, though he was essentially the leader of a great and enduring move- ment of thought, spent all his life in a single groove and most of it in profound and unambitious seclusion. The other was perpetually in the arena and mixed more widely, more variously and more passionately than almost any of his contemporaries with the affairs and the contentions of men. Newman also was one of the great masters of English prose, while of the vast library of books, essays and pamphlets that issued from tte pen of Gladstone, it is more than doubtful whether there is any one that will be hereafter valued either for the beauty of its expression or for the intrinsic wisdom INTRODUCTION xxvii of its contents. But both men were by nature extraordinary masters of the art of casuistry ; both cultivated their talent to the highest point, and both had the characteristic tempta- tions of that class of mind. There is such a thing as an honest man with a dishonest mind. There are men who are wholly incapable of wilful and deUberate untruthfulness, but who have the habit of quibbUng with their convictions and by skilful casuistry persuading themselves that what they wish is right. Newman, at a comparatively early age, passed into the Church to which his character and intellect naturally belonged, and this temptation in a great degree ceased. Gladstone was reserved for other destinies. The essentially theological cast of his mind was clearly recognised by all good observers. There was no subject on which he read more and wrote more and which he followed with more absorbing passion, and theology was the one great department of thought in which through the whole of his long career his opinions remained substantially unchanged. To the end of his life questions hke Divorce and Eitualism on which politics and religion touched, always awoke in him 'a passionate interest. His theology was a strongly accentuated High Church Anglicanism, profoundly separated from the non-Episcopal conception of Christianity, but at the same time very anti-Papal, and much in sympathy with the Old Catholic movement of DoUinger, and with the Eituahstic school at home. It used to be said of hina during the Vatican Council that his interest in it was so intense that he would gladly have thrown up the greatest English political position if he could have made a speech in the Council. And in his pohtical reasoning it is curious to notice how often the methods of the theological controversi- alist seemed to prevail. The habit of pushing to extreme logical consequences principles which in some small and inconsistent way had been admitted as a matter of expedi- ency or a matter of conipromise into institutions — ^the XXVm INTRODUCTION tendency to excessive refinement of reasoning and excessive subtlety of distinction which is so apparent in controversial theology, never left him. There was something strangely tortuous in his methods of reasoning, whether he was writing elaborate books on Church principles, or dealing with Homeric problems, or discussing some great question of present politics. In his published correspondence with Bishop Wilberforce a good critic will often observe the contrast between the Statesman who was naturally a theo- logian and the Bishop who was naturally a statesman. By constant practice the power of ingenious, subtle, refined controversy attained in Gladstone an almost preter- natural perfection. No one could compare with him in dexterity of word-fencing and hair-splitting and in the evasive subtleties of debate. He gave the impression that there was no question or side of a question that he could not argue, no contradiction that he could not explain, no conclusion, however obvious, that he could not evade or refine away. Nothing was more curious than to hear him make a speech on a subject on which he did not wish to give an opinion. The long roll of sonorous and ihisty sentences, each statement so ingeniously qualified, each approach to precision so skilfully shaded by some calculated ambiguity of phrase, speedily baffled the most attentive listener. He had rhetorical devices, not, I think, of the kind that inspires confidence, which became familiar to careful students of his methods. There was the sentence thrown out in the midst of an argument or statement of policy, of the nature of a back door enabling the speaker to retire hereafter from his position, if it was not convenient to adhere to it. There was the obscure and apparently insignificant phrase, wrapped up in redundant verbiage, attracting no attention and com- mitting the speaker to nothing, but yet faintly adumbrating a possible change of policy, and destined to be referred to hereafter to justify his consistency in taking some step INTEODUCTION xxix which had never been suspected or anticipated. There was the contradiction or the statement, apparently so positive, so eloquent, so indignant, that it carried away his audience, but when carefully examined it was found that the sentences were so ingeniously constructed that they did not quite cover aU the assertions they appeared to contradict or quite bind the speaker to all they appeared to imply, and it was soon found that this limitation was carefully intended. There was the slight change of issue so skilfully managed as at first to be almost imperceptible, which turned an inconvenient debate, as it were, on a new pair of rails, while masses of detail and side issues were made use of to mask or perplex the main question. Unexpected subtleties, distinctions of interpreta- tion without number, ingenious plausibilities invented for the mere purpose of debate would, always if needed, rise to the surface of his mind as fast as the bubbles in a simmering cauldron — as fast, and often as unsubstantial too. There seldom was a speaker from whose words it was so difficult to extricate a precise meaning ; who so constantly used language susceptible of different interpretations ; who so often seemed to say a thing and by seeming to say it raised hopes and won influence and applause without definitely binding himself to it. True eloquence is like the telescope which brings vividly before us things that are remote and obscure — Gladstone could when he pleased reverse the telescope and make what to ordinary apprehensions was plain and near, appear dubious and dim. It was characteristic of his mind that almost the only form of eloquence in which he did not excel was the plain, direct, terse and unambiguous. So great a master of debate could not indeed be incapable of it, but in this he had many equals or superiors. His mind seemed naturally to move in curves. Bright, Cobden, Eoebuck, Disraeli, Lord John Eussell, Lord Pahnerston— different as they were in other respects, had all very eminiently the art of XXX INTRODUCTION simplifying complicated questions by bringing the main and central issues into clear relief. Gladstone's mastery of detail was prodigious and it was at once his weakness and his strength. 'When I speak,' Bright once said, 'I sail from promontory to promontory. When Gladstone speaks he sails all round the country and occasionally goes up a navigable river and down again.' His love of details and his love of episodes constantly obscured in his speeches the main question. He dehghted in arguing on side issues and a strange want of mental perspective was one of his most marked defects. Passion and casuistry seem naturally incompatible, but in Gladstone they were most curiously combined. No other great politician so habitually steeped his poMtics in emotion, and this was one great cause of his wide popular influence. Yet in his most burning eloquence, in his most impassioned appeals, the casuistic strain, the skilful qualification or re- servation was rarely wanting. Nature had bestowed on him not only great mental powers but also a noble voice, an impressive countenance, an iron physical frame, and he came into the House with every advantage that fortune could give. The son of a very wealthy merchant and slave-owner, he had the best educa^ tion that Eton and Oxford could furnish. He mixed from his earliest youth with the governing classes of the country and had every opportunity of catching their tone and spirit. He was brought into Parliament at twenty-three, when his mind had still all its flexibility ; at twenty-five he began his long of&cial training, as Junior Lord of the Treasury ; a year later he rose to the important office of Under Secretary for the Colonies and he entered the Cabinet at thirty-three. What a contrast to the long struggle with adverse circumstances that falls to the lot of most men of genius ! — to the lives of Burke, or Disraeli, or Carlyle ! But if fortune had given him much, he improved by unf INTRODUCTION XXxi tiring industry every opportunity. Seldom, indeed, has there been a harder worker, and if Carlyle was right in de- scribing genius as a great faculty for taking pains, this, at least, cannot be denied to Gladstone. Simple, abstemious, irreproachable in private and domestic life, his inordinate love of work never left him from early youth to extreme old age ; with the exception of Sir Comewall Lewis he was probably more learned in matters unconnected with poUtics than any other Cabinet minister, and no politician was more deeply versed in official work. There were, it is' true, wide tracts of knowledge with which he had no sympathy. The whole great field of modem scientific discovery seemed out of his range. An intimate friend of Faraday once described to me how, when Faraday was endeavouriog to explain to Gladstone and several others an important new discovery in science Gladstone's only commentary was * but, after all, what use is it ? ' * Why, sir,' replied Faraday, ' there is every pro- bability that you will soon be able to tax it ! ' Most persons who read Gladstone's controversy with Huxley about the Mosaic cosmogony will agree that he was about as remote from the scientific spirit of his age as an able man could well be. Except in theology his knowledge was perhaps more remarkable for its wide superficies than for its pro- fundity and those who had made special studies of any orle subject were rather apt to be impressed by his knowledge of all others. ' What a wonderful man Gladstone is,' Boehm once said to me with his usual quiet humour, ' he seems to me to understand everything — except art.' ' Whatever else Mr; Gladstone may leave a reputation by,' said Mr. Grote, ' it wilLnot be by what he has written on Greek subjects.' In this last case, however, the adverse criticism was not ehcited by want of knowledge on the part of Gladstone — for he was an admirable classical scholar— but by the perverse and most characteristic ingenuity with which he maintained XXXll INTRODUCTION the existence in Greek Mythology of a Divine Eevelation adumbrating doctrines of the Christian faith. He wrote much about the ancient mythologies, but his views on this subject have never, I believe, found acceptance from really competent scholars. But on purely literary questions his taste was excellent ; he was a good critic, and his sympathies were very wide. He had a genuine love and passion for Uterature and he had usually some book — Sister Dora — John Inglesant — George Eliot's Life — Purcell's life of Manning, which seemed to have taken complete hold of his nature. For some books — Newman's ' Dream of Gerontius ' was a conspicuous example — his enthusiasm sometimes seemed to me to approach to extravagance, and he not unfrequently spoke of men greatly inferior in intellectual power to himself in a strain of humility which it was difficult to believe was altogether sincere, though it is probable that at the moment it was so. There was indeed in his nature a strange mixture, or rather a strange alternation of extreme humility and ex- cessive self-confidence, and each of these aspects of his character was frequently apparent. In literature, as in other matters, his likes and dislikes were not altogether 'dry- hght.' It was curious to contrast the solemn horror with which he spoke of the dangerous character of the writings of Matthew Arnold — who was by no means a worshipper at the Gladstonian shrine — with his warm sympathy for another illustrious writer whose opinions on theological subjects were certainly not less subversive or less strongly expressed, but who happened to be one of his own most devoted followers. A great source both of his attraction and of his power was his extraordinary gift of concentration. Versatility of tastes never weakened, as it does vdth most men, the strength of his will. One of the charms of his conver- sation was that on whatever subject he spoke to you, he spoke as if it was the subject in the whole world that in- INTRODUCTION xxxiii terested him the most. He could throw Off most completely the thoughts, the cares, the responsibilities of politics. It was said that on his ItaHan journeys he could scarcely be induced to look at an English newspaper. When he was Prime Minister, and two days before the meeting of the Parliament which wrecked his ministry on the Irish University question, I have heard him at a little party of seven or eight persons discoursing for a whole evening on certain Cyprus antiquities which were supposed to throw hght on the Homeric age, with such a fire and passion that a stranger might have imagined that he was in the presence of some ardent antiquary who had never come into contact with any of the practical affairs of life. After the most exciting debate, after a long and brilliant pohtical speech, he would turn to subjects of a totally different order with a freshness and an ardour that astonished his hearers. Often he would appear in a dining club where he sometimes found himself surrounded by political opponents, and it was amusing to watch the skill with which he dropped into the 16th Century, or into those early recollections with which he never failed to charm. But when he was engaged in politics he threw his whole nature with an intense and con- centrated passion into its dryest and most complicated details. 'It seemed as if the souls of all the compound householders in England had entered into him,' was the criticism of a good judge who had heard him in one of the debates on Disraeli's Eeform BilL Nearly at the same time, Sir John Karslake, who was Disraeli's Attorney-General, spoke of the extraordinary contrast between that states- man's skill in dealing with main questions and his curious incapacity for mastering business details. ' I believe that during the whole of the debates, he never really understood what a Compound householder is.' This power of throwing off past impressions and clos-. ing the doors of his mind, against painful subjects, stood b XXXIV INTKODUCTION Griadstone in good stead. It was, no doubt, largely a physi- cal gift — closely connected with his happy power of profound sleep. He abandoned in the course of his life almost every political opinion which, in his early years, he had naost passionately held, but few men seem to have suffered less from the pain which usually accompanies great revolutions and transformations of opinion. Nor, as far as the world could see, did the sacrifice of the oldest friendships of his life through the Home Eule Schism, or the ruin and misery which some parts of his policy brought on great numbers ever cost him a qualm of remorse. He had, however, the extreme sensibility of a great orator to the political atmosphere around him. He was in this sense profoundly impressionable and profoundly sympathetic, and he carried into every political campaign an untiring energy, a sanguine and hopeful spirit habitually overrating advantages and underrating difficulties and dangers, and above all an indomitable courage. He had every kind of courage — ^the courage that despises physical danger, which made the police precautions that were at one time considered indispensable, intolerably irksome to him — the courage that never feared to face a hostile audience, to lead a forlorn hope, to defend a desperate cause, to assume a great weight of responsibility — the fatal courage which did not hesitate to commit his party by his own imperious will to new and imtried policies. It is not surprising that a man combining so many of the elements of greatness should have been a great force and should have filled a great space in the politics of his time, and the extreme prolongation of his political life added to his power. The respect for old age is one of the strongest of English instincts, and it is often carried so far that it will be found that men only attain their maximum of influence at a time when their faculties are manifestly declining. A speech which would attract no notice if INTRODUCTION XXXV delivered by a man in the prime of life becomes a pheno- menon and therefore an influence if delivered in extreme old age. More than once in his long career Gladstone alienated the House of Commons by gross defects of judgment and policy, but he remained to the very end its most wonderful figure, and although at last the nation decisively withdre'Vjr its confidence from his policy and his party his personal popularity only grew with age. He dehghted in popularity, and — in this, as in all other respects, unlike that strange, silent, impassive man of genius who for so many years confronted and defied him — ^his exuberant energies were incessantly poured into every channel where it could be obtained. And the pathos of his death silenced for a time all criticism on his faults. Whether, however, impartial history, which judges men mainly by the net result of their lives, will ultimately place him among the great statesmen of England, seems to me very doubtful. It is well known that Prince Bismarck, who was no admirer of his English contemporary, was accustomed to say that the temperament of a rhetorician is not only different from but essentially incompatible with that of a true statesman. The susceptibility to every passing im- pression, the constant regard to immediate issues and im- mediate popularity, the habit of looking less to facts than to the presentation of facts, seemed to him all to belong to a type essentially alien to the cold, calm, sagacious judgment of a real statesman, to the power he should possess of de- taching himself from present circumstances and foreseeing, judging and influencing the future. Certain, it is that in some of the qualities that are most n,eeded for the wise government of men Gladstone was conspicuously deficient. A sound, temperate, dispassionate judgment; ; a due sense of the proportion of things, a real knowledge of men and a power of foreseeing the future were gifts in which he was wholly wanting. Few men nmde to theroselves more jllu- b2 XXXVl INTRODUCTION sions about men and things. Few men shewed in a long political life less prescience. Few men had less insight into individual character or less power of understanding and judging alien types of national character. No prominent English statesman has so fundamentally changed his con- victions, has so often taken courses of which his own earlier words are the strongest condemnation, has combined so remarkably extreme confidence in his own infallibility with the utmost instability of judgment. If the world could be wisely governed by skilful rhetoric, he would have been one of the greatest of statesmen. In truth no man is more dangerous in a State than he who possesses in an eminent degree the power of moving, dazzling and fascinating his contemporaries, while in soundness of judgment he ranks considerably below the average of educated men. The extreme distrust both of his judgment and character that prevailed, even in the earHer stages of his career, is very evident in the traditions and the confidential corre- spondence of the time.. There were few more acute yet few kinder judges of men than Lord Palmerston, but there was no one of whom he spoke with so much dislike and distrust as Gladstone, and it is remarkable how fully his sentiments were shared by a man so different, and so competent as Lord Shaftesbury, In the letters and diaries of this period there are constant indications of this distrust and even those who were most attached to Gladstone had often much doubt about his future. No one questioned his great ability, his extraordinary industry, his deep and genuine piety, but with all this there went a belief in the incurable falseness of his judgment and in the impossibility of forecasting his future. His mind seemed always on an inclined plane. However much he might try to disguise it from others and perhaps from himself by professions of humility, his love of power was inordinate, and it was displayed by his constant restlessr ness and his fierce criticism whenever he was out of office. INTRODUCTION xxxvii And with this was joined an extraordinary power of self- persuasion which at every period of his hfe was clearly seen by his more intelligent contemporaries to be one of his most marked characteristics. ' The Eight Honourable Gentle- man,' W. E, Forster once said of him, 'can persuade most men of most things. He can persuade himself of almost anything.' ' His intellect,' said his old friend, Dean Lake, ' can persuade his conscience of anything.' ' His conscience,' predicted another friend in his early youth, ' is so tender that he will never go straight.' Lowell noticed his ' wonderful power of improvising convictions.' A witty prelate is credited with the saying that though Gladstone never failed to follow his conscience, it was sometimes as the man who is driving a gig follows his horse. Carlyle, who whatever else he was, was at least a very keen judge of character, always spoke of him with a degree of antipathy which h^ can hardly be said to have bestowed on any other of his con- temporaries. He believed that his nature was organically disingenuous — that he was perpetually ' playing false with his intellect' — ^persuading himself that what was his interest was his duty. The reader will remember in Shooting Niagara a significant sentence which to those who knew Carlyle expressed much. This power of self-persuasion is in itself no rare thing in politics,^ though Gladstone possessed it to an extraordinary degree. Whatever may have been the case in the first moment of inception, I, at least, have little doubt that in the subsequent stages of his policies, he was not only genuinely sincere, but also in a high state of moral incandescence. But his mind was almost infinitely fertile in producing argu- ' 'On lea accuse souvent d'agir sans conviction; mon experience m'a montr^ que cela 6tait bien moius frequent qu'ou ne I'imagine. Us poss^dent seulement la faculty prdcieuse et mSme quelquefois n^cessaire en politique de se or^er des convictions passagAres suivant leurs passions et leurs intSr^s du moment, et ils arrivent ainsi k faire assez honn@temest des choses assez pea honnStes.' Tocqueville. Souvenirs, p. 124-125. XXXVlll INTRODUCTION ments on each side of any question, and it seemed as if a slight touch of will could decide the preponderance. And it was part of his oratorical temperament that when he adopted a cause, his whole moral nature speedily took fire and he was soon passionately persuaded that he was acting almost or altogether under a Divine impulse. What he willed he willed very strongly, and in order to attain it he would do things from which men much less largely endowed with moral scruples would have shrunk. We have an example of it in the following pages in the manner in which, in 1874, he made' use of a promise to abolish the income tax as an election cry to win the income tax payers to his side. We have others in his conduct when the House of Lords rejected his Bill for the abolition of purchase in the army and delayed the repeal of the paper duty. A Court of Appeal had been created by Parliament to which it was expressly provided that judges only should be eligible. Gladstone wished to appoint his Attorney-General, who was not a Judge, and he accordingly promoted him for two days to the Bench in order that he should qualify for the post. He acted in a very similar manner when he wished to appoint a clergyman who was a member of one University to a living which was re- stricted by law to members of another. Gases of this kind, though they were very significant were not very important, but in his later Irish policy he shewed only too conclusively how easily he could cast contracts, pledges, promises, con- sistency and scruples to the wind. It was long extremely doubtful on which side his great moral and intellectual gifts would finally be enlisted. The Peelites hung ambiguously between the two parties. Glad- stone has vrritten and spoken both with the bitterest hostility and with the warmest eulogy of Lord Palmerston,' though on the whole the note of dislike was unquestionably the ' See the passages ooUeoted by Mr. Jennings in his very remarkable book on Mr. Gladstone and by Mr. George RusseU in his life of Gladstone. INTRODUCTION xxxix strongest. Sir Eobert Peel and Lord Aberdeen were the two statesmen with whom he had real sympathy, and they were the statesmen under whom his of&cial Ufe till his fiftieth year had been almost wholly passed. With the exception of about three weeks after the fall of Lord Aberdeen when he consented, with extreme reluctance,' to hold his former oflB.ce of Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston he had never served under a Whig leader. When he seceded from this government he at once passed into the most embittered opposition ; * he took part in the coalition which defeated Lord Palmerston on the quarrel with China in March, 1857, and in the coalition which a year later drove Lord Palmerston from office on the pretext that by introducing his bill to amend the law of conspiracy to murder he shewed himself unduly subservient to French dictation. In an article in the Quarterly Review he exulted in no generous spirit on what he deemed his irretrievable fall. Like all the Peelites he was an earnest free trader, but free trade had now ceased to be a dividing line between the two parties and up to the end of 1858 his speeches and his writings had on the whole leant much more to the side of the Conservatives than to the side of the Liberals. He was member for the University of Oxford which was an intensely Tory constituency. He remained a member of the Carlton Club the representative club of the Tory party till 1859. He was not really pledged or committed to either side ; he had more than once shown his independence, and he was much distrusted and disliked in th