The Life of William Ewart Gladstone (Vol. 1-3) - John Morley

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almost be called immeasurable. The moral atmosphere of the House of Commons has never since his death been quite the same, and is now widely different. He had a kind of authority there that was possessed by no one else. Lord John might in some respects compete with, in some even excel, him; but to him, as leader of the liberals, the loss of such an opponent was immense. It is sad to think what, with his high mental force and noble moral sense, he might have done for us in after years. Even the afterthought of knowledge of such a man and of intercourse with him, is a high privilege and a precious possession.'

      An interesting word or two upon his own position at this season occur in a letter to his father (July 9, 1850):—

      The letter in which you expressed a desire to be informed by me, so far as I might be able to speak, whether there was anything in the rumours circulated with regard to my becoming the leader in parliament of the conservative party, did not come to my hands until yesterday. The fact is, that there is nothing whatever in those rumours beyond mere speculation on things supposed probable or possible, and they must pass for what they are worth in that character only. People feel, I suppose, that Sir Robert Peel's life and continuance in parliament were of themselves powerful obstacles to the general reorganisation of the conservative party, and as there is great annoyance and dissatisfaction with the present state of things, and a widely spread feeling that it is not conducive to the public interests, there arises in men's minds an expectation that the party will be in some manner reconstituted. I share in the feeling that it is desirable; but I see very great difficulties in the way, and do not at present see how they are to be effectually overcome. The House of Commons is almost equally divided, indeed, between those professing liberal and those professing conservative politics; but the late division [Don Pacifico] showed how ill the latter could hang together, even when all those who had any prominent station among them in any sense were united....

      FOOTNOTES:

      227. Parker, iii. p. 536.

      228. Fragment of 1897.

      229. Mr. Gladstone's Don Pacifico speech is still not quite out of date.—June 27, Hansard, 1850.

      CHAPTER V

       GORHAM CASE—SECESSION OF FRIENDS

      (1847-1851)

      It is not by the State that man can be regenerated, and the terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt with.—Gladstone (1894).

      The test case of toleration at the moment of the Oxford election of 1847 was the admission of the Jews to sit in parliament, and in the last month of 1847 Mr. Gladstone astonished his father, as well as a great host of his political supporters, by voting with the government in favour of the removal of Jewish disabilities. No ordinary degree of moral courage was needed for such a step by the member for such a constituency. 'It is a painful decision to come to,' he writes in his diary (Dec. 16), 'but the only substantive doubt it raises is about remaining in parliament, and it is truly and only the church which holds me there, though she may seem to some to draw me from it.' Pusey wrote to him in rather violent indignation, for Mr. Gladstone was the only man of that school who learned, or was able to learn, what the modern state is or is going to be. This was the third phase, so Gladstone argued, of an irresistible movement. The tory party had fought first for an anglican parliament, second they fought for a protestant parliament, and now they were fighting for a Christian parliament. Parliament had ceased to be anglican and it had ceased to be protestant, and the considerations that supported these two earlier operations thenceforth condemned the exclusion from full civil rights of those who were not Christians. To his father he explained (December 17, 1847): 'After much consideration, prolonged indeed I may say for the last two years and a half, I made up my mind to support Lord John Russell's bill for the admission of the Jews. I spoke to this effect last night. It is with reluctance that I give the vote, but I am convinced that after the civil privileges we have given them already (including the magistracy and the franchise), and after the admission we have already conceded to unitarians who refuse the whole of the most vital doctrines of the Gospel, we cannot compatibly with entire justice and fairness refuse to admit them.'

      His father, who was sometimes exacting, complained of concealment. Mr. Gladstone replied that he regarded the question as one of difficulty, and he therefore took as much time as he possibly could for reflection upon it, though he never intended to run it as close as it actually came. 'I know,' he says, in a notable sentence, 'it seems strange to you that I should find it necessary to hold my judgment in suspense on a question which seemed to many so plain; but suspense is of constant occurrence in public life upon very many kinds of questions, and without it errors and inconsistencies would be much more frequent than even they are now.' This did not satisfy his father. 'I shall certainly read your speech to find some fair apology for your vote: good and satisfactory reason I do not expect. I cannot doubt you thought you withheld your opinions from me under the undecided state you were in, without any intention whatever to annoy me. There is, however, a natural closeness in your disposition, with a reserve towards those who may think they may have some claim to your confidence, probably increased by official habits, which it may perhaps in some cases be worth your inquiring into.' The sentence above about suspense is a key to many misunderstandings of Mr. Gladstone's character. His stouthearted friend Thomas Acland had warned him, for the sake of his personal influence, to be sure to deal with the Jew question on broad grounds, without refining, and without dragging out some recondite view not seen by common men, 'in short, to be as little as possible like Maurice, and more like the Duke of Wellington.' 'My speech,' Mr. Gladstone answered, 'was most unsatisfactory in many ways, but I do not believe that it mystified or puzzled anybody.'

      JEWISH DISABILITIES

      The following year he received the honour of a D.C.L. degree at Oxford. Mrs. Gladstone was there, he tells his father, and 'was well satisfied with my reception, though it is not to be denied that my vote upon the Jew bill is upon the whole unpalatable there, and they had been provoked by a paragraph in the Globe newspaper stating that I was to have the degree, and that this made it quite clear that the minority was not unfavourable to the Jew bill.'

      July 5.—I went off after breakfast to Oxford. Joined the V.-C. and doctors in the hall at Wadham, and went in procession to the Divinity schools provided with a white neckcloth by Sir R. Inglis, who seized me at the station in horror and alarm when he saw me with a black one. In due time we were summoned to the theatre where my degree had been granted with some non placets but with no scrutiny. The scene remarkable to the eye and mind, so pictorial and so national. There was great tumult about me, the hisses being obstinate, and the fautores also very generous. 'Gladstone and the Jew bill' came sometimes from the gallery, sometimes more favouring sounds.

      II

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