Chapter IV: Eastern Question Once More. (1876-1877)

The dead have been awakened—shall I sleep?
The world’s at war with tyrants—shall I crouch?
The harvest’s ripe—and shall I pause to reap?
I slumber not—the thorn is in my couch:
Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear,
Its echo in my heart.

—BRYON.

I

Preserved in the Octagon is a large packet of notes on “Future Retribution,” and on them is the docket, “_From this I was called away to write on Bulgaria._” In the spring of 1876 the Turkish volcano had burst into flame. Of the Crimean war the reader has already seen enough and too much.(338) Its successes, in Mr. Gladstone’s words, by a vast expenditure of French and English life and treasure, gave to Turkey, for the first time perhaps in her bloodstained history, twenty years of a repose not disturbed either by herself or by any foreign power. As Cobden and Bright had foreseen, as even many European statesmen who approved the war on grounds of their own had foreseen, Turkish engagements were broken, for this solid reason if for no other that Turkey had not in the resources of her barbaric polity the means to keep them.

Fierce revolt against intolerable misrule slowly blazed up in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a rising in Bulgaria, not dangerous in itself, was put down by Turkish troops despatched for the purpose from Constantinople, with deeds described by the British agent who investigated them on the spot, as the most heinous crimes that had stained the history of the century. The consuls of France and Germany at Salonica were murdered by the Turkish mob. Servia and Montenegro were in arms. Moved by these symptoms of a vast conflagration, the three imperial courts of Russia, Austria, and Germany agreed upon an instrument imposing on the Turk certain reforms, to be carried out under European supervision. To this instrument, known as the Berlin memorandum, England, along with France and Italy, was invited to adhere (May 13). The two other Powers assented, but Mr. Disraeli and his cabinet refused,—a proceeding that, along with more positive acts, was taken by the Turk and other people to assure the moral support of Great Britain to the Ottoman, and probably to threaten military support against the Russian.

(M176) This rejection of the Berlin memorandum in May marked the first decisive moment in British policy. The withdrawal of England from the concert of Europe, the lurid glare of the atrocities in Bulgaria, and his abiding sense of the responsibility imposed upon us by the Crimean war and all its attendant obligations, were the three main elements in the mighty storm that now agitated Mr. Gladstone’s breast. Perhaps his sympathies with the Eastern church had their share. In a fragment of reminiscence twenty years after, he says:—

When, in 1876, the eastern question was forced forward by the
disturbances in the Turkish empire, and especially by the cruel
outrages in Bulgaria, I shrank naturally but perhaps unduly from
recognising the claim they made upon me individually. I hoped that
the ministers would recognise the moral obligations to the subject
races of the east, which we had in honour contracted as parties to
the Crimean war and to the peace of Paris in 1856. I was slow to
observe the real leanings of the prime minister, his strong
sympathy with the Turk, and his mastery in his own cabinet. I
suffered others, Forster in particular, to go far ahead of me. At
the close of the session [1876] a debate was raised upon the
subject, and I had at length been compelled to perceive that the
old idol was still to be worshipped at Constantinople, and that,
as the only person surviving in the House of Commons who had been
responsible for the Crimean war and the breaking of the bulwark
raised by the treaty of Kainardji on behalf of the eastern
Christians, I could no longer remain indifferent. Consequently in
that debate Mr. Disraeli had to describe my speech as the only one
that had exhibited a real hostility to the policy of the
government. It was, however, at that time an opposition without
hope. I went into the country, and had mentally postponed all
further action to the opening of the next session, when I learned
from the announcement of a popular meeting to be held in Hyde Park
that the question was alive.(339) So I at once wrote and published
on the Bulgarian case. From that time forward, till the final
consummation in 1879-80, I made the eastern question the main
business of my life. I acted under a strong sense of individual
duty without a thought of leadership; nevertheless it made me
again leader whether I would or no. The nation nobly responded to
the call of justice, and recognised the brotherhood of man. But it
was the nation, not the classes. When, at the close of the session
of 1876, there was the usual dispersion in pursuit of recreation,
I thought the occasion was bad. It was good, for the nation did
not disperse and the human heart was beating. When the clubs
refilled in October, the Turkish cause began again to make head.
Then came a chequered period, and I do not recollect to have
received much assistance from the “front bench.” Even Granville
had been a little startled at my proceedings, and wished me to
leave out the “bag and baggage” from my pamphlet.

Before the end of the session of 1876 Mr. Disraeli quitted the House of Commons and became the Earl of Beaconsfield. Lord Granville informed Mr. Gladstone, on the authority of a high personage, that Disraeli had said to the Queen he must resign; “that the peerage was then suggested; that at first he said, ‘Yes, but accompanied with resignation,’ but was told that in the present state of Europe that was impossible.” In reporting to Sir Arthur Gordon, then abroad, what was not merely a piece of news but an event, Mr. Gladstone says (Aug. 16):—

Disraeli assumes his earldom amidst loud acclaims. I had better be
mute about him and his influence generally, except as to a full
acknowledgment of his genius and his good points of character. His
government is supposed now to stand mainly upon its recent foreign
policy: the most selfish and least worthy I have ever known.
Whatever was open to any degree of exception in Palmerston, has
this year received a tenfold development in Disraeli. Derby’s
influence, I think, has been for good; but too little of it.

To the Duke of Argyll a couple of days before, he had written:—

I am entirely in harmony with you as to your view of the eastern
policy. It has been depressing and corrupting to the country; a
healthier air has been generated by indignation at the Bulgarian
massacres, which have thrown us back on our rather forgotten
humanity. I hope the subject will not slumber through the recess.
Dizzy’s speech (so I call him with all due respect to the peerage)
in the Turkish debate gave me a new light on his views. He is not
quite such a Turk as I had thought. What he hates is Christian
liberty and reconstruction. He supports old Turkey, thinking that
if vital improvements can be averted, it must break down; and his
fleet is at Besika Bay, I feel pretty sure, to be ready to lay
hold of Egypt as his share. So he may end as the Duke of Memphis
yet.

II

Then came the pamphlet. The story of this memorable publication is told in the diary:—

_Aug. 28, 1876._—Church 8-½ A.M. Worked on a beginning for a
possible pamphlet on the Turkish question. I stupidly brought on
again my lumbago by physical exertion. Was obliged to put off my
pamphlet. Read _The Salvation of all Men_ ... 29.—Kept my bed
long. Wrote to Lord Granville, etc. ... and as a treat began
_Waverley_ once more. Lumbago bad. 30.—Much bed; forswear all
writing. Read St. Thomas Aquinas on the Soul.... _Waverley_. A
snug evening in the Temple of Peace. 31.—Kept my bed till four,
and made tolerable play in writing on Bulgarian horrors. _Sept.
1._—Wrote [16 letters]. Again worked hard in bed and sent off more
than half to the printers. Read _Waverley_. Short drive with C.
2.—This day I wrote again a good piece of the pamphlet in bed, but
improved considerably. Rose at four. Read _Waverley_ in the
evening. 3.—Hawarden Church 11 A.M. and 6-½ P.M. Wrote [16
letters]. Off at 10.15 P.M. for London. 4.—Reached 18 C.H.T. at
five in the morning by limited mail; bed till nine. Saw Lord
Granville, Mr. Delane, Sir A. Panizzi, Mr. Clowes, Messrs. Murray,
the American minister. In six or seven hours, principally at the
British Museum, I completed my MS., making all the needful
searches of papers and journals. Also worked on proof sheets.

_To Mrs. Gladstone._—We had an interesting little party at
Granville’s. I had a long talk with Delane. We, he and I, are much
of one mind in thinking the Turks must go out of Bulgaria, though
retaining a titular supremacy if they like. Between ourselves,
Granville a little hangs back from this, but he could not persuade
me to hold it back.

5.— ... Saw Lord Granville, Lord Hartington.... Finished the
correction of revises before one, discussing the text with Lord
Granville and making various alterations of phrase which he
recommended. At seven I received complete copies. We went to the
Haymarket theatre. Arranged my papers after this, and sent off
copies in various directions.

(M177) The pamphlet spread like fire.(340) Within three or four days of its first appearance forty thousand copies had gone. It was instantly followed up by a tremendous demonstration among his constituents. “Sept. 9, 1876.—Thought over my subject for Blackheath. Off at two. A very large meeting. The most enthusiastic far that I ever saw. Spoke over an hour.” This is his very prosaic story of the first of those huge and excited multitudes of which for months and years to come he was to confront so many. The pamphlet and the Blackheath speech were his rejoinder to the light and callous tones of Mr. Disraeli, and the sceptical language of his foreign secretary, “I have a strong suspicion,” he told the Duke of Argyll, who was a fervent sympathiser, “that Dizzy’s crypto-Judaism has had to do with his policy. The Jews of the east _bitterly_ hate the Christians; who have not always used them well.” This suspicion was constant. “Disraeli,” he said to Mr. Gladstone, “may be willing to risk his government for his Judaic feeling,—the deepest and truest, now that his wife has gone, in his whole mind.”

The tract beats with a sustained pulse and passion that recall Burke’s letters on the _Regicide Peace_. The exhortation against moral complicity with “the basest and blackest outrages upon record within the present century, if not within the memory of man”; the branding of the Turkish race as “the one great anti-human specimen of humanity”; the talk of “fell satanic orgies”; the declaration that there was not a criminal in a European gaol nor a cannibal in the South Sea Islands, whose indignation would not rise at the recital of that which had been done, which remained unavenged, which had left behind all the foul and all the fierce passions that produced it, and might again spring up in another murderous harvest, from the soil soaked and reeking with blood, and in the air tainted with every imaginable deed of crime and shame,—all this vehemence was hailed with eager acclamation by multitudes who felt all that he felt, and found in his passionate invective words and a voice. Mr. Gladstone was not the man, his readers and his public were not the men, for mere denunciation. They found in him a policy. Indignation, he said in a thoroughly characteristic sentence, indignation is froth, except as it leads to action; mere remonstrance is mockery. There are states of affairs, he told them, in which human sympathy refuses to be confined by the rules, necessarily limited and conventional, of international law. Servia and Montenegro in going to war against Turkey might plead human sympathies, broad, deep, and legitimate, and that they committed no moral offence. The policy of the British government was the _status quo_, “as you were.” This meant the maintenance of Turkish executive authority. What was really needed was the total withdrawal of the administrative rule of the Turk. And here he used words that became very famous in the controversy:—

But I return to, and end with, that which is the omega as well as
the alpha of this great and most mournful case. An old servant of
the crown and state, I entreat my countrymen, upon whom far more
than perhaps any other people of Europe it depends, to require and
to insist that our government which has been working in one
direction shall work in the other, and shall apply all its vigour
to concur with the other states of Europe in obtaining the
extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria. Let the
Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner,
namely by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their
Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbashis, their Kaimakams and
their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall I hope clear out
from the province they have desolated and profaned.

At Blackheath, under dripping rain clouds, he said the same, though with the invective tempered. “You shall receive your regular tribute,” he said in slow sentences to imaginary Ottomans, whom he seemed to hold before his visual eye, “you shall retain your titular sovereignty, your empire shall not be invaded, but never again as the years roll in their course, so far as it is in our power to determine, never again shall the hand of violence be raised by you, never again shall the flood-gates of lust be open to you, never again shall the dire refinements of cruelty be devised by you for the sake of making mankind miserable.”

Once again, it was not words that made the power of the orator, it was the relation in purpose, feeling, and conviction between him and his audience. He forced them into unity with himself by the vivid strength of his resolution and imagination; he could not believe that his own power of emotion was not theirs too:—

On Monday morning last between four and five o’clock, I was
rattling down from Euston station through the calm and silent
streets of London, when there was not a footfall to disturb them.
Every house looked so still, that it might well have been a
receptacle of the dead. But as I came through those long lines of
streets, I felt it to be an inspiring and a noble thought that in
every one of these houses there were intelligent human beings, my
fellow-countrymen, who when they woke would give many of their
earliest thoughts, aye and some of their most energetic actions,
to the terrors and sufferings of Bulgaria.

All this was the very spirit of Milton’s imperishable sonnet upon the late Massacre in Piedmont; the spirit that made Cromwell say that the slaughter in the Waldensian valleys “came as near to his heart as if his own nearest and dearest had been concerned.”

(M178) Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who had been one of the most responsible promoters of the policy of the Crimean war, told Mr. Gladstone of his own strong impression (Sept. 10), that the formidable crisis would not have arisen, had England in the first instance taken part with the other Powers. Not that he believed that Russia was always and fully trustworthy, but she was so circumstanced then as to be open to the full bearing of our moral influence. Six weeks later Lord Stratford again expressed his unaltered opinion that if in the beginning England had taken her place at the side of the three emperors, the cloud on the horizon would never have swelled out into its present colossal proportions. “It seems to me,” he said, “that Russia has been gradually drawn into a position from which she can hardly retreat with credit.” “Whatever shades of difference appear in our opinions,” he told Mr. Gladstone in September, “may be traced in a great measure to your having made Bulgaria the main object of your appeal, whereas the whole eastern question was my theme, and the Bulgarian atrocities, execrable as they were, only a part of it.” The truth was that in making the atrocious doings in Bulgaria the main object of his appeal, Mr. Gladstone had both displayed a sure instinct as to the most effective method of popular approach, and at the same time did justice to his own burning and innate hatred of all cruelty and oppression, whether in Bourbon or Bashi-Bazouk. Humanity was at the root of the whole matter; and the keynote of this great crusade was the association of humanity with a high policy worthy of the British name.

October was passed in a round of visits to great houses, the popular tide in the north still appearing to rise around him. To Lord Granville he writes:—

_Alnwick Castle, Oct. 3, 1876._—We have advanced thus far in a
northern and eastern tour, and we hope to be at Castle Howard on
Wednesday. I left home at this particular time partly with ideas
of health and relaxation, partly because I thought that being
everywhere and nowhere I should escape a little from the turmoil
of the time. Through Cheshire and Lancashire we accomplished the
first stage of our journey to Raby without witnessing any
particular indication of public sentiment; and this rather
encouraged our extending a little the circle of our visits, which
I am now half tempted to regret. For at every point I have had the
greatest difficulty in maintaining any show of privacy, and
avoiding strong manifestations. I never saw such keen exhibitions
of the popular feeling, appearing so to pervade all ranks and
places. A tory county member said to my wife two days ago, “If
there were a dissolution now, I should not get a vote.” This may
be in some degree peculiar to the northerners with their strong
character and deep emotions....

_Castle Howard, Oct. 7, 1876._—Before receiving your letter of the
5th, I had been driven to the conclusion that I must make a
further utterance, following the actual course of the
transactions. And upon the whole I adhere to this conclusion,
notwithstanding your opinion, to which I attach great weight.
There is a great difference in our situations, which I think
accounts for this difference of view. I found Ailesbury, of
course, full of friendship and loyalty to you, but disposed to
regret that you had not been able to see your way to a more
advanced and definite policy. I told him that I found no cause for
surprise in your reserve, and thought you held yourself in hand
for the purpose of holding your party in hand—a view which I think
he more or less embraced. Now, I have not your responsibilities to
the party, but I have for the moment more than your
responsibilities to the country, in this sense that I feel myself
compelled to advise from time to time upon the course of that
national movement which I have tried hard to evoke, and assist in
evoking. I regard myself as an outside workman, engaged in the
preparation of materials, which you and the party will probably
have to manipulate and then to build into a structure. For though
I do not wish to shut the door upon the government, I despair of
them, after so many invitations and so many refusals....

(M179) To Madame Novikoff, a Russian lady who at this time began to exercise a marked influence upon the opinions of important men with much influence on the opinions of many other people,(341) he indicated some doubtful symptoms:—

_Hawarden, Oct. 17, 1876._—There is an undoubted and smart rally
on behalf of Turkey in the metropolitan press. It is in the main
representative of the ideas and opinions of what are called the
upper ten thousand. From this body there has never on any occasion
within my memory proceeded the impulse that has prompted, and
finally achieved, _any_ of the great measures which in the last
half century have contributed so much to the fame and happiness of
England. They did not emancipate the dissenters, Roman catholics,
and Jews. They did not reform the parliament. They did not
liberate the negro slave. They did not abolish the corn law. They
did not take the taxes off the press. They did not abolish the
Irish established church. They did not cheer on the work of
Italian freedom and reconstitution. Yet all these things have been
done; and done by other agencies than theirs, and despite their
opposition. When I speak of _them_, I speak of course of the
majority among them. Unhappily, the country is understood abroad
mainly through the metropolitan press.

He was no sooner back at Hawarden than he fell to work on subsidiary branches of the question of questions.

_Oct. 22._—Worked hard and finished my paper on Russia in
Turkestan, and sent it off. Criminal justice on Sunday! But it is
for peace. 24.—To London. 27.—Up at 6. Went with Harry to Dover,
saw him off on board the packet and pier [on his way to India].
Drove over to Walmer, reviewed the place, saw Lord Granville and
Sir W. James. Returned to London, and at 9.30 to the Gaiety, saw a
miserable burlesque of which I had heard a most inviting but false
account. 28.—To Hawarden. 31.—Tennyson and H. T. came. _Nov.
1._—Tennyson read to us his _Harold_. It took near 2-½ hours. Walk
with him and a party. 2.—Read Bagehot on Lord Spencer’s
_Life_—very clever, very imperfect. Conversation with Tennyson on
future retribution and other matters of theology. He has not
thought, I conceive, systematically or thoroughly upon them, but
is much alarmed at the prospect of the loss of belief. He left us
at one. Walk and long conversation with Lord Acton, who seems in
opinion to go beyond Döllinger, though in certain things he stops
short of him. 8.—Read aloud the debate of the first _Iliad_ from
Pope. 9.—Read aloud my version of the Assembly—_Iliad_ i. 10.—Read
aloud Lord Derby’s and Cowper’s version of the Assembly. 14.—The
Olympian part of _Iliad_ I. in Pope’s version aloud, and then my
own. 17.—We went to Liverpool, where we attended the theatre to
see Pennington in _Hamlet_. It was really excellent. I never was
so well received in that town. 21.—Finished revision of my MS.,
“The Hellenic Factor in the Eastern Problem,” and sent it to
press.

III

At the Lord Mayor’s feast in November, the prime minister used menacing language. The policy of England, he said, was peace, but no country was so well prepared for war as ours. If England were to enter into a righteous war, her resources were inexhaustible. “She is not a country that, when she enters into a campaign, has to ask herself whether she can support a second or a third campaign. She enters into a campaign which she will not terminate till right is done.” This was a hardly veiled threat to Russia, it was encouragement to Turkey, it was incitement to a war party in Great Britain. “The provocation offered by Disraeli at the Guildhall,” wrote Mr. Gladstone, “is almost incredible. Some new lights about his Judaic feeling in which he is both consistent and conscientious have come in upon me.”

Still the general feeling was strongly adverse to any action on behalf of Turkey. Mr. Gladstone eagerly noted even the most trivial incident that pointed this way. “Yesterday night,” he wrote (Nov. 26), “in the tory town of Liverpool, when Othello was being acted, and the words were reached ‘The Turks are drowned,’ the audience rose in enthusiasm and interrupted the performance for some time with their cheering. These things are not without meaning.” Men who commonly stood aside from political activity were roused. “Mr. Carlyle,” says Mr. Ruskin, “Mr. Froude, and several other men of creditable name gathered together at call of Mr. Gladstone as for a great national need, together with other men of more retired mind—Edward Burne-Jones for one, and myself for another.”

(M180) The reply to the Guildhall speech was a conference at St. James’s Hall (Dec. 8), one of the most remarkable gatherings of representative men of every type and from every part of the kingdom ever held in this country. “I have most flourishing accounts of the progress of preparations for the conference of which I have been a promoter from the beginning. They urge me to speak on the 8th, but I should much prefer that others should put themselves in the foreground.” Besides the eminent politicians, great territorial magnates were there, and men of letters, and divines of various churches, and men who had never been to a militant assembly in their lives before,—all with a resolute purpose expressed by Mr. Trevelyan, “No matter how the prime minister may finger the hilt of the sword, the nation will take care that it never leaves the scabbard.” Mr. Gladstone reached London a day or two before. On the 8th, he enters:—

8.—Made notes and extracts for speech. Attended the meetings at
St. James’s Hall, 12-1-½ and 4-8. Spoke (I fear) 1-½ hours with
some exertion, far from wholly to my satisfaction. The meetings
were great, notable, almost historical.

The day after this important and impressive gathering he was back
at Hawarden, busy at his article upon the life of the Prince
Consort. Then came Christmas day,—“The most solemn I have known
for long; I see that eastward sky of storm and of underlight!”

At a suggestion from the London foreign office, a conference of the great Powers met at Constantinople in the middle of December. Lord Salisbury went as the representative of England. To a correspondent Mr. Gladstone spoke of this as an excellent selection:—

I think it right at once to give you my opinion of Lord Salisbury,
whom I know pretty well in private. He has little foreign or
eastern knowledge, and little craft; he is rough of tongue in
public debate, but a great gentleman in private society; he is
very remarkably clever, of unsure judgment, but is above anything
mean; has no Disraelite prejudices; keeps a conscience, and has
plenty of manhood and character. In a word the appointment of Lord
Salisbury to Constantinople is the best thing the government have
yet done in the eastern question.

As the conference met, so it ran a usual course, and then vanished. The Powers were in complete accord as to the demands that were to be made upon Turkey for the protection of the unfortunate Christian rayahs. The Turk in just confidence that he should find a friend, rejected them, and the envoys departed to their homes. Mr. Gladstone, however, found comfort in the thought that by the agitation two points had been gained: the re-establishment of the European concert, and extrication from a disgraceful position of virtual complicity with Turkey.

In the spring of 1877 he wrote a second pamphlet,(342) because a speech in the House could not contain detail enough, and because parliamentary tradition almost compelled a suspension of discussion while ministers were supposed to be engaged in concert with other Powers in devising a practical answer to Russian inquiry. He found that it “produced no great impression,” the sale not going beyond six or seven thousand copies. Still, the gala remained from the proceeding in the autumn, that the government dared not say they had nothing to do with the condition of the Christian rayahs of Turkey, and any idea of going to war for Turkey was out of the question.

Public feeling had waxed very hot, yet without any clear precision of opinion or purpose on the side opposed to Mr. Gladstone’s policy of emancipation. Dean Church (Dec. 1876) describes how “everybody was very savage with everybody about Turks and Russians: I think I never remember such an awkward time for meeting people (until you know you are on the same side) except at the height of the Tractarian row.”(343)

(M181) A little later we have one of the best pictures of him that I know, from the warm and vivid hand of J. R. Green, the historian:—

_Feb. 21, 1877._—Last night I met Gladstone—it will always be a
memorable night to me; Stubbs was there, and Goldwin Smith, and
Humphry Sandwith, and Mackenzie Wallace, whose great book on
Russia is making such a stir, besides a few other nice people; but
one forgets everything in Gladstone himself, in his perfect
naturalness and grace of manner, his charming abandon of
conversation, his unaffected modesty, his warm ardour for all that
is noble and good. I felt so proud of my leader—the chief I have
always clung to through good report and ill report—because, wise
or unwise as he might seem in this or that, he was always noble of
soul. He was very pleasant to me, and talked of the new historic
school he hoped we were building up as enlisting his warmest
sympathy. I wish you could have seen with what a glow he spoke of
the Montenegrins and their struggle for freedom; how he called on
us who wrote history to write what we could of that long fight for
liberty! And all through the evening not a word to recall his
greatness amongst us, simple, natural, an equal among his equals,
listening to every one, drawing out every one, with a force and a
modesty that touched us more than all his power.

In another letter, says the same ardent man, “I begin to see that there may be a truer wisdom in the ‘humanitarianism’ of Gladstone than in the purely political views of Disraeli. The sympathies of peoples with peoples, the sense of a common humanity between nations, the aspirations of nationalities after freedom and independence, _are_ real political forces; and it is just because Gladstone owns them as forces, and Disraeli disowns them, that the one has been on the right side, and the other on the wrong in parallel questions such as the upbuilding of Germany or Italy. I think it will be so in this upbuilding of the Sclave.”(344)

It was my own good fortune to pass two days with him at this moment at High Elms. Huxley and Playfair were of the party. Mr. Gladstone had with him the printer’s proofs of his second pamphlet, and was in full glow against Turkish terrorism and its abettors. This strong obsession could not be concealed, nor was there any reason why it should be; it made no difference in his ready courtesy and kindness of demeanour, his willingness to enter into other people’s topics, his pliant force and alacrity of mind. On the Sunday afternoon Sir John Lubbock, our host, took us all up to the hilltop whence in his quiet Kentish village Darwin was shaking the world. The illustrious pair, born in the same year, had never met before. Mr. Gladstone as soon as seated took Darwin’s interest in lessons of massacre for granted, and launched forth his thunderbolts with unexhausted zest. His great, wise, simple, and truth-loving listener, then, I think, busy on digestive powers of the drosera in his green-house, was intensely delighted. When we broke up, watching Mr. Gladstone’s erect alert figure as he walked away, Darwin, shading his eyes with his hand against the evening rays, said to me in unaffected satisfaction, “What an honour that such a great man should come to visit me!” Too absorbed in his own overwhelming conflict with the powers of evil, Mr. Gladstone makes no mention of his afternoon call, and only says of the two days that “he found a notable party, and made interesting conversation,” and that he “could not help liking” one of the company, then a stranger to him. In his absence at church, we were talking of the qualities that send men forward and keep them back. “I should like to know,” cried Huxley, “what would keep such a man as that back,” pointing to where Mr. Gladstone had been sitting; “why, put him in the middle of a moor, with nothing in the world but his shirt, and you could not prevent him from being anything he liked.” And Huxley was as far as possible from being a Gladstonian.

IV

(M182) Events meanwhile had moved. The failure of the conference in December, and the futility of an instrument known as the London protocol devised in March, led up to a declaration of war by Russia against Turkey in April. We now come to an episode in this controversy, that excited lively passions at the moment, and subjected Mr. Gladstone’s relation to his party to a strain that would have been profoundly painful, if his heroic intensity had not for the time taken him beyond the region of pain and pleasure.

_To Lord Granville. 73 Harley Street, April 23, 1877._—The
protocol, the refusal of Turkey, the insistence of Russia, have
been followed to-night by the announcement that the Russian Chargé
has suspended relations with Turkey. Is not the moment now come
for raising the rather stiff question whether a policy, or a
substantive motion, is to be submitted to parliament? I hold back
from a conclusion as long as I can, that I may benefit by the
views of others. But it is perfectly plain that Salisbury is at a
discount, and that the government grow more Turkish every day;
reasonably plain that some grave arguments against moving have now
lost their force. My own inclination is towards a series of
resolutions with such points as are rudely indicated on the
enclosed scrap. Please to let me have it again at some time; I
have no copy.

_To the Duke of Argyll. April 26, 1877._—I have drawn some
resolutions of which I intend to give notice to-day unless the
leaders will move. If they will move, though they may say much
less, I can support them and express my fuller ideas in a speech.
I cannot leave my bed, but notice will be given in my name.

_From the Diary. April 27, 1877._—Ill in the night; kept my bed.
Saw Dr. Clark twice. Saw Mr. Goschen, Lord Wolverton, Mr. Bright,
Lord Frederick Cavendish. This day I took my decision, a severe
one, in face of my not having a single approver in the _upper_
official circle. But had I in the first days of September asked
the same body whether I ought to write my pamphlet, I believe the
unanimous answer would have been No. Arranged for the first
(general) notice to be given, in my absence.

The resolutions were five in number, and the pith of them was, first, an expression of complaint against the Porte; second, a declaration that, in the absence of guarantees on behalf of the subject populations, the Porte had lost all claim to support, moral or material; third, a desire that British influence should be employed on behalf of local liberty and self-government in the disturbed provinces; fourth, this influence to be addressed to promoting the concert of the Powers in exacting from the Porte such changes as they might deem to be necessary for humanity and justice; fifth, an address to the crown accordingly. On the expediency of these resolutions, at a moment when a war with many complexities had just broken out, opinion in the party was divided. The official liberals and their special adherents doubted. The radicals below the gangway, headed by Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke, supported the resolutions with enthusiasm. Adverse notices of the previous question were put upon the paper. Lord Granville wrote to Mr. Gladstone (May 2) that his colleagues on the front opposition bench had met, and were still of opinion, “that it was not opportune at this moment to move resolutions, and thought that the least antagonistic course as regarded you would be to vote for one of the motions announced for the previous question.” To the Duke of Argyll Mr. Gladstone wrote on the 4th:—

Our friends of the late cabinet have fallen into a sad series of
errors, some of which I fear will be greatly resented in the
country. To meet on Wednesday; to use the private pressure which
is being used, as I am told, against the resolutions; and above
all to have announced the result of the meeting in the papers of
yesterday; these form a combination, in my opinion, deplorable and
almost incredible. I shall do all in my power to avert
consequences, but my difficulties are greatly increased.

It looked as if a mortal split within the party were inevitable.

_From the Diary. May 5._—The post brought me near 140 letters
to-day which took some hours to examine, but they are most
remarkable. Saw Lord Granville with Lord Wolverton. They opened
the means of bridging over the chasm inadvertently made; and I
readily went into the scheme. It was carried through by Granville
at a meeting of his friends after the Academy dinner, and he came
to me at Wolverton’s with Hartington to make known the result and
consider some details of execution. What they ask of me is really,
from my point of view, little more than nominal. They have in
truth been awakened as from a slumber by the extraordinary
demonstrations in the country. 3—4-½ attended the Academy
exhibition. 6-½-10-1/4 at the dinner; spoke for literature! My
reception surprised me, it was so good.

(M183) What was asked was that he should consent to an amended form of his second resolution, declaring more simply and categorically that the Turk, by his misgovernment, had lost his claims. As to the other resolutions, according to a common usage, it was at his choice to accept a division on the first or first two, and not divide upon the rest. His speech, of course, would cover the ground of all the resolutions. This reduction was, as he truly said, “little more than nominal.” A friendly question was to be put when the time came, and in reply he would state how things stood.

The critical day arrived, and not often has parliamentary excitement been so high. It was a battle of high national and even European policy, for England was now at the front; it was a battle between two sections of a party; it was the ordeal of a man admitted to be the greatest in the House, and perhaps some of the onlookers felt much like the curious Florentines, as they wondered what would happen to Savonarola and the monks in the great Trial by Fire.

_From the Diary. May 7._—This day came in about 100 meetings and
say 200 letters or 250. Worked hard upon the blue book, and
references and notes for speech. House at 4-1/4. For over two
hours I was assaulted from every quarter, except the opposition
bench, which was virtually silent. Such a sense of solitary
struggle I never remember. At last I rose on the main question
nearly in despair as to the result; but resolved at least not to
fail through want of effort. I spoke 2-½ hours, voice lasting
well. House gradually came round and at the last was more than
good. It was over at 9.30. Never did I feel weaker and more
wormlike. Dinner at Sir W. James’s and H. of C. again
10-3/4-12-3/4. 8.—I am the spoiled child of sleep. This night was
an exception.

The scene began with the question as preconcerted, put by Mr. Trevelyan. Such moves never fail to provoke some measure of mockery, and this time both regular opponents and opponents in more or less disguise thought that they had got the monarch of the forest down. The situation was one that opened the way for Mr. Gladstone’s love of over-precision, and his various explanations prolonged the wrangle. It lasted until the dinner-hour. “While many members,” says one observer, “were streaming out to dine and those who remained looked dejectedly at their watches, Mr. Gladstone, who is sixty-eight years of age, sprang again to his feet, and without any sign of diminished spirit delivered a noble speech lasting two hours and a half. It was perhaps the greatest triumph of irrepressible moral and physical vitality over depressing conditions that was ever won in the House of Commons.”(345)

The record of a distinguished eyewitness, himself one day to be prime minister, ought not to be omitted:—

There was one of those preliminary parliamentary debates—or series
of debates—which preceded the main business of the evening. In
this Mr. Gladstone had to speak not once or twice, but several
times, and it was not until hour after hour had passed in this
preliminary skirmish in a House hostile, impatient, and utterly
wearied, that he got up to present his case with that conviction
that he was right, which was his great strength as a speaker in
and out of the House. I never shall forget the impression that
speech left on my mind. As a mere feat of physical endurance it
was almost unsurpassed; as a feat of parliamentary courage,
parliamentary skill, parliamentary endurance, and parliamentary
eloquence, I believe it will always be unequalled.(346)

As he drew to his close, he looked according to Mr. Forster, “_like an inspired man_,” and I have heard many hearers of cool temperament declare the passage about the Montenegrins and onwards, to have been the most thrilling deliverance that could ever be conceived. Here is this noble peroration:—

Sir, there were other days when England was the hope of freedom.
Wherever in the world a high aspiration was entertained, or a
noble blow was struck, it was to England that the eyes of the
oppressed were always turned—to this favourite, this darling home
of so much privilege and so much happiness, where the people that
had built up a noble edifice for themselves would, it was well
known, be ready to do what in them lay to secure the benefit of
the same inestimable boon for others. You talk to me of the
established tradition and policy in regard to Turkey. I appeal to
an established tradition older, wider, nobler far—a tradition not
which disregards British interests, but which teaches you to seek
the promotion of these interests in obeying the dictates of honour
and justice. And, sir, what is to be the end of this? Are we to
dress up the fantastic ideas some people entertain about this
policy and that policy in the garb of British interests, and then,
with a new and base idolatry, fall down and worship them? Or are
we to look, not at the sentiment, but at the hard facts of the
case, which Lord Derby told us fifteen years ago—viz., that it is
the populations of those countries that will ultimately possess
them—that will ultimately determine their abiding condition? It is
to this fact, this law, that we should look. There is now before
the world a glorious prize. A portion of those unhappy people are
still as yet making an effort to retrieve what they have lost so
long, but have not ceased to love and to desire. I speak of those
in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Another portion—a band of heroes such
as the world has rarely seen—stand on the rocks of Montenegro, and
are ready now, as they have ever been during the 400 years of
their exile from their fertile plains, to sweep down from their
fastnesses and meet the Turks at any odds for the re-establishment
of justice and of peace in those countries. Another portion still,
the 5,000,000 of Bulgarians, cowed and beaten down to the ground,
hardly venturing to look upwards, even to their Father in heaven,
have extended their hands to you; they have sent you their
petition, they have prayed for your help and protection. They have
told you that they do not seek alliance with Russia, or with any
foreign power, but that they seek to be delivered from an
intolerable burden of woe and shame. That burden of woe and
shame—the greatest that exists on God’s earth—is one that we
thought united Europe was about to remove; but to removing which,
for the present, you seem to have no efficacious means of offering
even the smallest practical contribution. But, sir, the removal of
that load of woe and shame is a great and noble prize. It is a
prize well worth competing for. It is not yet too late to try to
win it. I believe there are men in the cabinet who would try to
win it, if they were free to act on their own beliefs and
aspirations. It is not yet too late, I say, to become competitors
for that prize; but be assured that whether you mean to claim for
yourselves even a single leaf in that immortal chaplet of renown,
which will be the reward of true labour in that cause, or whether
you turn your backs upon that cause and upon your own duty, I
believe, for one, that the knell of Turkish tyranny in these
provinces has sounded. So far as human eye can judge, it is about
to be destroyed. The destruction may not come in the way or by the
means that we should choose; but come this boon from what hands it
may, it will be a noble boon, and as a noble boon will gladly be
accepted by Christendom and the world.

V

The division, after a debate that lasted five days, resulted in 354 for ministers, against 223 for Mr. Gladstone.

Of course if you had gone on alone, Lord Granville told him, you
would only have had either more or less than half the liberal
party. If Hartington had moved the first two resolutions, the
government would certainly have had some 160 or 170 majority. All
the malcontents behind the opposition front benches were obliged
to vote on Monday, in consequence of having so vigorously preached
allegiance during the previous ten days. As it is, the party voted
pretty well.

(M184) “The assumed laughter of the conservatives,” he adds, “showed their vexation, and _some_ of the radicals showed their cards—that it is not the eastern question, but the hopes of breaking up the party that really excites them.” The radicals on their part were extremely sore at the withdrawal of the resolutions. “Your goodness,” wrote their leading man to Mr. Gladstone the following day, “has been abused in the interests of a section of the party who deserve least at your hands. The current report in the lobbies last night, spread by these gentlemen, and easily believed by their friends, was that you had ‘caved in.’ ” Could he not take some further opportunity of showing that he had not abandoned the policy of joint intervention, and that the liberal party in the country had no reason to regret that they rose almost as one man to his call?

At first it was thought that the discussion had done good by impressing the government with the desire of the country, if not for coercion at least for real neutrality, and that Lord Beaconsfield had submitted to the better influences in the cabinet. It soon appeared that this had not happened. “The fidelity of the party,” said Lord Granville, “and the large majority have given Beaconsfield the lead, of which he has not been slow to avail himself. It is very serious.” The war in the Balkans went on; the Turks fought with valour and constancy: sufferings on both sides were frightful. In England the sympathy with the miserable victims of Turkish misrule became modified by the re-awakened jealousy of Russian power. Mr. Gladstone held his ground with invincible tenacity against all comers. He took his share in such parliamentary operations as were possible, but these operations were necessarily fruitless, and the platform now for the first time became the effective field for moving national opinion.

Great parties of tourists from the northern and midland towns began to make it a fashion to go on high pilgrimage to Hawarden, where besides a fine park they saw the most interesting man in the country, and had a good chance of hearing an eloquent speech, or watching a tree fall under the stroke of his vigorous arm. If they brought him the tribute of a casket or an axe or some cunning walking-stick, he was obliged to thank them, and if he opened his lips to thank them, the all-engrossing theme was sure to well up. Some of these earnest utterances jarred even on his admirers in the press and out of it. Just so would critics in colleges and cathedral closes have found Wesley and Whitefield in their evangelising mission north, south, east, and west, excessive, exaggerated, indiscreet, and deficient in good taste. They could not understand how one supposed to be so knowing in all the manœuvres of parliament and party, was at the same time so naïf. This curious simplicity in fact marked him in all the movements into which he put his heart. Like every other grand missionary—the abolitionist, the gospel missionary, the free trader, the peace man, the temperance man—he could not believe that the truths, arguments, and appeals, of which he was the bearer, could fail to strike in all who heard them the same fire that blazed in bosoms fervid as his own.

He went to Birmingham and was received with tumultuous acclamations by many tens of thousands:—

_May 31._—[Hawarden.] Off before 11. Reached Birmingham at 3-1/4.
A triumphal reception. Dinner at Mr. Chamberlain’s. Meeting 7 to
9-½, half occupied by my speech. A most intelligent and duly
appreciative audience—but they were 25,000 and the building I
think of no acoustic merits, so that the strain was excessive. A
supper followed. _June 1._—Breakfast party 9.30. Much conversation
on the Birmingham school board system. Off at 10.45 to Enfield
factory, which consumed the forenoon in a most interesting survey
with Colonel Dickson and his assistants. Then to the fine (qy.
overfine?) board school, where addresses were presented and I
spoke over half an hour on politics. After luncheon to the town
hall; address from the corporation, made a municipal speech of say
20 minutes. A good deal of movement in the streets with us even
to-day. Thence to the Oratory and sat with Dr. Newman.(347) Saw
Mr. Chamberlain’s very pleasing children. Then to the dinner,
spoke again. To Hagley at 11.5.

Well was, it said of this visit by Dale, that strenuous whole-hearted man, “Forsaken or but feebly supported by many of those with whom he had shared many glorious conflicts, and who owed to him their place and fame, his courage remained undaunted, and his enthusiasm for righteousness and freedom unquenched.”

Mr. Gladstone described, the general situation in a letter to a correspondent out of England:—

I cannot say much for the conduct of the Powers. That of the pope
and his court has been vile; Manning and most part of Ireland have
followed suit; France and Germany are thinking of themselves and
one another; and Italy, for fear of the pope, is obliged to look
very much to Germany. Austria is to some extent in a false
position. For us there is no excuse: there was no difficulty
whatever in our doing our duty. I have said in parliament, and I
deeply feel, it is the most deplorable chapter of our foreign
policy since the peace of 1815. The good cause has been further
weakened by the bad conduct, in varying degrees, of many races,
Magyars and Jews above all. You see I cannot help filling up my
paper with this subject.

In July he made a pleasure trip in one of Sir Donald Currie’s steamers, from London to Dartmouth. “We set out at 10.20,” he says, “for the docks. Started in the _Dublin Castle_ at noon. We spent the night at the Nore, good weather, kind reception, splendid fare. The Cape deputies came with us as far as Gravesend.” Among these deputies was Mr. Kruger.

In October he paid his first and only visit to Ireland. It lasted little more than three weeks, and did not extend beyond a very decidedly English Pale. He stayed in great houses, was feasted by the provost of Trinity, in spite of disestablishment, and he had a friendly conversation with Cardinal Cullen, in spite of Vaticanism. “You know, Mr. Gladstone,” said the Cardinal, “we could have given you a warmer reception if it had not been for certain pamphlets which we in Ireland did not like very well.” He received the freedom of the city of Dublin, broke bread with the Duke of Marlborough at the vice-regal lodge, admired the picturesque site of the castle at Kilkenny, enjoyed sympathetic talks with host and hostess at Abbeyleix, and delighted in the curious antiquities and exquisite natural beauties of the county of Wicklow. Of the multitudes of strange things distinctively Irish, he had little chance of seeing much.