Chapter VII: Colleagues—Northern Cruise—Egypt. (1883)

Parran faville della sua virtute
In non curar d’argento nè d’affanni.

—_Paradiso_, xvii. 83.

Sparks of his worth shall show in the little heed he gives either
to riches or to heavy toils.

I

The session of 1883 was marked by one legislative performance of the first order, the bill devised against corrupt practices at elections. This invaluable measure was worked through the House of Commons mainly by Sir Henry James, the attorney general, whose skill and temper in a business that was made none the easier by the fact of every man in the House supposing himself to understand the subject, excited Mr. Gladstone’s cordial admiration; it strengthened that peculiarly warm regard in which he held Sir Henry, not only now but even when the evil days of political severance came. The prime minister, though assiduous, as he always was, in the discharge of those routine and secondary duties which can never be neglected without damage to the House, had, for the first session in his career as head of a government, no burden in the shaping of a great bill. He insisted, in spite of some opposition in the cabinet, on accepting a motion pledging parliament to economy (April 3). In a debate on the Congo, he was taken by some to have gone near to giving up the treaty-making power of the crown. He had to face more than one of those emergencies that were naturally common for the leader of a party with a zealous radical wing represented in his cabinet, and in some measure these occasions beset Mr. Gladstone from 1869 (M42) onwards. His loyalty and kindness to colleagues who got themselves and him into scrapes by imprudent speeches, and his activity and resource in inventing ways out of scrapes, were always unfailing. Often the difficulty was with the Queen, sometimes with the House of Lords, occasionally with the Irish members. Birmingham, for instance, held a grand celebration (June 13) on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mr. Bright’s connection as its representative. Mr. Bright used strong language about “Irish rebels,” and then learned that he would be called to account. He consulted Mr. Gladstone, and from him received a reply that exhibits the use of logic as applied to inconvenient displays of the sister art of rhetoric:—

_To Mr. Bright._

_June 15, 1883._—I have received your note, and I am extremely
sorry either that you should have personal trouble after your
great exertions, or that anything should occur to cloud the
brilliancy or mar the satisfaction of your recent celebration in
Birmingham. I have looked at the extract from your speech, which
is to be alleged as the _corpus delicti_, with a jealous eye. It
seems well to be prepared for the worst. The points are, I think,
_three_:—1. “Not a few” tories are guilty of determined
obstruction. I cannot conceive it possible that this can be deemed
a breach of privilege. 2. These members are found ’in alliance’
with the Irish party. Alliance is often predicated by those who
disapprove, upon the ground that certain persons have been voting
together. This I think can hardly be a breach of privilege even in
cases where it may be disputable or untrue.

But then: 3. This Irish party are “rebels” whose oath of
allegiance is broken by association with the enemies of the
country. Whether these allegations are true or not, the following
questions arise:—(a) Can they be proved; (b) Are they allegations
which would be allowed in debate? I suppose you would agree with
me that they cannot be proved; and I doubt whether they would be
allowed in debate. The question whether they are a breach of
privilege is for the House; but the Speaker would have to say, if
called upon, whether they were allowable in debate. My impression
is that he would say no; and I think you would not wish to use
elsewhere expressions that you could not repeat in the House of
Commons.

The Speaker has a jotting in his diary which may end this case of a great man’s excess:—

_June 18._—Exciting sitting. Bright’s language about Irish rebels.
Certainly his language was very strong and quite inadmissible if
spoken within the House. In conversation with Northcote I
deprecated the taking notice of language outside the House, though
I could not deny that the House, if it thought fit, might regard
the words as a breach of privilege. But Northcote was no doubt
urged by his friends.

Mr. Chamberlain’s was a heavier business, and led to much correspondence and difficult conversation in high places. A little of it, containing general principles, will probably suffice here:—

_To Sir Henry Ponsonby._

_June 22.—Re_ Chamberlain’s speech. I am sorry to say I had not
read the report until I was warned by your letters to Granville
and to Hamilton, for my sight does not allow me to read largely
the small type of newspapers. I have now read it, and I must at
once say with deep regret. We had done our best to keep the Bright
celebration in harmony with the general tone of opinion by the
mission which Granville kindly undertook. I am the more sorry
about this speech, because Chamberlain has this year in parliament
shown both tact and talent in the management of questions not
polemical, such as the bankruptcy bill. The speech is open to
exception from three points of view, as I think—first in relation
to Bright, secondly in relation to the cabinet, thirdly and most
especially in relation to the crown, to which the speech did not
indicate the consciousness of his holding any special relation.

_June. 26._—It appeared to me in considering the case of Mr.
Chamberlain’s speech that by far the best correction would be
found, if a natural opportunity should offer, in a speech
differently coloured from himself. I found also that he was
engaged to preside on Saturday next at the dinner of the Cobden
Club. I addressed myself therefore to this point, and Mr.
Chamberlain will revert, on that occasion, to the same line of
thought.... But, like Granville, I consider that the offence does
not consist in holding certain opinions, of which in my judgment
the political force and effect are greatly exaggerated, but in the
attitude assumed, and the tone and colour given to the speech.

_To Lord Granville._

_July 1, 1883._—I have read with care Chamberlain’s speech of last
night [at the Cobden Club dinner].... Am I right or wrong in
understanding the speech as follows? He admits without stint that
in a cabinet concessions may be made as to action, but he seems to
claim an unlimited liberty of speech. Now I should be as far as
possible from asserting that under all circumstances speech must
be confined within the exact limits to which action is tied down.
But I think the dignity and authority, not to say the honour and
integrity, of government require that the liberty of speaking
beyond those limits should be exercised sparingly, reluctantly,
and with much modesty and reserve. Whereas Chamberlain’s
Birmingham speech exceeded it largely, gratuitously, and with a
total absence of recognition of the fact that he was not an
individual but a member of a body. And the claim made last night
to liberty of speech must be read with the practical illustration
afforded by the Birmingham discourse, which evidently now stands
as an instance, a sort of moral instance, of the mode in which
liberty of speech is to be reconciled with limitation of
action.(71)

In order to test the question, must we not bear in mind that the
liberty claimed in one wing of a cabinet may also be claimed in
another, and that while one minister says I support this measure,
though it does not go far enough, another may just as lawfully say
I support this measure, though it goes too far? For example,
Argyll agreed to the Disturbance Compensation bill in 1880, mainly
out of regard to his colleagues and their authority. What if he
had used in the House of Lords language like that I have just
supposed? Every extravagance of this kind puts weapons into the
hands of opponents, and weakens the authority of government, which
is hardly ever too strong, and is often too weak already.

In a letter written some years before when he was leader of the House, Mr. Gladstone on the subject of the internal discipline of a ministerial corps told one, who was at that time and now his colleague, a little story:—

As the subject is one of interest, perhaps you will let me mention
the incident which first obliged me to reflect upon it. Nearly
thirty years ago, my leader, Sir R. Peel, agreed in the Irish
Tithes bills to give 25 per cent. of the tithe to the landlord in
return for that “Commutation.” Thinking this too much (you see
that twist was then already in me), I happened to say so in a
private letter to an Irish clergyman. Very shortly after I had a
note from Peel, which inclosed one from Shaw, his head man in
Ireland, complaining of my letter as making his work impossible if
such things were allowed to go on. Sir R. Peel indorsed the
remonstrance, and I had to sing small. The discipline was very
tight in those days (and we were in opposition, not in
government). But it worked well on the whole, and I must say it
was accompanied on Sir R. Peel’s part with a most rigid regard to
rights of all kinds within the official or quasi-official corps,
which has somewhat declined in more recent times.

A minister had made some reference in a public speech, to what happened in the cabinet of which he was a member. “I am sure it cannot have occurred to you,” Mr. Gladstone wrote, “that the cabinet is the operative part of the privy council, that the privy councillor’s oath is applicable to its proceedings, that this is a very high obligation, and that no one can dispense with it except the Queen. I may add that I believe no one is entitled even to make a note of the proceedings except the prime minister, who has to report its proceedings on every occasion of its meeting to the Queen, and who must by a few scraps assist his memory.”

By the end of the session, although its labours had not (M43) been on the level of either 1881 or 1882, Mr. Gladstone was somewhat strained. On Aug. 22 he writes to Mrs. Gladstone at Hawarden: “Yesterday at 4½ I entered the House hoping to get out soon and write you a letter, when the Speaker told me Northcote was going to raise a debate on the Appropriation bill, and I had to wait, listen, and then to speak for more than an hour, which tired me a good deal, finding me weak after sitting till 2.30 the night before, and a long cabinet in the interval. Rough work for 73!”

II

In September he took a holiday in a shape that, though he was no hearty sailor, was always a pleasure and a relief to him. Three letters to the Queen tell the story, and give a glimpse of court punctilio:—

_On the North Sea, Sept. 15. Posted at Copenhagen, Sept. 16,
1883._—Mr. Gladstone presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and
has to offer his humble apology for not having sought from your
Majesty the usual gracious permission before setting foot on a
foreign shore. He embarked on the 8th in a steamer of the Castles
Company under the auspices of Sir Donald Currie, with no more
ambitious expectation than that of a cruise among the Western
Isles. But the extraordinary solidity, so to call it, of a very
fine ship (the _Pembroke Castle_, 4000 tons, 410 feet long) on the
water, rendering her in no small degree independent of weather,
encouraged his fellow-voyagers, and even himself, though a most
indifferent sailor, to extend their views, and the vessel is now
on the North Sea running over to Christiansand in Norway, from
whence it is proposed to go to Copenhagen, with the expectation,
however, of again touching British soil in the middle of next
week. Mr. Gladstone humbly trusts that, under these circumstances,
his omission may be excused.

Mr. Tennyson, who is one of the party, is an excellent sailor, and
seems to enjoy himself much in the floating castle, as it may be
termed in a wider sense than that of its appellation on the
register. The weather has been variable with a heavy roll from the
Atlantic at the points not sheltered; but the stormy North Sea has
on the whole behaved extremely well as regards its two besetting
liabilities to storm and fog.

_Ship __“__Pembroke Castle,__”__ Mouth of the Thames. Sept. 20,
1883._—Mr. Gladstone with his humble duty reports to your Majesty
his return this evening from Copenhagen to London. The passage was
very rapid, and the weather favourable. He had the honour, with
his wife and daughter and other companions of his voyage, to
receive an invitation to dine at Fredensborg on Monday. He found
there the entire circle of illustrious personages who have been
gathered for some time in a family party, with a very few
exceptions. The singularly domestic character of this remarkable
assemblage, and the affectionate intimacy which appeared to
pervade it, made an impression upon him not less deep than the
demeanour of all its members, which was so kindly and so simple,
that even the word condescending could hardly be applied to it.
Nor must Mr. Gladstone allow himself to omit another striking
feature of the remarkable picture, in the unrestrained and
unbounded happiness of the royal children, nineteen in number, who
appeared like a single family reared under a single roof.

[_The royal party, forty in number, visit the ship._]

The Emperor of Russia proposed the health of your Majesty. Mr.
Gladstone by arrangement with your Majesty’s minister at this
court, Mr. Vivian, proposed the health of the King and Queen of
Denmark, and the Emperor and Empress of Russia, and the King and
Queen of the Hellenes. The King of Denmark did Mr. Gladstone the
honour to propose his health; and Mr. Gladstone in acknowledging
this toast, thought he could not do otherwise, though no speeches
had been made, than express the friendly feeling of Great Britain
towards Denmark, and the satisfaction with which the British
people recognised the tie of race which unites them with the
inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries. Perhaps the most
vigorous and remarkable portion of the British nation had, Mr.
Gladstone said, been drawn from these countries. After luncheon,
the senior imperial and royal personages crowded together into a
small cabin on the deck to hear Mr. Tennyson read two of his
poems, several of the younger branches clustering round the doors.
Between 2 and 3, the illustrious party left the _Pembroke Castle_,
and in the midst of an animated scene, went on board the King of
Denmark’s yacht, which steamed towards Elsinore.

Mr. Gladstone was much pleased to observe that the Emperor of
Russia appeared to be entirely released from the immediate
pressure of his anxieties supposed to weigh much upon his mind.
The Empress of Russia has the genial and gracious manners which on
this, and on every occasion, mark H.R.H. the Princess of Wales.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

_Sept. 22, 1883._—Mr. Gladstone presents his humble duty to your
Majesty, and has to acknowledge your Majesty’s letter of the 20th
“giving him full credit for not having reflected at the time” when
he decided, as your Majesty believes, to extend his recent cruise
to Norway and Denmark.

He may humbly state that he had no desire or idea beyond a glance,
if only for a few hours, at a little of the fine and peculiar
scenery of Norway. But he is also responsible for having
acquiesced in the proposal (which originated with Mr. Tennyson) to
spend a day at Copenhagen, where he happens to have some
associations of literary interest; for having accepted an
unexpected invitation to dine with the king some thirty miles off;
and for having promoted the execution of a wish, again
unexpectedly communicated to him, that a visit of the illustrious
party to the _Pembroke Castle_ should be arranged. Mr. Gladstone
ought probably to have foreseen all these things. With respect to
the construction put upon his act abroad, Mr. Gladstone ought
again, perhaps, to have foreseen that, in countries habituated to
more important personal meetings, which are uniformly declared to
be held in the interests of general peace, his momentary and
unpremeditated contact with the sovereigns at Fredensborg would be
denounced, or suspected of a mischievous design. He has, however,
some consolation in finding that, in England at least, such a
suspicion appears to have been confined to two secondary journals,
neither of which has ever found (so far as he is aware) in any act
of his anything but guilt and folly.

Thus adopting, to a great extent, your Majesty’s view, Mr.
Gladstone can confirm your Majesty’s belief that (with the
exception of a sentence addressed by him to the King of the
Hellenes singly respecting Bulgaria), there was on all hands an
absolute silence in regard to public affairs....

In proposing at Kirkwall the health of the poet who was his fellow-guest on the cruise, Mr. Gladstone let fall a hint—a significant and perhaps a just one—on the comparative place of politics and letters, the difference between the statesman and orator and the poet. “Mr. Tennyson’s life and labour,” he said, “correspond in point of time as nearly as possible to my own; but he has worked in a higher field, and his work will be more durable. We public men play a part which places us much in view of our countrymen, but the words which we speak have wings and fly away and disappear.... But the Poet Laureate has written his own song on the hearts of his countrymen that can never die.”

III

It was said in 1884 that the organisation of Egypt was a subject, whether regarded from the English or the European point of view, that was probably more complicated and more fraught with possible dangers in the future, than any question of foreign policy with which England had had to deal for the last fifty years or more.

The arguments against prolonged English occupation were tolerably clear. It would freeze all cordiality between ourselves and the French. It would make us a Mediterranean military power. In case of war, the necessity of holding Egypt would weaken us. In diplomacy it would expose fresh surface to new and hostile combinations. Yet, giving their full weight to every one of these considerations, a British statesman was confronted by one of those intractable dilemmas that make up the material of a good half of human history. The Khedive could not stand by himself. The Turk would not, and ought not to be endured for his protector. Some other European power would step in and block the English road. Would common prudence in such a case suffer England to acquiesce and stand aside? Did not subsisting obligations also confirm the precepts of policy and self-interest? In many minds this reasoning was clenched and clamped by the sacrifices that England had made when she took, and took alone, the initial military step.

Egyptian affairs were one of the heaviest loads that (M44) weighed upon Mr. Gladstone during the whole of 1884. One day in the autumn of this year, towards the end of the business before the cabinet, a minister asked if there was anything else. “No,” said Mr. Gladstone with sombre irony as he gathered up his papers, “we have done our Egyptian business, and we are an Egyptian government.” His general position was sketched in a letter to Lord Granville (Mar. 22, 1884): “In regard to the Egyptian question proper, I am conscious of being moved by three powerful considerations. (1) Respect for European law, and for the peace of eastern Europe, essentially connected with its observance. (2) The just claims of the Khedive, who has given us no case against him, and his people as connected with him. (3) Indisposition to extend the responsibilities of this country. On the first two I feel very stiff. On the third I should have due regard to my personal condition as a vanishing quantity.”

The question of the continuance of the old dual control by England and France was raised almost immediately after the English occupation began, but English opinion supported or stimulated the cabinet in refusing to restore a form of co-operation that had worked well originally in the hands of Baring and de Blignières, but had subsequently betrayed its inherent weakness. France resumed what is diplomatically styled liberty of action in Egypt; and many months were passed in negotiations, the most entangled in which a British government was ever engaged. Why did not England, impatient critics of Mr. Gladstone and his cabinet inquire, at once formally proclaim a protectorate? Because it would have been a direct breach of her moral obligations of good faith to Europe. These were undisputed and indisputable. It would have brought her within instant reach of a possible war with France, for which the sinister and interested approval of Germany would have been small compensation.

The issue lay between annexation and withdrawal,—annexation to be veiled and indirect, withdrawal to be cautious and conditional. No member of the cabinet at this time seems to have listened with any favour whatever to the mention of annexation. Apart from other objections, it would undeniably have been a flagrant breach of solemn international engagements. The cabinet was pledged up to the lips to withdrawal, and when Lord Hartington talked to the House of Commons of the last British soldier quitting Egypt in a few months, nobody ever doubted then or since that he was declaring the sincere intention of the cabinet. Nor was any doubt possible that the intention of the cabinet entirely coincided at that time with the opinion and wishes of the general public. The operations in Egypt had not been popular,(72) and the national temper was still as hostile to all expansion as when it cast out Lord Beaconsfield. Withdrawal, however, was beset with inextricable difficulties. Either withdrawal or annexation would have simplified the position and brought its own advantages. Neither was possible. The British government after Tel-el-Kebir vainly strove to steer a course that would combine the advantages of both. Say what they would, military occupation was taken to make them responsible for everything that happened in Egypt. This encouraged the view that they should give orders to Egypt, and make Egypt obey. But then direct and continuous interference with the Egyptian administration was advance in a path that could only end in annexation. To govern Egypt from London through a native ministry, was in fact nothing but annexation, and annexation in its clumsiest and most troublesome shape. Such a policy was least of all to be reconciled with the avowed policy of withdrawal. To treat native ministers as mere ciphers and puppets, and then to hope to leave them at the end with authority enough to govern the country by themselves, was pure delusion.

So much for our relations with Egypt internally. Then came Europe and the Powers, and the regulation of a financial situation of indescribable complexity. “I sometimes fear,” Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Granville (Dec. 8, (M45) 1884), “that some of the foreign governments have the same notion of me that Nicholas was supposed to have of Lord Aberdeen. But there is no one in the cabinet less disposed than I am to knuckle down to them in this Egyptian matter, about which they, except Italy, behave so ill, some of them without excuse.” “As to Bismarck,” he said, “it is a case of sheer audacity, of which he has an unbounded stock.” Two months before he had complained to Lord Granville of the same powerful personage: “Ought not some notice to be taken of Bismarck’s impudent reference to the English exchequer? Ought you to have such a remark in your possession without protest? He coolly assumes in effect that we are responsible for all the financial wants and occasions of Egypt.”

The sensible reader would resist any attempt to drag him into the Serbonian bog of Egyptian finance. Nor need I describe either the protracted conference of the European Powers, or the mission of Lord Northbrook. To this able colleague, Mr. Gladstone wrote on the eve of his departure (Aug. 29, 1884):—

I cannot let you quit our shores without a word of valediction.
Your colleagues are too deeply interested to be impartial judges
of your mission. But they certainly cannot be mistaken in their
appreciation of the generosity and courage which could alone have
induced you to undertake it. Our task in Egypt generally may not
unfairly be called an impossible task, and with the impossible no
man can successfully contend. But we are well satisfied that
whatever is possible, you will achieve; whatever judgment,
experience, firmness, gentleness can do, will be done. Our
expectations from the nature of the case must be moderate; but be
assured, they will not be the measure of our gratitude. All good
go with you.

Lord Northbrook’s report when in due time it came, engaged the prime minister’s anxious consideration, but it could not be carried further. What the Powers might agree to, parliament would not look at. The situation was one of the utmost delicacy and danger, as anybody who is aware of the diplomatic embarrassments of it knows. An agreement with France about the Suez Canal came to nothing. A conference upon finance came to nothing. Bismarck was out of humour with England, partly from his dislike of certain exalted English personages and influences at his own court, partly because it suited him that France and England should be bad friends, partly because, as he complained, whenever he tried to found a colony, we closed in upon him. He preached a sermon on _do ut des_, and while scouting the idea of any real differences with this country, he hinted that if we could not accommodate him in colonial questions, he might not find it in his power to accommodate us in European questions. Mr. Gladstone declared for treating every German claim in an equitable spirit, but said we had our own colonial communities to consider.

In March 1885, after negotiations that threatened to be endless, the London Convention was signed and the riddle of the financial sphinx was solved. This made possible the coming years of beneficent reform. The wonder is, says a competent observer, how in view of the indifference of most of the Powers to the welfare of Egypt and the bitter annoyance of France at our position in that country, the English government ever succeeded in inducing all the parties concerned to agree to so reasonable an arrangement.(73)

Meanwhile, as we shall see all too soon, the question of Egypt proper, as it was then called, had brought up the question of the Soudan, and with it an incident that made what Mr. Gladstone called “the blackest day since the Phœnix Park.” In 1884 the government still seemed prosperous. The ordinary human tendency to croak never dies, especially in the politics of party. Men talked of humiliation abroad, ruin at home, agricultural interests doomed, trade at a standstill—calamities all obviously due to a government without spirit, and a majority with no independence. But then humiliation, to be sure, only meant jealousy in other countries because we declined to put ourselves in the wrong, and to be hoodwinked into unwise alliances. Ruin only meant reform without revolution. Doom meant an inappreciable falling off in the vast volume of our trade.