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Gladstone and Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2017

E. D. Steele
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Extract

‘ . . . I am as fast bound to Ireland as Ulysses was to his mast’: so Gladstone wrote near the close of his long career to the marquess of Ripon, one of the few liberal peers of high rank and great wealth who remained faithful to him when the party split over home rule in 1886. The remark, and the type of politician to whom it was addressed, are both significant. [Gladstone’s obsession, as many writers have termed it, with the Irish question came increasingly to dominate his political life during its latter, and much more important, half. The statement is often made that this ‘obsession’ held up the reform of British institutions for a generation or more, and in particular the social reforms of which an industrial and urban nation by then stood in grave need. This paper seeks to question the validity of that historical commonplace, for the following reasons.

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Articles
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Irish Historical Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 65 , March 1970 , pp. 58 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1970

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References

1 Gladstone to Ripon, 23 July 1892, in Wolf, Lucien, Life of the first marquess of Ripon (2 vols, London, 1921), ii, 203 Google Scholar.

2 In his corrective essay ‘The working class and the origins of the welfare state’, Mr Henry Pelling is insistent that the workers, being ‘essentially conservative’ and strongly Gladstonian, may have needed social reforms but were not enthusiastic for them, Popular politics and society in late Victorian Britain (London, 1968), pp 13, 17.

3 Stansky, Peter, Ambitions and strategies: the struggle for the leadership of the liberal party in the i8gos (Oxford, 1964), p. xiii Google Scholar.

4 For the proceedings of the conference, see The Times, 2 and 3 Oct. 1891 John Morley (The Times, 2 Oct.) emphasized in his speech, firstly temperance, ‘the deepest moral question that has stirred the hearts and consciences of mankind since the anti-slavery movement’, and, secondly, ‘religious privilege’ in Wales, ‘that great question’. Sir G. O. Trevelyan (ibid.) said: ‘If there was one form of injustice against which the people were more keenly set than another, it was that which took the shape of ecclesiastical assumption and religious privilege.’ The chairman of ithe federation (ibid.) mentioned only (three specific issues in his opening address: Ireland, Welsh disestablishment, and the Welsh liquor bill. Gladstone’s speech (The Times, 3 Oct.) dwelt largely on the Irish question. All this was very well received.

5 Gladstone to Granville, 19 May 1877, in Ramm, Agatha (ed.), The political correspondence of Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville i8j6-i886 (2 vpls, Oxford, 1962 Google Scholar), i, 40. Hereinafter cited as Gladstone-Granville correspondence 1876-86.

6 Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian church, pt I (London, 1966), p. 1 Google Scholar

7 Vincent, John, The formation of the liberal party 185J-68 (London, 1966), esp. pp. xii–xiii, xxvi-vii, xxix-xxx Google Scholar.

8 Granville to Gladstone, 28 Dec. 1885, in Gladstone-Granville correspondence 1876-86, i,i, 420.

9 Hirst, F W., Air Gladstone and home rule, 1885-1892’, in SirReid, Wemyss (ed.), The life of William Ewart Gladstone (London, 1899), p. 684 Google Scholar. Gladstone was speaking to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland.

10 Gladstone, W E., The Irish question (London, 1886), pp 25–6 Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., p. 26.

12 Ibid., pp 26-7, he omitted to mention that of more than 150 British M.P.s returned without a poll, over 100 were opponents of home rule (The Times, 31 July 1886).

13 Ibid., pp 33-4.

14 Ibid., pp 26-33, 37-8, and esp. pp 32-3: ‘the cause of Irish self-government lives and moves. It will arise, as a wounded warrior sometimes arises on the field of battle, and stabs to the heart some soldier of the victorious army, who has been exculiting over him’ For the by-elections, see the comments of F W Hirst in Reid, Gladstone, pp 712-13, 719.

15 In England the unionist majority fell from 211 to 71 seats (Dod 1886, p. 160; 1893, p. 179). At the same time the cabinet was almost certainly right in turning down Gladstone’s proposal to dissolve, that is to stage a constitutional crisis, over the Lords’ behaviour and future powers, Hirst, F- W. ‘Mr Gladstone’s fourth premiership and final retirement, 1892-1897’ in Reid, Gladstone, p. 731 Google Scholar The mass electorate’s conservatism did not favour such a course.

16 Stansky, Ambitions and strategies, p. 295.

17 Morley, John, The life of William Ewart Gladstone (2 vols, new ed., London, 1905), i, pp 874–5 Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., ii, 745.

19 Bagehot, Walter, The English constitution (paperback ed., London, 1963, pp 247–51.Google Scholar

20 Hanham, H. J., Elections and party management in politics in the time of Disraeli and Gladstone (London. 1964), p. xvii Google Scholar.

21 The Times, 4 Feb. 1864.

22 Thompson, F M. L., English landed society in the nineteenth century (London, 1963), p. 27 Google Scholar.

23 W E. to W H. Gladstone, 5 Apr. 1875, in Morley, Gladstone, i, 344-7.

24 W E. to W H. Gladstone, 3 Oct. 1885 (ibid., pp 347-9).

25 F. W Hirst in Reid, Gladstone, p. 580; The Times, 16 Oct. 1871.

26 The Times, 30 Oct. 1871, reporting the speech of 28 Oct.

27 He even laid himself open to the charge that he was excessively deferential to colleagues ( Mackintosh, John P., The British cabinet (London, 1962), p. 300)Google Scholar. For the ascendancy that he established and the resentment he aroused when in a determined mood, see Lowe to Granville, 21 Dec. 1869 (P. R. O., Granville papers, 30/29/66), complaining about colleagues’ submissiveness, and Argyll to Gladstone, 8 Apr. 1881 (B.M., Glastone papers, Add. MS 44105). On both occasions an Irish land bill was under discussion.

28 Gladstone to Argyll, 30 Sept. 1885, in Morley, Gladstone, ii, 461.

29 Gladstone to Granville, 9 Sept. 1885, in Ramm, Agatha (ed.), The political correspondence of Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville 1868-1876, Camden 3rd ser., lxxxi-ii (2 vols, London, 1952), ii, 393 Google Scholar. Hereinafter cited as Gladstone-Granville correspondence 1868–76.

30 Gladstone to Hartington, 10 Nov. 1885, in Morley, Gladstone, ii, 480-1.

31 See the remarks to this effect of Gladstone’s colleague in all his four cabinets, Lord Kimberley, referring to a conversation with Lord Stanley (15th earl of Derby, 1869), in J°hn, first earl of Kimberley, , A journal of events during the Gladstone ministry, 1868-74, p. 1, ed. Drue, Ethual, in Camden miscellany, xxi, Camden 3rd ser., xc (London, 1958)Google Scholar, retrospective entry for Dec. 1868 on the formation of the Gladstone govern ment. Hereinafter cited as Kimberley journal.

32 Copy of Gladstone’s memorandum to the queen of 14 Sept. 1869, in Gladstone-Granville correspondence 1868–76, i, 56–7.

33 Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond, The life of Granville George Leveson Gower, second Earl Granville K.G. 1815-1871 (2 vols, 3rd ed., London, 1905, ii, 3–4 Google Scholar.

34 Gladstone to Granville, 19 May 1877, in Gladstone-Granville correspondence 1876-86, i, 40.

35 Chamberlain’s personal explanation of the ‘Radical programme’s’ most controversial aspects when he visited Hawarden in October 1885, evidently impressed Gladstone by its moderation. The latter particularly disliked the proposal to grant local authorities powers for the compulsory purchase of land, and was relieved by ‘the intimation that this would not amount to much in practice (Gladstone to Granville, 8 and 12 Oct. 1885, in Gladstone-Granville correspondence 1876-86, ii, 403-4, 409).

36 Gladstone to Granville, 8 Oct. 1885, in Gladstone-Granville correspondence 18-86, ii, 405-6.

37 The Times, 7 Apr. 1866, reporting the speech of the previous day; for the feeling that Gladstone excited against himself by revealing the warmth of his sympathy with the aspirations to ithe franchise of respect able working-men, see Morley, Gladstone, i, 837.

38 His speech at Edinburgh, 30 June 1892, quoted by F W Hirst ‘Mr Gladstone’s fourth premiership and final retirement 1892-1897 ‘in Reid, Gladstone, p. 722.

39 Gladstone’s comment on his government’s clash with the house of lords over the third reform bill, in Morley, Gladstone, ii, 370.

40 Gladstone, W E., ‘Notes and queries on the Irish demand’ in Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1887, p. 81.Google Scholar

41 Stansky, Ambitions and strategies, p. 85; see also pp 67 and 71 where Spencer is described as ‘weaker ‘than the main contenders for the succession. Gladstone thought otherwise in a retrospective memorandum cited by Mr Stansky in the first footnote (no. 30) to p. 85 of his book.

42 Hansard 3, ccxciii, 364 (28 Oct. 1884).

43 John Morley, who certainly did not make a cult of aristocracy, wrote of Spencer in the context of the intra-party discussions on home rule in 1885-6: ‘Lord Spencer was hardly second in weight to Mr Glad stone himself’, and ascribed the earl’s influence to ‘his powers of fixed decision in difficult circumstances, and the impression of high public spirit, uprightness, and fortitude,, which had stamped itself deep on the public mind’ (Morley, Gladstone, ii, 501).

44 Hansard 3, ccciv, 1050 (8 Apr. 1886).

45 Stansky, Ambitions and strategies, pp 86-7.

46 Morley, Gladstone, i, 348.

47 Gladstone’s account in old age of his early religious history (ibid., i, 159-62).

48 Gladstone to the Hon. Maud Stanley, 27 Nov. 1855, in D. Lathbury, G. (ed.), Correspondence on church and religion of William Ewart Gladstone (2 vols, London, 1910), ii, 28 Google Scholar.

49 F W Hirst, ‘Mr Gladstone’s first premiership’ in Reid, Gladstone, p. 547, quoting Gladstone’s publication of his views in A letter to the Right Rev. Skinner, William, D.D., bishop of Aberdeen and primus, on the functions of laymen in the church (London, 1852 Google Scholar).

50 Morley, Gladstone, i, 409-15, Gladstone told ithe commons: ‘This great people, whom we have the honour to represent, moves slowly in politics and legislation; but, although it moves slowly, it moves steadily. The principle of religious freedom was a principle which you did not adopt in haste’ (ibid., p. 412).

51 F- W Hirst in Reid, Gladstone p. 546.

52 Morley, Gladstone, i, 776.

53 Hansard 3, cxc, 1764-70 (16 Mar. 1868).

54 Gladstone to Northcote, 9 Aug. 1865, in Lathbury, Correspondence,

55 Fitzmaurice, Granville, ii, 3.

56 See F W Hirst in Reid, Gladstone, first footnote to p. 540.

57 Ibid., p. 538.

58 Gladstone to Acton, 8 Jan.; to Manning, 16 Apr. 1870, in Lathbury, Correspondence, ii, 51-4.

59 Norman, E. R., The catholic church and Ireland in the age of rebellion, 1859-1873 (London, 1965), pp 129–33 Google Scholar. One must question Dr Norman’s view that ‘Fenianism as a serious political influence in Ireland, was already a spent force’ (p. 133). The viceroy of Ireland, Lord Spencer, did not think so in a memorandum on Irish politics, dated 22 Nov. 1873, which is in the MSS of the 8th duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth.

60 Gladstone to Acton, 8 Jan. 1870, in Lathbury, Correspondence, ii, 51

61 Morley, Gladstone, ii, 42-53.

62 Moreover, Gladstone and his colleagues were well aware of the political dangers beforehand (Kimberley journal, p. 35, entry for 1 Jan. 1873).

63 The liberal party had 65 out of 105 Irish seats in 1868; in 1874 members elected as liberals numbered only 10 ( Thornley, David, Isaac Butt and home rule (London, 1964, p. 207)Google Scholar. Thetories’ overall majority was about 50 but Gladstone wrote: ‘the weight of .the home rulers clearly told more in the favour of the ministry than of the opposition; and the liberal party would have been stronger not weaker had the entire body been systematically absent ‘(Morley, Gladstone, ii, 99, an excerpt from Gladstone’s article on’ Electoral facts ‘in Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1878).

64 Gladstone to Ripon, 4 Oct. 1874, in Wolf, Ripon, i, 302.

65 Gladstone, The Vatican decrees, pp 58-60.

66 Ibid., p. 60.

67 Ibid., pp 55, 41

68 Ibid., p. 55.

69 Ibid., p. 12.

70 Ibid., pp 50-1; and see Gladstone to Granville, 2 Nov. 1874, in Gladstone-Granville correspondence 1868-76, ii, 458, on the forthcoming pamphlet: ‘my proper and main motive has been this: the conviction I have that they are waiting, in one vast conspiracy, for an opportunity to direct European war to ithe re-establishment by force of the temporal power; or even to bring about such war for that purpose’

71 Morley, Gladstone, ii, 127.

72 Gladstone to Granville, 2 and 25 Nov. 1874, in Gladstone-Granville correspondence 1868-76, ii, pp 458, 460. The italics are Gladstone’s.

73 Granville to Gladstone, 11 Oct., 21 Nov. 1877, in Gladstone-Granville correspondence 1876-86 i, 55, 59.

74 Gladstone to Newman, 17 Dec. 1881, in Morley, Gladstone, ii, pp 302-3.

75 Ibid., p. 303; Gladstone ito Granville, 4 Jan. 1882, in Gladstone- Granville correspondence 1876-86, i, 327; and see first footnote to that page, summarizing Newman’s letter of 2 Jan.

76 Hansard 3, cclxviii, 899 (18 Apr. 1882).

77 The Times, 31 July 1890, reporting the speech of the previous day at the National Liberal Club.

78 The bills are in parliamentary papers, H.C. 1886 (sess. 1) (bill 181), ii, 461; and H.C. 1893-4 (bill 209), iii, 251

79 Gladstone, The Irish question, p. 5.

80 All these precursors of home rule had been discussed by Gladstone and his colleagues (Morley, Gladstone, ii, 431-4); Hammond, J. L., Gladstone and the Irish nation (London, 1938), pp 258–62 Google Scholar.

81 See footnote 121 below.

82 Gladstone mentioned such complaints by Chamberlain to Lords Hartington and Northbrook, erstwhile cabinet colleagues, in The Irish question, pp 6-8.

83 Ibid., p. 8.

84 Ibid., pp 16-17.

85 Government of Ireland: a bill [as amended in committee] to amend the provisions for the government of Ireland, p. 1, H.C. 1893-4 (bill 428), iii, 291). The preamble of the bill as introduced made the same point in less emphatic terms. Moreover, this bill, again unlike that of 1886, pre served Irish representation at Westminster.

86 These speeches are among those listed by Morley, Gladstone, ii, 846-76 in his ‘Chronology’ of Gladstone’s career from 1832.

87 Hansard 3, ccciv, 1042 (8 Apr. 1886).

88 Mansergh, Nicholas, The Irish question 1840-1921 (London, 1965), p. 119 Google Scholar.

89 Shannon, R. T., Gladstone and the Bulgarian agitation (London, 1963 Google Scholar p. 275.

90 The Times, 15 Oct. 1864, reporting his speech at Manchester on the previous day.

91 Morley, Gladstone, i, 597-620, and esp. p. 615.

92 Papers relative to the mission of the Rt. Hon. W E. Gladstone to the Ionian Islands in the year 1858, p. 53, [C 2891], H.C. 1861, lxvii, 77, the Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary’s speech of 16 Dec. 1858 in reply to an address in favour of union with Greece presented by the archbishop of Zante. Gladstone spoke with truly proconsular firmness: ‘I find that many persons still believe that in these times, in the present state of Europe and of the eastern question, the idea of union with . Greece, is practicable, and further that such an idea may be more speedily realized by coupling it with my supposed philhellenism. In this . they are deceived’ He continued: ‘what is this idea of nationality, taken as the rule and guide for these islands, when neither time, nor manner, nor persons, nor means nor consequences, nor, in one word, facts, admit of it? When thus viewed, it is assuredly a phantom and a dream.’

93 Morley, Gladstone, i, 618.

94 The Vatican decrees, p. 51, where he referred to ‘the duties of England, as one (so to speak) of its [Europe’s] constabulary authorities’

95 Hansard 3, clxii, 1683 (7 May 1861).

96 Morley, Gladstone, i, 623-4, 628, 635-51

97 Hirst, F W., ‘Mr Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1853, 1859-65’, in Reid, , Gladstone, p. 446 Google Scholar.

98 Hansard 3, clxxiv, 377-8 (18 Mar. 1864).

99 ‘Notes and queries on the Irish demand’ in Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1887, p. 79.

100 Hansard 3, clxii, 1703 (7 May 1861).

101 The Times, 15 Oct. 1864.

102 Kimberley journal, entry for 14 Dec. 1869.

103 Hansard 3, clxxxi, 272 (8 Feb. 1866).

104 Mansergh, Irish question, p. 119.

105 G. P Fortesque to Gladstone, 7 Jan. 1870 (B.M., Gladstone papers, Add. MS 44122). Fortesque mentioned Lowe’s use of these words in cabinet.

106 Gladstone to Argyll, 4 Dec. 1869 and 8 Jan. 1870 (B.M., Glad stone papers, Add. MSS 44537 and 44101). Gladstone visited Ireland only once, in 1877, for just over three weeks (Morley, Gladstone, ii, 179).

107 E.g. Lowe to Granville, 21 Dec. 1869 (P.R.O., Granville papers, 30/29/66).

108 Memorandum of 11 Dec. 1869 by Gladstone on the Irish land bill (B.M., Gladstone papers, Add. MS 44758). For this whole episode, see Steele, E. D., ‘Irish land reform and English liberal politics, 1865-70 (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cambridge University Library, 1963)Google Scholar, and ‘Ireland and the empire in the 1860s: imperial precedents for Gladstone’s first Irish land act ‘in Hist. Jn. (1968).

109 Hansard 3, cclxi, 601 (16 May 1881).

110 Hansard 3, ccciv, 1787 (16 Apr. 1886).

111 Dufferin to Sir J F Stephen, 28 July 1886, in SirLyall, Alfred, The life of the marquis of Dufferin & Ava (2 vols, London, 1905), ii, 139–40 Google Scholar.

112 Morley, Gladstone, ii, 769.

113 Gladstone to B. M. Malabari, of Bombay, 20 July 1889, in Lathbury, Correspondence, ii, 118.

114 Gladstone on the home rule bill in Hansard 3, ccciv, 1542 (13 Apr. 1886).

115 See p. 2 in H.C. 1886 (sess. 1) (bill 181), ii, 466; p. 2 in H.C. 1893-4 (bill 209), iii, 256.

116 ‘A bill for the weakening of Great Britain ‘; the quotation is from p. 554.

117 Hansard 4, x, 1603 (6 Apr. 1893).

118 Gladstone, W E., ‘England’s mission’, in Nineteenth Century, Sept. 1878, p. 569 Google Scholar: ‘The sentiment of empire may be called innate in every Briton. If there are exceptions, they are like those of men blind or lame. It is part of our patrimony ‘It was only to ‘domineering excess ‘in this respect that Gladstone objected. In a speech at Liverpool on 12 Oct. 1864 he had warned his countrymen against trying to do too much in foreign and imperial policy, but referring to ‘those immediate duties with which Providence has charged us’, he said ‘These duties are not slight. It is impossible that to a country like England the affairs of foreign nations can ever be indifferent’ (The Times, 13 Oct. 1864). For Mill on the imperial role of Britain, see Considerations on representative government (Everyman’s library ed., London, 1954), p. 380.

119 P 22.

120 The Times, 27 Sept. 1871, reporting the speech of the previous day, in which, after making rather heavy fun of Isaac Butt and Irish home rule he mentioned the possibility of some lightening of parliament’s burdens for the good of all parts of the United Kingdom.

121 Compare the Aberdeen speech; his election address in 1874, printed in The Times on 24 Jan.; the extract quoted by F W Hirst from his speech at Dalkeith on 26 Nov. 1879, in Reid, op. cit., p. 634, his affirmation with reference to Irish land in 1882, that local government was ‘a great source of strength, and that in principle the only necessary limit to those powers is the adequate and certain provision for the supremacy of the central authority’ (Hansard 3, cclxvi, 866 (16 Feb. 1882)); and finally, the extracts quoted by Hirst from his election address of September 1885 and his speeches of 9 and 11 November following at Edinburgh, in Reid, Gladstone, pp 689, 694, 692. Despite Gladstone’s claim in The Irish question (p. 20), that the address indicated that his thinking had by then progressed beyond ‘local government’, his broad est hint there of the kind of reform that he had in mind, was a reference to ‘enlarged powers for the management of their own affairs’, which undoubtedly offset the portentous language about the contemplated change for Ireland—‘Without doubt we have arrived at an important epoch in her history . ‘In the speeches of 9 and 11 Nov. he spoke of a settlement’ which goes down to -the very roots and foundations of our whole civil and political constitution’, and he instanced these words in his pamphlet (p. 20). But he also referred to ‘large local powers of self-government ‘(9 Nov.). It is hardly surprising that people felt that they had been misled.

122 The Irish question, pp 5-6. Household suffrage in borough constituencies had been withheld from Ireland in 1868, although established in Britain by the act of the year before (ibid., p. 13).

123 Preston, Adrian (ed.), In relief of Gordon: Lord Wolseley’s campaign journal of the Khartum relief expedition 1884-1885, p. 80, entry for 4 Dec. 1884 Google Scholar.

124 Ibid., p. 169, entry for 16 Mar. 1885.

125 Lecky, W E. H., Democracy and liberty (2 vols, new ed., London, 1899), i, xxvi Google Scholar. Lecky discerned the same flaw in Newman, too (ibid.).

126 Hair splitting as a fine art: letters to my son Herbert, ran the title of an anonymous pamphlet published in London in 1882.

127 Morley, Gladstone, i, 210-12.

128 Deacon, Richard, The private life of Mr Gladstone (London, 1965) on p. 42 Google Scholar the author quotes Mayhew’s contemporary estimate in London labour and the London poor that there were 80,000 prostitutes in London at the mid-century. The population of the London area was just under 2.7 millions in 1851

129 Morley, Gladstone, ii, 521, entry for 29 Dec. 1885.

130 Henry, John, Newman, Cardinal, Apologia pro vita sua (Every man’s library ed., London, 1949), p. 183 Google Scholar.

131 Morley, Gladstone, i, 205-6: ‘daily prayer in the morning and evening daily reading of the holy scripture and most beneficial the habit of inwardly turning the thoughts to God, though but for a moment in the course of or during the intervals of our business; which continually presents occasions requiring his aid and guidance ‘This advice to a son, dated 7 Oct. 1872, was, as his agnostic biographer and friend recorded, ‘the actual description of his own lifelong habit and unbroken practice’