WE must decline, in this sketch, to accompany Mr Gladstone in his Continental tour, as well as to criticise the literary effort in which it resulted. His letters to Lord Aberdeen made some frightful disclosures of the state of things in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and went a great way to stimulate, if they did not immediately provoke, the revolution in Italy, of which Europe is now reaping the fruits. To Mr Gladstone and his friends, especially his new friends of the Manchester School, this may be a source of much self-satisfaction. More sober-minded politicians are not, we suspect, inclined to look at the matter through the same medium. But the point which immediately concerns us is this, that during Mr Gladstone's absence Lord John Russell's Government broke down, and that Lord Derby was called upon by the Queen to form an Administration. Now it stands upon record that, in 1846, the Duke of Wellington committed to Lord Derby the task of reuniting the great Conservative party; and Lord Derby, mindful of that charge, and VOL. XCVII.-NO. DXCIII.

encouraged to take the step by a retrospect of Mr Gladstone's recent votes and speeches, determined to make advances to the Peelites through him, whom he regarded as the ablest member of the little clique. Lord Derby's estimate of Mr Gladstone's ability was doubtless correct, but he had not so accurately gauged Mr Gladstone's firmness of purpose. The real leader of the clique was Sir James Graham; and Mr Gladstone, yielding, as the weaker mind yields to the stronger, consented, though not without a struggle, " to close their ranks against the Conservatives." He rejected Lord Derby's proposal on the ground that, in expressing a determination to do something for the relief of agricultural distress, Lord Derby threatened, in point of fact, to reverse the commercial policy of the last four years. Nothing could be more unfair than this. Lord Derby never uttered any threat of the kind. He preferred, as all reasonable men prefer, a judicious admixture of indirect with direct taxation to direct taxation alone; and expressed an opinion

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that corn exported from abroad is just as legitimate an object of taxation as sugar, tea, spices, oranges, eggs, or any other natural production. But neither now nor at any other time was he so imprudent as to speak about returning to a policy of protection. In this sense, however, Mr Gladstone chose to accept Lord Derby's statements; and so understanding, he refused to cooperate with him in forming a Conservative Administration.

We thought it unfortunate at the moment, and we think so still, that Lord Derby should have put so much store upon the co-operation of the Peelites at that time. Had he accepted the responsibility of office at once, and formed his Government as in the end he was constrained to form it, the chances are that Mr Gladstone would have rendered him an independent support; and by-and-by, if the Administration stood, ways and means might have been found to bring him into it, assuming that the arrangement was judged advisable. But finding that he was actually waited for, that no steps could be taken till he had returned home, and that on his declining to accept office the leader of the Conservative party threw up his cards, Mr Gladstone not unnaturally arrived at the conclusion that of one great party in the House, at all events, he was the master, and that it rested mainly with himself to establish a like ascendancy over the other.

Lord Derby relinquishing the attempt to form an Administration, the Queen, advised by the Duke of Wellington, commanded her Ministers to resume office. They did so, and got through the remainder of the session as well as they could. They were alternately opposed and assisted by Mr Gladstone as the humour seemed to take him. He aided them, for example, in defeating Mr Disraeli's renewed demand to give relief to the suffering agriculturists; he resisted their proposal to continue the income

tax for three years, giving his vote for one year only. Again, when they made a move to repeal the window-tax, and Mr Disraeli opposed the arrangement as premature, Mr Gladstone spoke in favour of the amendment, and took advantage of the occasion to censure severely, though not more severely than they deserved, the whole financial arrangements of the Cabinet. Thus blowing alternately hot and cold, he kept, as he believed, both parties on the tenter-hooks, and more and more established his own right to be esteemed the statesman, without whom no stable Government could be formed.

The recess came, and with it the astounding intelligence that Lord Palmerston had been summarily dismissed from office. A more offensive letter than that which conveyed to the Foreign Secretary his congé has seldom been written. It carried within it the seeds of a severe and speedy retribution.

Parliament met again in February 1852. Lord Palmerston moved an amendment to Lord John Russell's Militia Bill. The amendment was carried by a majority of 11, and the Ministers resigned. There was no shilly-shallying now. Though Mr Gladstone had voted with the majority, it was not considered expedient to apply again for his cooperation. Lord Palmerston, indeed, was sounded, but made no response; and others, who ought to have acted differently, holding back, Lord Derby found himself thrown, so to speak, on his own resources. He made up an Administration out of men, not one of whom, in the House of Commons at least, had ever before been spoken of as a possible candidate for a seat in any Cabinet. Has the country suffered from this bold experiment? Quite otherwise. The new men did their work with an amount of diligence and skill, which surprised their friends almost as much as it disappointed their enemies; and the public has learned

at last to believe that statesmen may be found, on either side of the House, rejoicing in other names than Temple, Russell, Grenville, Peel, Goulburn, or Herries.

Lord Derby's first Administration lasted but a few months. It got nothing like fair-play from an Opposition made up, indeed, of the most discordant elements, but united for one purpose-viz., to break down the Government. Tiding through the remainder of the session, it sustained with courage some sharp conflicts, and then dissolved. The part played by Mr Gladstone in these preliminary skirmishes, though not very prominent, was always characteristic. He resisted Mr Cowan's motion for the repeal of the excise duty on paper, and lost his temper while discussing the affairs of the Church in the colonies. It is not our province to say whether Mr Gladstone was right or wrong in desiring to confer by Act of Parliament selfgovernment on each of the colonial Churches. The time must doubtless come when most of them will assert that right for themselves. But looking at the question from a Churchman's point of view, as it would obviously be desirable, if it were possible, "to maintain for ever the unity of the faith in the bond of peace," so there seems to be no need for precipitating a crisis which national rivalries, as soon as colonies grow into separate nations, are sure to bring on. Such was the view taken of this important subject by Sir John Pakington, the Colonial Secretary. Mr Gladstone saw things in a different light, became irritated by opposition, and spoke of being grossly misrepresented. So offensive, indeed, were both his language and manner, that his best friends took it to heart, and he was obliged, on their remonstrance, to apologise.

The Conservatives went to the country, as they had pledged themselves to do, on the question, whether Sir Robert Peel's commercial

policy was to be maintained in its integrity, or modified so far as to give some relief to the agricultural interests. The verdict of the hustings went against them, and they submitted to it. They acted wisely as well as honourably in so doing, but they failed thereby to win a fair hearing from the Opposition. A clause in the Queen's Speech, while it recognised the general prosperity of the country, recommended an inquiry into the condition of certain exceptional industries which had suffered, or were supposed to have suffered, from recent legislation. That clause being immediately seized upon, a resolution was proposed by Mr Villiers involving a direct vote of want of confidence in the Government. We cannot doubt that the order of the debate which followed still keeps its place in the recollection of our readers. Mr Disraeli moved one amendment, Lord Palmerston moved another. There was nothing hostile in Lord Palmerston's amendment,though Sir James Graham, with his usual bad taste, endeavoured to give to it a tone of bitter hostility. Mr Gladstone, who on former occasions had supported the measures now recommended by Mr Disraeli, spoke against them, and received from Mr Cobden the castigation which such glaring inconsistency deserved. The results were, that Mr Gladstone again lost his temper, and the Government got rid of the vote of want of confidence by adopting Lord Palmerston's motion. But the reprieve, for such in fact it was, soon came to an end. The Budget, not perhaps in all respects perfect, yet containing some excellent and many improvable points, was fiercely assailed. The Radicals, supported by the Whigs, fell upon the proposed house-tax. Sir James Graham stood up for passing tolls and Trinity House dues. Mr Sidney Herbert objected to the modification of the income-tax, and Mr Gladstone was violent and sarcastic upon the estimated surplus of

barely £400,000. After a debate extending by adjournment over many days, the House divided, and Ministers, being left in a minority of nineteen, immediately resigned.

The two great historical parties, the Whigs and the Tories, had thus been separately tried, and both failed. It was clear that for the present at least neither of them could stand alone; and the Radicals being as yet of comparatively small account, except as allies, the Peelites conceived that their turn was come. They were perfectly right; the game was really in their hands. Had they opened a negotiation with the Tories, stating plainly how far they were prepared to go, not in reversing recent legislation, but in adjusting the inequalities produced by it, there is nothing to show that, in spite of recent skirmishes, they might not have found themselves once more among the trusted leaders of their own proper party. A course of action so magnanimous did not, however, suit them. They preferred coalescing with the Whigs, confident, in their self-conceit, that Whiggery under their manipulation would change its character, and counting on that honourable forbearance from the Tories in opposition which they, when in opposition, had not rendered to the Tories. Theirs was the conduct of men whom personal feeling, not honest love of country, moves, and they reaped their reward. The Coalition Ministry, with Lord Aberdeen at its head, carried within itself the seeds of early dissolution. It was a Government of all the talents over again, in which scarcely two men could be said to entertain the same opinions on any question either of foreign or domestic policy.

In this heterogeneous body Mr Gladstone became Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was the post at which, above all others, his ambition then aimed; and in April 1853 he inaugurated his accession to office by a financial statement which

he has since corrected and published. It is as curious a document in many ways as statesman ever compiled. He had been severe on Mr Disraeli in the previous December for announcing a probable surplus of only £400,000. His own budget, grandiloquence and mystification set aside, promised a surplus of only £493,000. Mr Disraeli, as a measure of partial relief to the colonial interests, had proposed that sugar-growers should be allowed to refine their own produce in bond for the home market; Mr Gladstone adopted the idea against which he and his friends had protested, without making the slightest acknowledgment of the source whence it came. Mr Disraeli had grappled with the question of the income-tax, to which he was desirous of giving the character of a property-tax, and the modified operation of which he would have extended to incomes of £100, and even of £50 a-year. Mr Gladstone scouted the idea of distinguishing between certain and uncertain incomes, held it to be impolitic and unjust to depart from the precedent established by Mr Pitt during the height of the great French war; yet he adopted his rival's principle by extending the tax to incomes of £100 a-year, and fixing for these a reduced scale of payment. At the same time he extended the tax to Ireland, which had heretofore been exempt from it, as a set-off against the cancelling of a debt of £4,500,000, to recover which, or even the interest due upon it, had long been felt to be an impossibility.

The noticeable point in Mr Gladstone's scheme was, however, the assurance which he gave that the income-tax should certainly expire in 1860, not suddenly, but by a process of gradual exhaustion, sinking at intervals from 7d. to 5d. in the pound, and then dying out. This done, he proceeded to throw fresh burdens on the land, by equalising the legacy-duties in the cases of real and personal property. He

assured the House that such a change would add immediately £500,000 to the public revenue, and that in 1856-57 the clear gain would be at least £2,000,000. Then came an additional duty of 1s. on Scotch and of 8d. on Irish spirits, and such a change in the tax upon the licences of brewers, maltsters, &c., "as should raise them at the upper end of the scale to a rate bearing some proportion to the value of the premises or the amount of business."

The increased revenue arising from these various sources he proposed to apply to the following purposes: The abolition of the duties on soap, the reduction of the stamp duties, and of the duties on advertisements, attorneys' licences and articles of clerkship, and hackney carriages. Receipt stamps were henceforth to cost a penny, and no more; and the Times' newspaper was to be propitiated by abolishing the tax on supplements. At the same time the assessed taxes were to be remodelled, and Mr Disraeli's proposal to lower the duty on tea adopted. With wine, on the contrary, which had been pressed upon his notice, he refused to meddle; but he reduced the duties on foreign apples, oranges, lemons, butter, eggs, cheese, &c., at rates varying from one-fourth to one-half, and even more. The grand result was such an exposition of financial policy as took captive the imaginations of all who listened to it;-of all, that is to say, who failed to perceive that whatever was really sound in it he had borrowed without acknowledgment from his predecessor in office, and that the rest was either a clever shuffling of the cards, so as to relieve commerce at the expense of agriculture, or a claptrap promise of benefits to come, which have certainly not arrived, though we are now standing at a distance of not less than fourteen years from the day when their coming was promised.

It is not our purpose to follow the fortunes of Lord Aberdeen's Administration. For the policy or no-policy which drifted the country into war, Mr Gladstone is just as responsible as the rest of his colleagues, and not one whit more so. But when Churchmen claim him as peculiarly their own, and set up his merits in that respect as a counterpoise to shortcomings in others, we are bound to remind them that in March 1853 he spoke and voted for the secularisation of the clergy grants in Canada; that in the same month he voted twice for the admission of Jews into Parliament; that in February 1854 he voted against Government inquiry into the management of conventual institutions in Great Britain and Ireland; that in March he supported Mr Heywood's very equivocal application for a copy of the MS. Book of Common Prayer, as it was proposed to be amended in 1689; that in the same month he spoke and voted in favour of Lord John Russell's Oxford University Bill, which, indeed, he had previously assisted in preparing; that he resisted Mr Walpole's wise amendments, though happily they were carried in spite of him; and that when, in May, Sir William Clay proposed to legislate for the unconditional abolition of church-rates, Mr Gladstone gave his vote for leave to bring in the bill. It thus appears that within the short space of fifteen months he manifested his zeal as a Churchman by giving, on seven separate occasions, all the weight of his influence as a parliamentary orator and a Minister of the Crown to measures, every one of which was hostile to the Church's best interests.

If it were worth while to pursue this course of minute analysis further, we might remind our readers that in May 1854 Lord John Russell brought in a bill for dispensing with the oath of abjuration, and that Mr Gladstone supported him. One simple oath of allegiance was to