CHAPTER XX EGYPT AND THE LIBERAL VICTORY AND DISILLUSIONMENT. 'The House knows that for forty years at least I have endeavoured to teach my countrymen an opinion and doctrine which I hold, namely, that the moral law is intended not only for individual life but for the life and practice of States in their dealing with one another. I think that in the present case there has been a manifest violation both of International Law and of the moral law, and therefore it is impossible for me to give my support to it.'-BRIGHT explains his resignation after the Bombardment of Alexandria. House of Commons, July 17, 1882. 'What the view of Ministers may be I know not; but the view of the English people will be, that, if their forefathers had the power to curb a despotic monarchy, you have the power equally to curb an arrogant, and I think-speaking of the majority of the Peers an unpatriotic oligarchy.'BRIGHT at Manchester, July 1884. EVEN after Gladstone's Midlothian campaign of 1879, it was by no means universally expected either that the Liberals would win the coming election, or that, if they did win it, Gladstone would resume the official leadership which he had vacated by his own act five years before. The following letter of John Bright's is addressed, in January 1880, to his friend and correspondent, Mr. Thomas Potter, M.P., who had evidently been writing in a gloomy strain on Liberal prospects, and urging Bright to work for Gladstone's return: 'I do not think the world is coming to an end or this country to ruin. There are ups and downs" in political life. Lately we have had a gloomy period, but more good things have been said during the last year than at any former time, and I think what is moral in our political life has come more to the front. In past times the Liberal party has only been a little less foolish and wicked than the Tories. Now it has pronounced in favor of, to it, new principles, and a new policy. In this I rejoice. 1880] GLADSTONE'S VICTORY 427 'As to leadership, what can I do? When the time comes the necessities of the case will decide the question. I was chairman of the meeting which selected a new leader; it is impossible for me to move. Our friend at Hawarden is full of honorable feeling and he has no idea of playing false to his successor. I rely with perfect confidence on the honor of Granville, Hartington and Gladstone, and am content to leave the future to the future. Any attempt now to force Gladstone into the leadership would fail, as he could not accept it; and the very attempt might do far more damage to the party than the present state of things. I recommend to you that greatest of virtues, Patience. Watch the course of events which often clears up great confusions, and will do so, I do not doubt, in this instance.' The General Election came, and was decided in the first days of April. Contrary to the prophecies of those who knew England through the London Clubs and newspaper offices, Beaconsfield, with his crude Jingo appeal, proved less popular than the idealist of Midlothian. Who then, among the Liberals, had the best claim to the power that victory gives? The exchief, who, fighting in the ranks, had chosen the ground, sounded the onslaught, and won the battle? Or the honourable men who, from no motives of ambition, had performed the thankless tasks of nominal leadership? On April 18 Bright wrote to Mr. Chamberlain: 'I think the power and success of the new Government will be greater in Mr. Gladstone's hands than in any other. I think the country will rejoice if he accepts his old place, although no one undervalues the services or the character of Lord Granville and Lord Hartington.' The course of events led inevitably to Gladstone's Premiership, and he filled up his Cabinet with a goodly supply of Lords and Whigs, balanced by Mr. Chamberlain, and by John Bright, who was again Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Thus Birmingham gave two of its Members to the Cabinet, the one representing the spirit of the new age, the other the victories of the past. Bright wrote in his journal : 'My colleague Chamberlain to be in the Cabinet: will be good for advice and for administration. Shows how by degrees the old exclusive system is breaking down. I wish his coming in would let me out. My head will not stand much excitement, and last night have slept badly. But I do not like to disappoint Mr. Gladstone, and to appear changeable on a matter of importance.' It is difficult in the face of many such entries in his journal, not to feel that he had better have refused office. In these lonely years after his wife's death he was often at Hawarden or at the mansion of some other Liberal grandee. In the winter of 1880 he was at Mentmore with Lord Rosebery, where he witnessed the meet of a stag hunt. 'The stag,' he writes, let out of the van near the house, went off lightly over the fields. The stag is not to be killed-this is understood, and I hope the stag understands it.' There has seldom been a more inspiriting victory than that of 1880, and seldom have the fruits of victory, through combined misfortune and mishandling, tasted so like the fruits of defeat. Bradlaugh, Ireland, Transvaal, Egypt-in these four deep bogs the victorious Liberals floundered for four years, then half extracted themselves by the Act enfranchising the agricultural labourer, only to plunge and disappear in the chasm of Home Rule. The first disenchantment was a split in the party on the question whether Bradlaugh should be allowed to take his seat. The illiberal section of the Liberals joined with the Conservatives to humiliate and out-vote Mr. Gladstone, in order to keep an atheist out of the House. The movement for Bradlaugh's exclusion originated with and was engineered by the Fourth Party. It will be readily admitted that Mr. Gladstone and John Bright knew as much about religion as that jovial pair of crusaders, Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir Drummond Wolff. The two great men who had done most to exalt public life above the material level stood together to resist the imposition of religious tests. To Gladstone the performance of his duty in the Bradlaugh case was more painful than it was to Bright, and therefore even more honourable; for Gladstone wholly disliked everything about Bradlaugh, whereas Bright said one day to his son: It is not Bradlaugh's atheism which they hate, but his unconscious Christianity.' In one of his speeches on the question John Bright shocked the conventionalities by stating that 'to a large extent the working people of the country do not care any more for the dogmas of Christianity than the upper classes care for the practice of that religion.' 1 1 Bradlaugh had his admirers even among old ladies. One of them came to the House to see him, and asked for the Member for Northampton.' She |