III.

Gladstone’s Leaderships

Gladstone became prime minister for the first time after the 1868 general election, held after the extension of the franchise under the Second Reform Act of 1867. The Liberals won 387 seats, the Conservatives 271. The Liberals were strong in the boroughs, other than in Middlesex (the beginning of the swing of the suburban vote to the Conservatives) and in Lancashire (where anti-Irish sentiments boosted Protestantism in politics). The Liberals were also strong in Scotland and Wales, and, more generally, with Nonconformist voters.

The first Gladstone government disestablished the Church of Ireland in 1869 and passed the Irish Land Act of 1870, which offered some measure of security to tenant farmers. It also provided a range of social reforms that went some way in offering equality of opportunity in the civil service, the army, and the universities, as well as improving elementary education (the great Education Act of 1870), introducing the secret ballot for electors, and improving the judicial system. While the impact of the reforms should not be exaggerated, they were fair in their direction and were popular with the middle classes. However, many middle-class voters, especially in the southern of England, appear to have feared that Gladstone might take further reform too far for them. Also, Gladstone’s foreign policy, in which he preferred arbitration to assertion of imperial strength and wished to cut costs, allowed Disraeli to appear the successor to Palmerston in such matters. In 1874, with support for his government crumbling, Gladstone went to the country with plans for cuts in military expenditure, and the abolition of income tax and the duty on sugar. The result was the first outright victory for the Conservatives since 1841 (Conservatives 342 seats, Liberals 251, Irish Nationalists 59). After the electoral defeat, Gladstone withdrew from active leadership, and formally resigned as leader of the Liberal Party in January 1875. So the opposition to Disraeli’s government of 1874-1880 was led by Earl Granville in the House of Lords, and Spencer Compton Cavendish, Lord Hartington (the heir of the Duke of Devonshire), in the Commons.

Gladstone, always at his best when acting with a strong current of public opinion in his favour, emerged from retirement in 1876 to condemn Turkish massacres in Bulgaria. He then engaged in a further moral campaign condemning the foreign policy of the Earl of Beaconsfield (Queen Victoria had awarded Disraeli this title in 1876) in 1879 and 1880 as he conducted his ultimately successful bid for the Tory Scottish country seat of Midlothian. In the 1880 general election, held during a period of economic gloom, especially in agriculture, the Liberals swept to victory, winning 353 seats to the Conservatives’ 238 and the Irish Nationalists’ 65. The Liberals recovered their strong grip on boroughs, further strengthened their position in Scotland and Wales, and made some inroads into English counties. Gladstone’s Midlothian campaigns, his powerful presence in the Commons, and the scale of the Liberal victory enabled him to resume the premiership and the Liberal leadership.

Gladstone’s second government (1880-1885) was disappointing for many Liberals. It did bring in the Third Reform Act, which increased the electorate of the United Kingdom from some 3.1 million to roughly 5.6 million (about 56 per cent of all adult males), and the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act, 1883, which set severe penalties for electoral misdeeds. Otherwise, after a number of minor measures in its first year, Irish and British Empire issues overshadowed its domestic reform policies. Irish policy was marked both by the Irish Land Act of 1881, which went much further than that of 1870 in providing security to tenant farmers, and by coercive measures, especially after the 1882 assassination of the Chief Secretary and Under-Secretary for Ireland in Phoenix Park, Dublin. There were serious tensions within the Cabinet over imperial policy: too much gunboat diplomacy for some in intervening in Egypt in 1882, and too little for others, in the Transvaal after the defeat of British forces by rebellious Boers under Paul Kruger at Majuba Hill in 1881 and the failure to save General Gordon at Khartoum. The government fell in June 1885, after losing a vote on the budget, and was replaced by a Conservative government under the Marquess of Salisbury. In the autumn general election of that year, the Liberals won 335 seats, half the total, the Conservatives 249, and the Irish Nationalists 86.

Even before this election, Gladstone had been moving towards the policy of Irish Home Rule. His son’s revelation to the press of his views undercut Gladstone’s chances of convincing all his colleagues of the need for the policy. After Charles Stewart Parnell and the Irish Nationalists helped vote out the Conservatives, Gladstone formed a third government (February-July 1886). This presented a Bill for Irish Home Rule to the Commons, but it was rejected by 343 to 313 (with 93 Liberals voting against the bill). Joseph Chamberlain and Hartington were among those who broke with Gladstone and the Liberal Party. In the ensuing general election, the Liberals won only 191 seats, the Irish Nationalists 85, the now separate Liberal Unionists 77, and the Conservatives 317. The residual Liberal Party was very much “the Gladstonian Liberal Party”.

Gladstone’s main, but not exclusive, focus of interest remained Home Rule for Ireland. In the 1892 general election the Liberals won 272 seats and the Irish Nationalists 80, while the Conservatives won 268, and the Liberal Unionists 46 (with 4 others elected). Gladstone formed his fourth government (1892-1894) and in 1893 introduced his second Home Rule Bill. This time it was passed by the House of Commons but rejected by the House of Lords. The defeat in the Lords by 419 to 41 votes revealed how little remained of Whig aristocratic support for Gladstonian Liberalism.