CHAPTER X.

1874-1876.

If the result of the general election had come as a surprise, not less unexpected was its immediate effect upon the Minister who was responsible for having brought it about. Members of the Liberal Opposition were filled with dismay one morning-March 13, 1874-on taking up their newspapers at the purport of a letter addressed by Mr Gladstone, their leader in the House of Commons, to Lord Granville, their leader in the House of Lords, in which he indicated his approaching retirement from the leadership of his party.

Now Mr Gladstone was at that time but sixty-four, a period of life certainly not beyond the normal limits of parliamentary activity, his health was understood to be unimpaired, and the only construction to be placed upon this precipitate act was that he was suffering from chagrin, if not from pique, at the overthrow of his party. It cannot, indeed, have been pleasant for him to reflect that, in dealing with the Irish Church and in pressing the Ballot Act through the House of Commons, he had, in order to secure support for his party, thrown overboard principles which he had cherished through many years of public life, and that, after all this sacrifice, he had failed of his reward. Of course the gain to Ministerialists was proportionate to the confusion caused by this announcement in the ranks of their opponents. A leaderless Opposition is a transcendental state of parties which a Prime Minister may see in his dreams, but hardly ever hope to see realised. There was the more reason for gratitude for this unlooked-for dispensation, because Ministers could not but be conscious that they came on the boards without any very dazzling or seductive pro

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gramme. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had inherited a large surplus from his predecessors, and something might be expected in the way of Income-Tax reduction and relief of Local Taxation. But gratitude for relief from taxation is altogether out of proportion to the unpopularity incurred when it is necessary to increase it, and already the Opposition press was clamorous for a programme. Where are the measures of the new Government? they asked, and made reply themselves, that, like snakes in Ireland, there were

none.

But indeed the country was only too glad to be spared fresh legislation of the heroic kind. Trade was active; prices were good; to the farmers, if some of them had already descried American competition in the offing, it seemed no bigger than a man's hand. Nobody wanted Ministers to devise an exciting programme of new laws. Disraeli's tact was equal to the occasion: the Opposition was downcast and perplexed, he was careful to give them no point on which they could rally. The word was passed along the Conservative benches that they were to treat their opponents with forbearance—no more taunts about "plundering and blundering," no more recriminations, no challenges to fruitless trials of strength.

Smith settled steadily into harness at the Treasury. Early training made those long office hours, which so severely try the endurance of men brought up to habits of country life and foreign travel, comparatively easy to him. He had, however, to encounter one piece of bad luck, which brought upon him a sharp rebuke from his leader. After a long morning at the Treasury and some hours' attendance in the House, the hard-worked Financial Secretary, seeing matters going smoothly in the House, and reckoning on the usual forbearance of the Opposition not to divide

during the dinner-hour, went quietly home for an hour or two in the evening. A snap division was taken, and the Government was beaten. Next morning Smith received the following reproof:

10 DOWNING STREET, WHITEHALL, May 2, 1874.

Mr Disraeli presents his compliments to Mr W. H. Smith, and much regrets to observe that he was absent on the division which took place last evening at eight o'clk., on the motion of Mr Synan; on which occasion her Majesty's Government was, by reason of the absence of its members, placed in a minority; and he would beg leave to point out how difficult it must become to carry on a Government which cannot reckon on the attendance and support of its members.

To this the Secretary to the Treasury replied:

I have only two words to say with reference to your note of Saturday, and which I own was both just and necessary. I was excessively annoyed at my absence from the Division, and I can fully enter into your feelings of vexation.

If I had supposed it possible that a division could be taken, I should have been in my place; but I shall take very good care to avoid the recurrence of such a mortification so long as I remain a member of the Government.

In his immediate chief, Sir Stafford Northcote, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Smith's lot was cast with one with whom it was easy for him to work on terms of perfect accord. Sir Stafford was not less distinguished by personal amiability than by capacity for financial business, and the combination of these two qualities was present in a remarkable degree in both these men. The lot which brought them together in the same department formed the foundation of an intimate friendship which lasted unimpaired till the death of Northcote in 1887.

Smith passed the last day of 1874 at Bournemouth, where Disraeli had summoned him to consult about the business of the approaching session. Thence he wrote to his wife :

BATH HOTEL, BOURNEMOUTH, 31st Dec. 1874.

I have a good fire in my bedroom, and a good sitting-room, which I share with Mr Corry. Mr Disraeli came in to see me for a

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few minutes, and to tell me there was another king in Europe-a King of Spain. He was very pleasant and cheerful. We are all to dine together to-night-Disraeli, the Lord Chancellor, and Northcote, who has not yet come, having missed his train, poor fellow. Tomorrow I dine with Lord Cairns at his house. I have just called on

Lord Sandon.

Jan. 1, 1875.

We had a pleasant party at dinner-Lord Cairns, Northcote, Dizzy, and Corry-and I think the purpose for which I was asked to come will be attained. At 11, when we parted, Disraeli said, "Well, we have been holding a Cabinet Council, and we must meet again tomorrow morning." I am expecting Lord Cairns and Northcote about 11 to go into details, and in the evening we dine together at Lord Cairns's.

January is a busy month at the Treasury preparing for the work in Parliament, and the busiest man in that department is always the Financial Secretary.

TREASURY, Jan. 12, 1875.

I travelled up very comfortably, and guards and station-master were all very civil to Mr Smith, who seems to be too well-known. . . . At Bristol I found Northcote in the train. He was very cheery. Today I have seen Disraeli and Hunt. D. looks well and happy. I am going now at 5 (or 6) to see Cross, and I shall have another hour and a half before I leave. I am, I think, better-less stiff. Work agrees with me.

I have had a busy day, commencing at 9.30 with G. at Hyde Park St., and going on without cessation up to the present time, 6 P.M., and I shall have at least another hour of it; but much of the work is very interesting, and so are the men who come to me. To-day, Sir John Duffus Hardy, Dr Hooker, Mr Goulburn, Sir Geo. Elliot, Mr Few, and a heap besides.

Jan. 14. dyspeptic weather. The work accumu

All well, but dirty, dull, depressing, damp, Everybody cross and grumpy except Cross. lates, but I think I am driving through it, and I shall be glad to get down to you for a few days.

And now there came what seemed to be the fall of the curtain on a remarkable public career. Shortly before the meeting of Parliament for the session of 1875 a second letter addressed by Mr Gladstone to Lord Granville appeared in the newspapers, announcing that he could "see no public advantage in my continuing to act as the leader

of the Liberal party, and that at the age of sixty-five, and after forty-two years of a laborious public life, I think myself entitled to retire on the present opportunity. This retirement is dictated to me by my personal views as to the best method of spending the closing years of my life." The question was urgent, Who was to follow Mr Gladstone as leader of the Liberal party? If the journals of that day. are referred to, it will be seen that opinion was divided between Mr Forster, Mr Goschen, and Lord Hartington. A meeting to decide on a choice was held at the Reform Club on February 3, which resulted in the election of Lord Hartington to the leadership.

There was some heavy work to get through at the Treasury in these days. A deficit of £700,000 was the result of a scheme of a Sinking Fund for the gradual liquidation of the National Debt, with which Sir Stafford Northcote's name will for many years to come be associated. As Northcote expressed himself in explaining his proposal to the House

"I think we have arrived at a time when we may fairly say that, having the means, we ought to devote some of our attention and some of our wealth to a continuous effort to reduce the National Debt."

Under this scheme the total charge to be provided annually for the interest and redemption of the debt was fixed at £28,000,000, whereby the Chancellor of the Exchequer calculated that in ten years £6,800,000 would be paid off; in thirty years, £213,000,000. That it has proved a sound. and far-sighted proposal cannot now be disputed; at the same time it must be admitted that its weakness is the temptation it leaves to every succeeding Finance Minister to suspend the payment to the Sinking Fund in years of leanness. It is so much easier to stop paying off debt than to levy new taxes.