QUEEN VICTORIA AND MR. GLADSTONE [To the Editor of THE
SPECTATOR.]
Sta,—In your issue of June 25th Mr. Christopher Hobhouse alludes to " The old lady who made Bismarck sweat with fright " (sic) and " handled " Mr. Gladstone, " whom she alone assessed at the valuation with which posterity agrees." Is this history or comic opera ? If it means anything it means that we, " posterity," reviewing the stateQmanship of the last quarter of the last century, consider Gladstone to have been wrong and Queen Victoria right. Which is absurd.
I appeal to the facts and the maps of Europe. What of the two major questions in England's foreign and domestic policy in 5879 ? The Bulgarian Atrocities and Irish Home Rule were dividing our sympathies. Gladstone exposed and reprobated the massacres. Disraeli—in office—minimised, palliated, denied the facts. Her Majesty the Queen vehemently supported her favourite. To her the murdered wretches were "creatures scarce worthy the name of Christians" (sic). Two Commissions, one of them American, proved Gladstone right and Disraeli wrong. A general election swept the Conservatives from office. Gladstone's fervid pamphlets and oratory carried everything before them. But H.M. the Queen was unconvinced, was bitterly offended, declared that she would not have Gladstone for her Minister, sent for Lord Hartington, who, most unwillingly, made some futile attempts to form a Cabinet before throwing in his hand. Her Majesty bowed to circumstances (" I am no longer Queen . . . Mr. Gladstone is King ! ") She was never appeased. She had been, or felt she had been, outraged by his " Mid- lothian campaign " (Why ?) and it is said consulted her (Con- servative) Ministers as to suggest his impeachment. She is believed to have threatened abdication. But the world moved on. If Mr. Hothouse will consult any modern atlas he will
find- the kingdom of Bulgaria in the position it presently occupied. Its ruler today is King Boris, a popular man and now with a son and heir. The Sultan has disappeared ; whatever " posterity " may " agree," and, judged by the logic of events, H.M. Queen Victoria's " handling " of her greatest subject was ineffectual, but had wrought no definite mischief.
It was otherwise in the Home Rule dispute. There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. Everyone, even Mr. Hobhouse's " posterity," admits today that England missed the golden hour in her treatment of Ireland. That hour struck, but again H.M. the Queen would not listen, was for holding back the hands of the clock. Mr. Gladstone was in office. Home Rule had passed the Lower House, but was hung up in the Upper. Her Majesty was caballing behind the scenes with the leaders of the Opposition—an unconstitutional act for a limited monarch. She presently refused to create peers to pass the Bill in the Upper House and the golden moment passed.
Was this " handling " of Gladstone well done, or ill done, and what does posterity think of it ? Mr. Gladstone died, and the Royal Lady, his implacable enemy, died, still unap- peased. But the demand for Home Rule lived on and a Bill for its promulgation was passed by a predominantly Con- servative_ Government at no " golden moment," but after bloodshed and turmoil and under strong suggestions from our brothers across the sea. What might have been, and should have been, granted to a grateful and still loyal Ireland, was given grudging y and too late. Say, was the delay the fault of Mr. Gladstone, or whose ?—Yours, &c.,
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