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The Grand Old Man

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All these answers, were in truth no replies at all, for they did not
disprove the facts. These professed corrections of Mr. Gladstone's
statements did not touch the real basis of the question. It was
necessary to say something if possible by way of defense, or justice,
which had as yet not been done.

There was one reply that was put forth that Mr. Gladstone felt demanded
some attention, namely, the official answer of the Neapolitan Government
to his charges. To this he replied in a letter, in 1852. In his reply he
placed, point by point, the answers in the scales along with his own
accusations. There was in the Neapolitan answers to the letters really a
tacit admission of the accuracy of nine-tenths of Mr. Gladstone's
statements, Mr. Gladstone enumerated the few retractions which he had
to make, which were five in number. That the prisoner, Settembrine, had
not been tortured and confined to double chains for life, as was
currently reported and believed; that six judges had been dismissed at
Reggio upon presuming to acquit a batch of political prisoners, required
modifying to three; that seventeen invalids had not been massacred in
the prison of Procida during a revolt, as stated; and that certain
prisoners alleged to have been still incarcerated after acquittal had
been released after the lapse of two days. These were all the
modifications he had to make in his previous statements. And as to the
long list of his grave accusations, not one of them rested upon hearsay.
He pointed out how small and insignificant a fraction of error had found
its way into his papers. He fearlessly reasserted that agonizing
corporal punishment was inflicted by the officials in Neapolitan
prisons, and that without judicial authority. As to Settembrine, the
political prisoner named, he was incarcerated in a small room with eight
other prisoners, one of whom boasted that he had murdered, at various
times, thirty-five persons. Several of his victims had been his prison
companions, and "the murders of this Ergastolo" had exceeded fifty in a
single year. It was true that at the massacre at Procida the sick had
not been slain in the prisons, yet prisoners who hid under beds were
dragged forth and shot in cold blood by the soldiery after order had
been restored. The work of slaughter had been twice renewed, and two
officers received promotion or honors for that abominable enormity.

Mr. Gladstone found in the reply of the Government of Naples no reason
to retract his damaging statements in reference to Neapolitan
inhumanity, on the other hand he discovered grounds for emphasizing his
accusations. And as to his statement regarding the number of the
sufferers from Neapolitan injustice and cruelty, he defended at length
his statement as to the enormous number of the prisoners.

It was clear to all candid minds that all the replies had failed to
prove him wrong in any of his substantial changes, which retained their
full force. "The arrow has shot deep into the mark," observed Mr.
Gladstone, "and cannot be dislodged. But I have sought, in once more
entering the field, not only to sum up the state of the facts in the
manner nearest to exactitude, but likewise to close the case as I began
it, presenting it from first to last in the light of a matter which is
not primarily or mainly political, which is better kept apart from
Parliamentary discussion, which has no connection whatever with any
peculiar idea or separate object or interest of England, but which
appertains to the sphere of humanity at large, and well deserves the
consideration of every man who feels a concern for the well-being of
his race, in its bearings on that well-being; on the elementary demands
of individual domestic happiness; on the permanent maintenance of public
order; on the stability of thrones; on the solution of that great
problem, which, day and night, in its innumerable forms must haunt the
reflections of every statesman, both here and elsewhere, how to
harmonize the old with the new conditions of society, and to mitigate
the increasing stress of time and change upon what remains of this
ancient and venerable fabric of the traditional civilization of Europe."

Mr. Gladstone also said, that the question had been asked, whether a
government "could be induced to change its policy, because some
individual or other had by lying accusations held it up to the hatred of
mankind," yet he had the satisfaction of knowing that upon the challenge
of a mere individual, the government of Naples had been compelled to
plead before the tribunal of general opinion, and to admit the
jurisdiction of that tribunal. It was to public sentiment that the
Neapolitan Government was paying deference when it resolved on the manly
course of a judicial reply; and he hoped that further deference would be
paid to that public sentiment in the complete reform of its departments
and the whole future management of its affairs.

After a consideration of the political position of the throne of the
Two Sicilies, in connection with its dominions on the mainland, Mr.
Gladstone thus concluded his examination of the official reply of the
Neapolitan Government: "These pages have been written in the hope that,
by thus making, through the press, rather than in another mode, that
rejoinder to the Neapolitan reply which was doubtless due from me, I
might still, as far as depended on me, keep the question on its true
ground, as one not of politics but of morality, and not of England but
of Christendom and of mankind. Again I express the hope that this may be
my closing word. I express the hope that it may not become a hard
necessity to keep this controversy alive until it reaches its one only
possible issue, which no power of man can permanently intercept. I
express the hope that while there is time, while there is quiet, while
dignity may yet be saved in showing mercy, and in the blessed work of
restoring Justice to her seat, the Government of Naples may set its hand
in earnest to the work of real and searching, however quiet and
unostentatious, reform; that it may not become unavoidable to reiterate
these appeals from the hand of power to the one common heart of mankind;
to produce these painful documents, those harrowing descriptions, which
might be supplied in rank abundance, of which I have scarcely given the
faintest idea or sketch, and which, if laid from time to time before the
world, would bear down like a deluge every effort at apology or
palliation, and would cause all that has recently been made known to be
forgotten and eclipsed in deeper horrors yet; lest the strength of
offended and indignant humanity should rise up as a giant refreshed with
wine, and, while sweeping away these abominations from the eye of
Heaven, should sweep away along with them things pure and honest,
ancient, venerable, salutary to mankind, crowned with the glories of the
past and still capable of bearing future fruit."

The original purpose of these letters, though at first not gained, was
unmistakable in the subsequent revolution which created a regenerated,
free and united Italy. The moral influence of such an exposure was
incalculable and eventually irresistible. The great Italian patriot and
liberator of Italy, General Garibaldi, was known to say that Mr.
Gladstone's protest "sounded the first trumpet call of Italian liberty."
If France and England had unitedly protested against the Neapolitan
abuse of power and violation of law, such a protest would have been
heard and redress granted, but such joint action was not taken. The
letters reached the fourteenth edition and in this edition Mr. Gladstone
said that by a royal decree, issued December 27, 1858, ninety-one
political prisoners had their punishment commuted into perpetual exile
from the kingdom of the two Sicilies, but that a Ministerial order of
January 9, 1859, directed that they should be conveyed to America; that
of these ninety-one persons no less than fourteen had died long before
in dungeons, and that only sixty-six of them embarked January 16, 1859,
and were taken to Cadiz, where they were shipped on board an American
sailing vessel, which was to have carried them to New York, but
eventually landed them at Cork. "Eleven men were kept behind, either
because it was afterwards thought advisable not to release them, as in
the case of Longo and Delli Franci, two artillery officers, who were
still in the dungeons of Gaeta. Whenever the prisoners were too sick to
be moved, as was the case with Pironti, who was paralytic; or because
they were in some provincial dungeons too remote from Naples." Such was
the fate of some of the patriots officially liberated by Ferdinand's
successor, Francis II.

The charges of Mr. Gladstone against the Neapolitan Government met with
confirmation from another source nearer home. In 1851 Mr. Gladstone
translated and published Farini's important and bulky work, entitled,
"The Roman State, from 1815 to 1850." The author, Farini, addressed a
note to his translator, in which he said that he had dedicated the
concluding volume of his work to Mr. Gladstone, who, by his love of
Italian letters, and by his deeds of Italian charity, had established a
relationship with Italy in the spirit of those great Italian writers who
had been their masters in eloquence, in civil philosophy and in national
virtue, from Dante and Macchivelli down to Alfieri and Gioberti. Signor
Farini endorsed the charges made by Mr. Gladstone against the Neapolitan
Government. He wrote: "The scandalous trials for high treason still
continue at Naples; accusers, examiners, judges, false witnesses, all
are bought; the prisons, those tombs of the living, are full; two
thousand citizens of all ranks and conditions are already condemned to
the dungeons, as many to confinement, double that number to exile; the
majority guilty of no crime but that of having believed in the oaths
made by Ferdinand II. But, in truth, nothing more was needed to press
home the indictment."

At the period of Mr. Gladstone's visit to Naples there was a growing
sentiment throughout Italy for Italian independence and union. The
infamous measures adopted by the King of Naples to repress in his own
dominions every aspiration after freedom, only succeeded in making the
people more determined and the liberty for which they sighed surer in
the end. His system of misgovernment went on for a few years longer and
was the promoting cause of the revolutionary movements which continually
disturbed the whole Italian peninsula. A conference was held in Paris
upon the Italian question, which failed to accomplish anything, against
which failure Count Cavour addressed a protest to the French and British
Governments in April, 1856. Afterwards the King of Naples and his
Ministers were remonstrated with, but this was of no avail, only drawing
forth an assertion that the sovereign had the right to deal with his own
subjects as he pleased. France and England finally withdrew their
representatives from Naples, and the storm soon afterwards broke. The
brilliant success of Garibaldi in 1860 filled Francis II with terror. He
was now, like all evil men, ready to make the most lavish promises of
liberal reform to escape the consequences of his misdeeds. However, his
repentance came too late. The victorious Garibaldi issued a decree
ultimately, stating that the Two Sicilies, which had been redeemed by
Italian blood, and which had freely elected him their dictator, formed
an integral part of one and indivisable Italy, under the constitutional
King Victor Emmanuel and his descendants. Francis II was dethroned and
expelled from his kingdom by the legitimate fruits of his own hateful
policy and that of his predecessor. "Count Cavour was the brain as
Garibaldi was the hand of that mighty movement which resulted in the
unity of Italy," says an English writer, "but as Englishmen we may take
pride in the fact that not the least among the precipitating causes of
this movement was the fearless exposure by Mr. Gladstone of the
cruelties and tyrannies of the Neapolitan Government."

[Illustration: GLADSTONE VISITING NEAPOLITAN PRISONS.]




CHAPTER IX


THE FIRST BUDGET

The precise date at which Mr. Gladstone became a Liberal cannot be
determined, but during the Parliamentary sessions of 1851 and 1852 he
became finally alienated from the Conservative party, although he did
not enter the ranks of the Liberals for some years afterward. He himself
stated that so late as 1851 he had not formally left the Tory party,
nevertheless his advance towards Liberalism is very pronounced at this
period. It is well for us to trace the important events of these two
sessions, for they also lead up to the brilliant financial measures of
1853, which caused Mr. Gladstone's name to be classed with those of Pitt
and Peel. Mr. Gladstone's trusted leader was dead, and he was gradually
coming forward to take the place in debate of the fallen statesman.

When Mr. Gladstone returned home from Italy he found England convulsed
over renewed papal aggressions. The Pope had, in the preceding
September, issued Letters Apostolic, establishing a Roman Catholic
Hierarchy in England, and in which he had mapped out the whole country
into papal dioceses. This act of aggression produced a storm of public
indignation. It was regarded by the people generally as an attempt to
wrest from them their liberties and enslave them. It was looked upon by
the Protestants indignantly as an attack upon the Reformed Faith.
Anglicans resented it as an act which practically denied the
jurisdiction and authority of the Church of England, established already
by law. Englishmen, faithfully devoted to the British Constitution,
which guaranteed the Protestant Religion, were incensed by this
interference with the prerogative of the Crown; while all ardent
patriots were influenced by the unwarranted and unsolicited interference
of a foreign potentate. Every element of combustion being present,
meetings were held everywhere, inflammatory speeches were made on every
public occasion, and patriotic resolutions were passed. Pulpit and
platform rang with repeated cries of "No Popery," and echoed at the Lord
Mayor's banquet, at the Guildhall, and even at Covent Garden Theatre in
Shakesperian strains. The Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, published
his famous Durham letter, addressed to the Bishop of Durham, rebuking
and defying the Pope, and charging the whole High Church Party of the
Church of England with being the secret allies and fellow-workers
of Rome.

In the beginning of the Parliamentary session of 1851 Lord John Russell
moved for permission to bring in a bill to counteract the aggressive
policy of the Church of Rome, on account of which aggression of the Pope
the whole country was well-nigh in a condition of panic. The measure was
debated for four days, and was entitled the Ecclesiastical Faiths Bill.
It was designed to prevent the assumption by Roman Catholic prelates of
titles taken from any territory or place in England. Severe penalties
were attached to the use of such titles, and all acts done by, and
requests made to, persons under them were to be void. The bill was not
well received by some, being thought, on one side too mild and on the
other as too stringent. Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone both opposed it;
the latter because the change was wanted by English Catholics rather
than by the Vatican. He condemned the vanity and boastful spirit of the
papal documents, but contended that his fellow Catholic countrymen
should not suffer for that. The difficulty of applying it to Ireland,
where the system objected to already existed, was pointed out. However
the preliminary motion was passed by 395 votes against 63, "this
enormous majority," says an English author, "attesting the wide-spread
fear of Romish machinations." The measure became a law, but it was a
dead letter, and was quietly repealed twenty years afterwards at Mr.
Gladstone's request.

Before, however, the bill was passed a ministerial crisis had
intervened. During this session other difficulties were encountered by
the Ministry. The financial as well as this ecclesiastical question was
a problem. The Conservatives were strong and compact, and enjoyed the
adhesion of the Peelites, while the Ministerial party was to a great
extent demoralized. Mr. Disraeli, owing to the deep distress that
prevailed in the agricultural districts, renewed his motion upon the
burdens on land and the inequalities of taxation, and consequently he
presented a resolution that it was the duty of the government to
introduce measures for the alleviation of the distress without delay.
The government admitted the distress, but denied that it was increasing.
They attempted to prove that pauperism had decreased in all parts of the
kingdom--England, Ireland and Scotland. Commerce was in a most
prosperous condition, while the revenues had reached the unexampled
amount of $350,000,000. "Sir James Graham stigmatized the motion as an
attempt to turn out the administration, to dissolve Parliament, and to
return to Protection." The Ministry was sustained by a small majority,
and was successful in some measures, but soon suffered several minor
defeats and finally was forced to retire.

One of the successful measures was that introduced by Mr. Loche King,
and opposed by Lord John Russell, for assimilating the country franchise
to that of the boroughs. The budget of the government introduced January
17th was unpopular. It demanded a renewed lease for three years of the
obnoxious income-tax, but promised a partial remission of the window
duties, which was a tax upon every window in a house, together with some
relief to the agriculturists. The first budget having been rejected a
second financial statement was offered later in the session. It imposed
a house-tax, withdrew the bonus to agriculturists, repealed the
window-tax, but re-demanded the income-tax for three years. The main
features of the budget were acceptable to the House, but the Government
suffered defeat on minor financial questions, which tendered still
further to diminish the popularity of the ministry.

Upon the resignation of Lord John Russell and his Cabinet, in February,
1851, Lord Stanley was called upon to form a new administration, and Mr.
Gladstone was invited to become a member of the Cabinet. Lord Stanley
having failed, Lord Aberdeen was invited to form a new Cabinet, by the
Queen, with like results. Both these gentlemen having declined the task
of forming a new administration, Lord John Russell and his colleagues
resumed office, but the reconstructed ministry was soon to receive a
fatal blow through Lord Palmerston, the foreign Secretary.

On the 2d of December, 1851, Louis Napoleon, Prince President of the
French Republic, by a single act of lawless violence, abolished the
constitution, and made himself Dictator. The details of this monstrous
deed, and of the bloodshed that accompanied it, created a profound
sensation in England. The Queen was very anxious that no step should be
taken and no word said by her ministry which could be construed into an
approval by the English government of what had been done. Indeed the
Queen who knew the failing of her Foreign Secretary to act hastily in
important matters of State without the consent or advice of Queen or
Cabinet, questioned the Premier and was assured that nothing had been
done in recognition of the new government in Paris. Indeed the Cabinet
had passed a resolution to abstain from the expression of opinions in
approval or disapproval of the recent _coup d'état_ in France. But it
soon leaked out that Lord Palmerston who thought he understood full well
the foreign relations of England, and what her policy should be, had
both in public dispatches and private conversation spoken favorably of
the policy adopted by Louis Napoleon. He had even expressed to Count
Walewski, the French Ambassador in London, his entire approval of the
Prince President's act. This was too much for the Queen, who had as
early as the August before, in a memorandum sent to the Premier,
imperatively protested against the crown's being ignored by the Foreign
Secretary, so Lord Palmerston was dismissed from office by Lord John
Russell, Christmas Eve, 1851. He bore his discharge with meekness, and
even omitted in Parliament to defend himself in points where he was
wronged. But Justin McCarthy says: "Lord Palmerston was in the wrong in
many if not most of the controversies which had preceded it; that is to
say, he was wrong in committing England as he so often did to measures
which had not the approval of the sovereign or his colleagues."

In February following, 1852, Lord Palmerston enjoyed, as he expressed
it, his "tit-for-tat with Johnny Russell" and helped the Tories to
defeat his late chief in a measure for reorganizing the militia as a
precaution against possible aggression from France. The ministry had not
saved itself by the overthrow of Lord Palmerston.

Upon the retirement of Lord John Russell from office, in 1852, the Earl
of Derby, formerly Lord Stanley, succeeded him as Prime Minister. Mr.
Gladstone was invited to become a member of the new Tory Cabinet, but
declined, whereupon Lord Malmesbury dubiously remarked, November 28th:
"I cannot make out Gladstone, who seems to me a dark horse." Mr.
Disraeli was chosen Chancellor of the Exchequer, and became Leader in
the House of Commons, entering the Cabinet for the first time. "There
was a scarcely disguised intention to revive protection." It was Free
Trade or Protection, and the Peelites defended their fallen leader,
Peel. "A makeshift budget" was introduced by Mr. Disraeli and passed. It
was destined, it seems, that the Derby Administration was not to be
supported, but to be driven out of power by Mr. Gladstone, who was to
cross swords before the nation with his future parliamentary
rival, Disraeli.

Mr. Disraeli seemed now bent upon declaring the Free Trade Policy of Sir
Robert Peel a failure. Mr. Disraeli's power of forgetfulness of the past
is one of the most fortunate ever conferred upon a statesman. During the
debate he declared that the main reason why his party had opposed Free
Trade was not that it would injure the landlord, nor the farmer, but
that "it would prove injurious to the cause of labor." "He also said,
though interrupted by cries of astonishment and of 'Oh, oh!' that not a
single attempt had been made in the House of Commons to abrogate the
measure of 1846." Mr. Sidney Herbert, who was wounded to the quick by
the assaults on Sir Robert Peel, rose to defend the great Conservative
statesman. His speech contained one passage of scathing invective
addressed to Mr. Disraeli.

Mr. Herbert said: "The memory of Sir Robert Peel requires no
vindication--his memory is embalmed in the grateful recollection of the
people of this country; and I say, if ever retribution is wanted--for it
is not words that humiliate, but deeds--if a man wants to see
humiliation, which God knows is always a painful sight, he need but look
there!"--and upon this Mr. Herbert pointed with his finger to Mr.
Disraeli sitting on the Treasury Bench. The sting of invective is truth,
and Mr. Herbert certainly spoke daggers if he used none; yet the
Chancellor of the Exchequer sat impassive as a Sphinx.

Parliament was dissolved soon after the formation of the new government,
July 1, 1852, and during the recess, September 14, 1852, the Duke of
Wellington passed away and a public funeral was given the victor
of Waterloo.

On the assembling of Parliament Mr. Gladstone delivered a eulogy on the
Duke, drawing special lessons from his illustrious career, which had
been prolonged to a green old age. Mr. Gladstone said: "While many of
the actions of his life, while many of the qualities he possessed, are
unattainable by others, there are lessons which we may all derive from
the life and actions of that illustrious man. It may never be given to
another subject of the British Crown to perform services so brilliant as
he performed; it may never be given to another man to hold the sword
which was to gain the independence of Europe, to rally the nations
around it, and while England saved herself by her constancy, to save
Europe by her example; it may never be given to another man, after
having attained such eminence, after such an unexampled series of
victories, to show equal moderation in peace as he has shown greatness
in war, and to devote the remainder of his life to the cause of internal
and external peace for that country which he has so well served; it may
never be given to another man to have equal authority, both with the
Sovereign he served and with the Senate of which he was to the end a
venerated member; it may never be given to another man after such a
career to preserve, even to the last, the full possession of those great
faculties with which he was endowed, and to carry on the services of one
of the most important departments of the State with unexampled
regularity and success, even to the latest day of his life. These are
circumstances, these are qualities, which may never occur again in the
history of this country. But these are qualities which the Duke of
Wellington displayed, of which we may all act in humble imitation: that
sincere and unceasing devotion to our country; that honest and upright
determination to act for the benefit of the country on every occasion;
that devoted loyalty, which, while it made him ever anxious to serve the
Crown, never induced him to conceal from the Sovereign that which he
believed to be the truth; that devotedness in the constant performance
of duty; that temperance of his life, which enabled him at all times to
give his mind and his faculties to the services which he was called on
to perform; that regular, consistent, and unceasing piety by which he
was distinguished at all times of his life; these are qualities that are
attainable by others, and these are qualities which should not be lost
as an example."

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