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GLADSTONIAN LIBERALISM.
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Origins, evolution, ideology, platform & impact of 19th Cent. British political reform movement led by Prime Minister William Gladstone.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Origins, evolution, ideology, platform & impact of 19th Cent. British political reform movement led by Prime Minister William Gladstone.
Paper Introduction:
Although it is, of course, a matter of public record, it is still hard to remember that William Ewart Gladstone – four times prime minister of Great Britain, leader of the Reform Party after 1867, symbol of the best of liberal reformist ideals of his age – was elected to Parliament in 1832 as a Tory with good, sound Conservative views. But of course, this is true, and the story both of Gladstone and of the Liberalism of his era is in many ways the story of the ways that Enlightenment ideas were transformed by the historical and economic events of the 19th century into the tenets of liberal politics that remain a guiding force of governments today.
This paper examines the development of Gladstonian liberalism, looking particularly at how coherent it could lay claim to being as well investigating what elements of Gladstone’s polit
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P. Gladstone: A Progress in Politics. Indeed, this tolerance fordiversity of life choices is perhaps the defining element of liberalthought to the current day.7 It is also true that Gladstone must be apart in this arena from theliberals of either modern England or America in one way: In some measurehis belief of the importance of a sort of laissez-faire policy towardindividual matters such as faith resulted from a very 19th century belief.This idea was that passion was a "great disabling cause" that prevented menfrom judging matters of public concern fairly and justly.8 He wouldheartily have supported the poet William Butler Yeats's claim that inpolitics the worst "are full of passionate intensity" - a claim that fallsvery strangely on modern ears. 19 Williams, 18 . He accepted the need for religious freedom, including theadmission of Jews into Parliament. P. But theheights of passion that the issue of Home Rule raised in Gladstone (thatadvocate of calmness in political life) would surely not have been therehad not Peel championed the opposite cause. In addition, a system of state-supported elementary education guaranteed all children the right toschooling. 5 Stansky, 27. Peel and the Conservative Party: A Study in Party Politics, 1832-1841. Gladstone seems to have drawn from Peel at least some idea ofhow to pursue an idea as far as one could go with it, while drawingstrength from one's own beliefs on the subject to gain momentum for thefight.16 Despite Gladstone's many achievements and his idealism, mosthistorians today argue that he never really understood the needs andaspirations of the lower classes. There were also some aspects of his political philosophy that nowappear to be inconsistent but given the thinking of his own time were not,such as his own deep religious feelings and his desire to see thosecitizens who did not belong to the Church of England given equal standing.It is quite simply impossible to see Gladstone himself converting toJudaism, but the fact that he wished to follow one set of religious beliefshimself while granting to others the right to follow another path isperfectly consonant with liberal beliefs about the freedoms that allindividuals should have. Among these were Peel's tenacity in pursuingan issue of importance and the unflappable way he had of guidinglegislation. There is a sort ofseparate-but-equal functionalism about this based on class rather than racethat seems very inconsistent to readers in the late 2 th century, but seemsto have posed no such problems for Gladstone of the other liberals of histime. His insistence on economy in government,his distrust of imperialism and foreign adventure, his hatred of socialism,and his disbelief in the ability of government to solve social problemsmade him reluctant to accept the implications of democracy.17 Gladstonemust be see as what he always was - the greatest liberal of the essentiallyconservative Victorian Age. 1 Stansky, 178. Not onlydid Gladstone applies his liberal philosophies to the residents of overseascolonies, but he fought passionately for Irish Home Rule, which was notnearly as politically easy a thing to do. His consequent acceptance of thedemocratic principle made him a champion of the lower classes and in 1866he proposed successful amendments to the 1867 Reform Act, extending thevote to about 1 million urban workers.3 Gladstone's remaking of himself as a champion of the working man (andalmost as strong a champion of women, working and otherwise, for he was farmore adamant in his support of women's suffrage than most other Liberalpoliticians of his time) took great personal courage, for he had torecreate himself in public. 4 Ibid., 181. E. 17 Stansky, 153. Gladstone could easily believe both that his ownreligion was supreme and that others might not believe this, and thiscaused him no intellectual (or political) discomfort.11 And yet there were some inconsistencies in this area, for whileGladstone argued that the children of dissenting families should be givenan equal education (including an education in spiritual matters), he doesnot seem to have really meant this, since he also argued for state supportof C of E schools at the expense of other forms of education.12 But in other areas, one sees a strikingly high level of consistency inGladstonian liberalism, especially in the arena of imperialism. While modern liberals consistently try to use the power of the stateactively to protect and to expand the rights of disenfranchised groups, forexample, Gladstonian liberalism sometimes used government into the fore andsometimes sought to restrain government action in this same arena. 16 Kinzer, 246. This paper examines the development of Gladstonian liberalism, lookingparticularly at how coherent it could lay claim to being as wellinvestigating what elements of Gladstone's political philosophy were owedto Peelite conservatism.1 Gladstone served not only as a lowly MP for the Tories but rose fairlyquickly in the party's. E. One is to examine the two political philosophies on purelyintellectual grounds. Williams, The Rise of Gladstone to the Leadership of theLiberal Party, 1859 to 1868 (New York: Octagon Books, 1973), 4. Whileto the modern critic, this might look like a peculiar mixture of Liberalismand Libertarianism, to Gladstone it looked like what it was: a form ofLiberalism born and bred to meet the conditions of empire and home in theEngland of Victoria's reign. 8 J. Andthen in 1859 - in what might be seen as his formal withdrawal from theranks of conservatism that had propelled him into politics - he joined theWhigs as chancellor of the Exchequer. More than any other statesmanof his age, he was able to mobilize the idealism of the British public. Increasingly, however, he was forcedto devote much of his time to imperial and Irish questions. His firstparliamentary speech was a defense of slavery in the West Indies and he wasa staunch defender of the Church of England.5 These positions correlatedwith personal beliefs and familial experiences of his. Thisseems puzzling now, but in fact stemmed from Gladstone's own experiences inthe peculiarities of political arena of Victorian England, where he feltthat sometimes government intervention simply made a bad situation worseand so the government should be restrained from acting any farther. Gladstone's liberalism and reformism were perhaps most evident duringhis first ministry, from 1868 to 1874. The decades-long cohabitation on thepolitical scene of Peel and Gladstone seems to have given to each one ofthem a sharper focus to his philosophy, a keener edge to his desire to seehis vision of society brought about. He must also havebelieved without question that he had an obligation to make Britain(including her colonies) a fundamentally more democratic place, where thepoor and women and even the natives of the colonies were equal not only inthe eyes of God but at the ballot box as well.4 Gladstone's early years as a politician marked him as a solid andconsistent conservative as he opposed almost all reform. Democracy and Religion: Gladstone and the Liberal Party, 1867- 1875. A dailyreader of the Bible and the author of numerous books on religion, hebelieved that through politics religion could be reflected and madepractical and he brought this simplicity of belief in the power of moralityand engaged action in the world to his work.1 Although Gladstone seems to have been more consistent in his vision ofliberalism than many politicians have been on the subject since, butcertainly there were inconsistencies brought about with by Gladstone's ownuncertainties on an issue or by the necessities of political life. Healso eliminated corruption in elections and secured for married womengreater control over their property. 12 Ibid., 438. 13 Ibid., 371. It was simply one of the ways in which he was a better liberal thanso many in his day, but never out of pace with his own times.19 Endnotes 1Peter Stansky, Gladstone: A Progress in Politics (Boston: Little,Brown, 1979), 11. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987.Stansky, Peter. His Land Act of1881 attempted to end Irish unrest by giving Irish tenant farmers greaterrights to the land they farmed, but by 1885 he accepted the necessity forIrish home rule and his Gladstone's third (1886) and fourth (1892-94)ministries were dominated by his home rule crusade.9 Gladstone's importance rests almost entirely on his reforms, whichattempted to free the individual from all unnecessary restrictions - adriving force of 19th-century liberal belief. He was undoubtedly a man who reached higher andsaw farther than most of his contemporaries in terms of trying to ensuresocial justice, but he remained in essential ways limited by his times.Gladstone, for example, "wished to emphasize that the purpose of extendingthe franchise was not to equip the poor themselves to govern" for thenatural condition of a society was that in which the leisured classesshould rule.18 Yet one should be careful in criticizing the sincerity (oreffectiveness) of Gladstone's liberalism, for the very policies he espousedand the social changes he helped to bring about have so fundamentallychanged the nature of society that it is difficult from the perspective of15 years down the line to understand Victorian England in a fundamentalway. Gladstone's support of Home Rule wasfirmly based in his general Liberal ideas about the importance of personalliberty and the rights of individuals to self-determination. The Gladstonian Turn of Mind. This can be seen in no arena quite soclearly as that of Irish Home Rule. 14 Part of this influence comes about whenever one person is faced withan articulate and omnipresent rival. But of course, this is true,and the story both of Gladstone and of the Liberalism of his era is in manyways the story of the ways that Enlightenment ideas were transformed by thehistorical and economic events of the 19th century into the tenets ofliberal politics that remain a guiding force of governments today. Peel regarded the re-establishment of peace in Ireland as the most important aspect of Britishgovernmental policy there; had he not been so firm on this issue perhapsGladstone would not have been so firm against it.15 (This is not to implythat Gladstone was simply making political hay, but rather that a worthyopponent - like the thought of being hanged in the morning - tends toconcentrate one's mind wonderfully.) Secondly, Peel seems to have influenced Gladstone in some particularways simply because there were aspects of Peel's personality that Gladstoneadmired and wished to emulate. Peel and the Victorians. The Rise of Gladstone to the Leadership of the Liberal Party, 1859 to 1868. (It is far simpler, after all, toargue that people half a world away should not be expected to act likeEnglishmen, but it was quite tempting to argue precisely this in regard tothe perennially difficult Irish, whom the English have tended to treat asadolescents who need to be brought into line.) That as a mature politicianGladstone never did this - never treated the Irish as less worthy of self-rule than the English - is one of the most admirable aspects of hispolitical life.13 In assessing how much Gladstonian Liberalism owes to PeeliteConservatism, one really has to inquiry about three separate, relatedissues. Moreover, he believed very strongly in personal loyalty, andthe politicians to whom he had first attached himself were ToryConservatives, and he felt that he owned them intellectual fealty.6 Much ifnot all of the liberalism that he would display later on in his public liferesulted not so much from a change in the inner man (although there werecertainly internal shifts) as from an increasing ability on the part ofGladstone (and others in his party) to distinguish his own preferences andneeds from those of others not like himself. New York: Octagon Books, 1973. Gladstone's most important reform during his second term (188 -85) wasthe Reform Act of 1884, which extended the vote to many rural voters. 15 Parry, 171. BibliographyClark, George. 6 Ibid., 29. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985.Parry, J. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979. Hesucceeded in part because of his strong religious convictions. Although it is, of course, a matter of public record, it is still hardto remember that William Ewart Gladstone - four times prime minister ofGreat Britain, leader of the Reform Party after 1867, symbol of the best ofliberal reformist ideals of his age - was elected to Parliament in 1832 asa Tory with good, sound Conservative views. 18 Parry, 171. Entrance to the civilservice became based on competition, the purchase of army commissions wasended, and the secret ballot was introduced. 2 Donald Read, Peel and the Victorians (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1987), 163. In 1843 he became president of the Board of Tradein the Tory cabinet of Sir Robert Peel in large measure because Gladstonesupported Peel's movement toward free trade, but when Peel rescinded theCorn Laws in 1846, the Tory party was shattered, and Peel's governmentcollapsed and for the next 13 years, Gladstone as a Peelite, was for themain politically isolated.2 It was during this period of mostly political exile that Gladstone'sviews changed. London: Frank Cass, 1964.Kinzer, Bruce, ed. 7 Ibid., 32. He was ardent memberof the Church and his family worked their colonial estate in British Guianawith slaves. He also supported the cause of Italiannationalism and unity, which made him a moral force throughout Europe. 11 George Clark, Peel and the Conservative Party: A Study in PartyPolitics, 1832-1841 (London: Frank Cass, 1964), 438. The second is two look not so much at philosophy aspersonality, for certainly Peel and Gladstone influenced each other as men.Indeed, this personal influence was probably the more important, althoughGladstone did incorporate some Peelite ideas in the area of free trade, forexample. 14 Read, 1 5. Williams, W. One cannot imagine that he would have had thecourage to do this had he not been fervently convinced of both therightness and importance of his reformist beliefs. 3 W. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.Read, Donald. Parry, Democracy and Religion: Gladstone and the LiberalParty, 1867-1875 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 17 . Gladstone would in fact no doubt be very disappointed at the heat thatstill exists in political rhetoric today, for one of his hopes in extendingthe franchise was that politics should become a more orderly affair. Heboth hoped to enfranchise the masses and to cool their tempers, which nowseems either a hopeless level of optimism or an appalling level ofpatronization. 9 Bruce Kinzer, ed., The Gladstonian Turn of Mind (Toronto: Universityof Toronto Press, 1985), 246. And yet even as Gladstone put forth what today seem as such strikinglyconservative ideas, he also and simultaneously argued that "the maintenanceof moral government would come form the common man". During this regime, Gladstone soughtto free the individual from obsolete restrictions.
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