The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume II Part 34

The personal relations of Lord de Grey and his brethren with their American colleagues were excellent. They worked hard all day, and enjoyed Was.h.i.+ngton hospitality in its full strength every night. In business, Mr.

Fish occasionally advanced or supported contentions thought by the Englishmen to be almost amusing. For instance, Mr. Sumner in a memorandum (Jan. 17, 1871) to Mr. Fish, had submitted a singular species of political syllogism. He desired nothing so much, he said, as that entire goodwill should prevail between Great Britain and the United States, and that the settlement should be complete. Now the greatest trouble and peril in the way of a complete settlement was Fenianism; Fenianism was excited by the proximity of the British flag over the Canadian border; therefore, the British flag should be withdrawn from the whole hemisphere, including the islands, and the American flag should fly in its stead. In conformity with this tight and simple chain of reasoning, Mr. Fish threw out a hint to Lord de Grey that the cession of Canada might end the quarrel. The English envoy contented himself with the dry remark that he did not find such a suggestion in his instructions.(261)

Though sometimes amused, the commissioners soon understood that at heart the American negotiators desired to settle. Difficulties with their own people were great. A presidential campaign with all its necessities approached. A settlement of outstanding accounts with England might be a good card to play in the election; on the other hand, if the peace card were not available, it was just possible that a war card might do nearly as well. Mr. Fish was mortally afraid of Sumner, who had been chairman of the foreign relations committee in the senate, and whose anti-English temper, as we have seen, was red-hot. The const.i.tutional requirement of a two-thirds majority in the senate for the ratification of a treaty was awkward and menacing, and it was necessary to secure dubious senators by the exhibition of high national temper on the public stage. It is interesting to note, in pa.s.sing, that the English visitors were persuaded how much better it would have been if, according to our own parliamentary system at Westminster, the American system had allowed Mr. Fish to meet Mr. Sumner on the floor of congress, and instead of seeking victory by unseen manipulation, fight the battle out before the country.

(M132) The British commissioners were almost as much embarra.s.sed by their friends at home as by their friends or foes at Was.h.i.+ngton. Both ministers and lawyers, from the safe distance of Downing Street, were sometimes excessive in pressing small and trivial alterations, which the Americans after the diplomatist's manner insisted on treating as if they were not small but great. The sharp corner in the London cabinet was the more serious proposal, that certain rules as to the duty of neutrals should be laid down, and should be made guiding principles for the arbitrators, although the rules themselves had not been formally established when England's alleged breaches of neutral obligation had been committed. This retro-active or _ex-post-facto_ quality, when the cabinet considered it (March 18), gave trouble, and it was used by pa.s.sionate and impolitic persons to tarnish the whole policy in this country. Much heat was evoked, for a cabinet of many talents is not always the same thing as a cabinet of plain minds. One clever man objected at large to the commission, to concession, to obtaining any principle of settlement for future contingencies. A second was violent against all such arbitration as this, and thought they had much better pay up at once and have done with it. A third clever man even let fall some high words about "national dishonour."

Granville, Argyll, Forster (the last described by a colleague as "a tower of strength"), were steadfast and unfaltering for conciliation. Mr.

Gladstone agreed, but eager though he was for a settlement, he "agreed with reluctance." Sir Roundell Palmer had now great influence with him, and Palmer had come round to the conclusion that the risk from translating retrospectively into the form of a hypothetical international convention, not existing when the events happened, a duty that we had recognised as inc.u.mbent on us under our own law, might be safely run.(262) In plain English, the adverse way of describing this peculiar subst.i.tute for a free and open arbitration, was that Great Britain owed the Americans nothing, and if she had not consented to accept a set of new-fangled rules, and to be judged retro-actively by them, she could not possibly have been made to pay anything. To this the short answer was that though the rules might or might not be new-fangled as principles of international law, yet they were not new as principles of English munic.i.p.al law, which, as construed by the British government itself, was coincident in substance with those rules.

Was it in fact reasonable to contend that ironclads might be built in the Mersey, sent out a few miles beyond the river mouth, there armed from lighters, and sent off to bombard New York? If not, was it reasonable that England should invite the arbitrators to judge the _Alabama_ case according to one rule in the past, and then to lay down another rule for the future?

A minor objection raised by Mr. Gladstone gave much alarm to his commissioners, and it is too characteristic to be omitted. Speaking of the ardently desired treaty, he writes to Lord Granville (April 12, 1871):-

With regard to the preamble, it designates the late war in America as "the rebellion." I do not think it is right for us now to adopt a mode of speech different from that which we maintained throughout the struggle. Further, it tends to discredit our recognition of belligerency. And if we declare it a rebellion, we have given an example available to be quoted hereafter for the dealings of a foreign power with rebels as belligerents. If, on the other hand, the Americans object to speaking of the "civil war," it is quite easy (so I think) to leave out the words "during the recent rebellion in the U.S." altogether, and to say in the years 186-or even to begin "Whereas H.B.M." perhaps inserting in after "U.S." "in respect of such depredations."

This is an instance of the tenacity with which he sometimes held his ground after its relations and bearings had entirely changed. Something too may doubtless be set down to the lingering remains of his old feeling, of the strength of the const.i.tutional argument of the South that sovereign states had a right to withdraw from the union if they pleased. If the proposal to drop the word "rebellion" had been brought without warning or preparation before the full commission, a.s.sent would have been hopeless, but by the discretion of informal interviews, the matter was canva.s.sed beforehand, the obnoxious word was silently left out, Mr. Gladstone's point was gained, and things went prosperously forward. "I am quite sure,"

wrote Sir Stafford Northcote to Mr. Gladstone (March 17), "that there was no other way in which you could have hoped to settle these questions than by such a commission as ours.... What may be our fate I do not presume to guess, but if we succeed, it will be mainly due to de Grey's excellent sense, tact, and temper." In the end, notwithstanding the power of the senate over treaties, the want of control by the American government over its party, and the exigencies of Canada, all at last fell into decent shape, and the substantial objects in view were effectively maintained.

Canadian fishery questions were adjusted, and the boundary of San Juan remitted to the arbitration of the newly made German Emperor.

(M133) After thirty-seven sittings, spread over a period of two months, the treaty was signed on May 8, in a room decorated with flowers, with the good omen of brilliant suns.h.i.+ne, and everybody in such good humour that the American secretary of the commission tossed up with Lord Tenterden which should sign first,-the Englishman happily winning. The treaty began by the declaration that her Britannic Majesty authorised the commissioners to express in a friendly spirit the regret felt by her Majesty's government for the escape, under whatever circ.u.mstances, of the _Alabama_ and other vessels from British ports, and for the depredations committed by these vessels. It embraced a definition of the rules of maritime neutrality, which some legal text-writers have applauded, and other legal text-writers have therefore condemned. Finally, and most important of all, whether we look at the immediate purpose or at its contribution to a great though slow-moving cause, the treaty of Was.h.i.+ngton secured a judgment by the arbitration of a tribunal, of all claims growing out of acts committed by the cruisers, "and generically known as the _Alabama_ Claims." The tribunal was to consist of five members named by Great Britain, the United States, Switzerland, Italy, and Brazil.

The effect of the rules of Was.h.i.+ngton as applied at Geneva remains, as I have said, a topic of controversy. Maine, for example, while admitting that the result for the occasion was good, holds that by making the rule of neutral duty more severe, it marked reaction rather than progress in the general drift of international law.(263) Others maintain that the amended foreign enlistment Act of 1870, which is in fact a partial incorporation of the Was.h.i.+ngton rules, went far beyond what international law requires, and made a new crime out of an act, namely the building of a s.h.i.+p, which is not forbidden either by the law of nations or by other munic.i.p.al laws.(264)

IV

(M134) Once, after some crowning mercy in the war, President Lincoln said to his cabinet, "Now, gentlemen, we have got our harpoon into the monster, but we must still take uncommon care, or else by a single flop of his tail he will send us into all eternity." This wholesome caution, too often overlooked by headlong politicians, was suddenly found to be much needed at the eleventh hour of the treaty of Was.h.i.+ngton. At the end of 1871, Mr.

Gladstone experienced a severe shock, for he found that the case put in by America for the arbitrators insisted upon an adjudication by them not only upon the losses suffered by individual American citizens, but upon the indirect, constructive, consequential, and national claims first propounded in their full dimensions by Mr. Sumner. A storm at once arose in England, and n.o.body was more incensed than the prime minister. In reporting to the Queen, he used language of extreme vehemence, and in the House of Commons (Feb. 9, 1872) when Mr. Disraeli spoke of the indirect claims as preposterous and wild, as nothing less than the exacting of tribute from a conquered people, Mr. Gladstone declared that such words were in truth rather under the mark than an exaggeration, and went on to say that "we must be insane to accede to demands which no nation with a spark of honour or spirit left could submit to even at the point of death." Speaking of the construction put upon the treaty by the government, he declared such a construction to be "the true and unambiguous meaning of the words, and therefore the only meaning admissible, whether tried by grammar, by reason, by policy, or by any other standard." Some persons argued that this was to accuse the Americans of dishonesty. "I learn really for the first time," exclaimed Mr.

Gladstone to Lord Granville (Feb. 8), "that a man who affirms that in his opinion a doc.u.ment is unambiguous in his favour, thereby affirms that one who reads it otherwise is dishonest." His critics retorted that surely a construction that could not stand the test of grammar, of reason, of policy, or any other test, must be due either to insanity or to dishonesty; and as we could hardly a.s.sume General Grant, Mr. Fish, and the others to be out of their wits, there was nothing for it but dishonesty.

For five anxious months the contest lasted. The difficulties were those of time and form, often worse than those of matter and substance. Nor would this have been the first case in which small points hinder the settlement of great questions. The manner of proceeding, as Mr. Gladstone reports to the Queen, was of such complication that hours were given almost every day for many weeks, to the consideration of matter which on the day following was found to have moved out of view. Suggestions came from Was.h.i.+ngton, mostly inadmissible, whether their faults were due to accident and haste or to design. Sometimes refusals of this suggestion or that from our side were couched in "terms of scant courtesy and bordering upon harshness."

Still the cabinet persisted in husbanding every chance of saving the treaty. They charitably judged the att.i.tude of the Was.h.i.+ngton government, in Mr. Gladstone's ample language, "to be directed by considerations belonging to the sphere of its own domestic policy, and to the contentions of party in that sphere. But they will attempt by patient consideration, avoidance of self-laudation and of irritating topics, and a steady endeavour to be right, to attain the great end in view of an honourable settlement which it would be a sad disgrace as well as misfortune to both countries now to miss." And here occurs a consideration as we pa.s.s, upon the American const.i.tution. "The fact remains indisputable (June 1), that there is no conclusive evidence of any serious subject the substance of which is at present in dispute between the two governments, but the difficulties arising on the American side from what may be termed electioneering considerations are greatly aggravated by the position of the American senate and the reference to that body for previous counsel, for which it seems to be miserably unsuited, as it takes days and almost weeks for debate, where a cabinet would require only hours."

The opposition in parliament was patriotic, and as a rule made no difficulties. "Mr. Disraeli," reports Mr. Gladstone (June 3), "behaved with the caution and moderation which have generally marked his conduct with, regard to the Was.h.i.+ngton treaty.... On the whole the House of Commons showed the same dignified self-command for which it has been remarkable during the whole period since the opening of the session with reference to this question; although the more inflammatory expressions, which fell from a few members, were warmly cheered by a portion, and a portion only, of the opposition."

The cabinet was unanimous against the submission of the indirect claims, but there were marked differences of leaning, as in fact there had been throughout. All accepted Lord Ripon's(265) view that if he had insisted on getting into the treaty nothing less than a formal and express repudiation of the indirect claims, no treaty at all would have been possible. Both sides in the Was.h.i.+ngton conferences had been more anxious to submit to the arbitrators the principle of allowing indirect claims, than to embark on any discussion of them. The American commissioners knew this principle to be unsound, but knowing also that their own people expected the claims to be referred, they could only abstain from insisting on their inclusion.

The British commissioners were willing silently to waive an express renunciation of them, being confident that the terms of the protocols and the language of the treaty would be so construed by the arbitrators as to exclude the indirect claims.(266) All this was a rational and truly diplomatic temper on both sides; but then the immortal events of a hundred years before had shown too plainly that Englishmen at home cannot always be trusted to keep a rational and diplomatic temper; and many events in the interval had shown that English colonists, even when transfigured into American citizens, were still chips of the old block. The cabinet agreed that a virtual waiver of the claims was to be found both in the protocols of the conference, and in the language of the treaty. Lord Ripon and Mr.

Forster, however, thought it would be safe to go on at Geneva, in the a.s.surance that the arbitrators would be certain to rule the indirect claims out. At the other extreme of the cabinet scale, the view was urged that England should not go on, unless she put upon record a formal declaration that did she not, and never would, a.s.sent to any adjudication upon the indirect claims. To a certain minister who pressed for some declaration in this sense,-also formulated in a motion by Lord Russell in parliament, himself responsible for so much of the original mischief(267)-Mr. Gladstone wrote as follows:-

_June 17._-... I doubt whether the cabinet can legitimately be asked, as a cabinet, to make these affirmations, inasmuch as, according to my view, they are not within the purview of its present undertaking-that undertaking has reference exclusively to the scope of the arbitration. We have contended all along that the claims would not legitimately come before the arbitrators.... But we had never demanded the a.s.sent of the Americans to our reasoning, only to our conclusion that the claims were not within the scope of the arbitration. It is my view (but this is quite another matter) that they lie cast aside, a dishonoured carca.s.s, which no amount of force, fraud, or folly can again galvanise into life. You will see then, in sum, that (if I rightly understand you) I accept for myself broadly and freely what may be called the extreme doctrine _about_ the indirect claims; but I think the cabinet cannot fairly be challenged for an official judgment on a matter really not before it.

The little entries in the diary give us a good idea of the pressure on the prime minister:-

_Feb. 6, 1872._-Spoke an hour after Disraeli on the address....

The _Alabama_ and Was.h.i.+ngton question lay heavy on me till the evening. Even during the speech I was disquieted, and had to converse with my colleagues. _March 16._-Cabinet 2-7; laborious chiefly on the Was.h.i.+ngton treaty. _17th._-Worked on part of the despatch for America. _18th._-In conclave. Much heavy work on _Alabama_. _22nd._-Severe bronchial attack. Transacted business through West, W. H. G. [his son] Mr. Glyn, Lord Granville, and Cardwell, who went to and fro between the cabinet below-stairs and me. To all of them I whispered with some difficulty. _April 5._-Conclave on countercase. First with Cardwell and Lowe, then with Tenterden and Sanderson. Much confusion. _May 12._-Saw Lord Granville, who brought good news from America. _27th._-U.S.

question bristles with difficulties. _30th._-H. of C. During the evening two long conferences on Was.h.i.+ngton treaty with Lord G. and the lawyers, and a cabinet 10-1. Worked Uniformity bill through committee at intervals. _June 3._-Cabinet 3-4-1/4. H. of C. Made a statement on the treaty of Was.h.i.+ngton. The house behaved _well_.

Also got the Act of Uniformity bill read a third time. Its preamble is really a notable fact in 1872. _6th._-H. of C. Spoke on Was.h.i.+ngton treaty and Scots Education-the House _too_ well pleased as to the former. _11th._-The cabinet met at 2. and sat intermittently with the House to 5, again 9-1/4-1.

(M135) The arbitrators were to meet on June 15. Yet no break in the clouds seemed likely. Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues had a meeting at the foreign office, and did not separate until after midnight on June 11. The British agent was to be directed to apply for an immediate adjournment, and without lodging the summary of our case as provided by the treaty. If the arbitrators declined to adjourn, either because the Americans objected, or from a belief that they had no t.i.tle to adjourn without a formal opening of business by lodging summaries, then was or was not our agent to change tack and lodge his summary? Or was the arbitration, and with the arbitration the whole treaty, to fall to the ground for want of it? On this question Mr. Gladstone thought it his duty to mention to the Queen that it had not yet (June 13) been found possible to bring the cabinet to a decision. For a day or two it looked as if the ministry might fall to pieces, but the head of it was indomitable:-

_June 13_ (Thursday).-Since Tuesday morning I have constantly resolved or discussed this proposition: that we should not be justified in breaking off the proceedings at Geneva (if an adjournment can be had after presentation of the summary), upon a refusal to present it. My determination upon it is now firmly rooted and tested by all the mental effort I can apply, and the time I thought had come to-day for looking forward as well as backward. I therefore wrote to the Queen in terms which might a little prepare her for difficulties in the cabinet. I saw Granville first, who had not reached my point, but seemed to come up to it; then arranged for him to see Halifax, Ripon to see Kimberley, and the chancellor [Lowe] to see Cardwell; as the _knot_ of the probable difficulty is in these three. On the whole, I hope we shall, in one way or another, work through. _At any rate, if anything like a government can be held together, I will not shrink._

_June 15._-Cabinet 12-2-1/4, and with brief intervals to 7-.

Dined with Princess Louise. After dinner Granville and I went to see Mr. Hammond, then on to the F. 0., where we got (before midnight) the protocol of to-day from Geneva. Thank G.o.d that up to a certain point the indications on this great controversy are decidedly favourable.

_June 16._-Sunday (Bunker Hill anniversary? [No-June 17]). Cabinet here 1--3-1/4. We sent off a telegram, which I hope may finish the good work at Geneva.

What happened at Geneva was this. When the day came, the British agent did not lodge his summary, but asked for an adjournment for eight months, as the two governments did not agree upon the scope of the arbitration. This looked dark enough, and the treaty seemed doomed. It was saved by Mr.

Adams, the American nominee on the tribunal. When he reached Geneva and learned how things stood, he decided that the knot which they could not untie must be cut.(268) His golden idea was this: the arbitrators should make a spontaneous declaration that on the principles of international law the indirect claims ought to be excluded from their consideration. Adams saw his colleagues one by one, and brought them round to his view. The English chief justice had made up his mind that the whole thing was dead, as he had for many months been loudly telling all London that it ought to be. But when asked by Mr. Adams whether the spontaneous extra-judicial declaration would remove all obstacles to progress, c.o.c.kburn answered that he thought it would. "I said," Mr. Adams continued, "that in that event I was prepared to make a proposition. I should be a.s.suming a heavy responsibility; but I should do so, not as an arbitrator representing my country, but as representing all nations." So the indirect claims were summarily ruled out, and the arbitration proceeded. In some notes prepared for the cabinet on all these proceedings (Feb. 4, 1873), Lord Tenterden, the clever and experienced British agent at Geneva, writes, "I cannot conclude this part of the memorandum without saying that the dignity, tact, self-command, and moderation with which Mr. Adams discharged his functions as arbitrator, did honour to his country."

(M136) In September (1872) the five arbitrators at Geneva gave their award. They were unanimous in finding Great Britain liable for the acts of the _Alabama_; all save the British representative found her liable for the _Florida_; the Italian, the Swiss, and the American against the Englishman and the Brazilian found her liable for the _Shenandoah_ after leaving Melbourne. They awarded in satisfaction and final settlement of all claims, including interest, a gross sum of about three and a quarter million pounds sterling. The award, though hardly a surprise, still inflicted a lively twinge of mortification on the masterful and confident people of this island. Opinion was divided, but the decision was not one of those that cut deep or raise the public temperature to fever. The prints of the opposition insisted that the result was profoundly vexatious, it was a bungled settlement, and the arguments used in favour of it were "wild sentimental rubbish." On the other hand, the _Times_ regarded it with profound satisfaction, and ministerial writers with a lyric turn hailed it as a magnificent victory, though we had to pay a heavy bill. A little balm was extracted from the fact that the Americans had preferred before the tribunal a demand of nine millions and a half, and thus got little more than one-third of what they had asked. So ended what has been called the greatest of all arbitrations, extinguis.h.i.+ng the embers that could not have been left to smoulder without constant peril of a vast and fratricidal conflagration. The treaty of Was.h.i.+ngton and the Geneva arbitration stand out as the most notable victory in the nineteenth century of the n.o.ble art of preventive diplomacy, and the most signal exhibition in their history of self-command in two of the three chief democratic powers of the western world. For the moment the result did something to impair the popularity of Mr. Gladstone's government, but his a.s.sociation with this high act of national policy is one of the things that give its brightest l.u.s.tre to his fame.

Chapter X. As Head Of A Cabinet. (1868-1874)

Rational co-operation in politics would be at an end, if no two men might act together, until they had satisfied themselves that in no possible circ.u.mstances could they be divided.-GLADSTONE.

I

The just complacency with which Mr. Gladstone regarded his cabinet on its first construction held good:-

I look back with great satisfaction on the internal working of the cabinet of 1868-74. It was a cabinet easily handled; and yet it was the only one of my four cabinets in which there were members who were senior to myself (the lord chancellor Hatherley, Lord Clarendon), with many other men of long ministerial experience.

When this cabinet was breaking up in 1874, I took the opportunity of thanking them for the manner in which they had uniformly lightened my task in the direction of business. In reply, Halifax, who might be considered as the senior in years and experience taken jointly, very handsomely said the duty of the cabinet had been made more easy by the considerate manner in which I had always treated them. Some of them were as colleagues absolutely delightful, from the manner in which their natural qualities blended with their consummate experience. I refer especially to Clarendon and Granville.

(M137) If we may trust some of those who were members of it, no cabinet ever did its business with livelier industry or effect. Under Mr.

Gladstone's hand it was a really working cabinet, not an a.s.semblage of departmental ministers, each minding his own affairs, available as casual members of this or the other sub-committee, and without an eye for the general drift and tendency of their proceedings. Of course ministers differed in importance. One was pleasant and popular, but not forcible.

Another overflowed with knowledge and was really an able man, but somehow he carried no guns, and n.o.body cared what he said. One had apt.i.tude without weight-perhaps the true definition of our grossly overworked epithet of clever. Another had weight and character, without much apt.i.tude. The cabinet as a whole was one of extraordinary power, not merely because its chief had both apt.i.tude and momentum enough for a dozen, but because it was actively h.o.m.ogeneous in reforming spirit and purpose. This solidarity is the great element in such combinations, and the mainspring of all vigorous cabinet work.

Of Mr. Gladstone as head of his first cabinet, we have a glimpse from Mr.

Stansfeld:-