Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

66

"Mother, mother! what are you saying?" cried Vincent, who had all the time been making vain attempts to interrupt this extraordinary speech. Mrs Hilyard put him away with a quick gesture. She took hold of the widow's hand with that firm, supporting, compelling pressure under which, the day before, Mrs Vincent had yielded up all her secrets. She turned her eyes out of vacancy to the little pale woman who offered her this protection. A sudden mist surprised those gleaming eyes-a sudden thrill ran through the thin, slight, iron figure, upon which fatigue and excitement seemed to make no impression. The rock was stricken at last. No-no," she sighed, with a voice that trembled. "No-no! the lamb and the lion do not go together yet in this poor world. No-no-no. I wonder what tears have to do in my eyes; ah, God in the skies! if you ever do miracles, do one for this woman, and save her child! Praying and crying are strange fancies for me-I must go away; but first," she said, still holding Mrs Vincent fast-" a woman is but a woman after all-if it is more honourable to be a wicked man's wife than to have gone astray, as you call it, then there is no one in the world who can breathe suspicion upon me. Ask this other good woman here, who knows all about me, but fears me, like you. Fears me! What do you suppose there can be to fear, Mr Vincent, you who are a scholar, and know better than these soft women," said Mrs Hilyard, suddenly dropping the widow's hand, and turning round upon the young minister, with an instant throwing off of all emotion, which had the strangest horrifying effect upon the little agitated company, "in a woman who was born to the name of Rachel Russell, the model English wife? Will the world ever believe harm, do you imagine, of such a name? I will take re

fuge in my ancestress. But we go different ways, and have different ends to accomplish," she continued, with a sudden returning gleam of the subdued horror-"Good nightgood night!"

66

Oh, stop her, Arthur - stop her!-Susan will be at Carlingford when we get there; Susan will go nowhere else but to her mother," cried Mrs Vincent, as the door closed on the nocturnal visitors "I am as sure-as sure- ! Oh, my dear, do you think I can have any doubt of my own child? As for Susan going astray-or being carried off-or falling into wickedness-Arthur!" said his mother, putting back her veil from her pale face, now I have got over this dreadful night, I know better-nobody must breathe such a thing to

me.

66

Tell her so, dear-tell her so! call her back-they will be at Carlingford when we get there!"

Vincent drew his mother's arm through his own, and led her out into the darkness, which was morning and no longer night. "A few hours longer and we shall see," he said, with a hard-drawn breath. Into that darkness Mrs Hilyard and her companion had disappeared. There was another line of railway within a little distance of Lonsdale, but Vincent was at pains not to see his fellow-travellers as he placed his mother once more in a carriage, and once more caught the eye of the man whose curious look had startled him. When the grey morning_began to dawn, it revealed two ashen faces, equally speechless and absorbed with thoughts which neither dared communicate to the other. They did not even look at each other, as the merciful noise and motion wrapped them in that little separate sphere of being. One possibility and no more kept a certain coherence in both their thoughts, otherwise lost in wild chaos-horrible suspense-an uncertainty worse than death.

OUR ANNUAL DEFICITS.

"IT thundered on the Left in a clear sky," was a phenomenon which Virgil held to be as propitious as it was unusual. Of late we have beheld a similar phenomenon in the House of Commons; and the omens are full of good augury for the party which has so long battled ably, and at length successfully, on behalf of the Constitution. No storms of party have this session disturbed the political sky. The great grief which overshadows the Throne places a restraint upon all parties-a restraint far greater than the public at large realise. The great "political lull," too, continues, and has even deepened. The debates of the present session, therefore, have been absolutely unparalleled for the absence of party spirit and party contests. The work of criticism-the check upon Ministerial blundering, and the exposure of the financial difficulties which, thanks to three years of a Liberal Government, now beset the country must go on: but the thunderings have all been in a clear sky, and no party division has even given room for calumny to impute to selfish ambition the telling exposures of Ministerial incapacity which have of late proceeded from the front benches of the Left.

For the last hundred years at least, there has not been a single Whig Ministry which has excelled in finance. Indeed, we shall more nearly express the truth if we say that, in this respect, every Whig Ministry has proved a failure. The present Administration appears to be emulous of the bad fame of its predecessors. Mr Gladstone, by far the most brilliant Chancellor of the Exchequer which the Liberal party has produced or acquired, has proved himself also the most reckless and unsafe, the most purposeless and inconsistent. He does not know his own mind for twelve consecutive months. Every session

exhibits him in some new contradiction of his former self. There is no real continuity of existence in him. He changes ceaselessly, not by any law of sequence or development, but abruptly like the chameleon, whose changes of colour are produced by causes entirely extrinsic and accidental. Some philosophers have been puzzled to say how it is a man, on awaking from sleep, knows himself to be the same as before. We should think the Gladstone of each new session must experience a greater difficulty of the same kind; and some future Whately or Cornewall Lewis will probably come to the conclusion that there was not one but half-adozen Gladstones-or rather that Gladstone was simply a soubriquet given to brilliant and reckless Chancellors of the Exchequer, of whom there happened to be several in the ten years subsequent to 1852. There is no determinate bias in his character. He has lively sentiments, but no deep-rooted convictions. Impressible, but without intellectual instincts, he receives his opinions from others, and readily parts with them under the influence of the hour. His mind has no stable premises and his facile logic, resting now on one premise, now on another, according to the exigency of the moment, proves to himself, and his matchless rhetoric generally proves to the House of Commons, that each opinion in turn is best. The same Mr Gladstone who, in 1853, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, eloquently denounced the income-tax as 66 just, unequal, and inquisitorial," and ordained that its odious existence should by a lingering death come to an end in 1860-and who in 1857 inveighed against the continuance of the tax at 9d. as a flagrant breach of "political morality," seeing that a compact had been entered into for its gradual abolition

un

-in 1860, the very year which he had appointed for its extinction, himself raised it to 10d., and now maintains that it is hopeless, for the present generation at least, to witness its abolition. In exactly the same fashion he has turned his back upon himself with respect to the taxes on tea and sugar, which also were to have expired in 1860, but which have been kept at the warrate in order that the duty might be taken off French wines and paper. The Peelite who, in former times, scoffed at "reciprocity," when advocated by the Conservatives, and called for Free Trade pure and simple, two years ago concocted an extravagant French treaty based on the very principles which he had condemned. Still more startling is it to reflect that the very Chancellor of Exchequer who, in 1854, maintained that even in times of war the yearly revenue ought to be made equal to the expenditure, should now (in his speech of 8th May), declare that it is hopeless to maintain a surplus in these times of peace.

Utterly regardless of his former acts, Mr Gladstone cannot be expected to have more respect for his words. Words, indeed are his principal stock in trade. He shuffles his words as a player shuffles the cards, and certainly he produces very startling effects. No one ever surpassed him in the skill with which he approaches a delicate subject and manages the weak points of his case; but then, it must be added, no British statesman ever before condescended to have recourse to so contemptible a jugglery with words -a jugglery which indeed, aided by his eminently persuasive delivery, often serves the purpose of the hour, but which every session is becoming more transparent and ineffective. Two years ago, when he wanted to frighten the House into augmenting the income-tax, he maintained that there was a deficit of twelve millions sterling; last year, when the balance was worse by 23 millions, and when he dreaded censure for his miscalcu

lations, he boldly maintained that there was a surplus! This year, when overtaken by the consequences of his blunders-when he can no longer deny the heavy deficit in the finances of the State-he seeks to comfort the House and propitiate the Radicals by announcing that "the epoch of retrenchment has commenced." Well, as Mr Disraeli remarked, that would be a most encouraging circumstance, if it really had a place in the world of fact; unfortunately, it is only another of MrGladstone's juggles. The mighty retrenchment thus magniloquently announced amounts, even by his estimates, to only one-hundredth part of the revenue; and his estimates, moreover, are quite as likely this year, as in previous years, to fall one or two millions short. It is hard to find any basis of fact for the claim which Mr Gladstone makes upon public respect as a high-principled pattern of political morality. In the use of words he is a rhetorical disciple of Talleyrand -in his acts he is perpetually denying himself; and both by words and by acts he leads the country into the commission of the greatest financial follies, as the country now begins to understand. Lord Derby last year said he wondered how the House of Commons could be so carried away by a charlatan. We believe the House of Commons is beginning to take the same view of the case; and, unquestionably, the crushing exposures of MrGladstone's financial bubbles, which have recently been made by Mr Disraeli and Sir Stafford Northcote, have produced a great effect, both upon Parliament and the country, and one which will only be deepened by the further course of events.

The very opening of the financial year gave omen of the coming downfall of Mr Gladstone's prestige as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The very tone, and much more the facts, of his Budget speech revealed his dilemma. His consummate knowledge of the arts of rhetoric teaches him never to appear as if

standing on his defence, yet this session, despite all his efforts to the contrary, he was ever on the brink of falling down into the air and language of apology. The grand eloquence of his Budget speech of 1860 was gone; even the cool effrontery and oily persuasiveness of his last year's oration were no longer at his command. Every one who heard him felt that as a financier he was a beaten man. Facts had grown too strong even for his eloquence and audacity. The errors of the past, now matured into the difficulties of the present, began to overpower him; and he had ample excuse for his failing confidence. Every member of the House remembered that he had inherited a surplus from his predecessor in office. Every one knew that that surplus had, under his management for the last two years, been replaced by a deficit. Mr Gladstone, indeed, now asserts that these two years were "exceptional years." Exceptional, in his sense of the word, they were not. A petty war in China, and a diplomatic dispute with the Cabinet of Washington, are certainly not events of such magnitude as to be held exceptional in our history. In the last quarter of a century, as Mr Disraeli reminded the House-besides the truly exceptional event of the Russian war-there have been three Chinese wars, two Caffre wars, a Persian war, and two New Zealand wars; not to speak of the great wars in India-with the Affghans, Gwalior, Scinde, the Sikhs, and the Sepoys. There was also the serious quarrel with France about Tahiti, which brought the two countries to the verge of war; there were boundary disputes with the United States, a rebellion in Canada, a Syrian invasion, which cost something, and an Irish famine, which cost a great deal. And besides all that, there were the Continental Revolutions of 1848-49, which seriously affected our commerce, and the Napoleonic war in Italy, which first made us see the

necessity of attending better to our national defences. Reckon up these events, and it will be found that, if such events be "exceptional," there is hardly a year in our annals which may not be called exceptional. Such events, indeed, are among the possibilities of every year; and hence it has always been the custom for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to frame his estimates so as to secure a considerable surplus. Even if we abandon -as we seem to have abandonedall hope of reducing the amount of the National Debt, every prudent Chancellor of the Exchequer must provide for two things: first, the possibility of error in his own calculations; and, secondly, the occurrence of events which may unexpectedly arise to disturb those calculations. Mr Gladstone's principle of finance appears to be to disregard these considerations of ordinary prudence, and we see the consequence. His estimates prove deceptive, and he has left no margin to cover his mistakes; events, of which he is warned beforehand, occur, and he has to come to the House again and again with supplemental Budgets. And, despite of these supplemental Budgets, and his infinite ingenuity in forestalling payments, his errors prove so tremendous, that every year we are landed in a fresh deficit.

We have to thank Mr Disraeli for calling the attention of the country to the disastrous condition into which the finances have fallen during the last two years. The service which he has thereby rendered to the House and to the country is great and timeous. Finance is a dry subject, budgets (at least Mr Gladstone's) are complicated affairs: and we do not think we exaggerate when we say that previous to Mr Disraeli's speech on 7th April there were very few men even in the House of Commons who understood the actual condition of affairs. That speech was a most masterly one, and the effect produced upon the House was worthy

of Mr Disraeli's best efforts. It was also quite unexpected, and fell upon Mr Gladstone like a thunderbolt. In vain did the astonished Chancellor of the Exchequer sit still, when his antagonist concluded his speech, and allowed Mr Bass to discourse upon beer in order that he himself might gather his ready wits for a reply. The facts were dead against him to grapple with the merits of the case would have been to court and confess defeat: but we were not prepared for so great a failure as the Chancellor of the Exchequer made in his reply. There was great irritation, pettiness, and personality in it but of answer not a shred. Mr Gladstone was upset; and in his perplexity he had recourse not only to recrimination but impertinence-nor had he, on this occasion, even the force of eloquence by which impertinence is raised into invective.

That speech of Mr Disraeli's made an end of Mr Gladstone's reputation as a financier in the House. Singularly enough, it seems to have induced Mr Gladstone to have recourse to Mr Bright's plan of trying, when beaten in the House, to get up an agitation out-of-doors. We cannot otherwise explain the Chancellor of Exchequer's extraordinary ebullition at Manchester, when, still smarting from the exposure of his tremendous blunders, he whiningly complained that the fault really was not his-that he was but a poor weak vessel-and that all the deficits which he had been creating ought to be laid at the door of Parliament and the country—not at the Government's, and least of all at his. It was a sign of the times. Boastful Gladstone could no longer boast. No man so inclined as he to vaunt, "Alone I did it!" So long as matters went smoothly, in what boastful language he has always alluded to every measure of finance to which he has stood godfather! We say "godfather"-for of actual parentage he has been guiltless, unless it were the luckless Act for converting a portion of the

debt in 1853, which only landed the country in additional expense.

One good thing we have to say for the speech at Manchester-it produced the best debate of the session in the House of Commons. Sir Stafford Northcote, who, both in last session and in this, has taken a place in financial debates second only to Mr Gladstone and Mr Disraeli, in his clear, neat, and business-like way, called the Chancellor of the Exchequer to account for his extraordinary delinquencies at Manchester-for the statements, alike false in fact and unconstitutional in principle, by which he had endeavoured to throw upon others the blame that was wholly due to himself and the Government to which he belonged. Mr Gladstone having been duly warned beforehand, was ready this time, but the sole substance of his reply was that he had never said anything of the kind! It was a sheer delusion, he said, on the part of Sir Stafford Northcote; the newspapers (which were unanimous in the report which they gave of his speech) were all wrong; and he entered upon an elaborate description of what he held to be the position and duties of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, to show how much every one had been mistaken as to the language and opinions imputed to him. A more remarkable self-contradiction, even on the part of Mr Gladstone, never was witnessed. He might quite as well have denied his own existence. And the occasional laughter with which his contradictions were received, showed that a good many members of the House were of that opinion. But what can be done when the accused distinctly denies that he ever spoke the words imputed to him, and makes an entirely opposite profession of faith? What more could be said than Mr Disraeli said—“I have heard the right hon. gentleman over and over again, according to my feeble powers of conception, put forth similar opinions, which,

« AnteriorContinuar »