Robert Lowe to Mrs. Billyard 11 Downing Street: August 25, 1870 I have been nearly worked to death and am going to-morrow to get rid of heat and glare in Scotland. But I cannot easily leave all my cares behind me, for the dreadful war that is now raging fills us with deep anxiety. It seems at present to portend one of the greatest catastrophes which the world has seen, and the loss of life is perfectly awful. I am told that the Prussians have in their hands, as the result of the great battles round Metz, 70,000 wounded Prussians and French. How happy you are to live away from such horrors, though, I doubt not, the time will come when the thirsty soil of Australia will drink human blood just as greedily as the fields of Alsace and Lorraine. I hope we shall keep out of it, and I think so; but we are at the mercy of so many contingencies that it is well not to be too positive. On September 16, 1870, Robert Lowe was enrolled among the burgesses of Elgin. Mr. Cameron, the Lord Provost, referred to him as a master of almost unrivalled powers of ridicule and sarcasm;' adding 'there are few men in the House of Commons who care to break a lance with our distinguished guest.' It was, perhaps, the emphasis thus laid on one side of Lord Sherbrooke's mental character which made his concluding words so effective. It happened that the news had just arrived of the loss of the new turret-ship Captain, which had gone down in the Bay of Biscay with all hands, including a son of Mr. Childers, First Lord of the Admiralty, and a son of Lord Northbrook. The loss of the Captain,' said the Chancellor, has come to us in the midst of our congratulations at the success of the session, in the considerable measures we passed, and the progress we believed we were making in naval matters. I think it is impossible to imagine a catastrophe more melancholy; and yet it seems to me the price we are doomed to pay for great improvements.' There is in the lone, lone sea, 'Down, down beneath the deep That oft in triumph bore them, They sleep a sound and peaceful sleep, With the wild waves washing o'er them. 'And though no stone may tell Their name, their worth, their glory, These lines, which he gave with deep feeling, were from Lyte's poem, 'The Sailor's Grave.' Some two years later, on September 26, 1872, Robert Lowe was presented with the freedom of the City of Glasgow, and on that occasion delivered one of his most memorable addresses, to which more than one reference has been made in this work. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XXI IT has been thought desirable to append the following letter and statement of Sir Reginald Welby, in regard to Lord Sherbrooke's tenure of the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. December 28, 1876 Dear Mr. Lowe,-Your correspondent, whose letter I return, says that he stated that you left a surplus of 4,000,000l. besides having reduced the annual expenditure and National Debt by how many millions more he could not state. The Estimates of 1874-75 were practically the estimates of your Government, and they showed a revenue of 77,995,000l. against an expenditure of 72,503,000l.; surplus 5,492,000l. In your five Budgets you reduced taxation by 12,450,000l. net, after making allowance for the additions which you made at different times. If you think the additions to income tax made by Mr. Hunt were in the nature of temporary additions and deduct them, so as to leave your reductions of taxation bonâ fide reductions of permanent taxes, you are still left with 9,500,000l. to your credit. On March 31, 1869, the Debt was 805,500,000l.; March 31, 1874, 779,300,000l.; reduction, 26,200,000l.; but during that period you had borrowed about 12,000,000l. for telegraphs, fortifications, &c, which, of course, showed that you had paid off nearly 40,000,0007. on the whole. In 1866-67 Army and Navy cost, before Abyssinia began, 25,300,0007.; in 1873-74, 24,700,000l.; but even this latter sum includes part of the Ashantee expenditure, so that the reduction was really greater. Yours very truly, R. S. WELBY. Mr. Lowe is responsible for the Civil Service expenditure in four complete years. His immediate supervision related to the Consolidated Fund charges and the so-called Miscellaneous Services. Excluding the charge for the Revenue Departments, which naturally grows with the growth of the Revenue, the following table shows the expenditure for Civil Services and Consolidated Fund in the two years of Tory adminis tration, and in the four years during which Mr. Lowe was at the Treasury: It appears, therefore, that last year's expenditure exceeded the expenditure in the last year for which the Tory Government is responsible by 880,000l. But during the four years of Mr. Lowe's administration, the Civil Estimates were swelled by various new items, or by the extension of old ones. Contrasting 1872-73 with 1868-69, the expenditure of the former year was increased by the following items: £ Cadastral Survey-Removed from War Office Estimates 120,000 Pensions-Increase principally caused by Chancery and Bankruptcy Compensations 140,000 £1,460,000 That is to say, had there been no new Legislation tending to increase expenditure, had the charge for Police and Reformatories been the same as in 1868, and had no transfers been made from other votes, there would have been an actual reduction, as there is an actual saving, of 580,000l. NOTE A Owing to the nature of the machinery brought into use during the last few years . . . wars, for the future, instead of being long torments, will be short agonies. Not only will they not last for twenty-two years, as was the case in the war which we waged with Napoleon, but the Seven Weeks' War in Germany, the other day, may resolve itself into a campaign, on an equally grand scale, of seven days. . . . I know no greater weapon of strength than the power of levying the taxes at one sweep, without the needless delay and circumlocution attending the present system of collection.'-'Lowe's Financial Statement, 1869.' [See 'Mr. Lowe's Budget Speeches,' p. 479.] ... со VOL. II. CHAPTER XXII CLOSE OF OFFICIAL CAREER-HOME SECRETARY (1873-74) MANY and various are the explanations that have been offered of the decadence of the Gladstone Government in 1873, and its complete downfall in 1874. Mr. George Russell, with praiseworthy candour, in his interesting monograph on Mr. Gladstone, seems to attribute the overthrow of the Government mainly to the Prime Minister's treatment of the rank and file of the Liberal party, and to his want of tact or lightness of touch. He had little of that saving gift of humour which smooths the practical working of life as much as it adds to its enjoyment.' Although Mr. Russell, in the frank and noteworthy passage here briefly indicated, throws the entire blame on his great hero, Mr. Gladstone, it is notorious that Lowe, as well as almost all the chief Liberal Ministers, was equally the subject of attack throughout the length and breadth of the country. If an impartial historian were to attempt the task of estimating the causes of the unpopularity of the Gladstone, or any other ministry, he might be astonished to find that its merits had contributed to that end even more than its shortcomings. There can be little doubt that the principal cause of the downfall of the Liberal Government in 1874 was the organised opposition of the Nonconformists to Mr. Forster's statesmanlike Education Act; and after this, the settlement of the Ala1 The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. By George W. E. Russell (Sampson Low), p. 228. |