by Simon Heffer
One scandal that emerged during the long debate was over-regulation prices: officers paying more than the set tariff for a particular posting, because of the laws of supply and demand working in the favour of the seller. This was illegal, but had been connived at by the War Office and the Army for years, and by commanders-in-chief such as the Duke of Wellington, who had in the 1830s argued that the emoluments of one officer be increased precisely because he had had to pay over the odds to secure his position. It was alleged that more than £3 million had been paid illegally by serving officers. When they came to be compensated, they would receive only the tariff price, and so were about to be financially punished for having broken the rules. The government did not regard this as its problem.
However, over-purchase was a problem for the Army. It tainted everyone who engaged in it or condoned it, from the Duke downwards. It created an alternative view of an officer class whose honour, decency and selflessness had been paraded around the Commons all through the spring of 1871, and showed officers instead in some instances to be little better than tradesmen. Given what had turned out to be the officer class’s obsession with money, Cardwell did some research into how their pay compared with that of officers in the army he most admired, the Prussian. In reforming the Army Cardwell took Prussia very much as his model. He sought to discover, in June 1871, what the comparative rates of pay were between the two armies.66 It was found that a lieutenant colonel in the infantry was paid £360 4s a year, whereas his Prussian counterpart received £266 8s: however, purchasing power was very different between the two countries, and it was noted ‘that money is three times more valuable in Prussia than England’.67 A better comparison, it was decided, was America, where a lieutenant colonel earned £514 a year, though a War Office official added this note: ‘It is worthy of note that the Prussian officers [are] essentially an aristocratic body [and] as a rule practise the utmost frugality.’
Gladstone told the Duke of Cambridge on 9 July, after the bill had cleared the Commons, that as the charging of over-regulation prices was illegal, the purchase question had reached the stage where ‘it must go forward in the hands of any Govt whatever, and consequently that the recognition of this necessity cannot constitute a mark of adhesion to any one Govt in particular, or a ground of quarrel or misunderstanding with any other.’68 To do otherwise would be to condone a system that had, it was now proven, fostered illegality. In case the Duke was still thinking of abstaining when the measure came to the Lords, he was told by Gladstone that this view ‘in substance [has] the sanction of HM.’ Gladstone also offered to go to see him, and pointed out the precedent of the Duke’s predecessor, the Duke of Wellington, supporting government measures. Gladstone followed this up five days later telling the Duke that ‘nor is any declaration asked as to purchase on its merits. Purchase is gone. The only question remaining is the mode of abolition; and I learned with pleasure from YRH that as matters now stand you consider the passing of the Bill to be the best mode.’69 Since the exposure of what had effectively been a racket, support for the status quo had dropped, and the diehards were becoming more marginalised. Cardwell and Gladstone’s decision to pursue abolition came to look more and more sensible and inspired by the day.
Yet despite this hopeful observation the Duke, who ‘has been making great efforts and holding rather strong language’, according to a conversation Gladstone had had at Windsor in early July 1871 with the courtier Sir Thomas Biddulph, remained a big obstacle to change.70 The Duke let it be known he was minded to tell the Lords to look after the officers; Gladstone wanted him simply to recommend they pass the bill. The Duke had sought to enlist his cousin, the Queen, to bring Gladstone into line, by explaining to him that it was wrong that a royal personage should vote in the Lords (even though the Duke had, on several occasions, done just that): but in one of those exchanges that so endeared the Prime Minister to the Sovereign, he refused to be cowed: ‘I said that what the Cabinet had mainly discussed and had in view was the Duke’s recommendation to the House which would come in a speech: but I observed that the Duke’s own position would be most unsatisfactory, and scarcely worthy, if he advised the House of Lords to take a certain course, and then shrank from taking it himself.’ In a separate note to Cardwell, Gladstone went so far as to describe the Duke’s prospective position, in a note to his Cabinet, as ‘unmanly’.71
‘I shall be glad to know how this point strikes my colleagues,’ Gladstone continued. ‘I do not think that we could guarantee the defensibility of the Duke’s position if he declines to vote; though some weight might be allowed, under favourable circumstances, to the plea that it is his general rule to abstain from voting.’ Lord Hartington, the Irish Secretary, advised Gladstone that ‘if the Duke of Cambridge will recommend the House of Lords to pass the Bill on the grounds that purchase will sooner or later be abolished, and that the terms of the present measure are liberal to the officers, I think that he will have done all that can reasonably be asked. If the Duke has usually abstained from voting, I should not think it necessary to insist upon it in this case.’72 Lord Halifax, the Lord Privy Seal, agreed with him. However, Lord Ripon, the Lord President, agreed with Hartington on the first point, but said he would ‘greatly regret for HRH’s own sake if he were to abstain from voting after having urged the House of Lords to pass the Bill: such a position does not seem to me to be tenable.’73 Chichester Fortescue, the President of the Board of Trade, agreed with Ripon.
Cardwell himself asked what the arrangements for the Duke’s continued tenure could be if he were unhelpful – not least since Cardwell, who wanted the Duke out, had agreed to his tenure being extended in return for his cooperation. ‘It seems to me that this is a very serious question, and that HRH ought distinctly to understand the position in which he will be placed towards the Government and the Government towards him, if he does not fulfil the spirit of the engagement which was made on his behalf.’74 George Goschen, the First Lord of the Admiralty, agreed. Hatherley, the Lord Chancellor, said the Duke’s position would be seen as ‘hostile’ if he abstained.75 So did Henry Bruce, the Home Secretary, and Lord Kimberley, the Colonial Secretary. Lowe asserted that:
the appointment of the Commander in Chief for an indefinite time was justified on the grounds that he ought not to retain office at all if his views were not in accordance with those of the ministry of the day . . . I always regarded this decision as establishing that this was not a staff but a political appointment and would treat it accordingly . . . It is very well known that the Duke has allowed himself great licence of language on this question and that his immediate entourage has assisted in getting up the opposition to our Bill . . . he should be told that he can only retain his place on the condition of voting and speaking without reservation in favour of the Bill and that we should make up our minds to give the fullest effect to what we say – otherwise I do not think you can count on the support of the House in finding the money for War Reform and you will stand convicted of deceit and bad faith. 76
The Lords tried to prevent a second reading until it had more detail of the new means of granting commissions and allowing promotions. The bill did not merely abolish purchase: it also sought to put the militia on a more efficient footing and to reorganise it and the regular Army. It was deemed by Tories in the Lords that not enough detail had been provided on these points either. There was talk of a Royal Commission, which would have delayed progress by a year or two: and all this came on top of the obstreperousness of the Duke, and his determination to save as much of the old, Wellingtonian, order as possible. The Cabinet, meeting on 12 July, considered its options. One was to stop proceedings and start afresh the following session: Parliament was due to rise for the long recess in a month. This idea, which would have undermined the government drastically, was not pursued. However, another option – to abolish purchase by means of a Royal Warrant, and let the Lords do what it would with the bill – was. After all the time spent discussing abolition, this coup caused outrage, wit
h peers and MPs asking why it had not been adopted before. Gladstone’s excuse was that the illegal activity of over-purchase had now been exposed, and could not be allowed to continue a moment longer. As the illegal activity had been condoned by Royal Warrant in 1809, Royal Warrant could stop it. And it did. The government also protested that Army organisation was not a matter for an Act of Parliament, but for day-to-day management by the administration: but this could not happen efficiently while what Lord Northbrook, who spoke for the War Office in the Lords, called the ‘spider’s web of vested interests’ that was the purchase system remained in place.77 He gave examples of whole regimental reconstructions thwarted because senior officers would lose money; and stressed the impossibility under a purchase system of moving officers from the regular Army to the militia, and vice versa.
The star turn in the Lords’ debate was, inevitably, the Duke of Cambridge, who on 14 July 1871 took the House into his confidence. He was conscious that, if the bill was enacted, ‘the serious responsibility of . . . selection, which all admit is difficult, and many declare to be next to impossible’ would devolve upon him.78 He spoke of his devotion to the regimental system, and added that ‘It is intended, unless I am greatly mistaken, that after purchase has been put an end to the system shall be one of seniority tempered by selection; for example, if an officer is unfit to command a regiment he will not, by the course of promotion, receive the command of one, and, on the other hand, eminent professional talent will be recognized and encouraged; but care will be taken, as I understand, to preserve the regimental system as far as possible, providing also that purchase does not revive under a new form.’79
The Duke admitted the Army had been a shambles when he took it over, and that the Franco-Prussian conflict had concentrated minds, at last, on putting the service ‘on a more secure and satisfactory footing’.80 However, he also stated – principally, one supposes, to his brother officers – that he had no power as Commander-in-Chief to initiate policy, which was the duty of Her Majesty’s ministers. Lest this be thought a Pontius Pilate move, the Duke set out his views unequivocally. Purchase, he said ‘cannot be defended for a moment’.81 It should be abolished, even though he had given evidence to the inquiry into the subject stating the opposite. He explained his U-turn. ‘I felt it to be absolutely necessary that there should be a flow of promotion in the Army, and because the purchase system maintained such a flow; and the money came out of the pockets of the officers. But now that the country is prepared to make the necessary sacrifice, and is willing to incur a vast expenditure in order to put an end to the system, and is also willing to provide good retirements, the injustice of abolishing and the advantages of retaining purchase have disappeared altogether.’ He had simply not believed the Commons would vote such a generous sum, but it had. The Queen persuaded him not to vote against the bill, and he abstained.
The abolition by Royal Warrant had one profound drawback for the privileged class that had opposed it: it gave them none of the compensation the bill had offered. If the bill were enacted, there would be compensation. Suddenly, after much expression of outrage, the Lords passed it, securing the financial rights of their own class. Cardwell and Gladstone could breathe again, but the time devoted to the measure wrecked the rest of the government’s legislative programme for that session. Nevertheless, the Army had been given modern foundations, and its officer class forced to live according to the meritocratic principles that Gladstone so admired in the next rank down of society.
Gladstone’s difficult relations with Queen Victoria were not eased by his asking her to intervene with her cousin. However, the real problem he had with her was her caprice. The word she used time and again to describe the man who served her four times as Prime Minister was ‘incomprehensible’.82 Writing to her daughter the Crown Princess of Prussia in September 1869, after Gladstone had been at Balmoral, the Queen said that ‘I cannot find him very agreeable, and he talks so very much.’83 This was mild compared with what she would be saying later in his premiership. In February 1872 she asserted that ‘Mr Gladstone is a very dangerous Minister – and so wonderfully unsympathetic.’84 In the former observation she merely repeated something said to her by Palmerston.85 These opinions, too, were mild compared with how she would regard him after he had left office, and had begun to concern himself with the Eastern question. The Queen regarded his views on that as objectionable, since she felt he wished to hand Constantinople over to the Russians. By 1877 she was referring to him as ‘that half-madman’.86 Within a few weeks he had been promoted, and had become quite simply ‘that madman’.87
Her daughter, who from the safe distance of Berlin had no day-to-day experience of Gladstone, surmised that ‘the government is composed of very clever, talented, eminent, and highly cultivated men – who hold all the principles which seem philosophically to be the undoubtedly right ones for the present day, but they seem to lack that tact and savoir faire which is the essence of statesmanship and which does not depend upon knowledge alone, at any rate one has seen it oftenest in the highest – but not in the most highly educated and learned men.’ In other words, Gladstone was too intelligent and principled to fawn in the way that some of his predecessors and colleagues had or did, which the Royal Family put down to intellectual arrogance and a lack of breeding. What the Princess called ‘modern middle-class government’ might have been recognised by her as a necessary reflection of changes in society, but had (to the Royal Family) its disadvantages.
Unfortunately, Gladstone and the Queen needed each other. Although she never admitted it, she needed him to support her at a time when her behaviour had made her deeply unpopular. Public feeling against her was stimulated by her refusal to participate properly in public life, while costing the taxpayer an inordinate sum. George Leaper, the honorary secretary of the Hull Republican club, wrote to Gladstone on 30 July 1873 enclosing a resolution ‘unanimously adopted at a large meeting held in Hull last evening in condemnation of any further grant of public money being made to the Duke of Edinburgh on his approaching marriage.’88 But Gladstone defended her against extravagance. After a pamphlet was published entitled What does she do with it? asking where all the money went, Gladstone wrote a rebuttal. It began with the statement: ‘no accurate information can be obtained on this subject.’89 He was a loyal Prime Minister, not least because, at moments such as with the Duke of Cambridge, he needed her.
III
Apart from the Army and the Civil Service the other closed elite the Gladstone ministry resolved to take on, in the interests of meritocracy, were the ancient universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Dominated by the Established Church, they were more like seminaries than places of intellectual development. Though nominally wedded to minimalism in government, the Liberal party wished to make changes to benefit the poor and improve social mobility. When Layard stood for election in Southwark in November 1868, he told his electors: ‘I have ever supported such Liberal measures as tend to the amelioration of the condition of the people.’90 Thus, in 1869 the government decided to compel in the universities ‘that amount of religious freedom in regard to all the subjects of the Queen which the House of Commons at least by overwhelming majorities on previous occasions has declared that it thinks just and right.’91 The latest example of injustice was that the Senior Wrangler at Cambridge had been a Jew, but was not allowed to receive the distinction. The Oxford and Cambridge Universities Acts of 1854 and 1856 respectively had removed the need for those wishing to matriculate at the universities, or to take degrees, to sign the Thirty-nine Articles. However, the pursuit of academic excellence was handicapped by the inability of men who could not sign the Articles from proceeding to the degree of Master of Arts, to doctorates or to fellowships, or to receive university prizes and distinctions: the problem Clough had had twenty years earlier. It was ironic that the administration seeking to remedy this was led by probably the most profoundly Christian Prime Minister of the nineteenth century, and quite possibly in British history.
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Although secularisation was perceived to be on the advance, many in the Church of England, especially in Oxford and Cambridge, would not admit it. They also maintained that the State had not contributed to the wealth, endowment or work of Oxford and Cambridge, and therefore had no right to dictate how the universities would regulate themselves. It was also feared the universities would, if allowed to forgo the religious tests, become magnets for Nonconformists, and would be ruined as places for the teaching of religion. However, supporters of the abolition of the Test could not understand why the Church felt so insecure that it wished to continue to deny a fellowship to those who would not sign the Thirty-nine Articles.
After Henry Sidgwick, a distinguished utilitarian philosopher, resigned his fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1869, because he could no longer subscribe to the Articles and felt he should not hold an appointment that required him to, some in the university decided to seek abolition of the religious tests. However, on 13 January 1870 a memorial was sent to Gladstone, signed by ‘the leading Residents, and senior members of the Senate’ of the university, deploring the passing of any legislation that would facilitate such a thing. They argued that it would ‘seriously imperil the Christian character of the said University and Colleges and their efficiency as places of Religious Education’, and added that they ‘earnestly deprecate any legislation by which the government and teaching of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, or of the Colleges in the same, may be transferred altogether or in part into the hands of persons who are not members of the Established Church.’92 However. one of those driving the reform was the Master of St John’s College, Cambridge, W. H. Bateson, who wrote to Gladstone in February 1870 to say that, following deputations from both universities to Gladstone, further consultations had proved ‘extremely satisfactory’ to the cause of repeal.93 He submitted a draft bill drawn up by representatives of both universities. Gladstone was under severe pressure from his own supporters to get the bill through, in the interests of furthering ‘the cause of religious liberty’.94