fine to keep down enterprise in the issue of cheap newspapers. The newspaper was, according to his belief, one of the most powerful influences towards the spread of national education, and he soon made up his mind to abolish the last tax which stood in its way. In his financial scheme of 1860 he announced that the Government had resolved to abolish the duty on paper. It is hardly necessary to say that such a proposition met with the strongest opposition from both sides of the House. It became a mere question of what we call vested interests. There were many influential manufacturers of paper in the House of Commons, and these all joined in an organized opposition to any scheme which threw open the business of newspaper publishing to free and common competition. Naturally, the well-established and high-priced journals objected to the idea of a penny "rag" being enabled to compete with a sixpenny daily journal. Therefore the battle was fiercely fought out in the House of Commons and in the daily press, and Mr. Gladstone became, naturally, the object of much fierce denunciation. According to many of his critics, the result of his policy could only be the overthrow of the altar and the throne, the aristocratic system and the whole moral creed, of the nation. The vested interests in the House of Commons were then, as they are even still, very strong, and one vested interest was generally found ready to stand by another. In the early part of the session Mr. Gladstone was very unwell, and his financial statement had to be put off for some days. When he did come to make his statement, the force of his marvelous eloquence and reasoning power compelled the House of Commons to pass the provision for the abolition of the paper duty. But at each stage of the measure the majorities in favor of the abolition fell and fell. The second reading was carried by a majority of fifty-three; the third reading was carried by a majority of only nine. This naturally gave new courage to the House of Lords, and in the Hereditary Chamber a motion was made and carried by a large majority to reject alto A view seen by Mr. Gladstone in driving from Hawarden to the Chester railway station CHESTER. THE CATHEDRAL. WEST FRONT This portion was erected by Abbot Simon Ripley about 1492. The buildings to the left are modern gether Mr. Gladstone's bill for the repeal of the duty on paper. This action on the part of the House of Lords brought on a constitutional crisis as serious as any that has happened in our time. The House of Lords, it should be understood, has no power to impose taxation on the people of England. But if the House of Lords has no power to initiate taxation on the people, it was fairly and justly contended by Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright that neither can the House of Lords have any right to reimpose on the English people any tax which the House of Commons has seen fit to take off. This is, indeed, the evident common sense of the matter. If the House of Lords could have the constitutional right to reimpose a tax which had been taken off by the Representative Chamber-that is, the taxing Chamber-there could be no reason what ever why the House of Lords should not have the right to initiate taxation of its own free will. Nobody even among the Tory leaders of the House of Lords ventured to contend that the Hereditary Chamber had any right to initiate taxation, but it was plausibly argued that when a certain scheme of taxation came before the peers, the peers had a perfect right to modify the scheme in any way that they thought fit. The question then came down to a very narrow issue. The repeal of the paper duty was put off for one session; but the public out-of-doors, having full faith in the leadership of Mr. Gladstone, were not much excited by what Mr. Gladstone well called the "gigantic innovation " on the part of the Hereditary Chamber, There were meetings held, to be sure, all over the country, and the action of the House of Lords was strongly and justly denounced. But the general feeling was one of perfect conviction that Mr. Gladstone would put the whole thing right, and therefore there was no popular disturbance whatever. I remember the time well. I was even then in the thick of political life, and I can say with certainty that only the strong faith in Mr. Gladstone's capacity as a leader prevented something not unlike a national convulsion. The Liberals had little faith in Lord Palmerston. Lord Palmerston's sympathies went a good deal with the Tories and against the Radicals. Mr. Gladstone absolutely condemned the con duct of the House of Lords. Lord Palmerston only proposed a series of mild resolutions reaffirming the rights of the House of Commons with regard to national taxation. Then for the first time it became clear to all the world that Mr. Gladstone was bidding his final farewell not merely to the Tory party but to the party of the Whigs-that is to say, the lagging and backward section of the Liberals. His final declaration on the subject was yet to come, but it may already be anticipated by some consideration of the conditions under which the House of Lords was still stimulated into setting up its will against that of the House of Commons. I have said that the majorities in favor of Mr. Gladstone's measure dwindled at each stage, and at last came down to a poor superiority of nine. The fact is that at that time the House of Commons was only constitutionally and technically representative of the majority of the people. The franchise was so high and so limited that it excluded the whole mass of the working classes. There was not at that time a single man in the House of Commons who represented, or was entitled to speak for, the laboring population of the three kingdoms. The great Reform Bill introduced by Lord Grey and Lord John Russell thirty years before, and carried after a two years' struggle, had admitted what men called the middle classes of England to the right of voting for the election of a member to the House of Commons. But the working classes and the poor had been wholly CHESTER. ONE OF THE OLD HOUSES At the corner of "Hawarden Castle Entry' well afford to pay sixpence for their daily paper, and they were not responsible for their votes to any of the class who most especially wanted cheap newspapers. The peers, therefore, naturally took courage. They felt little doubt that the majority of the House of Commons would be rather obliged to them than otherwise for the course they had taken in resisting Mr. Gladstone's reform. But the country kept quiet, as I have said, because it had full faith in Mr. Gladstone's determination, and because it was quite certain that the peers would not resist him for very long. As a matter of fact, Mr. Gladstone's scheme was passed into law in the very next session. The peers did not attempt any further resistance. If anything could have proved more clearly than another the utter worthlessness of the existence of the House of Lords, it would have been proved by its action with regard to the paper duties. For the House of Lords said in one second that to make paper cheap would be to flood the country with abominable newspapers, spreading everywhere the doctrines of anarchy and profligacy, and in the very next session it said in effect, "Well, if Mr. Gladstone and the House of Commons want this iniquitous measure, of course they must have it. If they really want to ruin the country, we must only let them ruin the country, and make no further work about it." A story went at the time that Lord Palmerston sent up a message to the House of Lords to give them advice as to their conduct with regard to the repeal of the duties on paper. I do not venture to vouch for the truth of the story, but, if it was not true, I think, at least, it ought to have been true. Lord Palmerston, it was said, sent up a message to the House of Lords to say that the rejection of Mr. Gladstone's scheme was a very good joke for once, but they really must not try it another time. The peers would seem to have acted promptly upon this suggestion. They did not try the joke another time. The duty on paper was repealed, and the three kingdoms got their cheap newspapers in abundance. It is almost needless to say that not one of the penny papers that started into existence all over this country advocated any doctrine of anarchy or profligacy or disorder. Better-conducted papers do not exist in any country in the world than the cheap journ.ls which Mr. Gladstone by his policy helped into existence. With one single excep The "Rows" in Chester are supposed by some to be of Roman origin. They were well described by the late Albert Smith when he said that "the passenger's footway lies right through the first-floor fronts of the houses and above the shop, of ordinary normal position, by the roadside; and thus the back drawing-rooms, or whatever else they may be, are turned into more shops; and great is the puzzle of the stranger as to whether the roadway is down in the cellar, or he is upstairs on the landing, or the house has turned itself out of window." |