A Most Rigid Economist 1853–8

Abstract

When Parliament reassembled in November 1852 Gladstone’s position was still genuinely open. He was poised between his hope for Conservative reunion, insistence that protection must be well and truly buried, distrust of Disraeli and fear that no budget on truly sound Peelite lines could be expected from one so ‘quackish’, unease about Russell and the Whigs and their religious ethos. Through Hardinge, a Peelite who had joined the Derby government, he conveyed to the Conservative leader that there must be explicit adoption of free trade in the Queen’s Speech and an immediate budget on sound lines. The Peelite leaders were in session when they received a copy of the relevant paragraph in the Queen’s Speech, which was far from explicit. ‘We were all much dissatisfied and disappointed, ’ wrote Gladstone, but he was still concerned to leave all options open. The next hurdle which faced Derby’s government was a free-trade motion moved by Villiers, most inveterate of free-traders, at the end of November. Gladstone knew that the Protectionists must eat dirt, but he was prepared to let them swallow it quietly. He collaborated with Palmerston, then in an independent position after his breach with Russell, in working out a more palatable free-trade resolution, and this was passed by an overwhelming majority from all sections of the House.