No.127
approach vigorously opposed by
fellow OW Matthew Arnold). And yet
the anticipated call to a cabinet post
did not arrive, even when Palmerston
finally died and the Russell-Gladstone
ministry came in. Lowe was bitter,
and when the 1866 Reform Bill was
introduced, he was feeling very little
loyalty to his party.
The bill was actually a fairly mild
affair, aiming at peeling off the upper
layer of the urban working class
and forestalling more revolutionary
demands for change. But Lowe was
implacably opposed to any further
move towards democracy beyond
the 1832 settlement. Our modern
sensibilities make it hard for us to
understand a liberal anti-democrat.
But Lowe’s liberalism was literal:
its guiding principal was freedom,
tolerating ‘all that inequality between
man and man which is the result’,
with ‘each part discharging its
destined functions without envy and
without discontent, with absolute
personal freedom, under an equal
law.’ His focus was on the welfare of
the people, not abstract rights, and
that goal would be achieved by ‘pure
and clear intelligence alone’: by an
impartial governing meritocracy. Any
concession towards democracy would
only lead to worse government.
He did not pull any rhetorical
punches. His most (in)famous
contribution came in his first
parliamentary speech. ‘If you want
venality, if you want ignorance, if you
want drunkenness, and the facility
for being intimidated; or if, on the
other hand, you want impulsive,
unreflecting, and violent people,
where do you look for them in the
constituencies? Do you go to the top
or the bottom?’ It did not make him
popular with the people. He even used
the classic accusation beloved of many
a modern reactionary: the resultant
pressure for economic equality
would quickly turn the country
The Trusty Servant
‘Communist’. The gullible rabble
would be bewitched by trades-union
socialists, or plutocratic demagogues,
or imperialist tub-thumpers, and
good government would become
impossible. Enough Adullamites voted
with the Tories to defeat the bill, and
the government resigned.
As Derby and Disraeli formed a
minority administration, Lowe hoped
that his Adullamites could be the
core of a new party that would hold
the balance of power. But he had not
reckoned with Disraeli’s scheming.
Rejection of reform prompted big
demonstrations, including a riot in
Hyde Park. Disraeli, sensing the public
mood and spotting a chance to show
that the Tories too were capable of
reform, proposed a moderate franchise
bill of his own. However, he cynically
jettisoned his ‘safeguards’ as the bill
passed through parliament, resulting
in a bill significantly more radical
than the Liberals’. One million men
were added to the electorate, nearly
doubling it from less than a fifth
to just over a third of men over 21.
Derby called it ‘a leap in the dark’, but
the Tories and sufficient Liberal rebels
were willing to jump for it to pass. It
left Lowe vigorously but impotently
professing his ‘rage, grief and shame’
at Disraeli’s trickery. It did, however,
give him opportunity to coin his most
famous saying while reflecting upon
the importance of education under
an expanding franchise: ‘We must
educate our masters’ (although, like
most famous sayings, those weren’t his
exact words; he said that parliament
should ‘induce our future masters
to learn their letters’). Incidentally,
a tweaked version of this political
episode provided the background
for Phineas Finn, the Palliser novel
by Anthony Trollope, who was a
Winchester contemporary of Lowe
– as, moreover, were Disraeli’s two
younger brothers (Disraeli himself
regretted not being a Wykehamist).
15
The newly reformed electorate made
re-election for Calne impossible, so
in 1868 Lowe stood for the new seat
of London University, whose voters
liked him for his health reforms
and anti-clericalism; he beat Walter
Bagehot and Edwin Chadwick to the
nomination. The election brought
Gladstone to power, and to almost
everybody’s surprise he forgave
Lowe’s machinations and made him
Chancellor of the Exchequer. He
hoped that Lowe would be as firm
at holding public spending down as
he had been in opposing franchise
reform. Lowe helped drive through
the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms
to introduce competitive exams to
the Civil Service. But spending rose;
Gladstone judged his performance
‘wretchedly deficient’ (the last straw
was a tax on matches) and shifted him
to Home Secretary in 1873.
On Gladstone’s return in 1880,
Lowe’s prospect of a ministry was
vetoed by the Queen who had noted
his opposition to Disraeli’s 1876
Royal Titles Bill which had made her
Empress of India. Her opposition
could not prevent Gladstone raising
him to the peerage as Viscount
Sherbrooke. He retired from public
life soon afterwards with health and
mental powers failing, although he
lived until 1892.
Those cruel years at Winchester, with
nothing but his wits to defend him
against the bullies, had sharpened a
tongue whose lash had been felt by
the whole of society – for good and
ill. Gladstone’s final verdict was that
he was ‘capable of tearing anything to
pieces, but of constructing nothing.’
But his achievements in company
law, health, education and the
Civil Service belie that assessment:
‘harassing the country’ (Disraeli’s
phrase) had driven many of the great
Liberal reforms of the mid-Victorian
era.