eaven.

_Henry VIII._ iii. 2.

I

"Politics," wrote Mr. Gladstone in one of his private memoranda in March
1894, "are like a labyrinth, from the inner intricacies of which it is
even more difficult to find the way of escape, than it was to find the way
into them. My age did something but not enough. The deterioration of my
hearing helped, but insufficiently. It is the state of my sight which has
supplied me with effectual aid in exchanging my imperious public
obligations for what seems to be a free place on 'the breezy common of
humanity.' And it has only been within the last eight months, or
thereabouts, that the decay of working sight has advanced at such a pace
as to present the likelihood of its becoming stringently operative at an
early date. It would have been very difficult to fix that date at this or
that precise point, without the appearance of making an arbitrary choice;
but then the closing of the parliamentary session (1893-4) offered a
natural break between the cessation and renewal of engagements, which was
admirably suited to the design. And yet I think it, if not certain, yet
very highly probable at the least, that any disposition of mine to profit
by this break would--but for the naval scheme of my colleagues in the naval
estimates--have been frustrated by their desire to avoid the inconveniences
of a change, and by the pressure which they would have brought to bear
upon me in consequence. The effect of that scheme was not to bring about
the construction of an artificial cause, or pretext rather, of
resignation, but to compel me to act upon one that was rational,
sufficient, and ready to hand."

This is the short, plain, and intelligible truth as to what now happened.
There can be no reason to-day for not stating what was for a long time
matter of common surmise, if not of common knowledge, that Mr. Gladstone
did not regard the naval estimates, opened but not settled in December
1893, as justified by the circumstances of the time. He made a speech that
month in parliament in reply to a motion from the front bench opposite,
and there he took a position undoubtedly antagonistic to the new scheme
that found favour with his cabinet, though not with all its members. The
present writer is of course not free to go into details, beyond those that
anybody else not a member of the cabinet would discover from Mr.
Gladstone's papers. Nor does the public lose anything of real interest by
this necessary