Not long after came the end of Mr. Gladstone’s marvellous Parliamentary career. The originative power, masterful vigour, and fiery energy which still characterized Mr. Gladstone after passing his eightieth year were so extraordinary that his followers almost regarded him as immortal. At any rate, men of forty and fifty hardly expected to have to look for another leader in their lifetime. But, nevertheless, the time came for his retirement—came suddenly, and without apparent cause. There were rumours, but there was nothing certain, and his last Parliamentary words, in grave condemnation of the changes made by the Lords in the Local Government Bill, were spoken in March, 1894. The description of the scene is one of the most effective passages in Mr. McCarthy’s book:
‘Some of us, of course, were in the secret, or at least were vaguely forewarned of what we had to expect. Shortly after Mr. Gladstone sat down I met Mr. John Morley in one of the lobbies. “Is that, then,” I asked, “the very last speech?” “The very last,” was his reply. “I don’t believe one quarter of the men in the House understand it so,” I said. “No,” he replied, “but it is so, all the same.” Mr. McCarthy continues: “No other man, not Mr. Gladstone, would probably on such an occasion have made it plain that he was giving his final farewell to the assembly which he had charmed and over which he had dominated by his eloquence for so many years. Lord Chatham certainly would not have allowed himself to pass out of public life without conveying to all men the idea that he spoke in Parliament for the last time. But Mr. Gladstone, with all his magnificent rhetorical gift, and with all his artistic instinct, had no thought of getting up a scene. . . . In the theatric sense I should describe his last speech as a dramatic failure. Numbers of men lounged out of the House when the speech was over, not having the least idea that they were never again to hear his voice in Parliamentary debate. Yet I for one do not regret that Mr. Gladstone thus took his leave of political life. I am not sorry that there were no fireworks; that there was no tableau; that there was no such dramatic fall of the curtain. The orator during his closing speech was inspired by one subject, and was not thinking of himself. A single sentence interjected in the course of the speech would have told every one of his hearers what was coming, and would have led to a demonstration such as was probably never before known in the House of Commons. It did not suit Mr. Gladstone’s tastes or inclinations to lead up to any such demonstration, and therefore, while he warned the House of Commons as to its duties and its responsibilities, he said not a word about himself and about his action in the future. Parliamentary history lost something, no doubt, by the manner of his exhortation, but I think the character of the man will be regarded as all the greater because at so supreme a moment he forgot that the greatest Parliamentary career of the Victorian era had come at last to its close.’