ABSTRACT

Mr. Gladstone meditates resignation on the Navy’s demands, January 1894. He revived the notion of a speedy dissolution. Though Gladstone made the most of the case for the Duke when telling Parliament, on December 21st, of the £15,000 per annum and the Admiralty emoluments he was laying down, a Radical challenge raised a division of 59 votes against 177. History seems to have decided that, despite the unfortunate results of Gladstone’s Dissolutions in 1874 and 1886, he was in 1894 more in the right than his colleagues. The demand for qualifications giving assurance that those having authority to spend the rates had no interest in “extravagance”, but rather the reverse, was even keener on other parts of the Bill. Gladstone’s retirement did the greater harm to the “cause of progress” from the unfortunate Rosebery Premiership which it precipitated. Rosebery, it is true, seemed to have a popularity in Scotland and in London which promised to be most useful electorally.