Some Delay Took Place Before We Could See Mr. Gladstone.
But we finally
accomplished the interview with him at his fine house in Carlton House
Terrace, on the 23rd November.
After waiting some while, following, as
we did, about a dozen previous waiters on the Chancellor, we were shown
into Mr. Gladstone's working room, or den. The room was very untidy.
Placards, papers, letters, newspapers, magazines, and blue boots on the
table, chairs, bookshelves, and the floor. It looked, altogether, as if
the window had been left open, and the contents of a miscellaneous
newspaper, book, and parliamentary paper shop had been blown into the
apartment. Mr. Gladstone, himself, looked bored and worried. Though
perfectly civil, he had the expression of a man on his guard against a
canvasser or a dun. He might be thinking of the "Trent" affair. We
stated our errand, and as I had, as arranged, to say something, I used
the argument of probable saving in the Atlantic mail subsidies, by the
creation of land routes, &c. He brushed that aside by the sharp remark,
"Those subsidies are unsound, and they will not be renewed." He then
spoke of the objectionable features of all these "helps to other people
who might help themselves." He did not seem to mind the argument, that
assuming this work to be of Imperial as well as of Provincial
importance, unless aid, - costless to England, or, at the highest, a
very remote risk, and not in any sense a subsidy, - were given, the work
could not proceed at all.
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