The influence of Parliament upon the foreign policy of the Gladstone government, 1868--1874

Abstract

The history of the relations between Parliament and the Executive as regards the conduct of foreign affairs is an important aspect of the diplomatic history of the nineteenth century. In their survey of the material, Professors Temperley and Penson came to the conclusion that detailed investigation of individual administrations was necessary to provide a de finite answer to the problem, and this thesis is an attempt to do this for the First Gladstone Administration. It is generally accepted that the year 1868 marks the revival of party government. It may he questioned whether it was really a revival or not rather an innovation, but however that may be, it is certain that this year marks a break in the history of Parliament. It seemed obvious that the 1867 Reform Act was bound to affect constitutional practice, and for that reason the choice of this administration seemed likely to be profitable. The present thesis is, of course, concerned with only one aspect of Parliament's activity: the part it played in the Government's conduct of the country's foreign policy; as will be seen, detailed study has led to the conclusion that the Parliament of 1868 was, at least in this respect, the first of the modern Parliaments. The framework of Parliament's action is its procedure, and it therefore proved necessary to investigate this point before Parliamentary influence could be studied. Secondly, Parliament cannot act in matters of which it is ignorant; thus it became essential to determine the amount of information available to it. But, as Erskine May says, "it is in debate alone that a minority can hope to compete with a majority", and whatever influence Parliament possessed must therefore be sought in the debates. This has been done by setting the debates on foreign affairs within the context of a number of the diplomatic events of the period. Among these diplomatic events four questions obviously stand out as being of the greatest diplomatic importance, and since a selection had to be made, detailed study has been confined to them. They, are the issues involved in the Black Sea and Central Asian questions, the negotiations concerning the Treaty of Washington, and the Franco-Prussian war. Between them, they provide a reasonably full picture of the inter-relation of Government foreign policy and Parliamentary criticism. The sources for this study and the use made of them are fully discussed in the bibliography. They consist of Parliamentary material, Foreign Office papers, and the private correspondence of the leading Ministers involved. I wish to acknowledge ray indebtedness to Miss A. Hamm, of Bedford College, London, who very kindly permitted me to see the typescript of her forthcoming volume, The Political Correspondence of Lord Granville and Mr. Gladstone (Camden Series), from which I obtained the references to Private Gladstone Papers in the British Museum, and one or two references to the Private Granville Papers in the Public Record Office.