Thomas Huxley, the eminent self-taught scientist and one of the great intellects of 19th-century Britain, called William Ewart Gladstone, four times chancellor of the exchequer and four times prime minister, “the greatest intellect of Europe.” And Huxley was a critic. Beyond all argument, this great liberal champion of laissez-faire was a smart man. By the end of his more than 60 years in public service, he had acquired a personal library of 32,000 books; by his own reckoning, and he was precise in his records, he had read 20,000 of them. But he wasn’t merely smart. He was right. Democracy, he said, was a spendthrift affair. He governed accordingly.
More than any other British leader, Gladstone can instruct Prime Minister David Cameron on the way to pay down the national debt – yet win admiration and respect from a dubious electorate that doesn’t quite think he’s up to the job. With a few basic principles as his guide – all of them more practical than theoretical – Gladstone paid down the massive debt incurred in the Napoleonic Wars. With the same principles, Mr. Cameron should be able to take care of a smaller debt with relative ease.
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