Page "William Ewart Gladstone" Paragraph 63

In the 1860s and 1870s, Gladstonian Liberalism was characterised by a number of policies intended to improve individual liberty and loosen political and economic restraints.

First was the minimisation of public expenditure on the premise that the economy and society were best helped by allowing people to spend as they saw fit.

Secondly, his foreign policy aimed at promoting peace to help reduce expenditures and taxation and enhance trade.

Thirdly, laws that prevented people from acting freely to improve themselves were reformed.

When an unemployed miner ( Daniel Jones ) wrote to him to complain of his unemployment and low wages, Gladstone gave what H. C. G. Matthew has called " the classic mid-Victorian reply " on 20 October 1869: