Sir Edward W. Hamilton and Tariff Reform, 1903-1905: A Study of Conscience vs. Policy

Abstract

It is a commonplace to assume that in any given Government members of the civil service and other non-elected employees will be loyal to the elected officials of the Government and will carry out the policies determined by these officials. But what happens when a policy is at odds with a man's conscience? Recently we have seen one solution in the release of the Pentagon Papers. Other solutions include burial of one's personal beliefs in commitment to duty, quiet resignation from the Government, or dedication to serve the country's best interests according to one's conscience while remaining within the Government. An example of such dedication, which exceeded partisan considerations, was that displayed by Sir Edward Walter Hamilton, permanent financial secretary to the British Treasury, during the 1903-1905 campaign for tariff reform.From his birth in 1847, Hamilton was destined to be a free trader. His father, Walter Kerr Hamilton, was the Bishop of Salisbury and a close friend of William E. Gladstone. In 1870, Hamilton entered the temple of free trade, the Treasury Department. (Britain had been a free trade nation since midcentury, and permanent members of the Treasury Department had come to consider the fiscal policies of Peel, Gladstone, and Sir Robert Lowe as their own.) He served as private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Robert Lowe, from 1872 to 1873, to Prime Minister Gladstone for the remaining months of his first administration (1873-1874), and again to the Prime Minister during Gladstone's second administration (1880-1885), becoming imbued with his mentor's ideas. Hamilton worked his way up the ranks of the Treasury Department and in 1902 became permanent financial secretary and joint permanent secretary with Sir George Murray. Although not brilliant, Hamilton was a capable civil servant, and in general, gained the confidence of the chancellors whom he served; this close association with the great men of the moment became important to his social ego.