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 1 
 
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 ■c 
 
 PETER RY 
 LECTURE 
 
 ON 
 
 '^^:aii 
 
 Gladstone 
 
 ^j\r 
 
 THE STATESMAN 
 
 THE ORATOR 
 
 AND MAN OF LETTERS 
 
 ^2^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 f 
 
 A Brief Review of Sixty Years of Britisli 
 Parliamentary History, 
 
 ^ 
 
 TORONTO 
 1897 
 
 i^ 
 
PETER RYAN'S 
 LECTURE 
 
 ON 
 
 Gladstone 
 
 -^t 
 
 THE STATESMAN 
 
 THE ORATOR 
 
 AND MAN OF LETTERS 
 
 V^ 
 
 
 )^ 
 
 A Brief Review of Sixty Years of British 
 Parliamentary History. 
 
 ^ 
 
 TORONTO 
 1897 
 
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Lecture on Gladstone. 
 
 — «->♦<-» — 
 
 The hero of my subject — Mr. Ghidstone, statesman, 
 rator and man of letters — was born of Scottish parents in 
 he borough of Liverpool on December 29, 1809, and the 
 Id house in Rodney street was, in my day, and doubtless 
 3 still more at the present time, the IVIecca of thousands 
 f hero-worshippers, and a place of historic interest to 
 hose who, like myself, love to visit places hallowed by the 
 ssociations of the mighty men who have labored to bless 
 ankind and leave the world better than they found it. 
 The grandfather of England's great Premier, Mr. 
 "yrhomas Gladstone, was of Clydesdale stock ; a district that, 
 |For its resources, presents greater industrial achieve- 
 lents to the gaze of an appreciative and admiring world 
 han perhaps any part of the globe ; there the hand of 
 an, backed by the slender resources of a poor northern 
 ation whose soil is none too rich, and whose climate is 
 one too attractive or pleasant, has dug out the bed of a 
 mall river (where my own grandfather was said to have 
 aded across with trousers rolled up in boyisli happiness), 
 nd from being an unimportant stream, now carries on its 
 osom ships of the largest tonnage, and on whose banks 
 he ocean greyhounds and England's ironclads are built, 
 nd a eity founded with a commerce rivaling in volume 
 nd value that of ancient Rome when she was mistress of 
 he world. 
 
 Such is the City of Glasgow, and if Scotland never 
 lid aught else than found this great city and give Robert 
 Jurns to mankind her name deserves to be preserved for- 
 ver ; and let me further say that along the banks of the 
 I!lyde there has long dwelt, and still dwells, a race of men 
 ilike distinguished for their commercial greatness as for 
 
their devotion to the the principleH of human freedom and 
 the " rights of man." 
 
 Mr. Thomas Gladstone, the grandfather of England's 
 Grand Old Man, was a corn merchant in the Town of 
 Leith, and was, the historian chronicles, the father of i-ix- 
 teen children, one of whom was the great statesman's 
 father, of whom I now desire to speak for a few momenls. 
 Sent hy his father to Liverpool to sell a cargo of coin, 
 his demeanor and capacity so won the admiration of one of 
 the great merchants of that port that he induced the elder 
 Mr. Gladstone to permit him to settle there, and, from heing 
 an assistant, he soon became a partner of the firm. 
 
 It was during his partnership with this house that he 
 displayed in a special manner the courage and business 
 enterprise that followed him through life. The grain crop 
 of Europe having failed, the house sent him to the United 
 States to make purchases, but on his arrival (no cables or 
 fast steamers then) he found the markets of the Republic 
 unable to supply his wants, the American crops having 
 failed also. 
 
 He was informed by the house that a fleet had been 
 despatched to Boston and New York to carry the grain he 
 had been sent to buy and which was unobtainable. The 
 loss from such a transaction meant ruin to the firm unless 
 averted. He bought with prudence such produce as he 
 thought would suit the British market, loaded his ships 
 with what the house had not arranged for, but in place of 
 disaster to himself and partners, he made a fortunate 
 stroke ana the fame of young Gladstone as a man of bold- 
 ness was established. He became sole proprietor of the 
 house and subsequently the head of one of the largest 
 shipping firms in the world. 
 
 Meanwhile the seven Gladstone brothers had left Leith 
 and settled in Liverpool, for their judgment told them that 
 the great Lancashire port on the west coast with the Ame- 
 rican, China and West India trades, was destined to far 
 outstrip Leith or any of the British ports on the east coast, 
 for then, as now, the star of the empire was " westward," 
 
 
 w 
 
 
 t 
 
'reedom and 
 
 f England's 
 le Town of 
 it her of i-ix- 
 Btatesman's 
 w niomenls. 
 •go of coin, 
 ion of one of 
 led the elder 
 I, from being 
 firm. 
 
 Duse that ht; 
 tnd business 
 e grain crop 
 D the United I 
 no cables or 
 he Kepublicl 
 rops having 
 
 et had been 
 he grain he 
 bable. The^ 
 firm unless 
 )duce as he 
 d his ships; 
 in place of! 
 a fortunate 
 an of bold- 
 ietor of the 
 the largest 
 
 d left Leitb 
 I them that 
 b the Ame 
 ned to far 
 least coast, 
 westward," 
 
 and it is recorded as an additional evidence of the enter- 
 prise of this famous house that when the East India 
 and China trades were tlirown open and the East India 
 Company's monopoly was abolished, the firm of John 
 Gladstone & Co. was the lirst to send a private ship to 
 Calcutta. 
 
 But the times were not favorable for shipowners, and 
 the early years of tlm century entailed heavy losses on 
 Liver^iool merchants. The Napoleonic wars and blockades 
 paralyzed her commerce, and the port is said to have lost 
 in one year three-fourths of its trade, for trouble with the 
 young giant liepublic in the United States — and which 
 ended in the war of 1812 — ruined many firms whose chief 
 business was either with the States or dependent on being 
 permitted to sail their ships free from hostile men-of-war 
 or privateers. 
 
 In commerce John Gladstone ranked high for in- 
 tegrity, but it must be said that in politics his ideas of 
 propriety and his methods of carrying elections were not 
 of that character tliat "exalteth a nation," In 181'2 he 
 induced Canning, who was a guest at his house, to stand 
 for Liverpool, for which place he was elected after a contest 
 where it was said of it : " The town had been very quiet 
 during the election and only two or three men had been 
 killed." 
 
 It was from the balcony of Mr. Gladstone's house in 
 Rodney street that Canning addressed his supporters at 
 the close of the poll, where the child three years old, that 
 was to become England's great lawgiver and ruler, was 
 held up by his nurse to view the exultant mob, and it is 
 further related that about this very time, and in his father's 
 bouse, Miss Hannah More, the poetess, and friend of 
 Reynolds, Garrick and Dr. Johnson, whose birth occurred 
 more than one hundred and fifty years ago, presented him 
 with a book because, as she feelingly said, "he was just 
 entering into the world and she was about to leave it." In 
 considering this simple incident we are forcibly reminded 
 of the extraordinary space of time Mr. Gladstone and those 
 
he personally met cover in British history, when we 
 find that Hannah More was alive when " Bonnie Prince 
 Charlie " fought the hattles of Preston Pans ".lid Cuiloden, 
 and was nearing her fiftieth year hefore the name of Napo- 
 leon was known heyond the confines of his native island, 
 and that she had attained the years of mature womanhood 
 when the fatiiers of the American Kepuhlic signed the 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Looking across the gulf of time hridged hy the lives of 
 these two famous characters, it is somewhat difficult to 
 comprehend the immensity of change that has been 
 wrought in the British nation. This gifted woman with 
 whom Mr. Gladstone talked was in the world before Clive 
 estabhshed the British Empire in India by his famous 
 victory at Plussey, when Fontenoy was lost and won, and 
 before Nelson or the younger Pitt had seen the light. She 
 lived when the unsupported oaths of Roman Catholics 
 were refused in courts of justice, when penalties were still 
 collectible by law from Catholics and Dissenters for non- 
 attendance at the parish church services, and when the 
 former possessed no civil rights. She lived when priest- 
 hunting was a governmental industry, and when the 
 sincere and religious Covenanters of Scotland were tracked 
 by the bloodhounds of the law to their glens, and scorched 
 in the furnace of persecution. She, whose smile helped to 
 light the pathway of the boy who was to become Britain's 
 Liberal leader, lived when even in England rewards for the 
 recovery of escaped slaves were openly advertised, and 
 when the punishment of the aged mothers of the land for 
 witchcraft was indulged in under the sanction of religion 
 and law. In her days of womanhood the death penalty 
 for trivial offences was enacted and the press gang was an 
 institution of the State. 
 
 How can we therefore cease to marvel at the great 
 change that has been wrought in England during the days 
 of Hannah More and the child she patronized, and who 
 was to become in God's good time the instrument by which 
 he would enthrone righteousness and liberty, and . whose 
 
 al 
 
 v! 
 
 n| 
 d 
 
when we 
 inie Prince 
 I Cuiloden, 
 le of Napo- 
 :ive island, 
 womanhood 
 signed the 
 
 the lives of 
 
 difficult to 
 
 has been 
 
 Oman with 
 
 efore Clive 
 
 lis famous 
 
 I won, and 
 
 light. She 
 
 Catholics 
 
 i were still 
 
 fs for non- 
 
 when the 
 
 len priest- 
 
 when the 
 
 ' e tracked 
 
 scorched 
 
 helped to 
 
 Britain's 
 
 ds for the 
 
 ised, and 
 
 land for 
 
 religion 
 
 penalty 
 
 |g was an 
 
 ;he great 
 
 [the days 
 
 tnd who 
 
 )y which 
 
 whose 
 
 ■ 
 
 blows on the fortress of injustice were to become like 
 strokes of an avenging fate. 
 
 Ah Gladstone grew up to boyhood Canning exercised 
 a wonderful fascination for him, and being a frequent 
 visitor at his father's house he was thrown much in his 
 way, and his political ideas were largely moulded by the 
 man who not alone gave a lustre to British eloquence, but 
 did much to tone down the bitterness of public life. 
 
 The love he bore Canning was well exemplified in a 
 speech which he delivered when member for the division 
 of Lancashire in which 1 lived, and whicl «^peech I had 
 the happiness to listen to. He said, in speak; ig about his 
 advancing Liberalism and his change or development from 
 Toryism : ** I sat at the feet of Canning ; A grew i^p under 
 his guidance. I recollect how he urged me — bIiouUI I ever 
 enter into puuiic life to labor for the enr^^tnient of laws 
 found- ? on justice, and to support their fearless adminis- 
 tration ; and though I have faltered mnch in my Pt^ps 
 towards the goal of my just ambition, 1 have been sus- 
 tained in the painful journey by his admonition, and 
 though I have left many of my old and cherished friends 
 to dwell in another political tent, it is because I iollowed 
 his injunction to be just, as far as in me lay, rather than 
 consistent in the attachment to institutions and principles 
 which the spirit of the generation has outgrown." 
 
 Though busy, as the head of a colossal mercantile 
 house, and guarding with exceeding jealousy the interest 
 of the great port, the elder Gladstone offered himself for 
 Parliament, and was elected for Lancaster in 1812. He 
 represented that notoriously corrupt borough and Wood- 
 stock and Berwick for nine years in all, and during that 
 period and up till the day of his death, in 1851, was an 
 ardent defender of the State church, and a lirm contender 
 that England had no moral right to emancipate the slaves. 
 He looked on Wilberforce, Hume, O'Connell and Brougham 
 as members of a very dangerous element, and viewed with 
 alarm the demand of the laboring and half-famished 
 masses of Britain for the fr^e admission of breadstuffs, 
 
8 
 
 and for which his great son did so much when he was a 
 member of the I jel administration, and still more to un- 
 fetter commerce at a later day when his power over his 
 country became so great that his wish conveyed to millions 
 the force of law. 
 
 While ihe father of our hero was no friend of the 
 Liberal party — but very much the reverse — he was one of 
 that class of England's worthies whose basic principle was 
 thoroughness, and which has done so much to earn for her 
 people, in the main, the confidence of all nations. He left 
 behind him a character for unchallenged integrity as a 
 merchant, and a son whose fame in after years was to 
 become so ^reat that the name of Gladstone " shall not 
 perish forever." 
 
 William Ewart Gladstone was one of a family of six 
 children, two daughters and four sons, Sir Thomas Glad- 
 stone, Captain M. Gladstone, M.P., Robertson Gladstone, 
 and the subject of my address. Sir Thomas and Captain 
 Gladstone were firm Tories of the old school, while Robert- 
 son and his brother left the fold of class privilege and 
 restricted commerce for the bracing atmosphere of Liberal- 
 ism and broadened out as will be seen, to be full and hearty 
 sympathizers with the demands of the British people for 
 free trade, free ships and a free nation ; and though he 
 never sat for Parliament, nor y^t, so far as I have been 
 able to learn, ever offered for the House of Commons, 
 Robertson Gladstone was an active and enthusiastic worker 
 in election contests, and took a very advanced position on 
 all questions affecting popular rights, and I have a distinct 
 personal recollection of him — tall of stature, and intense 
 earnestness — addressing the people of Liverpool and the 
 neighborhood on the public questions of the hour, and 
 in his political speeches there was not unfrequently pre- 
 sented his undisguised admiration for his distinguished 
 brother, whom he esteemed not alone as the best, but the 
 greatest man in English public life- 
 
 It may be said of the great statesman that he came 
 honestly by his splendid gifts, for authorities claim for him, 
 
 * 
 
 Si J 
 
 i 
 
9 
 
 [1 he was a 
 Qore to un- 
 er over his 
 to millions 
 
 end of the 
 was one of 
 inciple was 
 arn for her 
 s. He left 
 jgrity as a 
 ars was to 
 '* shall not 
 
 mily of six 
 3mas Glad- 
 Gladstone, 
 nd Captain 
 ^ile Robert- 
 vilege and 
 of Libera 1- 
 and hearty 
 people for 
 hough he 
 have been 
 Commons, 
 stic worker 
 )osition on 
 a distinct 
 nd intense 
 ol and the 
 lour, and 
 ently pre- 
 tinguished 
 st, but the 
 
 t he came 
 m for him, 
 
 through his mother, descent from Henry HI. of England 
 and Robert Bruce ; hut though the genealogy be traced 
 clear to the satisfaction of those who are concerned in 
 claiming the royal blof^d, I, as a man who care not for 
 Imperial crowns nor titles, glory more in the honorable 
 career of the Gladstones, who carved out for their house a 
 a fortune based on commercial integrity, and an imperish- 
 able renown through a son whose name will endure while 
 the story of England and England's people is preserved. 
 
 Moulded in a school that viewed witli misgivings the 
 demands of the people to participate in the making of the 
 laws to which tliey were subjected, and under the influence 
 of Canning and his father, he could not view tlie advanc- 
 ing democracy other than with alarm. I'hey all shared in 
 the intense dislike of the great Corsican, wiiose disturbing 
 influence on the peace and commerce of Europe never had, 
 and perhaps never will have, a parallel ; and it must not 
 {be forgotten thnt the horrors of the French revolution 
 |caused many like Mr. Gladstone, seniors, to blame those 
 who asked in due season for reforms rather than the royal 
 tyrants who only viewed the people as a useful element 
 but regarded not their rights to participate more fully in 
 the fruits of their toil and sacrihces. 
 
 Be the cause what it may Mr. Gladstone's earliest 
 political leanings were decidedly Tory, with a strong rever- 
 ence for the existing order of things, but nature and his 
 environments were favorable to the production and develop- 
 ment of his genius, and never has England presented in 
 any of her sons so rare a combination of those qualities 
 that adorned the man and blessed the people. 
 
 It has been said of him by one of his reviewers, that 
 Liverpool gave hira financial talent and business aptitude^ 
 Eaton his classical attainments, and Oxford his moral 
 fervor and religioi;s spirit. These gifts enabled him to 
 throw around the sciences of finance a charm and interest 
 for even the busy multitude it never previously possessed. 
 He diffused a light on every subject to which he called 
 public attention, and brought all things and subjects on 
 
,-„ 1 — n III! II 1^1 , 
 
 IH 
 
 l\ 
 
 10 
 
 which he spoke within the pale of public interest and in- 
 telligence. He was all earnestness and enthusiasm, and 
 to these qualities, called by his opponents fanaticism, was 
 due a large share of the admiration of his country ; neither 
 the world of commerce, the world of politics, nor the world 
 of letters held him entirely for its own, yet he has trodden 
 every stage with success, and to him has been given a 
 career accompanied by blessings to liis race and a meteoric 
 splendor unequalled in the political history of his country. 
 
 Another very able writer, Mr. Hutton, in his "Sketches 
 in Parliament," said of him : "He cares even more than 
 trades unions for the welfare of the workingmen, more 
 than the manufacturers for the interest of capital, more for 
 retrenchment than the most rigid economist. He unites 
 the business of Manchester with classic Oxford, the deep 
 joy over Greek and Italian resurrection with an intimate 
 knowledge of the duties on Mediterranean fruits and rags ; 
 railway boards, bank corporations. Bishops and labor 
 organizations are all interested in him and brought within 
 the charmed circle of his wondrous influence. The acts 
 and speeches of such a man are his best history, and 
 through these my effort shall be to trace hib footsteps and 
 weigh with honest balance the product of his labors in the 
 public vineyard* 
 
 I am not going to view him apologetically for his early 
 errors, or panegyrically for his later services to humanity, 
 but will try to paint him as Cromwell wished the artist to 
 do, " warts, wrinkles and all," that you, my friends, may 
 be able to view him just as he was and not all on points 
 what we would wish him to have been. From the child of 
 five years old, who has even to-day a distinct recollection 
 of having heard the guns of Edinburgh ('astle announce 
 the peace of 1814, and the banishment of Napoleon to 
 Elba, to the great lawgiver of 1894 (a period of more than 
 four score years), there have been many startling changes 
 and much revolution of thought. He wlio commenced life 
 as the rising hope of the Tory party, became in time the 
 most trusted and honored leader of the Liberals, and, 
 
 w 
 
 as 
 
 m 
 
 w 
 
 of 
 
 to 
 
 su 
 
 du 
 
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 bu 
 
 wa 
 
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 the 
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 tha 
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 the 
 anc 
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 her 
 bee 
 mo 
 pos 
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11 
 
 est and in- 
 siasm, and 
 iicism, was 
 y ; neither 
 r the world 
 las trodden 
 3n given a 
 a meteoric 
 is country. 
 , "Sketches 
 more than 
 men, more 
 al, more for 
 
 He unites 
 i> the deep 
 m intimate 
 8 and rags ; 
 
 and labor 
 ight within 
 The acts 
 listory, and 
 otsteps and 
 bors in the 
 
 )r his early 
 humanity, 
 e artist to 
 ends, may 
 |1 on points 
 he child of 
 ecoUection 
 announce 
 poleon to 
 more than 
 y changes 
 enced life 
 time the 
 rals, and, 
 
 i 
 
 
 while the changes were startling, they were only adopted 
 as the result of conscientious conviction, and which were 
 more vividly painted by himself than 1 could possibly do 
 when, on being twitted by the Conservatives for his change 
 of political leanings, I heard him say : " They (reft^rring 
 to the Tories) drove me from them by the slow and mea- 
 sured force of conviction ; I took the step in obedience to 
 duty and (turning to the Liberals) 1 came as any outcast 
 among you in ' forma pauperis,' with nothing to offer you 
 but pure and disinterested services, and though the cliange 
 was accompanied by much sorrow when I had to make my 
 choice between remaining in the temple where I found 
 obstiuci-cy prevaiUnsT and the association of men whose 
 desires were the good of all mankind, I had no hesitation, 
 but, like Mary of old, I chose the ' better part-' " 
 
 After receiving his earliest training under the Vicar 
 of Seaforth he was sent at the age of twelve to Eaton — one 
 of England's famous schools — where the foundation for 
 the greatness of so many of her children has been laid, 
 but in Mr. Gladstone's time Eaton was said to have been 
 a place where idleness and sports were cultivated rather 
 than the useful sciences, or the higher walks of learning 
 trod, and as an evidence of this it iw related that it was 
 only by conversation with a companion that he learned 
 that John Milton had written prose. With such unfavor- 
 able environments and the lack of encouragement by 
 Eaton's rrusty master, the advancement and application 
 of young Gladstone stamped him as a boy of extraordinary 
 parts. He founded the Eaton Miscellany, with Hallam, 
 the historian, Selwyn, the great missionary Bishop, Rogers 
 and other celebrities as contributors, and a perusal. of the 
 early copies show the genius of his youth. 
 
 The Debating Society of Eaton had within its mem- 
 bers Castlereagh, Stanley. Morpeth, and others who 
 became famous amongst England's statesmen, and fore- 
 most in the list of her Parliamentary debaters. Their 
 positions while young men gave Mr. Gladstone much en- 
 couragement, that he, too, might have an opportunity to 
 
12 
 
 serve his country in the halls of State. He left Eaton in 
 1827, at the age of eighteen, after having established a 
 high reputation amongst his contemporaries for erudition 
 and ability. For two years he was a private pupil of Dr. 
 Turner — afterwards Bishop of Calcutta — and then entered 
 ChristJChiirch College, Oxford University, which had the 
 distinguished honor of having produced no less than eight 
 Prime Ministers of England. At the age of twenty-two he 
 went up for examination and secured a double first, which 
 is the highest possible University distinction, and the posi- 
 tion all students desire to attain, but which only one in 
 many thousands ever hope to reach. The University life 
 was not calculated to foster Liberal instincts, for all attach 
 ed to the institution was Conservative, and it is not un- 
 fau'ly claimed that his college life did very much to retard 
 the growth of Liberalism, which develope 1 at a later day, 
 and attained a strength and character that distinguished 
 him in his generation amongst the mo^t advaced political 
 forces in the British Parliament. Every Oxford influence 
 had a restraining effect on his generous impulses, and 
 kept him moored to the traditions of the party of English 
 gentlemen. The brotherhood of aristocracy were banded 
 together to resist the disturbing tendencies that first took 
 shape in the French revolution, followed by the war of inde- 
 pendence and the thundering of the people of Great Britain 
 for Parliamentary reform. In Oxford the reactionary sen- 
 timent was exceeding strong, and Mr. Gladstone was 
 amongst those who opposed the first demands of the people 
 for an extension of the franchise and the removal of the 
 rotten and pocket boroughs that enabled their proprietors 
 to elect whom they chose, to speak, to vote, and make laws 
 for the people whose choice they were not. 
 
 The rulers of England at this time had no confidence 
 in the people, who were only looked on as the "common 
 herd," or, as Lord Derby called them at a later day in a 
 fit of goutish anger, the ** swinish multitude," and the 
 warning voice of Canning against the democracy ever and 
 anon rose to stifle the love that young Gladstone had for 
 the principles of equality: 
 
 hin 
 peo 
 tha 
 whi 
 bec! 
 
 son 
 ing 
 aftt 
 ins] 
 and 
 
18 
 
 ft Eaton in 
 stablisVied a 
 or erudition 
 )upil of Dr. 
 lien entered 
 ch had the 
 I than eight 
 Bnty-tvvo he 
 first, which 
 ad the posi- 
 only one in 
 iversity Hfe 
 r all attach 
 I is not un- 
 jh to retard 
 a later day, 
 stinguished 
 3ed political 
 rd influence 
 pulses, and 
 of English 
 ere handed 
 it first took 
 wsiv of inde- 
 eat Britain 
 onary sen- 
 stone was 
 f the people 
 loval of the 
 proprietors 
 make laws 
 
 confidence 
 '* common 
 
 er day in a 
 " and the 
 y ever and 
 
 )ne had for 
 
 He became a prominent member and Secretary of the 
 xford Union Debating Society, wbich in' luded such men 
 s Cardwell, Sydney, Herbert, Duke of Newcastle, Robert 
 owe and other distinguished statesmen. As Secretary he 
 opposed a motion for the removal of Jewish disabilities, 
 and, as if still further to mark his opposition to Liberal 
 principles, he supported a motion condemnatory of the 
 Government of Earl Grey for having introduced a very 
 moderate measure of Parliamentary reform. 
 
 He closed his career at Oxford by opposing a resolu- 
 tion for the immediate emancipation of the West India 
 laves, which he thought should be gradual and " accom- 
 anied by the blessings of a Christian education under the 
 lergy and teachers of the established church." 
 
 The question of West India slavery touched him 
 
 fdeeply, for his father was largely interested in West India 
 
 |)lantation8, and it became his duty in after years to defend 
 
 im from many aspersions uttered on the floor of Parlia- 
 
 ent for the harsh administration of his estates and his 
 
 reatment of his Demerara slaves. 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone entered political life he gradually 
 left behind him the fears and prejudices of the people 
 which were the result of his academic training. He 
 studied the people's wants, and devoted his splendid gifts 
 to the uplifting of the masses, and to the prosecution of 
 the great work of law-building, which had for its aim the 
 enlargement of the sphere of human happiness, and threw 
 himself with fervor in favor of the freedom of the British 
 people to purchase and import the products of the world, 
 that they might partake of the best gifts of nature, and 
 which — ad Sir Kobert Peel said — were " the sweeter 
 because no longer leavened by a sense of injustice." 
 
 At the close of his University career in 1881.. he spent 
 some time travelling on the continent, thereby contribut- 
 ing to the expansion of his ideas, and which blossomed in 
 after life. He delighted in Italy, and loved to drink the 
 inspiration that the scenes of her past glory gave him ; 
 and he returned " like a giant refreshed with new wine " 
 
r»!yw9™i 
 
 amam 
 
 :<i 
 
 :|ii: 
 
 ! ! 
 
 14 
 
 to take his first step in political warfare, and to develop 
 the wonderful power and genius which in the main he has 
 devoted to the service of mankind. 
 
 The year 1832 saw the first triumph of the democracy 
 of England in the passing of the reform hill, which in its 
 day was looked on as the ending of the reign of the landed 
 aristocracy. The bill, while hailed with joy by the popu- 
 lace, was viewed with dread by those who saw in the exten- 
 sion of the suffrage and the disfranchisement of pocket 
 boroughs, the forerunner of England's decay ; but it fell 
 very short of th(! nation's demands, for the franchise of ten 
 pounds rating in boroughs and fifty pounds in counties, 
 practically excluded the working classes from all political 
 power except such as they brought to bear indirectly on a 
 large portion of the middle class of shop-keepers and busi- 
 ness men ; but were such a measure to be enacted to-day, 
 and the people forced to turn back to the law of 1832, and 
 accept the provisions of the old reform bill, the Crown 
 itself would not be worth a week's purchase. So much for 
 the advancing sentiment of the people. 
 
 The reform bill of Earl Gery, however, was a great 
 step in advance, for p'rior to ita passing many cities of im- 
 mense population were not permitted to send members to 
 Parlir^ment, while places like Gatten and Old Sarum sent 
 two members each, though I stood on the site of the latter 
 place in Wiltshire in 1861 — ^,just twenty-nine years after 
 the disfranchisement of the place — and failed to see a 
 house or building or stone upon stone to mark its exist- 
 ence. It was like many other placee, only a pocket 
 borough, where the owner could elect bis coachman if 
 qualified to sit in Parliament, to make laws for the men 
 who, in Manchester and Birmingham, were paying the 
 taxes and sustaining by their numbers and wealth the 
 very existence of the nation. 
 
 Though falling very short of the just demands of the 
 people, the reform bill had only become law after a gene- 
 ration of fierce conflict, and in spite of the hostility of 
 Church and Crown and Lords, and it is only those who, 
 
 ch 
 
 
to develop 
 aain he has 
 
 I democracy 
 «rhich in its 
 the landed 
 y the popu- 
 1 the exten- 
 t of pocket 
 ; but it fell 
 chise of ten 
 n counties, 
 all political 
 irectly on a 
 8 and busi- 
 3ted to-day, 
 f 1832, arid 
 the Crown 
 o much for 
 
 as a great 
 ities of im- 
 Qembera to 
 )arum sent 
 f the latter 
 years after 
 to see a 
 its exist- 
 a pocket 
 achman if 
 r the men 
 aying the 
 wealth the 
 
 ids of the 
 er a gene- 
 ostility of 
 hose who, 
 
 16 
 
 like myself, dwelt where Lords of the manor were powerful 
 can understand how great must have been the labors and 
 how stern must have been the resolve of Britain's Liberal 
 hosts in wresting from the entrenchment of privilege the 
 modest portion of popular rights conferred by the reform 
 bill of 1832. 
 
 During the agitation for reform, royalty and the 
 church alike opposed the people's demands until resistance 
 became dangerous, and even the royal Duke of Cumber- 
 laud wrote the King, pointing out the danger of permitting 
 reform organizations to exist, and saying that they boded 
 the destruction of the Crown unless suppressed. Con- 
 sidering the power of the Crown and the influence of the 
 wealth of the governing classes, together with the intimi- 
 dation of the regular military force and the murderous on- 
 slaughts of the yeoman cavalry, it was indeed marvellous 
 how the people triumphed, and had it not been for the 
 indomitable energy of such men as Earl Grey and Henry 
 Brougham, the bill would have been deferred for perhnpa 
 another generation, or have awaited a convulsion that 
 would have destroyed the monarchy itself. 
 
 The reform bill was vainly expected by the working 
 class to usher in the golden era, and their hopes beat high, 
 while the privileged orders looked on the slight opening of 
 the flood gates of democracy as certain to bring forth the 
 destruction of the State. Both were disappointed, for the 
 trade of England was very bad and continued so for years 
 after the bill became law, and this created a feeling of dis- 
 content against the Grey Ministry, which resulted in its 
 early downfall, while the Tories found even in the boroughs 
 a strong sentiment antagonistic to Liberalism, and thus 
 the gentlemen's party found support where they anticipated 
 hostility. 
 
 It was in 1832, immediately following the reform bill, 
 that Mr. Gladstone, then only twenty-three years old, was 
 invited by the Duke of Newcastle to contest the borough 
 of Newark on Trent against Mr. Hanley, a gentleman of 
 great local influence, and Sergeant Wilde (afterwards Lord 
 
I ! 
 
 h 
 
 Bill 
 
 I 
 
 16 
 
 Truro, and one of England's great law Lords). After a 
 contest of unusual bitterness, the lad of twenty-three was 
 elected over his veteran and more experienced opponent, 
 but he was subjected to much hostile criticism, amongst 
 which was a scathing denouncement b}'^ The Reflector, a 
 Radical paper owned by Sergeant Wilde, wherein he was 
 reminded that his father's wealth bad been amassed at the 
 expense of the groans of the bondsman, the traffic of 
 human kidnapping, the companionship of slave dealers, 
 and that every ounce of his gold had been purchased by 
 the blood of his black slaves. 
 
 He was also said to '* represent nothing and nobody 
 but the Duke, who had only to command the people to bow 
 down to a wooden headed Lord, as the people of Egypt did 
 to their crocodiles, their sacred beasts, their reptiles and 
 other objects of superstitious adoration, for did not he own 
 nearly every roof that sheltered nearly every man, woman 
 and child in Newark, and who but the brave could stand 
 up before him." 
 
 But young Gladstone earned for himself a high char- 
 acter for abihty as a speaker, even at this early date, and 
 greatly impressed his friends with the maturity of his ideas 
 on the great problem of governmen*^^. He had reached a 
 seat in the nation's Parliament, where eloquence of the 
 highest order alone commanded special attention, and it 
 was not without misgivings on his part that he eutered its 
 walls, within which he was destined to earn imperishable 
 fame. He entered Parliament with a profound reverence 
 and veneration for England's existing institutions. The 
 Chapel of St. Stephen's, which had been given by King 
 Edward to the Commons as a place of assemblage, pre- 
 served its original features, and its decorations only served 
 to hide the once sacred character of the edifice, which had 
 seen the long line of the Plantagenets, the Tudors and the 
 Stuarts disappear. 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone first took his seat in St. 
 Stephen's Cobden was an obscure calico printer in the hills 
 of Lancashire, Bright was attending to his father's cotton 
 
 aI 
 
 al 
 ti 
 vii 
 ml 
 
 hil 
 n( 
 
 th 
 
 an 
 
 wi 
 
 ar 
 
 of' 
 
 m< 
 
 Fr 
 
 an 
 
 ar 
 
 su 
 p€ 
 bt 
 in 
 al 
 
 si 
 T 
 
 d( 
 w 
 P 
 ai 
 tl 
 
I 
 
 17 
 
 Is). After a 
 ty-three was 
 3d opponent, 
 sm, amongst 
 Reflector, a 
 srein he was 
 iHSsed at the 
 be traffic of 
 lave dealers, 
 lurchased by 
 
 and nobody 
 jople to bow 
 )f Egypt did 
 reptiles and 
 not he own 
 lan, woman 
 could stand 
 
 L high char- 
 
 ly date, and 
 
 of his ideas 
 
 d reached a 
 
 ence of the 
 
 iion, and it 
 
 entered its 
 
 nperishable 
 
 reverence 
 
 -ions. The 
 
 en by King 
 
 blage, pre- 
 
 )nly served 
 
 which had 
 
 rs and the 
 
 lat in St. 
 n the hills 
 er's cotton 
 
 spinning at Hochdak;, and Salisbury was a child in arms. 
 At this time Palmerston was only looked on as a " man 
 about town," or, may I add. as one who had " neither for- 
 tune to preserve or much character to lose " ; Disraeli was 
 viewed as an eccentric novelist of quixotic ambition, and 
 many of the great men, who in later days became either 
 his adherents or opponents in tlie halls of the State, had 
 not been born. 
 
 The building in which the Parliament assembled had 
 been made famous by the association of some of tlie greatest 
 captains and lawgivers pjugland ever produced. Its walls 
 had reverberated to the sound of the voices of Bacon and 
 Raleigh, of Pym and Hampden, of Cromwell an«l Harry 
 Vane, and other immortal sons of Albion. 
 
 It has been eloquently said that Mr. Gladstone sat in 
 the House with men who had witnessed the Gordon riots, 
 and who remembered the entrance of tlie younger Pitt 
 within its walls for the first time. He was the Parliament- 
 ary companion of men who were members before the birth 
 of Peel, and to whom the great Burke was more than a 
 memory. Some of his fellow-members had witnessed the 
 French revolution and saw Napoleon's sun of destiny rise 
 and set, and the founders of the American Repul)lic in 
 arms against King George. 
 
 He pat side by side with men who took part in the 
 suppression of the Irish rebellion of 1798, and in the im- 
 peachment of Warren Hastings, and with those who had 
 been thanked by Parliament for their services in suppress- 
 ing the mutiny of the Nore a hundred years ago. But he 
 also found younger and no less able men whose intellectual 
 gifts and powers of eloquence have never been excelled. 
 There was O'Connell, the great liberator and master of 
 defiant oratory, leading the band of the Irish Nationalists 
 with much power. and brilliancy. There was also Russell, 
 Palmerston, Honest Jack Althorp, Stanley, Peel, Graham, 
 and others alike distinguished for their eloquence and 
 their services to the State. 
 
18 
 
 :ii! 
 
 ill: 
 
 ■i 
 
 It was an asseinblaf^e of statesmen and patriots of the 
 highest type that no generation in any age has excelled, 
 and the emulation of these giants of British oratory contri- 
 buted lauch to shed a lustre not alone upon themselves 
 but on the Parliament and the nation which they served 
 so well. 
 
 To fully comprehend the great strides in national and 
 scientific development in Mr. Gladstone's day, and to have 
 any just conception of his progress in political thought, 
 we must trv to compare the manners and customs of the 
 nation in 1B81 with 1897. 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone first took his seat in Parliament 
 men were hanged in chains and slavery existed in the 
 colonies : soldiers were Hogged for trivial oftences and the 
 duel was the usual mode of settling disputes between 
 Christian gentlemen ; the light of the sun and the bread 
 of the people were taxed, and the postage on a letter cost 
 a workingman a full half day's sweat and toil. 
 
 Pa that day the Hint and steel were used, after the 
 manner of the savages rubl)ing two sticks of wood, to pro- 
 duce fire ; the control and uses of electricity were unknown; 
 railways were just struggling into existence, and " they 
 that went down to the sea in ships " possessed not the 
 friendly agency of steam, the merciful discovery of chloro- 
 form was yet in the womb of time, and the masses of the 
 people sunk in pauperism had no effective means of dis- 
 pelling their inherited ignorance. 
 
 Then it was that the rulers of the land spoke much of 
 the constitution, but gave no thought to the common weal ; 
 it was of the church and not of religion that they talked. 
 This was the day when there was a landed interest, a ship- 
 ping interest, a manufacturing and moneyed interest, but 
 no one dreamed that labor had any interest except to fret 
 out its wretched day and contribute by its very misery 
 towards the profligacy and luxury of the "sacred " orders 
 of society. 
 
 In that day the names of Carlyle, Tennyson, Macaulay 
 and others, since rendered immortal, had not been estab- 
 
19 
 
 I'iots of the 
 ,8 excelled, 
 ;ory contri- 
 themselves 
 hey served 
 
 itional and 
 ,nd to have 
 il thought, 
 oms of the 
 
 :^arliament 
 ed in the 
 !es and the 
 8 hetween 
 the bread 
 letter cost 
 
 i, after the 
 od, to pro- 
 unknown; 
 nd " they 
 not the 
 of chloro- 
 ses of the 
 IDS of dis- 
 
 e much of 
 ion weal ; 
 ey talked. 
 3t, a ship- 
 erest, but 
 pt to fret 
 y misery 
 1 " orders 
 
 [acaulav 
 m estab- 
 
 i 
 
 ! 
 
 \ 
 
 
 lished, while Dickens, Elliot and Thackeray were yet to 
 come, and Newman, Manning, Pusey and VVilberforce were 
 obscure characters in the nation. Then it was that Ed- 
 ward Irving - the luminous pulpit orator - in the very 
 street in which Gladstone was born was mystifying the 
 multitude with his "gift of tongues, "and Victoria — the living 
 Sovereign of a free people for a space of GO years — was but 
 a girl of thirteen. 
 
 How can we, therefore, look back to that day and not 
 give a grateful thought to the man wlio was in Parliament 
 at that very time, and who still lives in the full possession of 
 his splendid nitellect, without being impressed with the 
 eventful life of " P^ngland's Grand Old Man" and the 
 rapidity with which the world has moved. 
 
 On January 21)th, 18B3. the new Pieform Parliament 
 was summoned, and on February 5th the King opened it 
 in person, and delivered the customj.ry speech from the 
 throne in which royalty was compelled to say then, 
 as now, just what the government of the day wished 
 it to say. Many abuses existed and av/aited redresb, 
 for even then England's name was blacliened by 
 the maintenance of slavery in her West India 
 possessions, and the trade of Hindostan, with its 
 enormous population and fabulous wealth, was mon- 
 opolized by the East India Company. The Peform Par- 
 liament during the first session emancipated the slaves at 
 a cost of £'20,000,000, and the same session saw the East 
 India monopoly destroyed and the ports of Hindostan 
 thrown open to the enterprise of Britain's mariners and 
 merchants. 
 
 But to turn to our young hero, it is remarkable that 
 his maiden speech in Parliament was delivered in refutation 
 of a charge made by Lord Howick that on the plantations 
 of Mr. Gladstone's father great destruction of human life 
 and much cruelty had resulted from overworking his slaves. 
 
 Later on in the session he again spoke on the subject 
 of West India Slavery, deprecating immediate emancipa- 
 tion, and pointed out that such would not alone be an 
 
90 
 
 Hi ! 
 
 injustice to the owners of the slaves, but injurious 
 to the sUives themselves. He saw that so great a 
 shame as the hondaj^e of human beings would 
 no longer he admitted under Enghxnd's red cross 
 banner, yet he fought for what he conceived to be the 
 rights of the p'anters to their privato property and against 
 Badicnl Parliamentary interference with the institution of 
 slavery. 
 
 But its doom was sealed and Wilberforce, Thomson, 
 O'ConncU and other friends of humanity triumphed by the 
 law of England enacting that, hem-eforth and forever, no 
 slave could exist in her empire, and that all who found 
 shelter beneatli her ensign should be free. 
 
 Next in importance to liis speech on the emancipation 
 of tiie slaves bill and more important in his later day 
 onslaught on the State Church of Ireland was his opposi- 
 tion to Lord Althrop's bill to reduce the number of Irish 
 Bishoprics, where lie claimed that it was the duty of the 
 State to maintain Protestantism as one of the bulwarks of 
 the Crown, and advanced arguments so diametrically 
 opposed to what he used when he made his grand and 
 successful efforts of disestablishing the Law Church of 
 Ireland that it is hard to conceive so great a change could 
 have been wrought in a mind so highly cultivated, and in 
 the case of one in whose moral and religious fibre there 
 w^as so marked a strain of veneration for church authority 
 and so deep a reverence for the religion of the State. 
 This championship of the State Church he further mani- 
 fested during the same session by t-peaking against Mr. 
 Hume's University bill to abolish the test of belief in the 
 39 articles by all students on entering the Universities of 
 Oxford and Cambridge. He said that the fabric of religion 
 would surely be destroyed unless the students would make 
 oath of their belief in all the doctrines and dogmas of the 
 State Church, and that the admission of dissenters would 
 destroy the religious character of the national temples of 
 learning and render them godless and productive of a race 
 of heretics and unbelievers. During this time he 
 
 ■' 
 
21 
 
 HtamiK.d Ininself as a nuiii of ability ami la'carae (juite 
 a force with his party. It excited no wonder, therefore, 
 that Sir Hobert Peel, on the formation of his tii-wt Ministry 
 in 1834, Hhouhl select young Gladstone to heconio one of 
 the Lords of the Treasury, und at the early age of 25 he 
 entered tlie Government of his great master and tutor, 
 wlio, like himself, was of Lancashire birth and had sprung 
 from tlie mercantile community. He was, along with his 
 Radical colleague, Sergeant Wilde, returned unopposed for 
 Newark, where he had become very poj)ular with all classes 
 for his graceful bearing and the very marked abilit}' he 
 so early displayed. In 1835, just tlivee years after enter- 
 ing Parliame' K lie was promoted to the position of Under- 
 Secretary of ihe Colonies, but the Peel Ministry was 
 do )med to an early death on Lord John PvUHseU's motion 
 to enquire into the temporalities of the Church of Ireland. 
 On this motion Mr. Gladstone spoke with unusual force 
 and pointed out tliat it w^ould surtly end in the destruction 
 of the church itself; and he further said he hoped that be 
 would never se^ the day when such an impious measure 
 would become law and which would hasten, and not im- 
 pede, the disestablishment of all State churches, the main- 
 tenance of which he viewed as inseparable from the best 
 interest of both church and State. 
 
 Lord John Russell's motion was carried and the Peel 
 Ministry made way for the second Melbourne Government, 
 and Mr. Gladstone became a private member of the House. 
 At this time much party bitterness existed, but he held 
 aloof from mere fighting exhibitions and became respected 
 by all classes for his courteous bearing and urbanity of 
 manners. Though in opposition he took a prominent part 
 in the debates and proceedings of Parliament, amongst 
 which was notably his support of the Government, to which 
 he was otherwise opposed, on the resolutions of Lord John 
 Russell, having for their end the pacification of Canada, 
 the settlement of the trouble between the Upper and 
 Lower Provinces in 1837, and the extension of the popular 
 rights of the colonists. But he contended for the main- 
 
i 
 
 ! I 
 
 1 1 ' 
 i t 
 
 22 
 
 tenance of authority and gave no aid or sympathy to 
 Papineau, Mackenzie or their co-patriots. 
 
 He also spoke on *' Spring Rice's " church rates bill, 
 and which speech — though almost lost sight of by his bio- 
 graphers — is one that possesses many gems of eloquence 
 and is distinguished for its power and beauty. He drew a 
 comparison between ancient Rome and England, and in- 
 sisted on religion being the foundation and greatness of 
 the State. It was an impassioned specimen of oratory and 
 worthy of preservation. "It was not," he said, "by the 
 active strength and restless prowess of her legions, the 
 bold independence of her citizens, the well-maintained 
 equilibrium of the constitution, but by the judicious adap- 
 tation of various measures to the various circumstances of 
 her subject States that the Roman power was upheld. Its 
 foundation lay in the prevailing feeling of and reverence 
 for religion. This was the superior power that curbed the 
 license of individual rul*^, and engendered in the people a 
 lofty disinterestedness and disregard of personal motives 
 and devotion to the glory of the republic." 
 
 The death of the King, in 1837, caused another elec- 
 tion, when Mr. Gladstone was again elected for Newark. 
 He took a very prominent part in the debate of 1838 on 
 the negro app^nticeship of the West Indies, which was as- 
 sailed by Brougham in the Lords and Buxton in the Com- 
 mons ; and it chiefly devolved on young Gladstone to 
 defend the comnact in 1833, and he rather turned the tables 
 on the cotton lords of Lancashire by showing that while 
 professing philanthropy and hatred of the slavery of the 
 Southern States they preferred to buy the cotton pro- 
 duced by slave labor rather than that produced by the free 
 labor of either Britain's East or West India possessions. 
 His powerful speech on that occasion tended to defeat the 
 motion, and The Times referred to it as "a triumph of 
 reason, sentiment and justice over quack philan- 
 thropy." But he had around him those who, though they 
 recognized his many graces and profound erudition, looked 
 on his success as a statesman and lawgiver as one not 
 
28 
 
 npathy to 
 
 rates bill, 
 )y his bio- 
 eloquence 
 He drew a 
 d, and in- 
 eatoess of 
 :atorv and 
 1. "by the 
 ^[ions, the 
 jaintained 
 0U8 adap- 
 stances of 
 (held. Its 
 reverence 
 urbed the 
 3 people a 
 ,1 motives 
 
 ther elec- 
 
 Newark. 
 
 1838 on 
 was as- 
 tlie Com- 
 Istone to 
 he tables 
 lat while 
 ry of the 
 ton pro- 
 
 the free 
 sessions, 
 efeat the 
 umph of 
 
 philan- 
 igh they 
 1, looked 
 
 one not 
 
 possible of realization, for they said ''all was sacrificed to 
 the beautiful, and common sense cast aside for the elToct 
 which one of his finished and eloquent perorations would 
 produce on those who came within the charmed circle of 
 his wondrous gifts of speech." Such was the estimate 
 formed by one whose sketches of Parliamentary celebrities 
 was in the main correct, but who, in Mr. Gladstone's case, 
 did not foresee how prolific his public life was to become 
 of measures for the good of his country and the increased 
 happiness of all " within her gates,' 
 
 In speaking he possessed nearly all the graces, and in 
 him was more fully manifested than in that of any living 
 orator, " the poetrj'' of motion and the charm of sound." 
 So remarkable were his gifs that the (Quarterly Review in 
 1854 said of him : — " He is the most polished speaker in 
 the House of Commons. His resources of expression are 
 wonderful and it seems as though to him has been given 
 the ability to call to his services the choicest words and 
 the most elegant sentences. His refined and scholarly 
 periods, the creation of the moment, are as finely balanced 
 and as keenly pointed as if they had been written and 
 studied and are always marvels of fluency and often speci- 
 mens of the purest eloquence-" 
 
 Another writer. i\rr. Cannon of The London Times, 
 said of him, and at a time when that paper was not friendly 
 towards hira : " Earnestness to him is almost a disease, 
 and with him great Avork is happiness and duty to him is 
 an ever-burning if not consuming fire." 
 
 But let me not anticipate but turn back to 1839, when 
 Mr. Gladstone again addressed the House of Commons on 
 a topic collateral with that of slavery and opposed the 
 Jamaica bill for the suspension of the constitution intro- 
 dued by Samuel Lushington. He predicted that it would 
 perpetuate disunion between the different classes of the 
 colonial community and undermine confidence throughout 
 the whole circle of our colonial posse^^sions. On this sub- 
 ject he gave evidence of his strong Fympathy with the 
 
24 
 
 planters and at variance with his later day philanthropy 
 and liberalism. 
 
 The question of national education was introduced by 
 the Government in the same year. Lord Stanley (after- 
 wards Premier of England) opposing it and Lord Morpeth 
 defending the proposal to provide national funds in aid 
 of Catholic schools and the removal of the objection to 
 Unitarians as teachers and members of school governing 
 bodies. He declared that so long as Britain took advant- 
 age of Roman Caliioh'c sinews and Unitarian gold she could 
 not refuse to extend to those by whom she profited the 
 benefits of education. But the debate found Mr. Glad- 
 stone defending the narrow position, that to the Church of 
 England belonged alone the right to control the education 
 of the youth so far as the power of Parliament could secure 
 it. He reasserted his early defence of church and State 
 and made reference to a petition presented to the House 
 by the advocates of a national system of education, free 
 from church control, wherein it was especially dwelt by 
 the petitionfirs (amongst whom were many prominent 
 dissenting clergymen) that the Scriptures were to continue 
 a portion of the school curriculum. The petition referred 
 to expressed "the hope that the youth of the country 
 would be religiously brought up and that the education 
 of the country, Jewish and Christian, would be sedulously 
 connected with a due regard to the Holy Scriptures." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone asked how the Jews, who regarded the 
 New Testament as an imposture, could be expected to en- 
 tertain respect for it, and to compel Jewish children to 
 read the story of Golgotha and profess to respect the Chris- 
 tian version of the Messiah was not in keeping with the 
 party calling itself Liberal. He declared that he would 
 not compel any child to read or be taught that which the 
 conscience of the parents forbade ; but he strongly objected 
 to the money of the State being paid to a set of men whose 
 business would be to inculcate erroneous doctrines. Of 
 course this meant all who were not prepared to relegate 
 the whole educational svstem to the ministers of the estab- 
 
philanthropy 
 
 itroduced by 
 
 anley (after- 
 
 ord Morpeth 
 
 unds in aid 
 
 objection to 
 
 ol governing 
 
 book advant- 
 
 3ld she could 
 
 profited the 
 
 d Mr. Glad- 
 
 le Church of 
 
 le education 
 
 30uld secure 
 
 1 and State 
 
 the House 
 
 ication, free 
 
 ly dwelt by 
 
 prominent 
 
 to continue 
 
 ion referred 
 
 he country 
 
 education 
 
 sedulously 
 
 ures." 
 
 igarded the 
 
 cted to en- 
 
 shildren to 
 
 t the Chris- 
 
 g with the 
 
 he would 
 
 which the 
 
 ly objected 
 
 men whose 
 
 rines. Of 
 
 relegate 
 
 the estab- 
 
 25 
 
 lished church, and who at that time practically read 
 " mandements " from their pulpits and through the church 
 press to their " dear children in the Lord " sounding the 
 alarm and pointing out the spiritual danger of weakening 
 the bond of authority between cliurch and people, and 
 which the parsons of that day claimed as theirs by right 
 divine. 
 
 Thus we see that the State churcli of England at that 
 time was very determined in the assertion of her right to 
 be the sole judge of what should be the educational system 
 of the nation ; and to thojie who timidly believe that des- 
 truction must follow change, let me remind them that with 
 every concession by British law to the just demands of the 
 Catholics and Nonconformists there has been given to the 
 Church of England a healthier life, a more vigorous exist- 
 ence and a wider range of usefulness and power as a Chris- 
 tain agency than she ever possessed when her misguided 
 champions shut the door of justice in ihe face of tliose vvlio 
 could not conscientiously aciiept her tenets l)efore l)eing 
 allowed to share in the government of the country. 
 
 Getting back to my subject, Mr. Gladstone again in 
 the session of 1839 manifested his attachment to the Tory 
 doctrine of that day by opposing the Jewish emancipation 
 bill. He was answered by Macaulay in a speech of great 
 force, and which was said to have been a model of that 
 pure and vigorous English that has made the name of the 
 great historian immortal in the world of English letters. 
 
 The following year, 1840, brought those intellectual 
 giants again in the conflict on Sir James Graham's motion 
 on the China question, when Mr. Gladstone condemned 
 England's course in encouraging the infamous opium 
 trade, and Macaulay — like some in our own land — waved 
 the '* old flag " in a manner unworthy of his great char- 
 acter and gifts to save the fate of the Government ; but it 
 was doomed to an early defeat, and a general election fol- 
 lowed, in which the Tories were successful beyond their 
 greatest expectations, and Mr. Gladstone was again elected 
 for Newark. On the assembling of the House the Ministry 
 
26 
 
 was defeated and Peel was called on to form a Govern- 
 ment, Mr. Gladstone being appointed Vice-President of tbe 
 Board of Trade and Master of the Mint. He was returned 
 unopposed for Newark, and on the hustings declared that 
 the British farmers might "rely on adequate protection 
 against foreign produce." 
 
 In this notable speech he dwelt on the necessity of 
 maintaining the connection between church and State, not 
 from any motive, as he said, of acting unjustly by those 
 who were not of her fold, but from a deep sense of duty to 
 preserve that union which was so necessary to th^ nati(mal 
 life and the happiness of the people. The church fabric, 
 he said, should be repaired whenever needed, but not des- 
 troyed, and though he would favor the removal of every 
 just grievance from his dissenting brethren, he would con- 
 tinue to favor the " preservation of the design of the 
 original architect." 
 
 In this may be traced the arguments of the most in- 
 tolerant, for all, however narrow and illiberal, say that 
 they seek not to inflict injustice on any, but it usually 
 happens that justice from one m^n's standpoint is injus- 
 tice from his neighbor's standpoint ; and thus the term is 
 so often misapplied. This failing Mr. Gladstone shared in 
 at that time, for the spirit of the son of the West India 
 slave-owner was not dead, but lived within him ia full 
 force. The accession of the Peel Ministry to power was at 
 a time of great national distress ; famished operatives 
 clamoring for cheap bread on the one hand, and ruined 
 farmers demanding still more protection on the other; 
 commerce was stagnant, work scarce and ill-paid, which, 
 with dear food and the murmurings of the populace, were 
 enough to make a bold heart quake in attempting to rule 
 the British people ; but still more was the situation trying 
 to one like Sir Robert Peel, whose lack of confidence in 
 himself was the one weak spot in his otherwise grand char- 
 acter. 
 
 Speeches from the throne then, as now, were none too 
 fi'ank or truthful, and though the one delivered at the 
 
 ; 
 
 B»^5 
 
27 
 
 1 a Govern - 
 ident of the 
 as returned 
 jclared that 
 protection 
 
 necessity of 
 i State, not 
 \y by those 
 ! of duty to 
 he national 
 arch fabric, 
 •ut not des- 
 al of every 
 would con- 
 sign of the 
 
 le most in- 
 il, say that 
 it usually 
 nt is inj US- 
 he term is 
 shared in 
 Vest India 
 im in full 
 wev was at 
 operatives 
 ind ruined 
 he other; 
 id, which, 
 lace, were 
 ng to rule 
 ion trying 
 fidence in 
 :and char- 
 none too 
 ed at the 
 
 opening of the session of 1B42 profe^48ed gratification that 
 le period of distress had been " attended by calmness and 
 loderation," the facts were that the people were rendered 
 irious by ^he Radical papers publishing parallel columns 
 bowing, on the one hand, the splendor of the court festi- 
 ities, and, by way of contrast, the inquests held on the 
 oor who had died from starvation, and even the Queen 
 lerself was said to have been hooted in the public streets 
 nd theatres of London, and revolution was thought by 
 ome to bu impending. 
 
 Ii fell to the lot of Mr. Gladstone to defend the Gov- 
 rnment against Lord John Russell's onslaught on the 
 tiding scale on duties en g;rain, on which the Ministry was 
 ustained by a large majority. At this time Mr. Villiers — 
 ne of England's grand champions of freedom— brought 
 orward a motion jfor the immediate and total abolition of 
 ,11 duties on breadstuffs. It was overwhelmingly defeated 
 >y more than 5 to 1, but it was the first ringing of the bell 
 hat was ushering m the day when the people of England 
 I'ould demand the freedom of commerce that has done so 
 uch for the multitude and built up for England a com- 
 ercial prosperity and greatness never attained by any 
 mpire since the creation. 
 
 At this time the limit of taxation had been reached on 
 he necessaries of life, and to make up the deficit of 
 3,000,000 sterlinor. Peel — on the advice of Gladstone — 
 ntroduced the income tax, and as the result of close ap- 
 lication to details the young Tory lieutenant removed the 
 uties from more than half the articles subjected to import 
 enalties. Thus early did he manifest the grasp of figures 
 hat made him the financial colossus of his generation 
 
 During Mr- Gladstone's speech on the corn duties he 
 et fall sentiments so strange to one elected as a protection- 
 st that Mr. Joseph Hume — the dauntless economist — rose 
 p and expressed his joy at the conversion of the young 
 tatesman to the principles of free trade. To this Mr. 
 rladstone dissented, and protested against the assertion 
 hat either himself or the Government were converts to 
 
28 
 
 the policy which they had been elected to oppose. But 
 the lamp had been lit and trimmed, and the flame of 
 reason and common sense and the national necessities 
 were lighting the pathway of Peel and Gladstone towards 
 the fulfilment of the promise to England's starving millions 
 that ''law made want," and scarcity and "dearness of 
 of God's gifts" (by acts of Parliament) should disappear 
 and " their places know them no more forev( r." 
 
 The tariff bill of 184.2 demanded from Mr. Gladstone 
 constant defence, and Hansard records that he addressed 
 the House more than one hundred times in connection with 
 this measure. The distress in the country was fearful, 
 and the termination of the session gave to the Government 
 great relief, and even the Queen is said to have worn a 
 cheerful air when thanking her Parliament at its close for 
 its effectual labors, but all awaited with the gravest mis- 
 givings the outcome of the problem of how times were to 
 be improved by retaining fetters on trade, and how the 
 half- fed people were to be cor. tented with food taxed for 
 the bf^nefit of the landed aristocracy, and to be happy 
 while starving. The dire distress of the countrv braced 
 the corn law reformers to further efforts, for a plentiful 
 meal of even the coarsest food was a rare thing in the 
 houses of the poor, while such as the preserved meats and 
 fruits of the world, which form part of the daily fare to- 
 day, were not dreamed of by the wretched labortrs of 
 Britain. The band of the anti-corn law leaguers made on- 
 slaught after onslaught on the Government, all pointing 
 to a stern determination that God's law of freedom to pur- 
 chase in the cheapest market should prevail, and that His 
 gifts to man should not be rejected. 
 
 The burthen of the defence fell largely, if not entirely, 
 on Peel and Gladstone, who pointed out, among other 
 fallacies, that by taking off the corn duties England would 
 oiily be enriching the United States. 
 
 It was during this session that a reduction of the 
 duties on corn imported from Canada was passed, and the 
 following year Mr. Gladstone — then President of the Board 
 
 o 
 
29 
 
 on- 
 ting 
 )ur- 
 iHis 
 
 e 
 
 bher 
 )uld 
 
 the 
 the 
 
 of Trade — abolished the export duty on machinery, which 
 was one of the keystones of protection. This interference 
 with freedom of the manufacturer to sell where he pleased 
 was, like every other impediment on commerce, mischiev- 
 ous, and drove the machinery export trade to Belgium and 
 other countries. 
 
 The year 1845 saw England in the midst of the anti- 
 corn law agitation and the league included in its active 
 membership Cobden, Bright, Villiers, O'Connell, Hume 
 and other tribunes of the people, who tauglit the world 
 the wisdom and the justice of man's right to the fulness of 
 the productions of the earth without let or stint or hind- 
 rance, and that the interest of no class could justify the 
 taxing of the food of the children of men. 
 
 Now all this time one-half the price of the bread con- 
 sumed by the people went to the landlords, who, under the 
 pretence that the farmer was being protected, had increased 
 their rents three-fold, wdiile nine shillings per week 
 was the average wages of the agricultural laborer. All 
 these illustrations of injustice, and more than I can find 
 time to even touch upon, were broug))t before the atten- 
 tion of the nation and Parliament by Cobden and Bright, 
 while ihe landlords could only charge them with being 
 dangerous agitators. Tiie brunt of opposing Cobden's 
 reasoning fell to Mr. Gladstone, and though he pleaded 
 against so revolutionary a change in the fiscal policy of 
 the nation, the force of Cobden's logic and the pleadings of 
 Bright and O'Connell on beluilf of the famished multitude 
 were making heavy inroads into the minds of Peel and 
 Gladstone and preparing the way for the hour when they 
 were to become the foremost men in the great w> rk of 
 emancipating the nation from the heresy of protection and 
 giving to the toiling millions bread freed from the tax that 
 had been imposed and maintained for the sole benefit of 
 the landed aristocracy. 
 
 The session of 1845 had scarcely met when it was an- 
 nounced that Mr. Gladstone had resigned his ofi&ce owing 
 to the policy of the Government on the Maynooth grant, 
 
 ! 
 
 1' 
 
 
30 
 
 and his speech on the cause of his retirement was marked 
 by a breadth of thought and sympathy with the Catholics 
 of Ireland in their inability otherwise to furnish proper 
 educational facilities for their students that gave men like 
 Lord John Kuasell hopes that he (Mr. Gladstone) would be 
 found ere long in the Liberal ranks. 
 
 We now approach that heroic period in England's 
 Parliamentary history where an economic change was to 
 be carried out that only the boldest could have conceived. 
 It was announced by The Times that Parliament would 
 assemble the first week in Januar^y and that the speech 
 from the throne would recommend the consideration of 
 the corn laws with the view to their total repeal. The 
 hour had come, the tax on food was doomed and the world 
 was to witness the splendid spectacle of the two foremost 
 men iu the British Government acknowledging that reason, 
 justice and the welfare of the nation had triumphed over 
 prt^udice and that the empire of freedom of trade was to 
 be established forever. 
 
 In contemplating this historic step by Peel and Glad- 
 stone who can deny to them unstinted praise ? Brought 
 up in a rigid school of protection their investigations and 
 hnanoial experiments led them to a reversal of their earlier 
 opinions, but complete emancipation from old and cherished 
 principles was not the work of a day. The time came 
 when they were challenged to assert themselves, and in 
 doing so it was with a frankness and candor that carried 
 respect from many of their old associates who regretted 
 their defection. 
 
 Dissensions in the Ministry caused Peel to resign, but 
 no one being found able to form a Government the Queen 
 desired him to withdraw his resignation, which he did, 
 and on the list of his Ministry being published it was 
 found that Mr. Gladstone had been assigned the position 
 of Colonial Secretary. His acceptance of office under 
 Peel, who was pledged to repeal the corn laws, led to his 
 retirement from the representation of Newark, which 
 borough, as I previously stated, was nearly all owned by 
 
81 
 
 larked 
 .holies 
 proper 
 in like 
 uld be 
 
 [land's 
 was to 
 i3eived. 
 would 
 speech 
 tion of 
 . The 
 i world 
 remost 
 reason, 
 id over 
 was to 
 
 \ Glad- 
 rought 
 ns and 
 earlier 
 ^rished 
 came 
 nd in 
 arried 
 retted 
 
 ;n, but 
 [Queen 
 le did, 
 lit was 
 )sition 
 under 
 Ito his 
 [which 
 led by 
 
 the Duke of Newcastle, who was an extreme protectionist. 
 Mr. Gladstone issued a retiring address, in which he ex- 
 pressed his belief that the fiscal policy was to usher in 
 a new and better day for the people. It was no secret 
 that his was the most advanced mind in the Government 
 on the necessity for and the justice of the repeal of the 
 corn laws. He was the Ministerial pioneer of the move- 
 ment that was to destroy, for a time, his party but save 
 the nation. 
 
 The visitation of the Irish famine, where the failure 
 of the potato crop brought millions to a state of absolute 
 starvation, accompanied by pestilence, convinced Peel and 
 Gladstone that to hesitate in repealing the duties on l)read 
 would be criminal, for was not famine stalking through 
 the land and thousands perishing for the want of the very 
 food that was being taxed beyond the ability of the wretches 
 to purchase and the gravevards being tilled with the vic- 
 tims of the fever. The great; Minister Peel and his illus- 
 trious colleague listened to the voices of the starving 
 multitude and, though recognizing that their change 
 meant the destruction of the Ministry, they hesitated not, 
 but carried out the great work of freeing forever England 
 and her people from the barbarous tax on the food that 
 was so necessary for the sustenance of human life. 
 
 Strange and remarkable was the coincidence that the 
 same day that saw the repeal of the corn laws curried in 
 the House of Lords witnessed the defeat of the Peel Minis- 
 try in the Commons. But the work was done, and the 
 mission which fame had in store for Peel was ended by the 
 passing of the measure, which, in his own language, would 
 " leave a name behind him to be remembered with grati- 
 tude in the abodo of those whose lot it was to earn their 
 daily bread by the sweat of their brow." Mr. Gladstone 
 lost his seat for Newark, but he was elected for 
 the University of Oxford, though his advocacy of 
 Jewish emancipation at a later day drew from many of 
 his supporters the remark that had his sentiments towards 
 Jewish claims been known he would not have been their 
 
 W. 
 
 W 
 
82 
 
 choice. TliiH measure of justice he advocated until he saw 
 the barrier against Jews sitting]; in ParHament removed, 
 and the oppressed Hebrew race enabled by law to share in 
 tlie benefits and responsibilities of j^overnment. * 
 
 The repeal of the navigation laws and the battle for 
 free ships and free commerce found Mr. Gladstone on the 
 popular side, and for the first time locked in conflict with 
 his great rival Disraeli, and rarely has Parliamentary 
 history furnished two such distinguished, and in some 
 respects, men of equal calibre, as Gladstone and Disraeli, 
 the former conscientious and all sincerity, with an eloquence 
 begotten by a profound reverence for truth and a deep 
 regard for the public welfare, while the latter with an un- 
 equalled epigrammatic ability and a ra/e and somewhat 
 correct conception of English prejudices and weaknesses 
 conquered the dislike the old school of England's landed 
 gentry liad for his race, and harnessed them in time to 
 the chariot of his ambition 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was a valuable accession to the Liberal 
 party, and became in time its " cloud by day and pillar 
 of fire bv night." He brought to it intellectual gifts and 
 the services of one whose change of partyism was the out- 
 come of conscientious conviction, and in spite of his moor- 
 ings to the traditions of the narrow school he had been 
 cradled in. His was a conflict between duty and con- 
 sistency and he chose the former. 
 
 On the otlier hand, Disraeli, who commenced life as 
 a Radical and an applicant to O'Connell for a seat as a 
 Eepealer, by the exercise of a remarkable talent for debate 
 and no mean ability as an administrator, made himself 
 almost indispensable to his party, and when Lord Derby 
 died the mantle of Stanley fell on the child of the literary 
 Jew, who became in time Prime Minister of England, and 
 the presiding genius of the descendants of the companions 
 of the Norman conqueror. It was creditable to his genius 
 to have led a party that had no confidence in him, and 
 which certainly had no admiration for the despised yet 
 gifted race from which he sprung, and though he never 
 
38 
 
 18 a 
 3ate 
 self 
 3rby 
 ary 
 and 
 ons 
 iu8 
 and 
 yet 
 ever 
 
 earned a character for sincerity as a politician all must 
 admire tlie ability which enabled him to attain the very 
 highest position in the empire on which the sun never sets 
 and the roll of whose morning drum never ceases to beat. 
 
 The death of Peel, his friend and leader, left Mr. 
 Gl'iii stone to carry out almost alone those great economic 
 reforms with which his name afterwards became identified, 
 but his cliaracter rec-ived a marked imprint from his as- 
 sociation with Peel, and he carried through his after-life 
 the exalted characteristics that endeared the son of the 
 Jjancashire calico printer to his country. 
 
 I'^arly in the fifties Mr. Gladstone visited the prisons 
 of Naples, and in the dungeons of Ferdinand, the cruel, he 
 found '.20,000 men, many of pure lives, subjected to punish- 
 ment unfit for human beings. Their offences were politi- 
 cal only, and in no sense meriting the cruelties that made 
 the name of the Bourbon King of Naples one of execration. 
 Mr. Gladstone's exposure of the Neapolitan dungeon 
 liorrors sent a thrill of loathing for the Government that 
 perpetrated them which reached the uttermost ends of the 
 civilized world, and did much to bring down the royal 
 house of the '' Two Sicilies," along with other thrones 
 that were neither blessings nor benefits to the Italian 
 people. Yet it must not be forgotten that men in England, 
 political prisoners also (Chartists and home rulers) have 
 been subjected to tortures and horrors enough to place the 
 mother of free nations on the defensive for her own acts, 
 though well do I know that such never had the sympathy 
 or countenance of her democracy, but was the work of the 
 class that has ever viewed the agitators for public rights as 
 only fit for the gallows or the dungeon. • 
 
 The year 1851 witnessed one of those periods of reli- 
 gious fanaticism on the part of the people of Britain, the 
 history of which they, in a few short years afterwards, 
 would have given much to erase. Owing to the appoint- 
 ment of Catholic prelates to English sees or Bishoprics the 
 people became much excited by the dread of " Papal 
 aggression," as it was called. English frenzy knew no 
 
 I 
 
 !':'' 
 
84 
 
 boundH ; meetingfl of convocationH, civic l)odio8, trade 
 boards, and popular aBsomblieH were called all over the 
 country, and much dread of the Pope prevailed. ThiH fear 
 led to the panHin*,' of the Papal aggres.-iion or eccUisiastical 
 titles bill by Lord John Russell, which received the con- 
 tinued opposition of Mr. (Wadstoiie, notwithstanding the 
 fact of him heing one of the members for the University of 
 Oxford, the faculty of which had i)etitioned Parliament and 
 addressed the Queen i.i person in favor of the hill. The 
 bill passed, and the J3riti8h people were pleased, hut the 
 Catholic prelates, on the day following thn royal assent 
 being given to it, met, defied the law and challenged the 
 penalties which were never attempted to be enforced, and 
 after remaining (m the statute book for about iifteen years 
 Mr. Gladstone repealed it without much notice being called 
 to it, and certainly without opposition. 
 
 In the session of 1858 Mr Gladstone, who had become 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Aberdeen Government, 
 delivered his first budget speech of five hours' duration, 
 which is said to have been one in which he manifested his 
 phenomenal grasp of figures in a manner both pleasing 
 and instructive. It was felt that on him haa fallen the 
 mantle of Pitt and Peel, the two greatest financiers Eng- 
 land had known up to that date, but it was left to Mr. 
 Gladstone alone to he able with columns of figures and the 
 dry details of financial questions and propositions to give 
 them a charm and pleasure entirely new to this feature of 
 public speaking. This great gift seems to have centered 
 almost in him, for while budget .speeches of great ability 
 have been delivered by Disraeli, Lowe and others, there 
 has never appeared on the stage a man so singularly 
 endowed with the ability to rivet the attention of Parlia- 
 mentary audiences on financial subjects as Mr. Gladstone. 
 He gave to finance a new delight, and the nation devoured 
 his budget speeches ever after with the pleasure that 
 accompanies the soldier in the barrack room when reading 
 the stories of Wellington and Boney. or the glories of Tra- 
 falgar and the Nile. There was a bold originality of con- 
 
 s 
 
 n 
 
 h 
 
 tl 
 
 ill 
 
 th 
 
 th 
 
85 
 
 ccptioii in liis finaucMiil ineHHnpjos to tlu! nation, and during 
 the years that he was ChanccUor of tlio Pjxchequer all 
 clasHeH awaited witli phniHurahle interest his budget 
 spet'clies, in nearly all of which linancial relief was pro- 
 mised and taxes reduced or wiped out on tlie comforts and 
 luxuries of life. His wondrous successes and triumphs on 
 the liehl of finance read like a romance, and his practical 
 H illustrations of how taxation could he reduced while tilling 
 the national exchequer tooveriiovving was as nuirvellous to 
 the iiiuinciers of tlie world as a fairv tale to childhood. 
 
 'riie year 1H54 saw England engaged in a European 
 war for the first time in forty years. 'J'he aggression of 
 Russia ujuler the pretence of [>rotectfng the Christians in 
 Turkey arrayed both England and France on the side of 
 the Mussulman, but without entering into a lengthened 
 account of this bloody and senseless war, it is enough to 
 say that £'100. 000,000 of Britislj gold was spent and fully 
 30,000 of the flower of England's youth and manhood per- 
 ished on the l)attletields, died in the hospitals or were 
 woundid so as to incapacitate them for future military 
 service, and all this sacrifice of life and treasure, all the 
 grief and de^M)lation of homes merely that the wretched 
 Turk might have given to him a longer day in which to 
 curse mankind. The British troops fought as Britisii 
 soldiers always fight, with a courage unexcelled, but their 
 sufferings were terrible, and the people as usual demanded 
 a scape-goat as a sin offering, andifc was found in the Gov- 
 ernment, which was practically censured by Mr. Roebuck's 
 iiistoric inquiry motion. Mr. Gladstone and other mem- 
 bers of the late Aberdeen Government refused to serve 
 under Lord Palmerston, whose Government was a war 
 Government, but he gave the new Administration a gener- 
 ous support, and then took othceonly to resign it after two 
 or three weeks' occupancv. He felt the delicacv of bis 
 position, and perhaps the embarrassment he was causing 
 the Premier, and retired once more into private member- 
 ship. The annoyances of official life and the misrepresen- 
 tation to which the public men of England at this time 
 
36 
 
 were specially subjected were well calculated to discourage 
 a man of Mr. Gladstone's sensitiveness and independence 
 and cause his retirement from public life. 
 
 Blnssed with an abundance of wealth, endowed with 
 graces and abilities beyond his contemporaries post-esning 
 domestic bliss and happiness, with freedom from the bitter 
 waters of worldly adversity, he might have spent his dayw 
 in ease and sought only enjoyment from the gratification 
 of his senses : but be had given to him a iugg< d sense of 
 duty to his country and to the laboring people, whose joys 
 were few and whose possessions were scant. He brought 
 his heaven-sent powers to labor for the uplifting of those 
 who had to toil, that thereby they might live. ; he devised 
 ways and means to enable the poor to share in the bene- 
 fits of science and partake of the comforts and luxuries 
 from the distant world ; he sought not the smiles and ap- 
 proval of the wealthy, but rather the gratitude of ttie 
 millions, who never faltered in their faitb or stopped short 
 in their admiration, for he was their friend. His un- 
 equalled grasp of finance enabled him to shower blessings 
 around and give abundance and content where formerly 
 want and hopelessness held sway. Amidst the stormy 
 seas of political conflict he was ever guided by the desire 
 to do good rather than please, and to bless his nation 
 rather than bend to its shortcomings, or offer sacrifice to 
 its vanity. x\like the groans of the political prisoners in 
 the dungeons of Naples and the death shriek of the Arme- 
 nian victim of Turkish ferocity found in his breast a sympa- 
 thetic response ; and the deliverances of his burning 
 indignation in his old age at the atrocities of the unspeak- 
 able Turk has endeared to the world of humanity this lion 
 of Judah's fold. 
 
 From the close of the Bussian war till 1859 Mr. 
 Gladstone was engaged chiefiy on his Homeric studies, 
 and which resulted in the publication of his great work, 
 •' Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age," and which is 
 considered amongst the standard writings on the bard who 
 sang the story of the siege of Troy and gave to the world 
 
87 
 
 the immortal works that are the delight of all lovers of 
 Grecian heroics and readers of the mythologic: 1 events 
 that are marvels of romantic conception. 
 
 But however feeble my ability is to speak of Mr. 
 Gladstone as the statesman and orator (and no one can be 
 more painfully conscious of this fact than myself), I dare 
 not attempt more than to recount the fact of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's classical researches and writngs, for having had 
 my education confined to rude English alone, I would not 
 do you or myself the iiijustice of veneering this address 
 with more tban this passing reference to him as a Homeric 
 student or worshi[)per. Therefore, I tarn from Gladstone, 
 the classical writer and translator, to Gladstone the law 
 builder, and find him in 1857 selected by Lord Palmerston 
 to become Chancellor of the Exchequer in his new Govern- 
 ment, which had succeeded the Derby Administration on the 
 defeat of the reform bill which Disraeli introduced intotue 
 House of Commons 
 
 At the general election Mr. Gladstone was returned again 
 for Oxford University, where he was opposed by the Mar- 
 quis of Chandos on the ground of his abandonment of the 
 Tory party and his acceptance of office under Palmerston 
 (who was erroneously designated a Liberal). During this 
 session there was passed the bill rendering the Pkoman 
 Catholics eligible for the office of Lord Chan<-.ellor of Ire- 
 land- It was met by the opposition of Mr. Newdegate, an 
 intense Protestant, and Mr. Whiteside, a very able Irish 
 lawyer and a vevy piumikient Orangeman. Dire calamities 
 were predicted fcr Crown and church and constitution 
 should so un-Protestai)j a measure became '^w. Well, it 
 became law, and in ;) few years time Thomas O'Hagan, a 
 Belfast Roman Catiiolic, became — under Mr. Gladstone's 
 first AdministratioK —Lord Chancellor of Ireland ; yet the 
 Crown was not; weai^ened by the Hct, nor was the Protes- 
 tant Church in Ireland destroyed ; and a? for the British 
 constitution (this unwritten work) it sciil exists and bids 
 fair to outlast any cont:titution wi iUen or unwritten under 
 which mankind is governed. 
 
 i;'- 
 
88 
 
 The vear 1861 opened out with a. deficient bread 
 supply, but the severity following the poor harvest 
 was mitigated by the absence of import duties, while an 
 expanding trade enabled higher wages to be paid, and the 
 nation added to its wealth, as Mr. Gladstone said, '* by 
 leaps and bounds." 
 
 It was during this session that he established post- 
 office savings banks in order that thrift and habit? of 
 saving might be encouraged. He saw that the wi^alth of 
 France was largely due to the savings of the peasants and 
 was convinced that the national benefit to England \vould 
 be great from the cultivation of the like habits ; and, Hke 
 all his financial projects, the postoffice savings banks hi>.ve 
 proved a great success and produced in the British artisa'is 
 and laborers the habit of saving small sums irom their 
 weekly earnings, and which has made the success of 
 English building and co-operative societies so remarkable. 
 
 It is said that politics, like misfortunes, make us ac- 
 quainted with strange bedfellows ; and so it was with Mr. 
 Gladstone, who, during this session, was found in strange 
 company for him at that time. Sir John Trelawny having 
 introduced a bill for the abolition of church rates, Mr. 
 Gladstone pleaded for the conditional retention of the 
 odious tribute to the State church in a manner that mani- 
 fested his almost superstitious reverence for the church 
 privileges (or extortions I would rather say). Whigs, like 
 Palmerston and Russell, voted to take away this arbitrary 
 power from the parish vestries of taxing dissenters for the 
 maintenance of the fabrics in which they worship and 
 which in most cases were richl}^ endowed. But we must 
 not forget that he was then member for ihe University of 
 Oxford, and this fact and his love for his alma mater and 
 its associations doubtless did much to impede his advanc- 
 ing Liberalism and retard him in his march towards his 
 great work of disestablishing the Law Church of Ireland, 
 which at that t;me was called, in relation to his long ard 
 eminent political career, " the crowning of the edifice." 
 
 « 
 
mmmmmmm 
 
 39 
 
 li 
 
 « 
 
 We now approach an important period in Mr. Glad- 
 stone's career. The University of Oxford had sent him 
 for eighteen years to represent her in ParHament, but a 
 growing dread of his developing Liberalism and an expres- 
 sion of his sympathy with the disestablishment of the Irish 
 Church delivered in Chester when advocating the election 
 of his eldest son, and which I extorted from him m\self, 
 roused up the extreme church party to his defeat, and 
 Mr. Gathorne Hardy whs elected in his stend. Mr. Glad- 
 stone loved the University and prized very highly the 
 honor of representing it. That at the slightest sacrifice 
 of his convictions he could have retained its confidence 
 needs no assurance, but he was not prepared to pay the 
 price, and with the ever -broadening of his Liberalism there 
 was being deepened and widened the gulf that separated 
 the national statesman from the standpoint of the Estab- 
 lished Church. The result of the contest for the Univer- 
 sity was never in doubt. The voting extended over fifteen 
 days and was by proxv, but each day added to the majority 
 that was breaking the link that bound her great son to her. 
 
 While the election was in progress, the South Lan- 
 cashire nomination was held, and the name of William 
 Ewart Gladstone was proposed to represent ** Home, Sweet 
 H/rT ." A deputation of electors ^of which I formed one) 
 UT^Oi V II him the acceptance of the nomination, and on the 
 ♦"'lovflirg day he spoke to many thousands of his admiring 
 ;«o:>n -./ineu, first in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 
 ant; i 1 th^ evening in the Amphitheatre, Liverpool. 
 
 It was at the former meeting where he used the his- 
 toric phrase of being "unmuzzled." This had reference 
 to the restraining influence of Oxford on his freedom, and 
 now that he was in Lancashire, the centre of Britain's 
 manufacturing empire, it was only to be expected that his 
 Liberalism would flourish and strengthen "like a green 
 bay tree." 
 
 He was elected after a close contest, and his native 
 county honored him by having found him a seat in Par- 
 
 i^f! 
 
 rl; 
 
40 
 
 I ! 
 
 liament, where his wondrous gifts were to be further exer- 
 cised for the benefit of his country. 
 
 The death of Paltnerston resulted in Earl Russell 
 forming a Government, with Mr. Gladstone for the first 
 time leader in the Commons. The levity or joviality of 
 Palmerston was so different from the sincerity of Mr. Glad- 
 stone, who viewed politics as a science of the gravest 
 moment, that many imagined that his very earnestness 
 would destroy any possibility of success, but it was soon 
 found that the House welcomed the leadership of one 
 whose view of puHic duty was of the most exalted type, 
 and the nation sl ainer'. the man who had never felt 
 weary in exerci8in,L splendid gifts for its increased 
 
 happiness. 
 
 The people's demands for Parliamentary reform were 
 met by a Goverrment measure, which, after escaping the 
 first divisions, was defeated in committee, and the Russell 
 admisistration resigned. 
 
 Lord Derby then formed his Government, with Dis- 
 raeli leading the Lower House, with the result of a reform 
 bill being carried by its historic opponents, and where 
 Disraeli phowed the great influenc he possessed over the 
 Conservative party by carrying through both Lords and Com- 
 mons a bill so revolutionary, from a Tory standpoint, that 
 nothing seemed to be impending but the deluge. 
 
 During the debates on both the Gladstone and Disraeli 
 reform bills there were delivered perhaps as eloquent 
 speeches as ever were heard in any deliberative assembly 
 in the history of the world. 
 
 In addition to the two leaders there was Bright and 
 Lowe and Cecil and Bulwer-Lytton, who poured out a flood 
 of eloquence that will remain to be quoted as examples of 
 the beauty of the English language while it endures. 
 
 It was during the debate on the second reading of the 
 Gladstone reform bill, when, seeing the defeat of the 
 measure more than likely to attend its course through 
 Parliament, he spoke with a beauty and prophetic predic- 
 tion rarely equalled and still more rarely excelled. 
 
41 
 
 I 
 
 In closing the debate, and with a full knowledge of 
 the defection from his ranks, foreshadowing the defeat of 
 the bill, he eloquently painted the early triumphs 
 of its principles,,, and said : — " Sir, we are assailed ; 
 the bill is in a state of peril, and the Government 
 along with it. We stand with it now ; we may 
 fall with it a short time hence. If we do so 
 fall we or others in our places shall rise with it here- 
 after. At some point of the contest you may succeed. 
 You may drive us from our seats, but you cannot fight 
 against the future. Time is on our side ; the great social 
 forces which move onward in their might and majesty and 
 which the tumult of debate does not impede are marshal- 
 ed on our side, and the banner which we now carry in this 
 fight — though perhaps at some moment it may drop over 
 our sinking heads — yet it will soon float again in the eye 
 of heaven and will be borne by the firm hands of the united 
 people of the three kingdoms, perhaps not to an easy, but 
 to a certain and not distant victory." 
 
 So far Disraeli had triumphed, but auother trial was 
 at hand when Mr. Gladstone astounded the empire and 
 aroused the enthusiasm of the Liberal party by laying on 
 the table his famous resolution : " That in the opinion of 
 this House it is necessary that the Established Church of 
 Ireland should cease to exist." He defeated the Govern- 
 ment on every point when his motion came before the 
 House, and though most unusual and, indeed, unprece- 
 dented, Disraeli clung to power, and presented the humiliat- 
 ing spectacle of retaining office after having forfeited the 
 confidence of Parliament. Driven at last to appeal to the 
 country on the question of disestablishment, the Tory 
 Government found the Liberal party united as it had 
 never been before. 
 
 The condition of Ireland and the national need for an 
 empire of justice rather than of force was advocated by 
 Mr. Gladstone in eloquence only equalled by the broad and 
 kindly spirit that moved him. Speaking on the character 
 of the Irish people, he said : — " Immediately the sharp 
 
 ill. 
 
 Mi: 
 
42 
 
 sting of want is removed, the Irish people by their im- 
 munity from vice excite the admiration of the world. The 
 importance of the numbers leaving the Irish shores, seek- 
 ing homes across the sea, is not the most portentous 
 feature, but rather the anti-British spirit which goes with 
 them, only to be intensified as time progresses, and the 
 story of our misgovernment is told under other skies. 
 They bear with them to the west a passionate attachment 
 to their homes — * Land of the green valley and the rushing 
 river ' — and a burning and a bitter aversion to the laws 
 and Government they leave behind them, and which drives 
 them forth. Our duty to the empire and to humQ,nity is 
 not to shrink from the task, but to * quit ourselves like 
 men ' until we s'^f'ure the triumphs of the eternal principles 
 of justice." 
 
 Mr. Glady<"cne addressed the electors of the United 
 Kingdom througn bis meetings in Southwest Lancashire, 
 all of which I attended and shared in the delight of being 
 privileged to hear England's greatest orator at his best 
 and on a subject well calculated to produce his greatest 
 triumphs as a speaker. 
 
 It was during this campaign that he likened the State 
 Church of Ireland to the upas tree, which poisoned and 
 blasted all that came beneath its shadow. He further 
 said that if the abuses of the establishment were removed 
 naught would remain but the humiliating memories 
 of its failure and its oppression of the nation that had 
 never accepted its mission ; and this wretched failure of 
 Britsh power to plant a church established by law alone 
 was never more clearly proven than when Mr, Gladstone 
 stated that there were 199 parish churches in Ireland be- 
 longing to the establishment without one worshipper outside 
 the parsonages. 
 
 The British nation gave an overwhelming majority 
 in favor of the Liberal party and disetablishment, and, 
 though Mr. Gladstone was defeated for Southwest Lanca- 
 shire, the country had given to him its entire confidence. 
 At the close of the poll, in speaking at Liverpool, and within 
 
48 
 
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 within 
 
 a few hundred yards of where he was born, expressing his 
 regrets for the local defeat, he said: — "It is true that I 
 would have prized very highly the honor of representing 
 my native district, and I regret its verdict of to-day; it is 
 true that Lancashire, whict] has rejected me, is great, but 
 it is also true that England, Ireland and Scotland are 
 greater." After tlie election Parliament met to face one of 
 the gravest issues ever prf'sented to it. It was one thing 
 to pass general resolutions in favor of disestablishment and 
 consolidate tbe elements on tlie principle, but it was 
 entirely different to frame a bill to meet the justice of the 
 case and make it acceptable to the Irish nation and the 
 Parliament of the United Kingdom. Predictions of the 
 hostility of the House of Lords were indulged in, and even 
 the Queen was reported as being opposed to what was said 
 to be a violation of her coronation oath. 
 
 But the splendid genius of Mr. Gladstone triumphed, 
 and, though defections from his side were neither few nor 
 unimportant, the bill that removed the shame from the 
 Church of Ireland of being maintained solely by the power 
 of British bayonets became law, and, as predicted by its 
 \viBest friends, the church under the *' new dispensation" 
 has been of greater service in her mission of Christianity 
 in its broadest sense than she was when existing as a re- 
 proach to the very name of Protestantism. 
 
 I cannot leave this glorious period in Mr. Gladstone's 
 history without paying my feehle tribute to the man whose 
 religious convictions were so deeply rooted and whose 
 almost superstitious reverence for his church has never 
 been questioned, and yet could summon up the resolution 
 to despoil her of her temporalities. It is only those who 
 have been taught to view the possessions of their church 
 as something sacred who can fully appreciate the struggle 
 that he had in laying what his opponents called ** an un- 
 holy hand on the tabernacle." In that eventful struggle 
 gallant Wales and Liberal Scotland were at his side, sus- 
 taining him in the great work of separating church from 
 State ; and their moral influence was great for their Pro- 
 
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 5h' 
 
44 
 
 testantiHm was of that sturdy character which might be 
 called the antithesis of the hot-house plant that grew up 
 in Ireland under the protection and that lived only as the 
 product of the State. The disestablishment and disendow- 
 ment of the Law Church of Ireland appears to be the 
 crowning glory of his career and the high flood mark of 
 the Gladstoniaii Parliamentary influence. But it is not 
 given to this genenition to fully appreciate his great char- 
 acter and the lofty eminence he will occupy in the minds 
 of men yet to be born ; and just as the stupendous Him- 
 ilayas have to be viewed from a distance to fully compre- 
 hend their height that pierces the skies, so is it impossible 
 for those who have lived in his day and shared in his con- 
 flicts to conceive how vast will be the space allotted to his 
 works by the future historians of England, and how deep 
 will be the reverence that future generations will entertain 
 for the memory of the man who may well be called the 
 father of the modern and the better England. 
 
 He possessed more than the grasp of Pitt or Peel as a 
 financier, and while free from the lack of high morality 
 that marred the former, and the timidity that afflicted the 
 latter statesman, yet he embraced in his character the 
 truest order of devotion to his country's good and love for 
 her people, whose confidence was given to him so long. 
 
 Looking back at his splendid achievements, who can 
 do justice to his name, or paint in fitting words the glory 
 of his life ? 
 
 The memory of England's great Prime Minister will 
 be cherished by all generations who venerate greatness 
 allied to virtue. His gifts and po\vers have been devoted 
 to the good of his nation, and the strengthening of the 
 empire, whose destinies he so long directed. 
 
 Unlike many brilliant characters in the world's his- 
 tory, his domestic life has been beautiful in our sight and 
 contributed much to adorn British manhood and purify 
 and elevate the moral tone of his generation. Unhappily 
 the pages of history reveal many instances of vast intel- 
 lectual gifts having been accompanied by degrading vices 
 
45 
 
 ght be 
 :ew up 
 as thti 
 3ndow- 
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 nark of 
 is not 
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 8 Him- 
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 pel as a 
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 purify 
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 t intel- 
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 and a total disregard for the injunctions of the Almighty. 
 Warlike {genius of the highest order has gone hand in 
 hand with cruelty, and the rulers of empires, while receiving 
 the incense of flattery for their very crimes, rarely turned 
 tlieir linarts to the wretched multitude whoFe existence wns 
 only valued beo^iuse they contributed to the power of States 
 and the pomp of courts. 
 
 In striking contrast with the anointed despots stands 
 tlie character of Gladstone, the Commoner, sublime in its 
 simplicity and goodness. Beneath his roof the altar of 
 family worshif) has been raised and the fire of Christian 
 observances kindled and kept aglow, and even down to this 
 day, at the age of eighty and eight, the grand old patriarch, 
 l^ngland's " Christian Politician," may be seen wending 
 liis way to the little parish church in Hawarden on Sun- 
 day mornings, where he and his household join the simple 
 villagers in devotional services and sing of Zion and the 
 Lord. Happy the people and blessed is the nation whose 
 footsteps nre guided and whose morals are moulded by 
 such as he of whom I speak. 
 
 The more recent chapters of the story of Gladstone 
 are known to tlie youngest of my hearers ; how he sought 
 to grant home rule to Ireland and make the land that had 
 been in some respects a weaknesss and a menace to the 
 empire a bulwark of strength must be within the recollec- 
 tion of you all ; therefore. I will not attempt to " paint the 
 lily or gild refined gold," nor need I call to your recollec- 
 tion how he succeeded in enacting land laws for Ireland 
 in which the old worship of the sacred rights of property 
 was challenged and landlords taught that the responsibil- 
 ities and duties of ownership were paramount. 
 
 To even mention for a passing moment the many 
 events in his notable career is impossible in the time I am 
 limited, to for his history is that of the British nation for 
 over sixty years, and I must leave you to fill the many 
 voids I have left. But if I have, by this discourse, contri- 
 buted to give any of you an additional interest in his 
 works or added to your gratitude for his services, not to 
 
 !'i. 
 
nr 
 
 46 
 
 his own country alone, but to humanity, or if I have 
 increased your love for the great principles of British free- 
 dom, I feel that I shall not have addressed you in vain. 
 
 He neither sought nor desired the triumphs of war, 
 and his great talents were ever enlisted on the side of hu- 
 manity ; there lay the field of his choice. 
 
 The conquests of (jesar, of Alexander and Napoleon 
 were the fruits of their lust of ambition, and their wars 
 were carried on regardless of the wretched soldiery and 
 still more wretched conquered tribes and nations. Their 
 careers were accompanied by rapine and slaughter till the 
 very gods of war were satisfied to repletion. They gave 
 no thought to the homes made desolate, or to the hearts 
 that yearned for the loved ones whose bones were left to 
 fertilize the fields of conflict. 
 
 How different with Gladstone, whose victories were 
 those of blessed peace, and which the poet tells us are 
 ** No less renowned than war." Viewing, therefore, im- 
 partially his exalted character, the generous use he has 
 made of his sublime gifts, the singular beauty and purity 
 of his life, and the bountiful harvest of usefulness and 
 blessing that has followed his sickle, it is not too much for 
 us to say that when his earthly mission has been wrought 
 out and the lamp of life gives light no longer and " the 
 laborer's task is done," the verdict of the English nations 
 will be, " We shall not look upon his like again. '■' 
 
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