N 
 
 
 
 
 CO 
 CM 
 
 O 
 

 
 REMARKS 
 
 bj 
 
 RECENT COMMERCIAL LEGISLATION; 
 
 SUGGESTED BY THE 
 
 EXPOSITORY STATEMENT OF THE REVENUE FROM CUSTOMS, 
 
 AND OTHER PAPERS LATELY SUBMITTED 
 
 TO PARLIAMENT. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, 
 
 M.P. FOR NEWARK. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1845. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, 
 Stamford Street. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory Remarks ... ..... 5 
 
 The late Reductions of Customs' Duty considered : 
 
 I. With regard to the Proportion of our entire Trade which 
 
 they have affected ....... 6 
 
 II. With regard to the entire Amount of Revenue surrendered . 8 
 
 III. With regard to their particular results on Revenue and on 
 
 Trade .......... 13 
 
 Class A ......... 16 
 
 Class B ......... 17 
 
 Class E ......... 18 
 
 General result upon Revenue of the Act 5 & 6 Viet., 
 c. 47, as to Raw Materials . . . . .19 
 
 Class C ......... 22 
 
 Class D ......... 23 
 
 General result upon Revenue of the Act 5 & 6 Viet., 
 
 c. 47, as to Manufactured Products . . .24 
 
 General result as to all the Classes . . . .27 
 
 Rules to which the frame of the Act approximated . . 28 
 General result of the Act upon our Import Trade . 29 
 Particular results : 
 
 Case of Timber ....... 31 
 
 Case of Coffee ....... 38 
 
 Principal Raw Materials affected by the Act other 
 than Timber ..... .39 
 
 IV. With regard to their results upon Domestic Producers . 43 
 V. The policy of these measures considered, with especial refe- 
 
 rence to the recent proceedings of Foreign Powers in 
 matters of Trade ........ 53 
 
 Conclusion . . .65 
 
 B 2 
 
 
REMARKS, 
 
 THE ' Expository Statement of the Customs' Revenue * of the 
 United Kingdom,, which was presented to Parliament at the 
 opening of the session by her Majesty's command, has attracted 
 considerable notice from the public : and a desire has been ex- 
 pressed in the House of Commons by one of its most distinguished 
 members * for something in the nature of a commentary upon 
 that statement, which should bring clearly and definitely into 
 view the leading results it may be found to establish. It is, 
 indeed, obvious that a series of tables so complex and extended 
 afford rather the crude materials of information to the general 
 observer, than information itself. 
 
 On account of my official cognisance of those changes of the 
 law in 1842, which led to the preparation of the document in 
 question, I am led to make an attempt of the nature I have 
 described. And upon the whole I have preferred making it 
 through the medium of the press, rather than occupying so much 
 of the time of the House of Commons, engrossed as it is by the 
 mass of other business, as would be requisite for the purpose of an 
 oral exposition essentially involving many figures and details. 
 
 With this introduction, I propose to traverse in succession the 
 following departments of the subject : 
 
 * Speech of Lord John Russell on motion for going into Committee of Ways and 
 Means, Feb. 17, 1845. 
 
*3 Remarks upon 
 
 I. The proportion of our entire foreign trade which has been 
 affected, in various degrees, by the reductions of the last 
 three years. 
 II. The amount of revenue directly surrendered by them. 
 
 III. The actual results of the recent changes upon the revenue 
 
 of the state and on our trade in various branches, so far 
 as they are exhibited by the documents now before Par- 
 liament. 
 
 IV. Their results upon domestic producers. 
 
 V. The policy of these measures, with especial reference to the 
 recent proceedings of Foreign Powers in matters of Trade. 
 
 My examination is suggested by the ' Expository Statement * 
 and other kindred papers which have recently been laid before 
 Parliament ; but it will oblige me to enter into even the financial 
 policy of the legislature and of the administration up to the pre- 
 sent moment, so far as it is immediately connected with trade. 
 
 Again, it will turn, in the main at least, and directly, upon the 
 course of our import trade. It is true, indeed, that Parliament 
 has now sealed the doom of the very last of our duties upon ex- 
 ports : but this operation had long been within one step of entire 
 accomplishment ; and the amount of immediate relief remaining 
 to be given by the final act during the present year was too small 
 to produce a general effect of appreciable magnitude. I should 
 rather plead that the value of the recent measures with regard to 
 imports might be taken as the ultimate test of their value with 
 reference to the exports with which those imports must be pur- 
 chased ; because, though we cannot in every particular case 
 assume an immediate trade outwards when we create a trade in- 
 wards, yet it is manifest that upon the whole such is the law 
 which must govern our commercial transactions. 
 
 I. As to the proportion of the trading operations of the country 
 which the measures have embraced. 
 
 In the Account of trade and navigation,* annually presented to 
 Parliament at its meeting, I find the principal imports of the 
 
 * Paper No. 18, Sess. 1845. 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 country specified to the number of one hundred and thirty-three. 
 Of these the duties have been reduced or removed upon one 
 hundred and six ; upon twenty-nine they remain unaltered. 
 
 Again, if we take the official valuations of all imports into the 
 United Kingdom for the year 1843 (the latest for which the 
 accounts have been published), we find that they amounted to 
 the sum of 70,093,0007. 
 
 The total values of all those articles (as nearly as I can com- 
 pute them without minute detail) upon which no change has been 
 made amounted to about 8,500,0007. of the entire sum ; and the 
 values, which have shared in various degrees the relief afforded 
 by the alterations, amount to about 61,600,0007. 
 
 It is well known that the criterion of official value is extremely 
 fallacious in detail. It is, however, unfortunately, the only form 
 in which, at the present moment, our imports are reduced to a 
 common measure, and rendered capable of being treated as a 
 whole. In several of the cases the standard fixed has now be- 
 come, through change of circumstances,, egregiously false. Thus 
 cotton wool is valued at 7d. and 7%d. per lb., or nearly twice its 
 average price ; fir timber at 1 5s. per load, or less than a third 
 part of its average price ; and tea, again, at 2s. per lb., which is 
 not much short of twice its average price. Still it does not ap- 
 pear to me that, when the scale of computation is so large, these 
 errors, which very much neutralise one another, materially inter- 
 fere with my object: and therefore the proposition holds good 
 that of our whole import trade seven-eighths have been affected by 
 the reductions of import duty which Parliament has adopted in 
 the years 1842-5. 
 
 It is true that they have been affected in very various degrees. 
 On raw silk, for instance, and hemp, both of them important 
 articles, only the insensible duties of Id. per lb. and Id. per cwt. 
 respectively were imposed by the previous law. But, speak- 
 ing generally, the reductions and remissions have been far from 
 inconsiderable. For instance, on the three great articles of sugar, 
 timber, and corn, the diminution made, though it cannot be 
 estimated with strict accuracy, may be said to amount nearly to 
 one- half of the duties previously subsisting. 
 
8 Remarks upon 
 
 II. At the same time it is undeniable that whatever may be 
 the extent of these measures in reference to trade, in reference to 
 the whole amount of revenue which we raise from imported com- 
 modities, they have been secondary. Four articles, of the first 
 class with respect to the amount of duty levied from them, have 
 been left wholly untouched. They are the articles of 
 
 1. Tea, yielding in 1844 . . . . 4,524,000 
 
 2. Tobacco 3,977,000 
 
 3. Wine 1,991,000* 
 
 4. Spirits 2,211,000 
 
 12,703,000 
 
 or more than half of the entire revenue derived from the customs. 
 
 With respect to this topic, it is enough to say that no consider- 
 able party in this country appears to contemplate any funda- 
 mental change in the system by which we supply a very large 
 part of the wants of the Treasury through the medium of indirect 
 taxation : and, so long as this is the case, any reductions of duty, 
 which may be conceded from time to time, must always bear but 
 a small proportion to the amount still continuing to be levied. 
 But the four articles, which I have quoted as the most con- 
 spicuous and productive among those unaffected by the recent 
 alterations, are none of them articles of the first rank in our 
 trade. The aggregate values of the whole four, independent of 
 duty, do not equal the value, taken singly, either of the cotton or 
 of the sugar, or in most years of the grain, which we import. 
 
 There are only six other articles of any considerable importance 
 to trade which remain, like the four above specified, subject to 
 the same duties as those payable upon them before the Act of 
 the 5 and 6 Viet. c. 47. They are these : 
 
 1. Tallow, which in 1844 yielded . 174,000 
 
 2. Butter 136,000 
 
 3. Cheese . . . . . 117,000 
 
 4. Raisins 159,000 
 
 5. Pepper 81,000 
 
 6. Silk manufactures of Europe . . 277,000 
 
 994,000 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 If, then, we divide our imports according to the revenue they 
 yield, the major part have remained untouched ; but, estimated 
 according to value, that is, according to their commercial im- 
 portance, they are a small fraction of the whole with regard to 
 which this can be asserted. 
 
 Let us now, accordingly, examine the extent of these changes 
 in regard to revenue. 
 
 The reductions of 1842 were originally estimated as involving 
 a loss of about 1,200,000/., but during the progress of the 
 measure of that year they were extended in a variety of parti- 
 culars, and they ultimately reached not less than (without any 
 allowance, except upon timber, for partial recovery through in- 
 creased consumption) 1,550,000/. 
 
 The principal items were estimated at the time as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 1. Raw Materials: 
 
 Timber . . . . . 600,000 
 
 Tanning and dyeing stuffs . 110,000 
 
 Hides and skins . . . 60,000 
 
 Turpentine .... 80,000 
 
 Clover seed .... 70,000 
 
 Furniture woods . . . 50,000 
 
 Other raw materials . . . 165,000 
 
 1,135,000 
 
 2. Articles of consumption : 
 
 Coffee 240,000 
 
 Other articles of consumption and 
 
 manufactures . . . 86,000 
 
 317,000 
 
 3. Exported manufactures . 
 
 Total 
 Subtract the coal-duty 
 
 100,000 
 
 1,552,000 
 114,000 
 
 There remains 
 
 1,438,000 
 
10 Remarks upon 
 
 The mere view of these figures, indeed, gives no adequate re- 
 presentation of the changes made in 1812. Many of them which 
 removed prohibitions, and lowered duties formerly prohibitory to 
 a moderate standard, were important on account of the principle 
 which they recognised even when their direct effects were small. 
 Many of them which involved the greatest difficulty, and aroused 
 the most serious alarm, have proved to be almost nugatory in 
 their operation on the domestic interests that regarded them with 
 so much apprehension. It may be said that there was no justi- 
 fication for creating such alarm, if, after all, no important conse- 
 quences were to follow from the change. I will not interrupt 
 this portion of the inquiry by any detailed examination of the 
 objection. But, in the first place, it should be remembered, that 
 the reduction of prohibitory duty may give the very stimulus to 
 domestic trade which may cause the foreign article to be ex- 
 cluded by being undersold. Secondly, it affords a security for 
 good and economical manufacture which otherwise would not 
 exist. Thirdly, each case of the kind renders the course of 
 British legislation with respect to commerce more and more 
 definite and intelligible to the rest of the world. 
 
 In 1843 there were no remissions of duty. In 1844 the duties 
 of customs remitted were as follow : 
 
 1. Sheep and lamb's-wool .... 100,000 
 
 2. Currants (7s. 2d. per cwt. on 254,000 cwts.) 91,000 
 
 3. Coffee (2d. per Ib. on 9,854,000 Ibs.) . . 82,000 
 
 273,000 
 
 Of the duties of customs comprehended in the remissions of 
 the present year, the first and greatest, namely, that on sugar, 
 was estimated by Sir Robert Peel in his financial statement on 
 the 14th of February, as involving a loss of 1,300,0007. 
 
 With the present prospects of supply from British sources, and 
 of the working of the proposed classification of sugars, I should 
 prefer charging the reduction upon sugar, combined with that on 
 molasses, at 1,500,0007. A large sum without doubt: but in 
 order to estimate rightly the equivalent received by the consumer, 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 we must take into view the reduction of price effected by the 
 measure of last year, of which the bill now in Parliament is 
 avowedly the complement : this cannot be estimated at less than 
 4s. per cwt. To this we have now to add a reduction amounting 
 to 11s. 3d. per cwt. The diminution, therefore, in the long or 
 wholesale price amounts to 1 5s. 3d. per cwt. ; and to this is to 
 be added relief from the subsequent charges for interest of 
 money and profit on that portion of the price. If these are taken 
 at Is. Id. per cwt., which I think a moderate computation, the 
 total saving to the consumer from this financial operation will be 
 about Ife?. per lb., or 16s. 4d. per cwt. Applying this to the 
 quantity of 205,000 tons, which formed the consumption of the 
 year 1844, we find the saving to the public will amount to no 
 less than 3,348,0007., which is purchased at a cost to the revenue 
 of only 1,500,0007., or less than one moiety of the benefit. We 
 ought not, 1 admit, to set down among the sacrifices of the Ex- 
 chequer anything more than it actually loses by the direct deduc- 
 tion of 11s. 3d. per cwt. from the tax. Thus computed, how- 
 ever, the amount still reaches to 2,306,0007., while the loss to the 
 revenue will probably be so far retrieved by an increase of con- 
 sumption as to keep it down to 1,500,0007., or about two-thirds 
 of that sum. This calculation does not indeed pretend to minute 
 accuracy ; on the one hand it does not include any deduction on 
 account of sugars to be charged at 16s. 4d. instead of 14s.; nor, 
 on the other, any addition on account of the diminution of duty 
 on molasses : but it seems to point out fairly the aggregate 
 result. 
 
 The amount of taxation upon foreign trade remitted by the 
 measures of the present year, as distinct from the balance of 
 loss likely to be entailed upon the Treasury, may be stated as 
 follows : 
 
 1. Sugar 2,306,000 
 
 2. Cotton 680,000 
 
 3. Duties on other materials of industry and partially 
 
 manufactured articles ...... 320,000 
 
 4. Duty on coals, and minor export duties . . . 125,000 
 
 3,431,000 
 
12 Remarks upon 
 
 We have therefore the whole amount of direct receipt surren- 
 dered by Parliament during the last three years as follows : 
 
 In 1842 . . . . 1,438,000 
 In 1844 . . . . 273,000 
 
 In 1845 .... 3,431,000 
 
 Total . . 5,142,000 
 
 It appears, then, to be very worthy of note, that without taking 
 into account the indirect benefit which has accrued from the exten- 
 sion of trade, or from the diminution of protective duties, the country 
 has already received the reward of its submission to the income- 
 tax in the removal, upon Customs duties alone, of an amount of 
 taxation about as large as the sum which is yielded by that highly 
 productive impost. The last year's return of the income-tax was 
 5,191,0007. This, however, does not present the whole case. 
 In the Budget of 1842, on the one hand, a deficiency was calcu- 
 lated for the year 1842-3, amounting to 2,570,000., and so much 
 of the income-tax as would absorb this deficiency was accord- 
 ingly forestalled. On the other hand, duties other than 
 those of customs, but in general connected with trade in other 
 forms, have been repealed (of are now proposed for repeal), as 
 follows : 
 
 In 1842, on stage-coaches . 70,000 
 
 In 1844, on glass . . . 45,000 
 
 on vinegar . . 25,000 
 
 on marine insurances 130,000 
 
 In 1845, on glass . . 642,000 
 
 on auctions . . 250,000 
 
 1,162,000 
 Add customs'-duties repealed 5,142,000 
 
 Total . .6,304,000 
 
 If then we assume, as we reasonably may, that the service of 
 the present year is adequately provided for, and the revenue will 
 balance the expenditure, it appears that the free surplus of the 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 income-tax, over and above what was required to supply actual 
 deficiency, or 2,621,000?., has been most economically laid out, 
 as the saving in other taxes realised by means of it has been 
 6,304,000^., or more than double its amount. The question 
 may be raised how far this is owing to the course of legisla- 
 tion, and how far to the buoyancy of the national industry : 
 this, being well content with either cause, I am not curious to 
 discuss ; in some proportion it must evidently be divided between 
 them. 
 
 III. Having thus measured, in its most general form, the 
 bearing of the recent legislation on the revenue of the country, 
 I now proceed to examine in some degree of detail the effects 
 produced by the changes adopted in 1842 upon the revenue, 
 and also upon our general trade with foreign parts. I pro- 
 pose first to consider these effects as they affect the various great 
 Classes of commodities, distinguished by successive letters of 
 the alphabet, into which the ' Expository Statement ' is divided : 
 and subsequently to take into view singly the cases of such 
 particular articles as may appear on any ground to demand a 
 separate notice. 
 
 I must then, in the first place, beg the particular attention of 
 the reader to the abstract which has been prefixed to the ' Expo- 
 sitory Statement,' and which I here introduce for the greater 
 facility of inspection; premising, that the eight schedules into 
 which each class of articles is divided, have reference to the 
 amount of revenue produced, upon a mean of two years, by the 
 respective articles under the operation of the Act 5 and 6 Viet., 
 c. 47, according to the following scale : 
 
 Schedule I. Contains all articles yielding less than 100 each annually. 
 II. From 100 to 500 each. 
 III. From 500 to 1000 each. 
 IV. From 1000 to 10,000 each. 
 V. From 10,000 to 50,000 each. 
 VI. From 50,000 to 100,000 each. 
 VII. Upwards of 100,000 each. 
 VIII. Articles free or prohibited. 
 
porte 
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 nnual 
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 8 5 = 
 
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 8 
 
 Annual 
 of Duties. 
 
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 >o i r- eo 
 
 Oi Tf< Oi ^* 
 
 Mean Annual 
 oduce of Duties. 
 
 5 e* 
 
 00 00 * Ol CO TT CO 
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 O5 .-I OC -H QO 
 
 
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 10^ 
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 12 
 
 C. 
 
 Articles 
 wholly 
 nufactu 
 
 Articles 
 partially 
 nufactured. 
 
 les in a raw 
 to be used 
 Manufactur 
 
 Mean 
 Produce 
 
 3.8*3 
 
 SO O CO 
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 o co o o 
 
 Mean Annual 
 Produce of Duti 
 
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 Mean Ann 
 duce of D 
 
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 ** 
 
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 O <N <M CO CO CO TJ< 
 
 c^r ^r ^r QO" o" tC co 
 
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 11 - 
 
 ill 
 
 ^8 ^ 
 
 ll 
 
Remarks upon Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 I have already described the reductions of customs' duty made 
 in 1842 as removing direct charges upon trade to the extent of 
 1,552,000/. ; and I have divided those reductions, after with- 
 drawing the sum of 100,000/. for the repeal of duties upon ex- 
 ports, into two branches according as they fell 
 
 (1) Upon the raw materials of industry ; 
 
 (2) Upon articles of consumption imported into this country ; 
 The amount of reductions under the first head was 1,135,000 
 The amount under the second .... 317,000 
 
 Making together . . 1,452,000 
 
 Upon adverting to the five classes A, B, C, D, E, in the ' Ex- 
 pository Statement/ we shall perceive that classes A, B, and E 
 contain the articles which may generally, though not with minute 
 accuracy, be denominated the raw materials of industry, and 
 which received remissions to the amount of 1,126,0002., while 
 classes C and D contain the two great divisions of articles prepared 
 for consumption, viz., manufactured goods and articles of food, 
 upon which, taken together, the remissions amounted to 326,0007. 
 I shall therefore consider the three first together, and the two 
 last together, as the most just and comprehensive mode of esti- 
 mating the effect of the reductions. 
 
 But I have to make another and a material change in the ar- 
 rangement of this Abstract. It purports to compare the mean 
 receipts of two years antecedent to the law of 1842 (1838 and 
 1840) with those of the two years immediately subsequent to it. 
 But instead of taking the mean products of these two latter years, 
 1 propose to take each year separately, There are several 
 reasons for doing this. In the first place, for nearly four months 
 of the earlier half of the year 1842 the new tariff had been an- 
 nounced, and its details were undergoing consideration. Deli- 
 veries of the articles affected by it were accordingly in a great 
 degree suspended until the bill had become law in the com- 
 mencement of July: and immediately afterwards unusually large 
 quantities of goods were released, so that the first year shows in 
 many cases rather more than is its due. No such objection applies 
 to the second yc?ar, and it therefore affords a more just criterion 
 of the working of the law. 
 
1-6 
 
 Remarks upon 
 
 But, besides this, the intention of Sir Robert Peel was declared 
 to be, to reimburse the Exchequer for the remissions which he 
 proposed first, by their general effect upon trade and consump- 
 tion and, secondly, by augmenting the demand for the particular 
 articles which were affected. Now, all recovery of this kind is of 
 necessity gradual : and it is even more important, therefore, to 
 ascertain what relation the second year of the new law bears to 
 the first, than to know the relation which the two jointly bear to 
 the period which preceded the alteration. And particularly we 
 must observe that the presumptions in favour of the change are 
 strengthened, if the second year shall be found to bear a favour- 
 able comparison with the first, on account of the factitious aid 
 which, as has been explained, the first of necessity derived from 
 the immediately preceding stagnation, pending the discussions on 
 the measure. On every ground then it is desirable to distinguish 
 the two years which are averaged in the Abstract now before Par- 
 liament. 
 
 I take first Class A, which contains, in general, articles the most 
 strictly corresponding with the definition of raw materials. 
 
 Class A. 
 
 Articles in a raw state 
 to be used in 
 Manufactures. 
 
 Number 
 of 
 Articles. 
 
 Mean 
 Annual Produce 
 of Duties 
 in Two Years 
 preceding the 
 establishment 
 of the 
 
 Produce 
 of 
 the Duties 
 from 
 July 5, 1842, 
 to 
 
 Produce 
 of 
 the Duties 
 from 
 Julv 5, 1843, 
 to 
 
 
 
 New Tariff. 
 
 July 5, 1843. 
 
 July 5, 1844. 
 
 Schedule I., containing ar- 
 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 ticles that yield, un- 
 
 
 
 
 
 der the new law, less 
 
 144 
 
 9,817 
 
 2,488 
 
 2,443 
 
 than 100/. each of 
 
 
 
 
 
 customs' duty . 
 
 
 
 
 
 II. (100/. to 500/.) 
 
 45 
 
 36,665 
 
 10,477 
 
 12,081 
 
 III. (5007. to 1000/0 
 
 16 
 
 24,542 
 
 11,227 
 
 11,199 
 
 IV. (1,000/. to 10,000/.) 
 
 28 
 
 322,881 
 
 83,845 
 
 72,902 
 
 V. (10,000/. to 50,000/0 
 
 6 
 
 145,187 
 
 86,537 
 
 134,131 
 
 VI. (50,000/. to 100,000/0 
 
 2 
 
 148,165 
 
 141,353 
 
 173,966 
 
 VII. (upwards of 1 00,000/0 
 
 3 
 
 1,507,627 
 
 1,032,403 
 
 1,054,530 
 
 VIII. (Free or prohibited) 
 under the new law)/ 
 
 8 
 
 196 
 
 
 
 
 252 
 
 2,195,080 
 
 1,368,330 
 
 1,461,252 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 Now of the 252 articles comprised in this class, I find that 
 there have been duties reduced or removed by the law of 1842 
 (and in a few cases, which it is not worth while to distinguish, by 
 subsequent acts) upon 215, viz. in 
 
 Schedule I. on 128 Schedule V. on 4 
 
 II. 38 VI. 1 
 
 ,,JII. 13 VII. 1 
 
 IV. 25 , VIII. 5 
 
 Total . 215 
 
 The entire receipt from these 252 articles was as follows :- 
 Mean of two years before the new law 2,195,080 
 First year of the new law . 
 
 Showing a loss of 
 
 1,368,330 
 826,750 
 
 But again: 
 
 Mean of two years before the new law 2,195,080 
 
 Second year of the new law . . 1,461,252 
 
 Showing a loss of 733,828 
 Gain of the second year on the first . 82,922 
 This, I think, should be deemed not unsatisfactory as an ad- 
 vance, in proportion to the time, towards the recovery of the 
 revenue. 
 
 Let us now proceed to Class B. 
 
 Class B. 
 
 Articles partially 
 Manufactured. 
 
 Number 
 of 
 Articles. 
 
 Mean 
 Annual Produce 
 of Duties 
 iu Two Years 
 preceding the 
 establishment 
 of the 
 New Tariff. 
 
 Produce 
 of 
 Duties 
 from 
 July 5, 1842, 
 
 July 5? 1843. 
 
 Produce 
 'of 
 Duties 
 from 
 July 5, 1843, 
 to 
 July 5, 1844. 
 
 Schedule I. 
 
 54 
 
 . 
 
 887 
 
 . 
 673 
 
 . 
 
 637 
 
 II. 
 
 19 
 
 6,536 
 
 4,254 
 
 5,832 
 
 III. 
 
 5 
 
 6,712 
 
 4,000 
 
 3,143 
 
 IV. 
 
 11 
 
 40,835 
 
 21,516 
 
 44,113 
 
 V. 
 
 5 
 
 179,357 
 
 93,231 
 
 98,039 
 
 VI. 
 
 . . 
 
 . . 
 
 .. 
 
 
 VII. 
 
 1 
 
 816,902 
 
 397,470 
 
 630,069 
 
 VIII. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 95 
 
 1,051,229 
 
 521,144 
 
 781,833 
 
18 
 
 Remarks upon 
 
 Of the 95 articles comprised in this Class, there have been 
 reduced 89 ; viz. in 
 
 Schedule I. . . 50 Schedule V. . . 5 
 
 II. . . 17 VI. . . 
 
 III. . . 5 VII. . . 1 
 
 IV. . . 11 VIII. . . 
 
 Total -. . 89 
 The entire receipt from this class was as follows : 
 
 Mean of two years before the 5 and 6 Viet. c. 47 . l ,051 ,229 
 First year after the Act . . . . . 
 
 Showing a loss of 
 But again 
 
 Mean of two years before the Act 
 Second year after the Act 
 
 521,144 
 530,085 
 
 1,051,229 
 781,833 
 
 269 3 396 
 
 Showing a loss of .. 
 And a gain of the second year on the first year, 
 
 Amounting to ....... 260,689 
 
 which is an advance much beyond the measure of all ordinary 
 expectation. 
 
 The articles in the analogous class E are of less moment: but 
 the exhibition of them is necessary to complete this part of the 
 subject. 
 
 Class E. 
 
 Articles 
 not properly belonging 
 to any of the 
 foregoing heads. 
 
 Number 
 of 
 Articles. 
 
 Mean 
 Annual Produce 
 of Duties 
 in Two Years 
 preceding the 
 establishment 
 of the 
 New Tariff, 
 
 Produce 
 of 
 the Duties 
 from 
 July 5, 1842, 
 to 
 July 5, 1843. 
 
 Produce 
 of 
 the Duties 
 from 
 July 5, 1843, 
 to 
 July 5, 1844. 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 Schedule I. 
 
 91 
 
 3,950 
 
 1,927 
 
 1,476 
 
 II. 
 
 27 
 
 14,415 
 
 6,462 
 
 6,601 
 
 III. 
 
 6 
 
 JO, 972 
 
 4,310 
 
 3,690 
 
 IV. 
 
 15 
 
 49,432 
 
 33,593 
 
 36,833 
 
 V. 
 
 2 
 
 145,229 
 
 52,204 
 
 57,284 
 
 VI. 
 
 
 
 
 
 VII. 
 
 
 .. 
 
 
 
 VIII. 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 149 
 
 223,998 
 
 98,496 
 
 105,884 
 

 Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 Of the 145 articles comprised in this Class, there have been 
 reduced 121 ; viz. in 
 
 Schedule I. . . 79 Schedule V. . . 2 
 
 II. . . 22 VI. . . 
 
 III. . . 5 VII. . . 
 
 IV. . . 13 VIII. . . 
 
 Total . .121 
 The entire receipt has been as follows : 
 
 Mean of two years before the Act . . . 223,998 
 
 First year after the Act . . . . . 98,496 
 
 Showing a loss of . . . 125,502 
 Again 
 
 Mean of two years before the Act . . . 223,998 
 Second year under the Act 105,884 
 
 Showing a loss of . . . 118,114 
 And a gain of the second year on the first 
 
 Amounting to 7,388 
 
 Let us now bring together these results. 
 
 Mean receipt on Class A before the Act . . 2, 195,080 
 
 on Class B . . 1,051,229 
 
 on Class E . . 223,998 
 
 3,470,207 
 Receipt of the first year after the Act 
 
 On Class A 1,368,330 
 
 On Class B 521,144 
 
 On Class E 98,496 
 
 1,987,970 
 Receipt of the second year after the Act 
 
 On Class A 1,461,252 
 
 On Class B . . . . . . 781,833 
 
 On Class E 105,884 
 
 2,348,969 
 
 Loss on the three Classes for the first year , . l ,482, 237 
 for the second . . 1,121,238 
 
 Gain on the second as compared with the first . 360,999 
 
 c 2 
 
20 Remarks upon 
 
 There are, however, some corrections which it is necessary to 
 make in these figures. 
 
 1. The mean receipt of the two years before the Act of 5 and 
 6 Viet, should be charged with the drawback which was allowed 
 on timber used in the mines under the provisions of the former 
 law, amounting to about 60,0007. per annum. 
 
 2. The year from July 1843 to July 1844, should be credited 
 with not less than 20,0007. on account of the abstraction of the 
 duty on wool, which, under a new Act of the Legislature, actually 
 took effect before it had expired, and had been announced, and 
 must therefore have operated on deliveries from a considerably 
 earlier period. 
 
 By these changes we reduce 
 
 The loss on the first year to . l ,422,237 
 
 The loss on the second year to .... 1 ,061 ,238 
 
 And the recovery of revenue 
 
 On the second year as compared with the first rises 
 
 to 380,999 
 
 It appears to me that this general comparison of the second 
 year with the first, under the new law, as to materials, is emi- 
 nently satisfactory, and must encourage those who take a sanguine 
 view of the energies of our productive industry. 
 
 The picture is less flattering when we compare the first year 
 under the new law with the mean product of the two years of the 
 old law. The reductions of 1842 on raw materials amounted, as 
 has been already stated, to ... . 1,135,000 
 
 But the ensuing defalcation of revenue on that 
 
 description of commodities amounted to . 1,422,237 
 
 Showing an excess of loss above the estimate of . 307,237 
 
 It will, however, be recollected that the twelve months from 
 July 184*2 to July 1843, were a period of extraordinary depres- 
 sion and distress to the trade of the country. The last six of 
 them, or perhaps rather the last three, exhibited marks of par- 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 tial revival, which were aided both by the changes of the law 
 and the reduced cost of subsistence. Still for the greater part of 
 the time business had been contracted, and enterprise languid, in 
 a degree quite sufficient to account for the excess of loss which 
 has just been noted. In the second year this excess was re- 
 trieved, and the process of recovery had commenced, for whereas 
 the reductions amounted to .... i0 * 1,1 35,000 
 
 The loss in the second year was . . . 1,061,000 
 Or, as 20,0007. may be set down to the account 
 of the further measure regarding wool in 1844, 
 the real loss in the second year was . . 1,041,000 
 
 Up to this point, I have adverted only to that portion of the 
 operation of 1842, which regarded materials intended for employ- 
 ment in our domestic industry. Even this involved, indeed, many 
 points of conflict with protected interests : such as those relating 
 to copper ore and other ores and metals, to hides and leather, to 
 seeds, and to timber. Still its main bearing was in most par- 
 ticulars on the revenue of the country. 
 
 The other division of the remissions, which included only 
 317,0007. of revenue, involved in almost every case a diminution 
 of protective duty. Before the Act of 1842, the general character 
 of our Tariff with regard to manufactures, and in a great degree 
 with regard to food, was prohibitory. But it may be said with 
 truth, that from the moment when the provisions of that Act had 
 taken effect, moderate duties of twenty per cent, and less were 
 the rule of the Tariff of the United Kingdom, and high or prohi- 
 bitory rates the exception. 
 
 This was indeed the most prominent and essential characteristic 
 of the measure, so far as it affected the classes now under consider- 
 ation. Out of 196 articles contained in Class C, 181 underwent 
 reduction : yet I do not find that the remission of duties actually 
 levied upon goods in it under the former law, could be estimated 
 at more than 35,0007., or at the most 40,0007. 
 
Remarks upon 
 
 Class C. 
 
 Articles 
 wholly 
 Manufactured. 
 
 Number 
 of 
 Articles. 
 
 Mean 
 Annual Produce 
 of Duties 
 in Two Years 
 preceding the 
 establishment 
 of the 
 New Tariff. 
 
 Produce 
 of 
 the Duties 
 from 
 July 5, 1842, 
 to 
 July 5, 1843. 
 
 Produce 
 of 
 the Duties 
 from 
 July 5, 1843, 
 
 July 5 1844. 
 
 Schedule I. 
 
 113 
 
 . 
 3,393 
 
 . 
 
 2,171 
 
 . 
 1,842 
 
 II. 
 
 31 
 
 10,208 
 
 7,248 
 
 7,992 
 
 III. 
 
 17 
 
 23,260 
 
 13,329 
 
 12,731 
 
 IV. 
 
 27 
 
 85,767 
 
 86,284 
 
 99,063 
 
 V. 
 
 5 
 
 117,049 
 
 105,148 
 
 123,020 
 
 VI. 
 
 . . 
 
 
 . . 
 
 . . 
 
 VII. 
 
 1 
 
 239,893 
 
 223,457 
 
 268,766 
 
 VIII. 
 
 2 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 196 
 
 479,570 
 
 437,637 
 
 513,414 
 
 The articles in Class C on which duty was reduced were, in 
 
 Schedule I. . . 108 Schedule V. . . 4 
 
 II. . . 29 VI. . . 
 
 III. . . 16 VII. . . 1 
 
 IV. . . 23 VIII. 
 
 Here we find the 
 Mean produce before the Act 
 First year under the Act 
 
 Total 
 
 181 
 
 479,570 
 437,637 
 
 Loss . 41,933 
 
 But for the second year the account stands as follows : 
 Mean produce before the Act .... 479, 570 
 
 Second year under the Act . . . . . 513,414 
 
 Increase . 33,844 
 
 Gain upon the second year as compared with the first 75,777 
 But this result again requires correction. More than half of 
 the revenue under Class C arises from silk goods, which, with 
 their various divisions, stand under a single heading in the Tariff. 
 They were not, however, altered by the law of 1842, except with 
 regard to the silks of the East Indies. Let us therefore deduct 
 from all these years the revenue on silks other than those of 
 India ; and the figures will stand as follows : 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 Mean produce of two years before the Act 
 First year under the Act 
 
 Loss 
 
 252,351 
 217,091 
 
 34,260 
 
 252,351 
 
 248,855 
 
 And again 
 
 Mean produce of two years before the Act 
 
 Second year under the Act . 
 
 Loss . 3,496 
 
 Gain upon the second year as compared with the first 37 , 756 
 
 Thus then it appears that, within the second year from the 
 passing of the Act, the remissions of duty on manufactured goods 
 were as nearly as possible replaced by the increased importations 
 of them : a result worthy of remark in itself, but yet, as I think, 
 less remarkable than another inference which arises from the in- 
 spection of this part of the Statement, and which I shall notice in 
 another portion of these remarks. 
 
 We now come to Class D, containing articles of food, upon 
 which the great mass of our customs' revenue has for a long time 
 been levied. Seven-eighths of the whole receipt stand, as will be 
 seen, to the account of this Class, 
 
 Class D. 
 
 Articles of Food. 
 
 dumber 
 of 
 Articles. 
 
 Mean 
 Annual Produce 
 of Duties 
 in Two Years 
 preceding the 
 establishment 
 of the 
 New Tariff. 
 
 Produce 
 of 
 the Duties 
 from 
 July 5, 1842, 
 to 
 July 5, 1843. 
 
 Produce 
 of 
 the Duties 
 from 
 July 5, 1843. 
 to 
 July 5, 1844. 
 
 Schedule I. 
 
 46 
 
 . 
 
 990 
 
 . 
 1,241 
 
 . 
 
 1,074 
 
 II. 
 
 15 
 
 4,148 
 
 3,351 
 
 4,625 
 
 III. 
 
 6 
 
 3,546 
 
 4,311 
 
 4,577 
 
 IV. 
 
 28 
 
 71,803 
 
 80,451 
 
 76,388 
 
 V. 
 
 7 
 
 120,169 
 
 131,427 
 
 142,120 
 
 VI. 
 
 Totals of ) 
 Schedules V 
 I. VI. J 
 
 3 
 
 240,841 
 
 221,395 
 
 254,494 
 
 441,497 
 
 442,176 
 
 483,278 
 
 Sched. VII. 
 
 12 
 
 18,246,120 
 
 19,161,312 
 
 20,066,920 
 
 VIII. 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 121 
 
 18,687,617 
 
 19,603,488 
 
 20,550,198 
 
24 , Remarks upon 
 
 Of the 121 articles comprised in this Class, prohibitions were 
 removed, or duties lowered, on 66, as follows : 
 
 Schedule I. . . 30 Schedule V. . . 5 
 
 II. .. 9 VI. .. 
 
 III. . . 5 VII. . . 2 
 
 IV. . . 15 VIII. . . 
 
 Total . 66 
 
 On this class we find the 
 
 Mean produce before the Act .... 18,687,617 
 
 First year under the Act 19,603,488 
 
 Increase . 915,871 
 And again 
 
 Mean produce before the Act .... 18,687,617 
 
 Second year under the Act .... 20,550,198 
 
 Increase . 1,862,531 
 
 Gain on the second year as compared with the first 946,710 
 
 These figures, however, may much more justly be taken as an 
 index of the general prosperity of the country, than of the working 
 of the Customs' Act of 1842. I have already named four great 
 articles * upon which no reduction has taken place up to the 
 present time, yielding twelve millions of money, besides others 
 not inconsiderable : nor was there any change in the law relating 
 to sugar, which yields five millions more, until the year 1844: 
 nor has there been yet time for the change then made to produce 
 any appreciable effects upon the revenue, as the supplies of the 
 foreign article are only beginning to arrive. About seventeen 
 millions, therefore, of the whole amount of duties have been 
 practically unaffected by alterations in the law. It may indeed 
 be true, that those alterations have tended powerfully, by their 
 general effects upon trade, and therefore on consumption, to in- 
 crease the receipts of the treasury from these great articles, and 
 may thus claim the credit of a part of the excess which has been 
 shown. But we may carry the investigation of the effects of the 
 Act to a greater degree of precision by ejecting from the account 
 
 * Supra, p. 8. 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 all the great articles in Schedule VII., upon which either no 
 change has been made, or no change of which the effects are per- 
 ceptible within the period embraced by the ' Expository State- 
 ment.' Now coffee is the only article comprised in Schedule VII. 
 of Class D, on which the duty was materially altered by the Act 
 5 and 6 Viet. c. 47. The duties on foreign corn had, however, 
 already been regulated by a previous Act of the same year, and 
 may therefore be taken into account. The total amount of the 
 duties on these two articles was as follows: 
 
 Their mean produce in two years before the Act . 1,475,027 
 
 First year under the Act 2,053,748 
 
 Second year under the Act 1,710,132 
 
 It is difficult to carry the examination of these items farther ; 
 because as to corn no safe inference can be drawn from a single 
 year, though the experience of the last three years, which have 
 elapsed since the present Act commenced, may be thought to 
 demonstrate that it at least effected a very beneficial change as 
 regarded the revenue : while, as to coffee, the result is obscured 
 by a farther change in the duty which took effect before the 
 second year had expired ; and I propose therefore to examine that 
 case more minutely by itself. 
 
 But if further we remove Schedule VI., in which no alteration 
 of any moment was made in 1842, from the comparison, so as to 
 confine our view yet more closely to results brought about by the 
 immediate operation of the change in the law, it stands as 
 follows : 
 
 Mean produce of two years before the Act . . 200,656 
 First year under the Act 220,781 
 
 Increase . 20,125 
 And again 
 
 Mean produce of two years before the Act . . 200,656 
 
 Second year under the Act 228,784 
 
 Increase . 28,128 
 Gain upon the second year as compared with the first 8,003 
 
*26 Remarks upon 
 
 Again,, if we combine Classes C and D, both of which may be 
 said to contain articles of consumption as contradistinguished 
 from raw materials, we have the following results : 
 
 Mean produce of Class C and of Class D, with ex- 
 ceptions as above specified, before the Act . 453,007 
 Joint produce of first year under the Act . . 437,872 
 
 Loss . 15,135 
 And further 
 
 Mean produce as before 453,007 
 
 Joint produce of second year under the Act . . 477,639 
 
 Gain . 24,632 
 Gain on the second year as compared with the first 39,767 
 
 Now the revenue remitted on these several descriptions of 
 articles amounted to about 90,0007. a-year in round numbers ; of 
 which the whole was replaced in the first year, except 15,1357., 
 and was replaced in the second year with an addition of 24,6327. 
 
 The fiscal scale of this part of the operation was, it is true, 
 contracted, but it was of great importance, and of great difficulty, 
 in other points of view ; and the result thus shown affords, as 
 respects the treasury at least, an ample vindication of the wisdom 
 of Parliament in the adoption of this part of the measure. 
 
 To conclude this portion of the subject, let us combine the two 
 divisions in which we have thus far been considering it : but in 
 order that the view given of the reductions effected by the new 
 Tariff of 1842 upon imports, may be a complete one, I must 
 include (though with some undue advantage to the first year and 
 prejudice to the second) the receipts from coffee. 
 
 The reductions, with the exception of 100,0007. on exports, 
 were 
 
 On materials 1,135,000 
 
 On articles of consumption (Classes C, D, corrected 
 
 as above) ....... 317,000 
 
 Total of reductions . . 1,452,000 
 
 The effect upon the revenue is shown in the following 
 figures : 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 I. Receipts of the first year. 
 
 1. Mean of two years before the 5 and 6 Viet. c. 47. 
 
 Class A ... 
 Deduct for timber drawback 
 
 Class B 
 Class E 
 
 Class C . 
 
 Class D, including coffee 
 
 2. First year under the Act 
 Class A .... 
 Class B .... 
 Class E . 
 
 Class C . . . 
 Class D, including coffee 
 
 2,195,080 
 60,000 
 
 2,135,080 
 
 1,051,229 
 
 223,998 
 
 3,410,207 
 
 252,351 
 
 1,003,972 
 
 Total 4,666,550 
 
 1,368,330 
 
 521,144 
 
 98,496 
 
 1,987,970 
 
 217,091 
 
 1,002,503 
 
 Total 3,207,564 
 
 Actual loss for the first year on all the Classes 
 
 together 1,458,986 
 
 Estimated amount of reductions as above . 1,452,000 
 
 Thus the total loss on the five Classes ex- 
 ceeded the estimate by the sum of about . 6,986 
 
 1 1 . Receipts of the second year. 
 
 1. Mean revenue of two years before the 5 
 
 and 6 Viet. c. 47, as above . . . 4,666,550 
 
 2. Second year under the 
 
 Act, Class A . . 1,461,252 
 Add on account of loss from 
 the repeal of the Wool 
 Duties in 1844 . . 20,000 
 
 Total 1,481,252 
 
28 Remarks upon 
 
 Brought forward . . 1,481,252 4,666,550 
 
 Class B . . . 781,833 
 
 Class E . . . . 105,884 
 
 2,368,969 
 
 Class C . . . . 248,855 
 
 Class D, without \ 
 
 coffee . . 228,784 V 915,462 
 Coffee 686,678 J 
 
 3,533,286 
 
 Actual loss on the second year . . . 1,133,264 
 Gain on the second year as compared with the 
 first, on all the Schedules affected by the re- 
 ductions of 1842, and on coffee . . . 325,722 
 
 From this view of the tables, first in the several classes into 
 which they are divided, and secondly as a whole, I now pass to 
 consider the general outline of the Act of 1842, and to estimate 
 rudely its effect upon the import trade of the country. 
 
 The Act of that year was not merely an Act involving a consi- 
 derable remission of duties : it was the first attempt to apply general 
 rules to the construction of the tariff of the United Kingdom, and 
 was also the most comprehensive modification of the restrictive 
 system which had ever been accomplished. 
 
 Mr. Pitt, in 1787j found our customs' law a mass of intricacy 
 and confusion. He stated to Parliament the object of his great 
 reform. * The mode in which he proposed to remedy this great 
 abuse was by abolishing all the duties which now subsisted in 
 this confused and complex manner, and to substitute in their 
 stead one single duty on each article, amounting, as nearly as 
 possible, to the aggregate of all the various subsidies already 
 paid.' * Also * in some few articles,' for example timber, he 
 meant to introduce ' regulations of much greater extent ;' but 
 such was the general scope of his arrangement. 
 
 During the war, and during the first years of peace, many 
 augmentations of duty took place : some for purposes of revenue, 
 
 * Parliamentary History, xxvi., 629. 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 but with the effect of enhancing the stringency of protection ; 
 some for protective purposes alone. 
 
 The tariff underwent a general revision in 1819 by the Act 
 59 Geo. III. c. 52; and again, under the government of Lord 
 Grey (which had failed in 1831 to carry a plan for the reduction 
 of the timber duties), a large number of minor duties were re- 
 duced in the years 1 832 and 1 833 ; but it was in the interval 
 between these two periods that the most important relaxations of 
 the prohibitory and protective system were introduced into the 
 law, first by Mr. Wallace, and afterwards and principally by Mr. 
 Huskisson. Still it continued to contain some prohibitions, and 
 a very great number of prohibitory rates of duty; and no approxi- 
 mation to unity of principle was discernible in its structure as a 
 whole. 
 
 In 1842 it was attempted to make a general approach to the 
 following rules : 
 
 1 . The removal of prohibitions. 
 
 2. The reduction of duties on manufactured articles, and of 
 
 protective duties generally, to an average of 20 per cent. 
 ad valorem. 
 
 3. On partially manufactured articles to rates not exceeding 
 
 10 per cent. 
 
 4. On raw materials to rates not exceeding 5 per cent. 
 
 The duties were then reduced on about 660 articles. Many 
 changes were made which were of great importance to the con- 
 sumer or to some branch of trade, but which cost little to the 
 revenue, or were even, in some cases, positively profitable. I 
 allude particularly to the changes affecting cattle, salt meat, 
 seeds, oils, manures, leather, and ores, as belonging to these two 
 classes. 
 
 It is very difficult to form any general estimate of the effect of 
 the measure of 1842 upon the import trade of the country, which 
 shall even approach to precision. Still I think a rude view of 
 this important subject may be presented by means of the tables 
 of official valuations, which reduce the quantities of articles im- 
 
SO Remarks upon 
 
 ported to a common measure. We have these valuations printed 
 for the years 1841, 1842, 1843.* I reject 1842, which was 
 almost equally divided between the old law and the new ; and I 
 take 1841 as the latest full year of the old law, and 1843 as the 
 first full year of the new one. 
 
 The official values of imports into the United Kingdom 
 were 
 
 For the year 1841 .... 64,377,952 
 1843 .... 70,093,353 
 
 Increase . . 5,715,401 
 
 But there are two articles of importance which it may be better 
 to exclude from this comparison -cotton and corn inasmuch as 
 the quantities of them which we receive in one year as compared 
 with another depend much more upon the respective crops ot 
 those products in America and England than upon any increased 
 facilities in the means of exchange. The official values imported 
 in 1841 were 
 
 Of cotton 15,948,384 
 
 Of corn 5,238,389 
 
 21,186,773 
 
 And in 1843 
 
 Of cotton 22,282,365 
 
 Of corn 2,048,768 
 
 24,331,133 
 
 Deducting these amounts from the respective totals, we have the 
 official values of imports 
 
 For the year 1841 .... 43,191,139 
 1843 .... 45,762,220 
 
 Increase . . 2,571,081 
 
 Finance Accounts, Paper No. 147, of 1844, pp. 131-36. 
 

 Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 This is a rude, but I do not think by any means an excessive, 
 statement of the increase of general trade which had been realized 
 in 1843, and of which a considerable part may be considered due 
 to the alterations of the law. It is likely that the returns for 
 1844 may bear a stronger testimony to its influence. 
 
 I will now proceed to examine the two most conspicuous among 
 all the reductions of duty on particular articles which were enacted 
 in 1842, namely, the cases of timber and coffee; and first, that of 
 timber. 
 
 This is a most important subject : and the error of the govern- 
 ment and of parliament, which adopted, without division, the most 
 essential parts of the proposal, was, if an error at all, a very great 
 one. 
 
 It is a subject to try the faith of political economists. Some of 
 them there are, who have shrunk from the sacrifice of a great 
 amount of revenue, which they think might have been spared : 
 and have consistently denounced the plan of 1842 as a waste of 
 public money, while they have been friendly to its principle so far 
 as it involved diminution of the differential duty between colonial 
 and foreign wood. 
 
 Upon the other hand, there is much to urge, besides the claim 
 of the colony of Canada, as a colony then recently recovered from 
 two rebellions, and the claim of the subsisting interests in the trade 
 to be as gently handled as a regard to public objects would^allow. 
 
 First, it is very doubtful whether the revenue, such as it stood 
 in the years immediately preceding 1842, could have been entirely 
 preserved. I do not advert now to the distress of the particular 
 period ; but to the permanent operation of the old scale of duties. 
 The premium on colonial timber was so enormous, that it was 
 gradually tending to reduce the proportion of Baltic wood brought 
 into the market. And likewise the article of iron was displacing 
 wood in various important branches of its consumption, 
 
 Secondly, it must never be forgotten that the scale of duties 
 upon timber was doubly differential. The duty of 55s. per load 
 was, so far as regarded 45s. of its amount, a differential duty 
 against foreign and in favour of colonial wood. But the whole 
 duty both of 55s. on foreign and of 10s. on colonial wood, was a 
 
.32 Remarks upon 
 
 differential impost in favour of British -grown wood and against 
 the growths both of our colonies and of foreign countries. 
 
 In the year 1841, the then existing administration proposed to 
 reduce the foreign duty by an almost insensible amount, namely, 
 from 55s. to 50s. ; and to raise the colonial duty from 10s. to 20s. 
 This plan would have reduced the protection of the colonist 
 against the foreigner from 45s. per load to 30s. per load ; but also 
 it would have increased that of the home-grower of wood against 
 the colonist by 10s. per load, and would have reduced it against 
 the foreigner by only 5s. per load. It would have borne hardly 
 upon the intermediate party, the colonist, who was thus smitten 
 on both sides : it would have added, I believe, nothing whatever 
 at the moment, and subsequently very little, to the revenue : 5s. 
 per load would have been the maximum of possible relief to the 
 consumer. Further, with this plan it would scarcely have been 
 possible either to have abolished the drawback allowed to the 
 Cornish miners, which appears to have cost the country 60,0007. 
 per annum, or to have introduced the measurement of sawn wood 
 according to cubic contents, which really means taking wood 
 according to the dimensions to which Providence ordains that it 
 shall grow, instead of regulating those dimensions by the schedules 
 of a Customs' Act. 
 
 The plan actually adopted, on the other hand, which imposed a 
 duty of Is. per load on colonial and 25s. per load on foreign timber, 
 involved a loss of 600,OOOZ. per annum : and although it was 
 in one view much more favourable to the colonist, since it placed 
 him nearly upon an equality with the British grower of timber in 
 our ports, yet as against the foreigner it left him only a protection 
 of 24s. instead of 30s. The British grower, again, who, in the 
 case of an article so essential and of such heavy cost of transport 
 will find in general briskness of trade by much his most effective 
 safeguard, lost 30s. per load of his defence against foreign wood 
 and nearly the whole of his preference over his colonial fellow- 
 subjects. But the gain to the consumer, which, if there be truth 
 in political economy, could not exceed 5s. per load under the plan 
 of 1841, by the plan of 1842 might reach, and on the whole, I 
 apprehend, has already nearly reached, 30s. per load. 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 There was one argument for a large revenue from timber, the 
 argument of possession. It was no mere speculation : we had it 
 in hard money, a million and a half annually. But I know no 
 other apology for such a mode of taxation under ordinary circum- 
 stances. It may be by one degree less impolitic than the impo- 
 sition of a heavy duty without drawback upon the raw material of 
 some manufacture which we export largely: but I know no 
 argument that can be offered in its defence, which would not 
 vindicate a fortiori such taxes as a heavy duty of excise upon coals, 
 upon iron, or upon manures. If there be but one of the mazy 
 paths of fiscal legislation which we may tread fearlessly and 
 firmly, surely it is that in which we reduce the burdens upon such 
 raw materials of industry as are of great bulk in proportion to 
 their value, and as stand in the first order of necessity. 
 
 Passing, however, from the general discussion, I have now to 
 inquire into the operation of the measure. As regards the deal- 
 ings in the article, with the exception of some local inconveniences, 
 which, as might be expected, accompanied the great alteration 
 that was made in the mode of charging the duty, I gather from 
 the reports of eminent houses in the trade, and from the figures 
 indicating the consumption, that it has been eminently satisfactory. 
 As regards revenue, I shall endeavour to show that we have 
 reason to be well contented with its effects. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel, in his financial statement for the year 1842, 
 estimated his first year's loss at 600,0007. : and the second year's 
 at 590,0007. 
 
 I subjoin a statement of the gross and net quarterly revenue 
 from timber during three years before the new system took effect, 
 and also during two years after it. 
 
34 
 
 Remarks upon 
 
 (I.) An Account of the RECEIPTS from TIMBER in each Quarter of Three Years 
 antecedent to 10th October, 1842: also, REPAYMENTS for Drawbacks, ar.d 
 NET RECEIPT remaining in each of those Quarters. 
 
 (II.) A similar Account for each Quarter from 10th October, 1842, to 10th Octo- 
 ber, 1844. 
 
 I. < 
 II. ( 
 
 QUARTERS 
 
 ended 
 
 Duties on Wood and Timber in the 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 Gross Receipt. 
 
 Drawbacks and 
 Repayments. 
 
 Net Produce. 
 
 ^ 5th January, 1 840 
 5th April, 
 5th July, 
 10th October, ,, 
 
 5th January, 1841 
 5th April, , , 
 5th July, , , 
 10th October, , , 
 
 5th January, 1842 
 5th April, , , 
 5th July, , , 
 LlOth October , , 
 
 / 5th January, 1843 
 5th April, , , 
 5th July, , , 
 10th October, , , 
 
 5th January, 1844 
 5th April, , , 
 5th July, , , 
 \l Oth October ,, 
 
 . 
 382,542 
 263,681 
 416,269 
 733,344 
 
 . 
 33,258 
 12,046 
 29,806 
 6,204 
 
 . 
 349,284 
 251,635 
 386,463 
 727,140 
 
 1,795,836 
 
 81,314 
 
 1,714,522 
 
 401,295 
 259,782 
 349,796 
 652,015 
 
 32,226 
 10,812 
 31,603 
 5,972 
 
 369,069 
 248,970 
 318,193 
 646,043 
 
 1,662,888 
 
 80,613 
 
 1,582,275 
 
 327,865 
 213,621 
 211,453 
 380,237 
 
 35,753 
 6,479 
 35,370 
 2,692 
 
 292,112 
 207,142 
 176,083 
 377,545 
 
 1,133,176 
 
 80,294 
 
 1,052,882 
 
 228,012 
 121,088 
 160,942 
 162,539 
 
 29,433 
 18,086 
 22,006 
 4,243 
 
 198,579 
 103,002 
 138,936 
 158,296 
 
 672,581 
 
 73,768 
 
 598,813 
 
 
 285,182 
 147,750 
 210,748 
 345,954 
 
 16,654. 
 3,230 
 5,490 
 2,233 
 
 268,528 
 144,520 
 205,258 
 343,721 
 
 989,634 
 
 27,607 
 
 962,027 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 Now it will be necessary to make several qualifications of this 
 statement before we can draw a just comparison between the 
 periods to which it refers. 
 
 1 . The drawback of about 60,0007. a-year, on timber used in 
 the mines of Cornwall, was a regular attendant of the old law, 
 and forms a legitimate deduction from the gross receipt. But 
 the sums charged on this account in the years 1843 and 1844 
 were liabilities incurred in the preceding years which stood over, 
 and ought not to be charged to the debit of the new system. I 
 shall, therefore, make a corresponding deduction from the sum 
 of 73,7687., charged for drawbacks and repayments in 1842-3, 
 and I shall withdraw (by conjecture) for the same reason half of 
 the 27,6077., which appears for 1843-4. 
 
 It will be seen that in the table the total amount of repayments 
 before the change in the law exceeds 80,0007. annually, but 
 rather more than a fourth of this amount was disbursed on wood 
 other than that used in the mines. 
 
 2. The diminution of half a million in the last year of the first 
 term is owing, without doubt, in some degree to that stagnation 
 of the trade which prevailed to a great extent from the middle of 
 March, 1842, when the new duties were announced, to the 10th 
 of October, when they took effect. But there is, it will be ob- 
 served, a decrease on the receipt of the first quarter amounting to 
 77,0007. as compared with the corresponding quarter of the fore- 
 going year : it having fallen from 369,0007. to 292,0007., and 
 this before any change in the law could well have been antici- 
 pated. Hence it is clear, that a great diminution in this branch 
 of the revenue must have taken place if the law had continued as 
 it was: and indeed the fact is otherwise notorious, that the 
 timber-market was thoroughly glutted, and the demand extremely 
 feeble at the time. Still, as it is not easy to assign to each of 
 these concurrent causes their due share in producing the effect, 
 I propose to leave out the year 1841-2 altogether, and to adopt 
 another mode of ascertaining what allowance ought to be made 
 for the stagnation of all building enterprise, in estimating the 
 consequences of the alteration of the law. 
 
 3. With this view I have procured a statement of the produce 
 
 D 2 
 
36 Remarks upon 
 
 of the brick-duty in the years 1840-4, and I propose to take the 
 decline of it in the years 1843 and 1844 as compared with 1840 
 and 1841, as a criterion of the decline which would have occurred 
 in the timber-duty if the law had remained without change. I 
 think there is every reason to suppose it would even have been 
 greater. The periods do not precisely correspond, as the years 
 of the timber account begin on the 10th of October, and the years 
 of the brick account on the 5th of January : but this is to the dis- 
 advantage of my argument, as the period taken for bricks being 
 by nearly three months later represents a more advanced stage of 
 that commercial recovery which was in progress during the years 
 1843 and 1844: 
 
 The receipt from bricks in 1840 was ... .524,000 
 
 in 1841 . . . . 449,000 
 
 Mean of the two .... 486,000 
 
 The receipt from bricks in 1843 was . . . 363,000 
 
 in 1844 . . . . 447,000 
 
 Mean of the two .... 405,000 
 
 The net receipt from timber in 1840, or rather from 
 
 October 10, 1839, to October 10, 1840, was . . 1,714,000 
 In the year October 10, 1840, to October 10, 1841 . 1,582,000 
 Mean of the two .... 1,648000 
 We have, therefore, the following proportion : 
 
 486,000 : 405,000 : : 1,648,000 : x, 
 
 x being the probable annual receipt from the timber-duty between 
 October 10, 1842, and October 10, 1844, under the old law. On 
 working this sum, we find 
 
 x = 1,373,000. 
 
 Which I therefore assume as the standard of comparison to try 
 the new law : 
 
 Probable annual receipt from timber under the old scale 
 of duties from October 10, 1842, to October 10, 
 
 1844 1,373,000 
 
 Actual receipt, first year, gross . 672,581 
 
 Deduct for repayments . . . 13,768 
 
 Net receipt 658,813 
 
 Loss 714,187 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 Again : 
 
 Probable receipt from the old duties, as before . . 1,373,000 
 Actual receipt, second year, gross . . 989,634 
 Deduct for repayments .... 13,803 
 
 Net receipt ........ 975,831 
 
 Loss 397,169 
 
 Gain upon the second year as compared with the first 317,018 
 
 Thus the loss upon the first year was greater by 1 14,0007. than 
 Sir Robert Peel's estimate : but such was the progress of recovery 
 that in the second year it was less than his estimate (of 590,0007.) 
 by no less than 193,0007. : and the mean loss of the two years, 
 ascribable, with any presumption of justice, to the change in the 
 law, was 555,5007., less by about 40,0007. per annum than the 
 allowance he had made. 
 
 Some persons may be surprised at the very great difference 
 between the first year and the second : but it may, I think, readily 
 be accounted for by the fact that a second reduction of 5s. per 
 load on timber and 6s. per load on deals took effect at the com- 
 mencement of the second year, and that a considerable quantity 
 of goods, held back for the benefit of this reduction, go to the 
 account of the second year, whereas in the natural course of 
 things they would have belonged to the first. 
 
 When, however, it is remembered, how peculiar was the course 
 of the timber-trade and the mode of preparing deals for the 
 British market under the former law, that we have only two 
 years of the new system before us, and that timber does not come 
 here until the year after it is cut, I think it is evident that another 
 twelvemonth at least must elapse before we can fully appreciate 
 the benefits of the alteration which has been made. 
 
 As, however, it was confidently predicted by many persons that 
 the consumer would not obtain the benefit of the great reduction 
 of the duties on foreign timber, I have referred to trustworthy 
 sources of information, and have obtained the following results: 
 
 Price of Dantzic or Memel timber in the London market per 
 load, duty paid : 
 
58 Remarks upon 
 
 January, 1842 5 12 6 
 
 January, 1845, 41. 7*. 6d. to 41. 10s. . Mean 489 
 
 Reduction to the consumer in 1845 . . .139 
 Again : 
 
 Dantzic fir, common and middling, sold in Liverpool,* 
 In January, 1841, for 26jd. to 27d. . . , . Mean 26|d per foot. 
 
 1842 24 \d. to 25 \d Mean 25d. 
 
 1845 19%d. to 2ld. .... Mean 2Qd. 
 
 Showing a reduction in 1845, 
 
 As compared with 1841, of 6d. per foot, or 21s. Id. per load. 
 1842, of4fd. Ws.lOd. 
 
 Which latter, however., was a period of very great depression in 
 the wood trade, and not such as to exhibit with any fairness the 
 ordinary state of the market. 
 
 I take next the article of coffee, the second in importance of 
 those on which material reductions were made in the year 1842. 
 
 The duty was lowered on British coffee from 6d. to 4d. per 
 lb., and on foreign from a rate nominally of 15^., and really of 
 $d. (with an addition of extra charges making it perhaps equal to 
 a burden of 10?.), to 8d. per lb. The first loss was calculated at 
 226,OOOZ. ; but it was hoped that so much of this would be made 
 up by increased consumption as to leave an actual defalcation 
 of only 170,0007. 
 
 Now, on turning to the ' Expository Statement,'-)- we find that 
 the produce of the duties on coffee was as follows : 
 
 Mean of two years before the Act 5 and 6 Viet. c. 47 . 803,316 
 First year under the Act 781,722 
 
 Loss .... 21,594 
 
 Much coffee, however, was held back during the four months of 
 discussions on the new table of duties, and swelled beyond its just 
 proportions the receipt for the first year. 
 
 Again, the receipt of the second year under the Act was inter- 
 rupted by the further change of the duty on foreign coffee from 
 
 * See Circular of Messrs. James Houghton and Co., brokers, for Feb. 1845. 
 
 f P. 158. 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 Qd. to 4d. per Ib. in 1844. We may however estimate, with 
 tolerable accuracy, the effect of this latter reduction by reference 
 to the receipts for the year 1844, as compared with the year 1843, 
 which are given in the tables on trade and navigation, presented 
 to Parliament on February 12, 1845.* 
 
 The revenue from coffee for 1843 was . . 697,983 
 The revenue for 1844 was ... 682,218 
 
 Less in 1844 by ... 15,765 
 
 But the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his financial statement 
 for 1844, had estimated his loss at 50,0007. ; and the immediate 
 remission of 2d. per Ib. on 9,854,000 Ibs , the quantity of foreign 
 coffee consumed in 1 843, amounted to 82 5 200Z. 
 
 In this case much must be allowed for the advancing prosperity 
 of the nation, and something for the gradually growing use of 
 coffee as compared with other commodities ; but enough will 
 surely remain to warrant the assertion that the reductions upon 
 coffee have been, up to the present time, eminently successful in 
 their effects with regard to the revenue and also, if progressive 
 extension of demand may be taken as a criterion, to the consumer. 
 
 I shall next extract from the ' Expository Statement' the most 
 important, after timber, of those raw materials and accessories 
 of industry on which remissions of duty were then granted. These 
 I consider, speaking generally, to be the following articles : 
 
 1. Hides. 7. Rosewood. 
 
 2. Turpentine. 8. Lard. 
 
 3. Palm-oil. 9. Copper-ore. 
 
 4. Olive-oil. 10. Train and sperm oil. 
 
 5. Bark. 11. Iron. 
 
 6. Mahogany. 
 
 But of these I shall not include copper-ore, because, although 
 the trade has increased since the Act of 1842, the allegation of 
 those interested in it is, that the burden of duty then imposed as 
 the condition of being allowed to smelt in this country much 
 more than counterbalanced any advantage attending an admission 
 to the home-market. | Nor lard, nor train and sperm oil, because 
 
 * Paper No. 18, Sess. 1845. 
 
 f Before the law of 1842 the duty on copper-ore was prohibitory, but parties were 
 allowed to smelt in bond for export. By (hat law the prohibitory duty was very 
 greatly reduced, but the privilege of smelting in bond was withdrawn. 
 
40 
 
 Remarks upon 
 
 those cases are complicated by the direct competition of the foreign 
 and British article, and should rather be considered in connexion 
 with another branch of the subject. Nor iron, because the de- 
 mand for foreign iron has, I apprehend, suffered more by im- 
 proved modes of preparation for British iron than it could gain 
 by a diminution of the customs' duty. After withdrawing these, 
 there remain seven articles which will afford considerable in- 
 formation with regard to the working of the altered law. 
 
 The deliveries for consumption, however, of the first year were 
 so much enlarged in most of these cases by the great inducement 
 to hold back for the reduction of duty, which operated during the 
 discussions of 1842, that I shall notice only the second year's 
 returns, as a fairer standard of comparison. 
 
 Articles. 
 
 Estimated 
 First Loss 
 by the 
 Reduction 
 of Duty. 
 
 Mean Entries 
 for Consumption 
 in 
 1838 and 1840. 
 
 Entries 
 for Consumption, 
 July 1843-44. 
 
 Mean 
 Revenue of 
 1833 and 
 1840. 
 
 Revenue, 
 July 13, 
 184344. 
 
 1. Hides . . 
 
 . 
 45,000 
 
 349,903 cwts. 
 
 551, 550 cwts. 
 
 . 
 48,976 
 
 . 
 
 8,029 
 
 2. Turpentine . 
 
 80,500 
 
 365,621 
 
 509,410 
 
 82,056 
 
 2,237 
 
 3. Palm-oil . 
 
 11,000 
 
 293,936 
 
 393,491 
 
 18,817 
 
 10,394 
 
 4. Olive-oil . 
 
 24,000 
 
 7,960 tuns 
 
 9,591 tuns 
 
 42,897 
 
 20,940 
 
 5. Bark . . 
 
 13,000 
 
 625,612 cwts. 
 
 894, 783 cwts. 
 
 20,874 
 
 11,983 
 
 6. Mahogany . 
 
 42,000 
 
 22,957 tons 
 
 22, 885 tons 
 
 52,494 
 
 11,345 
 
 7. Rosewood . 
 
 8,500 
 
 1,671 
 
 2,864 
 
 10,190 
 
 2,926 
 
 In the next table I bring out the results upon trade in a more 
 definite shape : 
 
 Articles. 
 
 Actual Loss 
 of Revenue on 
 each Article- 
 
 Quantities 
 added to the 
 Trade. 
 
 Assumed Value 
 of 
 
 the Unit. 
 
 Value 
 added to 'lie 
 Trade. 
 
 . 
 
 453,706 
 
 1. Hides . . . 
 
 . 
 36,971 
 
 20 1,647 cwts. 
 
 45*. over all 
 
 2. Turpentine 
 
 79,819 
 
 133,789 
 
 8*. ,, 
 
 53,510 
 
 3. Palm-oil . . 
 
 8,423 
 
 99,455 
 
 25*. , , 
 
 123,774 
 
 4. Olive-oil . . 
 
 21,957 
 
 1,631 tuns 
 
 601 , , 
 
 97,860 
 
 5. Bark . . . 
 
 8,891 
 
 269,171 cwts. 
 
 7*. ,, 
 
 94,210 
 
 6. Mahogany 
 
 41,148 
 
 72 tons 
 
 10Z. ,, 
 
 720 
 
 7. Rosewood 
 Total . . 
 
 7,264 
 
 1,198 
 
 10A , , 
 
 11,980 
 
 204,473 
 
 
 
 
 
 834,720 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 Thus we find, with a sacrifice of 204,0007. in duties on raw 
 materials, an extension of trade in them to the extent of 834,0007. 
 I should describe this as a satisfactory and sufficient rather than 
 as a very remarkable result. 
 
 It would be easy to present others which are, in a financial 
 view, much more striking : in cases where duties nearly pro- 
 hibitory, or other impolitic arrangements, were amended. 
 
 For instance, the mean produce of the duties on foreign sperm- 
 oil, train-oil, and whale-fins, in L838 and 1840, was 10,4637., the 
 duties then being 267. 12s. per tun on the two former, and 47. 15s. 
 per cwt. on the latter. Indeed it was only the prevalence of 
 enormous prices at home that caused the entry of the sperm-oil 
 which yielded almost the whole of this small revenue. 
 
 But on the 5th of July, 1843, the duties were reduced, under 
 
 the provisions of the Act of 1842, as follows: On sperm-oil, 
 
 from 267. 12s. to 157. ; on train-oil, from 267. 15s. to 67. ; and on 
 
 whale-fins, from 47. 15s. per cwt. to 20 per cent, ad valorem a 
 
 rate probably equal to about 20s. per cwt., or little more. The 
 
 revenue yielded in the year from that day to July 5, 1844, was 
 
 On sperm-oil . . . 44,272 
 
 On train-oil .... 6,663 
 
 On whale-fins . . . 6,530 
 
 Total . . . 57,465 
 
 So that a gain of nearly 50,0007. for one year followed upon this 
 reduction. I may add that, owing to increased demand, $iere was 
 a simultaneous improvement in the prices of sperm oil as com- 
 pared with their previous range. 
 
 Again, copper-ore, which yielded no revenue under the former 
 law, produced about 47,0007. in the first year after the Act of 
 1 842, and nearly 70,0007. in the second, with no contraction, but, 
 on the contrary, with an expansion of the smelting operations of 
 the country. 
 
 Again, lard, at a duty of 8s. per cwt., yielded in 1840 the sum 
 of 307. In the first year of the new law, at 2s. per cwt., it was 
 entered to such an extent as to produce 4946/., and in the second 
 year 79807. 
 
 In the year 1840, thrown silk yielded a revenue of only 7257., 
 
42 Remarks upon 
 
 the chief part of the importation paying a duty of 3s. 6d. per Ib. 
 A drawback was allowed which absorbed nearly the whole receipt 
 and., indeed, in 1838, there was an excess of repayment over 
 revenue to the extent of 5398Z. In the first year of the new law 
 the debentures due under the old one again absorbed the whole 
 revenue ; but in the second year the balance of net receipts 
 amounted to 16,4207. 
 
 I will give two other instances, in which duties were reduced 
 for the purpose of driving the smuggler, if possible, out of the 
 market. 
 
 Under the former law watches were charged at 25 per cent, ad 
 valorem : the value entered in 1840 was 5084Z., and the duty paid 
 was 13871. In 1842 the duty was reduced to 10 per cent. : the 
 value entered rose to 52,622/., and the duty paid to 539 II. 
 
 The duty on thread lace was reduced in 1842 from 30 per cent 
 to 12^ per cent, on the value, with the active concurrence (a rare 
 example) of the parties engaged in carrying on the trade at home. 
 The entry under the head Thread Lace in the ' Statement' shows 
 an increase only of about one-fourth in the quantities entered 
 under the new law ; but another heading had been introduced for 
 all lace made by the hand, including thread lace, under which a 
 large and apparently increasing quantity has been entered:* so 
 that in this instance, also, we may hope that the province of the 
 smuggler has at least been greatly narrowed. 
 
 I have still one portion of the ' Statement ' to subject to further 
 
 * I believe that the annexed figures will represent pretty accurately the effect of the 
 alteration in the duty upon thread lace. 
 
 Duty received on Thread Lace. 
 
 1838 . . . .1,39212 Rate of duty 30 per Cent. 
 
 1839 .... 2,403 86 ,, 
 
 1840 .... 1,791 65 ,, 
 
 1841 .... 1,239 19 10 
 
 1842 .... 1,001 17 4 
 
 2,515 8 7 Pillow Lace. 
 
 3,517 511 Duty reduced in July, 184-', 
 
 . to 12 per Cent. 
 
 1843 . . . 953 5 2 
 
 7,611 17 7 Pillow Lace. 
 
 8,565 2 9 Duty 12 per Cent. 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 examination : that of articles of consumption, by which I mean 
 such as are comprised in classes C and D, with reference to the 
 effects of the late reductions upon protected interests. 
 
 I have already shown how easily the revenue surrendered under 
 these classes recovered itself, which, of course, could only be by 
 increased importations, and it is not difficult to name many articles 
 on which such increase has taken place : gloves, boots and shoes, 
 damask and diaper linens, corks, toys, prints and drawings, India 
 silks, tanned leather, and many more, in Class C ; and in Class D, 
 animals, fish, lard, salt provisions, potatoes, onions, and some other 
 vegetables. 
 
 IV. But I own it appears to me impossible for any person 
 who has been cognisant from the beginning of the discussions in 
 and out of Parliament relating to the Act of 1842, who has noticed 
 the fears and hopes with which in different quarters many of the 
 new duties were regarded and, finally, who has examined the 
 results of the change with any care to do otherwise than rest in 
 the conclusion that both those hopes and fears were by many 
 persons enormously exaggerated, and that, as a general (I by no 
 means say an invariable) rule, British industry has much less to 
 apprehend than was commonly, perhaps almost universally, sup- 
 posed, from the effects of foreign competition in the domestic 
 market. 
 
 This, however, is a subject too important to be discussed with- 
 out careful illustration ; and, in order to afford it, I shall have 
 occasion to refer both to debates which took place in Parliament, 
 and likewise to representations made, and I believe most honestly 
 made in many cases, to the Government with reference to the 
 certainty of the most destructive consequences if they should per- 
 severe in the proposals which they had submitted to Parliament. 
 
 Some parties obtained partial concessions which, forming my 
 judgment at this time with the aid of the experimental results, I 
 should say, had better in almost every instance have been with- 
 held : some kicked and plunged vigorously, but in vain ; and 
 some made up their minds to ruin with a decent composure. 
 Many who resisted because they thought the sacrifice demanded 
 of them too great and many more who thought it their duty, 
 
44 Remarks upon 
 
 under the distressed circumstances of the country, not to refuse it, 
 however large must have been alike surprised to discover, by 
 subsequent experience, in how numerous cases the mountain has 
 simply, as of old, produced the mouse. 
 
 There were, indeed, some rather sharp and stringent effects on 
 prices caused by the legislation of 184*2; and particularly I would 
 name the case of the Irish provision trade. But these were the 
 exceptions. As a general rule they were gentle and insensible ; 
 and in many cases where the very greatest and most boisterous 
 alarm had existed, absolutely null. There is no worthy satisfac- 
 tion in reverting simply to the circumstance that expectations 
 which had been extensively entertained were very generally falsi- 
 fied. But there is a most just pleasure attaching to the discovery 
 that the power of British skill and labour are greater than we had 
 believed them to be ; and this is the most important proposition 
 established by the smallness of results which followed upon many 
 very great reductions of duty. 
 
 Nearly one hundred and fifty questions were discussed between 
 the Government and the various interests which were, or believed 
 themselves to be, affected by the changes proposed in the law ; 
 and twenty- six divisions were taken in the House of Commons, 
 many of which, however, were in favour of more sweeping pro- 
 positions than those of the Government. But I will go to parti- 
 culars. 
 
 And first I will point out that where there has been an increase 
 large enough to be worth naming in the import of an agricultural 
 or manufactured product, it has still been in almost every instance 
 confined within very moderate bounds. For example, from the 
 first class. 
 
 The duty on potatoes was reduced from 2s. to 2d. per cwt., 
 although the Government was confidently assured by a deputation 
 to the Board of Trade, on the 12th of April, 1842, that, with so 
 small a protection, the cultivation of them in Yorkshire must be 
 abandoned. The import rose from 1794 cwts., in 1840, to 
 99,062 cwts., or nearly 5000 tons, in the second year of the new 
 law. But this quantity is little more than the crop of 600 acres 
 of land; and constitutes but one-sixtieth part of the estimated 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 consumption of the metropolis alone, perhaps one six-hundredth 
 part of the consumption of the country. 
 
 The duty on onions was reduced from 3s. to 6e?. The quantity 
 increased from 14,500 bushels in 1840, to 34,900 in the second 
 year of the new law. Now this quantity, I believe, is the yield of 
 about 116 acres of land : whereas 1 have been informed that, in 
 the county of Essex alone, eight or ten times that breadth is 
 occupied in raising not onions, but onion-seed. 
 
 Again, among manufactured articles. The importation of men's 
 boots rose from 4800 pairs to 12,900 pairs, and shoes of the same 
 description from 1 100 pairs to 3700 pairs. But if we assume that 
 each male person in the metropolis and its vicinity wears out two 
 pairs of boots or shoes annually, it will appear that the increase in 
 the foreign supply of between 10,000 and 1 1,000 pairs can scarcely 
 amount to more than one-hundredth part of the demand for that 
 portion of the population of the country taken alone. In the case 
 of women's boots and shoes there is an increase of about double 
 the number of pairs, which might possibly supply about 2 per 
 cent, of the corresponding demand. 
 
 In another class of cases where the first proposition of the Go- 
 vernment was regarded as utterly ruinous, and some modification 
 of it took place in consequence of the apparent strength of the 
 representations, or of the indisposition to bear hard upon a feeble 
 class (for no such concession was made during the whole of the 
 discussion in any case affecting a powerful interest), the result has 
 very commonly been that the change eventually made has been 
 practically a nullity. 
 
 For instance, in the first print of the Resolutions of 1842, it 
 was proposed to reduce the duty on starch from the prohibitory 
 rate of 97. 10s. per cwt. to 5s. per cwt., about 20 per cent, on the 
 value of the foreign article in bond. However it was subsequently 
 agreed to substitute 1 Os. for 5s. ; and even a greater change than 
 this was urged by members of Parliament inclined to free trade, 
 on the ground of the enhancement of the cost of wheat (from which 
 starch was usually made) in this country through the operation of 
 the corn law. The duty of 10s. was represented by manufacturers 
 of starch as a totally insufficient protection. Now mark the result. 
 
46 Remarks upon 
 
 In the first twelve months of the new law we find an experimental 
 importation took place to the extent of 498 cwts. But in the 
 second year it sank to 20 cwts., or a value of about 25/. 
 
 The case of straw platting, again, is a remarkable one. In 
 order, however, to estimate it justly, we must combine with it the 
 entries of the hats or bonnets made of straw plat. These latter 
 were charged by the dozen under the former law ; but I convert 
 these into weight at 31 Ibs. per dozen : 
 
 1838. 1839.* 1840. 
 
 Weight of straw-plat entered . . 34,662 Ibs. 22,340 Ibs. 13,034 Ibs. 
 straw hats or bonnets . 1,171 Ibs. 1,241 Ibs. 2,307 Ibs. 
 
 35,793 Ibs. 23,531 Ibs. 15,341 Ibs. 
 
 Thus the trade was falling off. The duty was very high 17*. 
 per lb., or about 80 per cent, on the plat, and from 50 to 60 on 
 the manufactured article : an anomalous relation between the 
 duties on the material and on the article made up, which was very 
 far from uncommon under the former law. It was proposed to 
 reduce the duty on the plat to 5s. Numerous remonstrances 
 were made ; and the Government so far receded as to fix it at 
 7*. 6rf. ; and that on hats or bonnets of straw was settled at 8s. Qd. 
 per lb., instead of a rate equal probably to about 18s. 6d. per lb. 
 In the face of these great reductions, the importations actually 
 declined upon the change ; and in the second year they scarcely 
 recovered the low scale of 1840, and did not reach a moiety of 
 that of 1838, as will appear from the following figures : 
 
 1842-3. 1843-4. 
 
 Weight of straw plat entered . . . 8,322 Ibs. 12,070 Ibs. 
 of straw hats or bonnets . . . 4,081 Ibs. 3,546 Ibs. 
 
 Total .... 12,403 Ibs. 15,616 Ibs. 
 
 Without specifying other instances, I pass to another numerous 
 class of cases those, namely, in which speculation was set to 
 work by the change of the duty, and importation of the commodity 
 immediately took a spring ; but in which a material decrease in 
 the second year, as compared with the first, shows that the expecta- 
 
 * See Tables of Revenue, Trade, &c., Part x., 1840. 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 tions which had been raised had also been in various degrees dis- 
 appointed. Thus, for example, we find the following entriies : 
 
 1. Among manufactured goods 
 
 First Year. 
 1,919,000 pairs 
 33,000 yards 
 7,500/. at value 
 7,722 cwts. 
 25,000/. at value 
 3,700/. 
 710 cwts. 
 233,000 number 
 1,353/. value 
 
 Gloves . 
 
 Damasks and damask diaper 
 
 Plain linens 
 
 Spirit of turpentine 
 
 Embroidery 
 
 Manufactures of skin or fur 
 
 Hard soap .... 
 
 Dutch bricks 
 
 Plain china 
 
 Second Year. 
 1,795,000 pairs 
 21,000 yards 
 6,500/. at value 
 
 35 cwts. 
 7,500/. at value 
 1,800/. 
 536 cwts. 
 202,000 number 
 980/. value 
 
 2. Among articles of food 
 
 First Year. 
 3,462 cwts. 
 7,677 
 764 
 206 
 6,188 
 
 Second Year. 
 989 cwts. 
 1,096 
 108 
 28 
 2,716 
 
 Beef, salted (foreign) . 
 Pork, salted (foreign) . 
 Salmon .... 
 Bacon (foreign) . 
 Hams (foreign) . 
 
 Most of these were articles, with regard to which the very 
 greatest apprehensions had been expressed. It is within my own 
 recollection, that in the month of August, 1842, the people of a 
 rural district of Scotland, thirty or forty miles from any focus of 
 foreign trade, were much excited on the subject of some salt 
 meat which had been exposed for sale at 3d. per lb., in conse- 
 quence, as was professed, of the new tariff: the fact being that 
 the change in duty on that article amounted only to the small 
 sum of 4s. per cwt., and that this change did not take place 
 until the 10th of October, two or three months after its miraculous 
 results had been palmed upon the public, Nor was it an uncom- 
 mon thing in the streets of London to see advertisements of goods 
 purporting to be cheapened by the new tariff, with regard to which 
 no change either was made or had ever been proposed. 
 
 But the most remarkable example of this recession after a first 
 experiment was in the case which of all others excited the greatest 
 alarm and apprehension namely, the importation of live animals 
 for food. Arguing in Parliament against the exaggerated appre- 
 
48 Remarks upon 
 
 hensions which were entertained with respect to the effects of that 
 measure, I protested against an estimate, that had met my eye, 
 according to which it was shown, that in the course of a few years 
 there might be 300,000,000 pigs disposable for importation into 
 England from a single country : but I, somewhat weakly, admitted 
 the possibility that within a short time we might have from abroad 
 as a maximum of addition to our supplies, 50,000 head of cattle 
 annually. The importations of the first six months were 
 Cattle ....... 4,076 
 
 Swine and hogs ...... 410* 
 
 But the parties engaged in them apparently (as it is termed) burnt 
 their fingers: for in the whole year 1843 there were only im- 
 ported 
 
 Cattle . 1,482 
 
 Swine and hogs ...... 361 
 
 There is, indeed, a revival in 1844, sufficient to save the results of 
 the measure from becoming ridiculous. In that year we obtained 
 from the whole world 
 
 Cattle . 4,865 
 
 But of swine and hogs only . . . . 271 
 
 An argument, however, has been frequently advanced to the 
 effect, that the foreign prices have acted powerfully in reducing 
 British prices to their own level, although when they had reached 
 that level no extended opening could remain for importation. 
 My answer is two-fold : first, it is impossible that foreign prices 
 could have exercised a depressing influence ' upon the immense 
 market of England to any considerable extent say, for instance, 
 Id. per Ib. without having held out such opportunities of profit 
 by actual importations from abroad as must have led to very much 
 more extensive operations than those which have actually taken 
 place ; secondly, there are two modes in which price may be 
 lowered either by addition to supply, or by subtraction from 
 demand. An addition of 3000 head to supply will have no 
 greater effect upon prices than a diminution of 3000 head in the 
 demand. The new tariff is responsible for the addition of 3000 
 
 * Paper No. 43, Session 1845. 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 head to the supply ; but commercial distress affecting immedi- 
 ately, perhaps, four or five millions of the people, nearly all of 
 whom were consumers of animal food is responsible for con- 
 tracting the demand to an amount nearer 300,000 head than 
 3000. If fall of price took place, it appears to me more rational 
 to ascribe it to the latter cause than to the former one. 
 
 The result seems to be that there is no likelihood, for some 
 considerable time at least, of our obtaining a supply of cattle 
 from abroad at all sufficient to meet the steady increase of our 
 population. Nor is this, in my view, an unsatisfactory result. 
 On the contrary, what has taken place is highly cheering, for this 
 reason, at least, that it shows this most important branch of agri- 
 cultural industry in our own country to be pursued with an eco- 
 nomy and skill which need not shrink from competition, and 
 which, indeed, has now defied it ; and it may teach us not to 
 regard, so much as we are apt to do, the low nominal prices 
 which commodities may bear in some other countries, while, not- 
 withstanding, it may be, and is often true, that, when quality is 
 considered, the Englishman gets the cheapest article. 
 
 I must quote, however, as a last class of illustrations, one or 
 two cases of manufactured commodities, for the very striking 
 manner in which they contrast the anticipations of persons be- 
 wildered by their fears with the actual results of changes in duties 
 upon imports. 
 
 Amidst predictions of ruin, the duty on the candles termed 
 stearine (a refined tallow) was reduced from 63s. 4d. to 23s. 4d. 
 per cwt. The quantities entered were no more than 1000 Ibs. 
 (of the value of perhaps 50/.) in the first year, and 2000 (or 1007. 
 in value) for the second. 
 
 The duty on beaver-hats was lowered from 10s. fid. each to 
 2s. 6e?. each. Foreign hats had been introduced in 1840 to the 
 number of 240. In the first year of the new Act they were but 
 135, and in the second 191. 
 
 The duty on cordage and on cable-yarn was reduced from 
 10s. 9<f. per cwt. to 6s. per cwt. The first proposal was only 
 5,y. This duty touched upon a very important trade, and a great 
 mass of hand labour. We are importers of 700,000 cwts. of 
 
 E 
 
50 Remarks upon 
 
 hemp annually, of the value of about a million sterling. There 
 was submitted to the Government the most complete invulner- 
 able paper -demonstration, that our trade in cordage must pass 
 bodily into the hands of Russia. Export duties, low wages, em- 
 ployment in the long Russian winters for hands otherwise idle, 
 and therefore costing next to nothing, saving in freight and in- 
 surance all these arguments and many more were duly mar- 
 shalled. It was shown by a price current from St. Petersburgh 
 that the change meditated in England had excited attention in 
 that market. Moreover, all this was not only urged by traders 
 of intelligence and character, but they were led on by one of the 
 most distinguished among the many distinguished men of busi- 
 ness in the city of London, thoroughly acquainted with the trade 
 from former connexion, but then, I believe, retaining little or no 
 interest in it. The prophecies of such men made, I confess, a 
 deep impression on my mind, which has become deeper still 
 since I have witnessed their issue. 
 
 However, the stroke descended ; and the importations of cord- 
 age and cable-yarn, taken together, which had reached 451 cwts. 
 in 1838, and 294 cwts. in 1840, rose to 333 cwts. in 1842-3, and 
 to 1032 cwts. in 1843-4 ; the trade in the manufactured article 
 thus appearing to be in extent about one six-hundredth part of 
 that in the raw material . 
 
 The case of corks, on some accounts, was still more remark- 
 able, because it was one of those commonly quoted at the time 
 by such persons as chose to cast upon the Government the impu- 
 tation that, while they dealt gently with great interests, they dealt 
 most severely with small ones ; and I am bound to add, because, 
 as I believe, the journeymen employed in this trade were, in 
 some instances, actually dismissed from work in anticipation of 
 the change. They therefore, no doubt, had good reason to be- 
 lieve the predictions that were freely delivered on all hands of 
 the total and certain loss of our trade in cork-cutting; and, I 
 must admit, it was distressing to receive from persons in such a 
 class remonstrances so piteous, delivered in a manner the most 
 candid, simple, and sincere. 
 
 Their case attracted an uncommon degree of attention, and 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 perhaps not less than ten or twelve deputations attended various 
 members of the Government upon it, to say nothing of a volumi- 
 nous correspondence, while a most lively interest in their favour 
 was excited in the House of Commons. 
 
 But I think it is manifest that these parties, and those who 
 supported them in Parliament, were deceivers, as being them- 
 selves deceived. I arrive at this conclusion from the figures 
 before me. The change was postponed until July, 1843, so that 
 there was plenty of time to prepare large importations of the 
 manufactured article. The old duties were, on the wood, 8/. 
 per ton, and on corks 7**. per Ib. The uniform declaration of 
 the parties in the trade was, that no duty less than 4s. per Ib. 
 would protect them. The rates were reduced to Is. per ton on 
 the wood, and 8d. per Ib. on corks. The importations of the 
 first year, under the altered system, were as follows : 
 
 Corks, 81,683 Ibs. = 36i tons. 
 
 Cork-wood 4,271 
 
 Or the import of the manufactured article from abroad was 
 about the one-hundred-and-eighteenth part of the import of the 
 material to be manufactured in this country. But there is much 
 refuse in cork- wood. If, then, we allow each ton of corks to 
 represent in value two tons of cork- wood, still the proportion 
 remains one to fifty-nine. If, further, we ought to allow for the 
 excess in the delivery of cork-wood for the period in question, 
 because of the reduction of the duty charged on it, then we find 
 the average delivery of two years from July, 1842, to July, 1844 
 to be only 2973 tons,* instead of 4271 tons ; and the proportion 
 of the trade in the manufactured article becomes one in forty- 
 one, or somewhat less than 2J per cent, of the whole. This is a 
 change, no doubt ; but if it be a violent and cruel one, then it is 
 difficult to conceive what change is not violent and cruel ; and it 
 remains a memorable example of the difference, in such matters, 
 between anticipation and experience. 
 
 I must add, however, that I had long ago been informed that 
 the trade was in a small number of hands, and was conducted 
 
 The mean delivery of 1838 and 1840 was 2933 tons. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 Remarks upon 
 
 with something of the manner of monopoly, and that English 
 corks were very inferior to those of French manufacture. I 
 learn, upon recent inquiry, that the price of wine-corks has been 
 reduced from 85. to less than 65. 6d. per Ib. by the change ; but 
 the bulk of the trade, it is manifest, has been retained in British 
 hands. 
 
 I shall draw a concluding illustration from the occurrences of 
 last year. The same words, I might almost say the same for- 
 mulae, of sinister prognostication were then used, mutatis mu- 
 tandis, by the manufacturers of vinegar, including persons of the 
 very highest respectability, which had been employed in 1842 by 
 many scores of other classes. I ventured to refer, at a confer- 
 ence, to the falsification of the previous omens in so many in- 
 stances. I was answered by a distinguished member of Parlia- 
 ment (friendly to the abolition of the Corn Law), who accompa- 
 nied the deputation, that it would be no consolation to the vinegar 
 manufacturer when he should find his apprehensions realised, to 
 know that other trades had discovered theirs to be baseless. It 
 afforded, however, some presumption that his demonstrations and 
 his prophecies might prove to be of the same family as theirs, and 
 to be destined to the same limbo. 
 
 The trade declared a duty of Is. per gallon on foreign vinegar 
 to be necessary in order to enable them to subsist. It was re- 
 duced (from Is. 6e?.) to 4d. I subjoin the result: 
 
 Quantities of Foreign Vinegar entered for Home Consumption. 
 In the year 1841 . . . 22,205 gallons. 
 In 1842 ..... 18,139 
 
 In 1843 14,144 
 
 In 1844 (new duty from June 6) . 49,574 
 
 Now, the quantity of British vinegar charged with excise duty 
 appears to have been about 3,000,000 gallons, so that the 
 foreigner has at most obtained (up to the present time) but one- 
 sixtieth part of the trade, and fifty-nine parts remain with the 
 British manufacturer. 
 
 That in some few instances, among alterations so numerous, 
 the British producer may have been subjected to inconvenient 
 pressure, I can readily believe : that increased importation has 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 produced benefit to the public almost follows, as a general rule, 
 from the fact that it has taken place. That the degree of in- 
 crease has ordinarily been so limited appears to me, on the 
 whole, to be a fact full of instruction ; and gives rise not only to 
 the supposition that foreign competition has often stimulated im- 
 provements which have enabled the British producer to repel or 
 to endure it, but also to the inference I have already named, 
 which, if true, is very important, namely, that British industry 
 even when it is not supported by superior machinery, by the 
 application of capital on a large scale, or by great physical advan- 
 tages is able to meet the industry of foreign countries upon a 
 footing of less inequality than we have been apt to suppose. 
 
 It would be well, also, if all parties, who conceive themselves 
 to be threatened by impending changes, would recollect that 
 there are usually some classes who have a strong interest in ex- 
 aggerating their force, and that such interest may either afford a 
 temptation to dishonesty, or very powerfully warp the judgment. 
 It was, for instance, a tempting opportunity in 1842 to assure 
 the farmer that foreign cattle would come over like locusts, and 
 thereby to induce him to sell his own better bred and fed beasts 
 for much less than they were worth. Much mischief of this 
 kind, I do not doubt, has been done ; but for such mischief the 
 legislature is hardly to be held responsible. 
 
 I have now completed my endeavour to show however inade- 
 quately, yet in a connected form the proportion of our revenue 
 and of our commerce which have been affected by legislation, 
 comprised within a period of three years, and the results of that 
 legislation upon both ; and I cannot scruple to avow that they 
 seem to me to vindicate the policy of a gradual and circumspect 
 relaxation of restrictions, as being the best means of enabling 
 the skill and labour of England to find their full value in the 
 market of the world. 
 
 It has been my endeavour rather to state facts, and the infer- 
 ences immediately connected with them, than to trace the re- 
 lation subsisting between these and the general principles of trade, 
 and of legislation in respect to trade. Yet I feel strongly that the 
 results obtained up to the present time, although necessarily as 
 
54 Remarks upon 
 
 yet incomplete, are in a high degree favourable to the commercial 
 policy applied on a large scale by the legislature in the year 
 1842, and again upon different occasions during each of the years 
 that have since elapsed. I have yet greater satisfaction in the be- 
 lief that these results tend not less, but even more powerfully, to 
 uphold the propostion that the foundations of the commercial 
 power of this country are up to this moment, at least in a com- 
 mercial sense, unimpaired ; and that the industry and skill, which 
 are its central support, together with the physical advantages and 
 those of great capital and long established connection which are 
 its accessories, will receive no vital wound from the restrictive 
 measures which have found or may find acceptance elsewhere. 
 
 But while it seems to me just that the principles favourable to 
 the circumspect and guarded relaxation of restraints upon trade 
 should not be defrauded of any credit which an actual, though 
 partial, experience may show to be their due, I am bound to add 
 that I for one draw no inferences from what I am about to state 
 in favour of their precipitate and sweeping application, or of 
 practising, by an incessant repetition of experiments in legisla- 
 tion, upon those employments by which our fellow-countrymen 
 gain their bread. I am a deliberate adherent of that policy 
 which is described in contemptuous terms as halting between 
 two opinions: between the opinion which regards commercial 
 restriction as being permanently and essentially a good, and the 
 opinion which deals with it as an evil necessarily greater than 
 that of a sharp and violent transition to freedom ; as the source 
 of all our economical difficulties ; and even as a violation of the 
 laws of God. Nor is it a fearful and languid mean, a mere 
 neutrality, of which the observance is here implied : it is only 
 that reasonable circumspection, that regard to the lessons of the 
 past, in their detail, as guides for the future that just comparison 
 of conflicting considerations and care to elicit their compound 
 result, which in almost every branch of legislation constitute the 
 universally acknowledged rule of statesmen, and which have alike 
 marked the genius of the institutions of this country as a whole, 
 and the character of its people. 
 
 For the desire to realise, under these conditions, a just 
 

 Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 liberty of trade, I can deem no apology requisite from any adhe- 
 rent of a party which follows in the main Mr. Burke and Mr. 
 Pitt as its guides among the luminaries of a former generation, 
 and which has reckoned Mr. Canning, Lord Liverpool, and Mr. 
 Huskisson among its members, within the memory and the ex- 
 perience of our living statesmen. The disposition, by which that 
 desire is balanced, is a disposition to respect the subsisting distri- 
 bution of capital and labour, to preserve it from all violent and 
 sudden shocks, and from the worrying agitation of incessant 
 change, to maintain a confidence, not in the absolute immobility 
 of law, but in the determination of the legislature to deal tempe- 
 rately and dispassionately by all, to adopt no change except for 
 some good and positive reason, and to confine it when adopted 
 within the limits which such reason prescribes. For this disposi- 
 tion I find an ample defence, alike in the writings of economists, 
 in the acts of commercial statesmen, and in the analogies which 
 all legislation, and especially which all British legislation, sup- 
 plies. 
 
 There are indeed some who would, as it were, revenge upon 
 commerce itself the wrong done to higher pursuits and ends by the 
 money- worshipping spirit of the age. I do not doubt that wealth 
 is the heaviest curse to those who idolize either it or the pleasures 
 which it purchases ; and that the pursuit of wealth is often one of 
 the subtlest snares by which the path of the human being is beset. 
 But in this view, wealth, and commerce as the means of wealth, 
 are like knowledge, or talent, or health, or any other earthly en- 
 dowment. Yet each of them has its place in the natural that is, 
 in the Providential order of the world. Let us not exalt them 
 above their own region, but neither let us deny their prerogatives 
 within it. The diversity of the productions of different regions is 
 the primeval law which sanctions their exchange : 
 
 * Nonne vides, croceos ut Tmolus odores, 
 India mittit ebur, molles sua thura Sabaei ?' Virg. Georg. I. 66. 
 
 Still there is an alteration in the policy of the present year, as 
 compared with that of J 842, so important as to demand specific 
 notice : I mean the total abolition of duties, of great duties like 
 
56 Remarks upon 
 
 those on cotton and glass, as well as small ones, like the multi- 
 tudes of petty imposts that are now on the point of being swept 
 from our tariff, instead of a reduction which might aim simul- 
 taneously at relieving trade and at giving scope, through in- 
 creased consumption, for the final recovery of the revenue sur- 
 rendered. 
 
 I am not about to discuss in this place the policy of the aboli- 
 tion of minor duties on materials of industry, but to offer a few 
 remarks upon another very important subject, closely allied to 
 that of our own commercial legislation I mean the commercial 
 legislation of foreign countries, It is by considerations drawn 
 from this quarter that I should prefer mainly to vindicate the 
 principle of total abolition of duty, as applied to those articles 
 upon which British labour is to be employed. 
 
 But in the first place I must endeavour to set aside a notion 
 which has gone abroad, and which has received countenance in quar- 
 ters where it was little to be expected, that our trade with foreign 
 countries, and especially with the continent of Europe, is of com- 
 paratively small, or at any rate of diminishing, importance. I ap- 
 prehend that the labour of the people of Great Britain, man for 
 man, is the most productive labour in the world. We subject it to 
 a severe test in comparing it with that of the United States. On 
 turning, however, to a recent estimate, drawn from accounts which 
 have the sanction of some public authority, I find the total annual 
 product of the industry of that country,* in the various branches 
 of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, mining, the forest, and 
 the fisheries, calculated at 1063 millions of dollars ; equal to about 
 two hundred and fifty millions sterling. The population amounted 
 at the same time to between eighteen and nineteen millions, or was 
 about equal to that of Great Britain in 1841. We have no statis- 
 tics which would warrant my venturing upon a determinate conjec- 
 ture of the annual value of the fruits of the labour of this country, 
 but I do not think there can be a doubt that they must be consi- 
 derably higher suppose even to the amount of 50 per cent. But 
 if this be so, still the fact remains, that a much larger proportion 
 
 * Tucker's ' Progress of the United States/ p. 195. 1843. 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 of our industry is engaged in trade with foreign countries, than of 
 the industry of America. Her exports are under twenty-five mil- 
 lions sterling, ours are over fifty. Of her labour, they employ 
 one-tenth; of ours, even according to the computation I have 
 hazarded, a seventh. In short, we are more dependent than any 
 other great people upon external trade for the employment of our 
 population. 
 
 Nor is it the fact that, as many suppose, this external trade is 
 leaving the channels of our intercourse with Europe in order to 
 fill those of distant, and especially of colonial markets. 
 
 In order to make good this proposition, I take the term of the 
 thirteen latest years of which we possess the accounts namely, 
 from 1831 to 1843;* and I show by the following figures the 
 increase of our export trade, 
 
 1 . With the whole world ; 
 
 2. With the whole world, except Europe ; 
 
 3. With Europe alone. 
 
 1. In the year 1831 we exported to all countries of 
 
 the world goods of the declared value of . 37,164,372 
 
 In the year 1843 52,279,709 
 
 Increase in twelve years . . 15,115,337 
 
 or 40-6 per cent. 
 
 2. In the year 1831 we exported to all countries, 
 
 except those of Europe, goods amounting to 
 
 the declared value of .... 23,523,932 
 
 In the year 1843 28,295,750 
 
 Increase in twelve years . . 5,771,818 
 
 or 24*5 per cent. 
 
 3. In the year 1831 we exported, to Europe only, 
 
 goods to the declared value of . . . 13,640,440 
 
 In the year 1843 23,983,959 
 
 Increase in twelve years . . 10,343,511 
 
 or 75 8 per cent. 
 
 According to this statement our trade with Europe has in- 
 creased nearly twice as fast as our trade with the whole world, 
 
 *From the Decennial Tables for 1831-40; and the subsequent single years as they 
 
58 
 
 Remarks upon 
 
 and three times as fast as our trade with the residue of the 
 world. 
 
 But, as single years may fluctuate from irregular causes, let us 
 take periods of three years, in the same order as that already fol- 
 lowed : 
 
 1. In the years 1831-3 we exported annually to all 
 
 countries, on the average, goods to the de- 
 clared value of 37,760,771 
 
 In the years 1841-3 50,431,785 
 
 Increase in ten years . . 12,671,014 
 
 or 33*5 per cent. 
 
 2. In the year 1831-3 we exported annually, on the 
 
 average, to all countries, except those of 
 
 Europe, goods to the declared value of . 22,815,359 
 
 In the year 1841-3 27,087,423 
 
 Increase in ten years . . 4,272,064 
 
 or 18*7 per cent. 
 
 3. In the years 1831-3 we exported annually, on 
 
 the average, to Europe, goods to the declared 
 
 value of 14,945,411 
 
 In the years 1843 23,344,362 
 
 Increase in ten years . . 8,398,951 
 
 or 56 2 per cent. 
 
 According to this mode of computation, the rate of increase 
 in our European trade approaches to double that of our entire 
 external trade ; and it exceeds by more than three times the rate 
 of increase in our trade with the other three quarters of the 
 globe. 
 
 In European trade are included our European colonies; but 
 of these Gibraltar alone materially influences the result ; and the 
 exports to Gibraltar are due to the commercial demand of foreign 
 states. The condition indeed of the trade with the United States, 
 in the years 1842 and 1843, has an unfavourable influence in the 
 comparison : and it is also true that, on the whole, our European 
 trade does not now represent so great an amount of British labour, 
 in proportion to its extent, as it did twenty years or thirty years 
 ago : but neither these nor any other circumstances, so far as I 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 am aware, can do more than slightly qualify the conclusions which 
 the foregoing figures appear to establish. 
 
 The period during which this rapid extension of dealings has 
 been going on, has been distinguished, first, by many relaxations 
 in the commercial code of England, and increased facilities for 
 the importation of foreign commodities ; and, secondly, by efforts 
 on the part of almost every European power either to erect or to 
 tighten a restrictive and prohibitory system. 
 
 In the earlier portion of the period was constituted the Customs* 
 Union of Northern Germany ; a wise and noble scheme, if it be 
 viewed in its internal bearings, for extending the intercourse of a 
 great people, for maintaining its European influence, and en- 
 hancing its sentiment of nationality ; but, with respect to foreign 
 trade, a measure of jealousy and rigour, not the less but the 
 more grievous because its severe and in many instances crushing 
 enactments were ushered into the world under the most alluring 
 titles of simplicity and uniformity, and with a professed limita- 
 tion of the maximum or general duty upon imports to 10 per 
 cent, ad valorem. 
 
 Within the last four years, Russia, Prussia, France, and 
 Spain in fine, every great country of Europe, except Austria 
 has given increased stringency to its commercial system. Nor 
 have the minor states in general been backward in following the 
 vicious example. Belgium in particular worries her commerce 
 with a succession of new restraints, now taxing iron, now cottons, 
 now linen yarns, and at last inventing a system of differential 
 duties upon ships, with the avowed intention of taking rank 
 among the maritime powers of Europe ! On the other hand, the 
 signs of a disposition to relax have been few, and generally faint. 
 Hanover has indeed stood her ground, and Holland has even re- 
 duced her domestic tariff, which was very moderate before the 
 reduction. Sardinia has made considerable diminutions in her 
 customs' duties. Portugal was not unwilling, but sought too high 
 a price, in the surrender of British revenue, for doing herself a 
 benefit. Austria has effected some small relaxations, and, though 
 they are small, she deserves honour for them. 
 
 On the other side of the Atlantic, it is enough to refer to the 
 
60 Remarks upon 
 
 tariffs of Brazil, adopted in 1844, and of the United States, 
 adopted in 1842 : the latter distinguished from those of the whole 
 world in this particular, that while we are constantly assured that 
 its main object is revenue and not protection, it admits free of all 
 duty tea and coffee, and other articles on which revenue could be 
 raised without any other than a fiscal effect, and imposes heavy 
 charges only on such productions as can enter into competition 
 with its domestic interests. 
 
 Most of the countries to which I have adverted appear to be 
 possessed by a sentiment that they have found the philosopher's 
 stone in a prohibitory system. They appear to have realized one 
 of the most singular of the impostures of Joseph Smith, the 
 leader of the Mormons, who 1 think professed to have discovered 
 in the far north a people enormously rich, whose territory had, 
 from time immemorial, been surrounded by walls of brass, that 
 they might have no intercourse with any other nation of the 
 earth. England, it is held, has grown rich by restriction, and 
 now only wishes to grow richer by casting it away. Whether we 
 relax or not, they are alike inexorable. When we maintain the 
 restraints we find in existence, they use our conduct as their 
 apology for inventing new ones. When we remove such re- 
 straints, they perceive only a deeper plan for bringing about 
 their ruin by cheap production, which requires of them still more 
 imperiously the multiplication of their repressive and prohibitory 
 enactments. 
 
 It is needless to determine, for how much of this unfortunate 
 policy abroad, England, by her own proceedings, at certain periods 
 in particular, has become justly responsible. That would be a 
 necessary inquiry if I were engaged in examining my subject for 
 the purpose of awarding praise or blame ; but it is not so. In 
 the first place I believe that the European governments are 
 obeying what seems to grow more and more the law of all govern- 
 ments, and are exhibiting the actual direction of the popular 
 movement, often in opposition to the personal convictions of their 
 members. Doubtless they act on what they believe to be, on the 
 whole, for the good of their respective countries ; and I entirely 
 disclaim alike the right and the desire to censure them. 
 
 It may be true that England is the main sufferer by their pro- 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 ceedings. We hear much of the jealousy with which she is re- 
 garded ; we know that the flame of jealousy readily finds its 
 necessary food, where there is a supposed collision of pecuniary 
 interests ; but I for one utterly disbelieve that hostility to Eng- 
 land is the root and ground of these measures. I rather view it 
 as an unhappy, and, if I may so speak, a maladroit homage to 
 her, that other nations show so very impetuous a desire to copy 
 her example, and trust more to her traditions than to their own 
 understandings. 
 
 I cannot however but believe, on the part of our own legislators 
 of former times, that they looked to the protective system rather 
 as a temporary stimulus to enterprise while yet in its infancy, than 
 as a permanent and essential good rather as a means of de- 
 veloping real, natural, inherent capabilities, than as an expedient 
 for supplying the want of them. I fear that the temper now pre- 
 vailing in many countries verges towards this latter, and surely 
 most irrational, most pernicious view. 
 
 I have dwelt long on this subject of the commercial policy of 
 foreign states, but it is one of immense moment. The power of 
 capital, skill, industry, long established character, and connexions, 
 sustaining English commerce, bears up against all that has been 
 done. Sometimes the smuggler gives us a commercial remedy, 
 in which no man should rejoice, hand in hand with a moral evil. 
 Sometimes what we lose by new restrictions in a particular 
 country, we gain by the diminished capacity of that country, now 
 become a dearer producer, to compete with us in third markets. 
 Sometimes enhancements of price, equivalent to the increase of 
 duty, leave to the British merchant the means of continuing his 
 business ; and the whole weight of the burden is borne by the 
 patient public of the foreign state. Sometimes our trade staggers 
 for a moment under the blow, and then recovers. Upon the 
 whole, notwithstanding the sharp and rapid succession of re- 
 strictive measures during recent years, it has grown, and continues 
 to grow, from year to year with a perverse rapidity, as if perse- 
 cution were not less feeble when applied to commerce, than it 
 is now commonly reputed to be when used against religious 
 opinion. 
 
62 Remarks upon 
 
 But if so, it may be naturally asked, why all this anxiety? My 
 answer is, that while I do not believe that we have been losers, 
 relatively to the countries of which I now speak, but hold, on the 
 contrary, that their blows have told most severely on themselves, 
 yet I cannot doubt that the states in question have taken much 
 from us as well as from their own inhabitants, have neutralised or 
 contracted a thousand benefits which it was practicable to have 
 attained, and that their policy demands from us a vigorous and 
 steady counteraction. 
 
 But what is to be the form of that counteraction? Are we to 
 weary them, by remonstrances, into undoing their acts ? But 
 first, as matters now stand, it is too probable that we should be 
 interpreted by contraries, as Irish pigs are said to understand 
 their drivers; that the earnestness of our request might be 
 deemed the most demonstrative reason against its being granted. 
 Secondly, to do is one thing, rapidly to undo is a very different 
 one. We ourselves have occasion to urge this plea : we must 
 allow it due weight on behalf of others. We cannot and ought 
 not to expect foreign states at once to break down the lofty barriers 
 which they have been so carefully erecting. 
 
 Shall we then counteract by retaliation? The public senti- 
 ment, I think, among us nowhere leans to such a course. For 
 states having more contracted interests to regard, it is, I believe, 
 in most cases, as unwise as at first sight it is seductive : for us it 
 would be suicidal. 
 
 Shall we then pursue the daring course of repudiating at once 
 all our own restraints, all our protective duties, high and low, 
 and our Navigation Act from its first section to its last, in order 
 thereby to prove our heroic sincerity, and to force a sympathy in 
 other lands, which shall bear down every obstacle, and establish 
 the commercial intercourse of men on the footing of universal 
 brotherhood ? This is the sentiment of an hardy minority among 
 us ; but the project, on account of its disregard of subsisting 
 arrangements and habits, is unwise and unjust : and, what is 
 enough for enabling us to dispense with detailed discussion upon 
 its merits in this place, it is plainly impracticable. 
 
 There remains, I think, only one course it is to use every 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 effort to disburden of all charges, so far as our law is concerned, 
 the materials of industry, and thus to enable the workman to ap- 
 proach his work at home on better terms, as the terms on which 
 he enters foreign markets are altered for the worse against him. 
 I do not believe that this will be a losing game ; but, on the con- 
 trary, that if we steadily pursue it, then although the prohibitory 
 policy of foreign states, or, as I should rather say, although the 
 forced concessions of foreign governments to the anti- commercial 
 spirit of particular classes of their subjects, may indeed and will 
 diminish the aggregate trade of the world, they will not diminish 
 the share of it which falls to the lot of England. They may 
 smite, from time to time, some branch of our commerce, and it 
 may fall as a lofty tree falls in the forest. We hear the crash, 
 and we deplore the void ; but we forget that a thousand more are 
 lifting their heads and spreading forth their arms with an in- 
 sensible but constant growth. Even so it is in our commerce 
 with other nations. If a new tax is laid in Germany upon the 
 iron which our bounteous earth yields us in profusion, that tax 
 cripples the power of the country imposing it to compete with us 
 in every one of the hundred branches of trade to which iron is an 
 accessory. If France doubles the duty on our linen yarns, she 
 stimulates us to economy, and bids the smuggler thrive, she taxes 
 her consumer, and fetters that ingenuity and taste on the part 
 of her weavers, which are the main support of her commercial 
 strength. 
 
 I do not mean that what is undoubtedly injurious to us is to be 
 viewed with satisfaction because it is yet more injurious to others ; 
 but let other nations come to be convinced that such is the ten- 
 dency of their present policy, and they will spontaneously save us 
 the trouble of expostulation, and will hasten to reverse it, for the 
 just and natural reason which alone would warrant their revers- 
 ing it namely, not our interest, but their own. How are they 
 to be brought to that mind ? As I think, by seeing that although 
 we may, by one act and another, be crippled in detail, yet our 
 aggregate commerce even with them maintains itself, and even 
 gains further augmentation ; that while they obstruct the channel 
 at one end, yet, as we clear it at the other, the waters find their 
 
64 Remarks upon 
 
 way in reflux as well as flux : that their purchases from us, ii 
 despite of adverse legislation, have increased with their sales 
 us, and that with a rapidity that none but the most sanguine 
 would have ventured to expect. Let us have a few more years 
 of experimental instruction, such as that which is afforded by the 
 figures of the statement I have given of the relative growth of our 
 trade with Europe and the world : such results cannot fail to 
 exercise a powerful influence on the intelligence and the will of 
 governments, and of the nations whom they rule. 
 
 It is this regard to the course of commerce and of commercial 
 legislation in the world at large which convinces me of the wis- 
 dom of pushing further than might otherwise be necessary, or 
 even desirable, our efforts to relieve the materials of industry from 
 fiscal burdens, and also of endeavouring to diminish (as is just 
 now being done in the case of sugar) the impositions upon articles 
 of consumption, as the state may be able to afford it, and our own 
 industry and capital, immediately engaged, to bear the operation, 
 I do not say without alarm, but without real and substantial de- 
 rangement. 
 
 I freely grant that the relief of raw materials from taxation is a 
 different policy from that of annihilating protection : some will 
 say a more timid, as I venture to think a more just and a less 
 hazardous course of action. But at least it has been steadily pur- 
 sued. Before 1842 we levied upon foreign commodities of that 
 class nearly three millions and a half. Of this sum nearly 
 1,250,0007. was surrendered in 1842 and 1844. In the present 
 year there is added another million : and at the same time nearly 
 800,0007. of taxation, analogous in its character, that is of direct 
 charge upon glass and upon coals produced at home, is likewise 
 given up. Only three articles belonging strictly to the class of raw 
 materials will now remain subject to taxation : namely, copper 
 ore, timber, and tallow : and of these the two first have been 
 placed by the law of 1842 upon a footing much more favourable 
 to the consumer than that on which they formerly stood. Such 
 being the case, I think the actual policy of the country, notwith- 
 standing exceptions and apparent anomalies, is as clear and un- 
 deniable in fact, as it is sound in reason. 
 
Recent Commercial Legislation. 
 
 I close this review with two remarks. First, I have taken no 
 particular notice of many important changes in the laws affecting 
 our foreign commerce, which have been adopted during the last 
 few years, such as the universal permission to export machinery, 
 the Corn Substitution Act, the freedom of the trade for provision- 
 ing ships, the reduction of duties in the colonial possessions of the 
 Crown, the abolition of the system of naturalisation of goods, and 
 the Canadian Corn Act the last a measure of which we are not 
 yet, I think, in a condition to form any judgment from experi- 
 ence. All these, however, belong to the same policy in its dif- 
 ferent aspects : they must stand or fall with it, and I need not 
 prolong these already lengthened remarks by examining them in 
 detail. 
 
 Secondly, in exhibiting so many figures, and traversing a ground 
 so extensive, I am aware that even this prolonged statement must 
 be very incomplete ; and further, that besides omitting, in some 
 cases, what is material, I may even have advanced what is erro- 
 neous. If it be so I hope, and I do not doubt, there will be found 
 persons both able and willing to set me right ; but neither in esti- 
 mating relief to trade, nor surrender of revenue, nor the results of 
 the diminution of protective duties, have I in any instance 
 knowingly given a form or colour to my statement such as would 
 draw from it an undue advantage for my reasoning. I have 
 thought it necessary to state this, because in such matters figures 
 are an instrument of dangerous and tempting power ; and in order 
 to use them justly and fairly, there is need not only of a generally 
 honest intention, but of constant care in their application to par- 
 ticulars. 
 
 London, March 15, 1845. 
 
 London : Printed by WIT.WA.M CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street. 
 
 F 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 PLACE OF ANCIENT GEEECE 
 
 IN THE 
 
 PROVIDENTIAL ORDER OF THE WORLD: 
 
 DELIVERED BEFOEE THE UNIVERSITY OP EDINBURGH, 
 ON THE THIRD OP NOVEMBER, 1865. 
 
 EIGHT HON. W. B. GLADSTONE, M.P., 
 
 CHANCELLOR OP THE EXCHEQUER, 
 AND FOREIGN ASSOCIATE OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 EDINBURGH: OLIVER AND BOYD. 
 1865. 
 
Lately Published, 
 
 MR. GLADSTONE'S FINANCIAL STATEMENTS of the years 1853, 
 '60, '63, and '64. With Speeches on Tax-Bills, 1861, and Charities, 1863. 
 Second Edition. 8v r o. 12s. 
 
 The following can be had separately, 
 
 FINANCIAL STATEMENT, 1863, 1864 & 1865. 2s. each. 
 SPEECH ON CUSTOMS & INLAND REVENUE BILL, 1861. Is. 
 CHARITIES, 1863. Is. 
 EXTENSION OF SUFFRAGE IN TOWNS. Is. 
 
 WEDGWOOD THE POTTER : AN ADDRESS. Is. ; or with Woodcuts, 
 2t. 
 
 ADDRESS AND SPEECHES AT MANCHESTER, 1862. Is. 6d. 
 
 LETTERS TO LORD ABERDEEN, on the State Prosecutions of 
 the Neapolitan Government. Is. 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED HI WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, 
 AND CHARING CKOSS. 
 
ADDRESS, 
 
 $c. fyc. 
 
 MR. VICE-CHANCELLOR, PROFESSORS, AND GENTLEMEN : 
 
 The subject on which I desire to address to 
 you my parting words, is, the place of ancient Greece 
 in the providential order of the world. 
 
 Even the pointed announcement of such a subject 
 may seem to partake of paradox. No one, indeed, 
 would think of denying that the people, who inha- 
 bited that little cluster of rugged mountains and of 
 narrow vales, played a part, and a great part, upon 
 the stage of history, and left a mark, not deep only, 
 but indelible, upon the character of the human race. 
 No one would deny that they have delivered to us bril- 
 liant examples of energy in action, and matchless pro- 
 ductions of the mind and hand, models in letters and 
 in art. Nor is there any doubt about the fact, that 
 Christian Europe has during many generations 
 assigned to Greece the largest share in the culti- 
 vation of the human mind. But this age, which 
 questions much, questions naturally enough the pro- 
 priety of the judgment, which has thus awarded her 
 the place of honour in the career of general educa- 
 tion. Her language, her history, her literature, and 
 her art, are regarded as the privileged delight and 
 separate entertainment of the few ; but there is no 
 
 B 2 
 
clear perception in the majority of minds, that all 
 these have entered deeply into the common interests 
 of mankind. Lastly, they are distinguished in so 
 broad a manner from the teaching of the Gospel, nay 
 in certain points and instances they are so much in 
 conflict with the spirit of the Evangelical code, that 
 there is a disposition to regard them as belonging 
 exclusively to the secular order, as well as to the 
 secondary, and if I may so speak ornamental, interests 
 of life. To its secondary interests, because Greece 
 does not propose to teach us how to choose a pro- 
 fession, or to make way in the world : 
 
 o-' 01 pvdpol irpbs roX^)ira ; " " 
 
 To the secular order, because it is beyond doubt 
 that we cannot obtain from her the lessons of true 
 religion. Nay, she has sometimes almost assumed 
 the attitude of its rival ; for both the period of the 
 revival of learning, and also more modern times, 
 have supplied signal instances, in which her fascina- 
 tions have well-nigh persuaded men of genius or of 
 letters, Christian-born, to desert their allegiance to 
 their faith, and endeavour to revive for themselves, 
 at least in the region of the fancy, the worship once 
 in use at her long-abandoned shrines. 
 
 Other reasons besides these have produced a 
 practical indisposition to regard ancient Greece as 
 having had a distinct, assignable, and most important 
 place in the providential government of the world. 
 Something that may be called religionism, rather 
 
 * Aristoph. Nf<. v. 648. 
 
than religion, has led us for the most part not indeed 
 to deny in terms that God has been and is the God 
 and Father and Governor of the whole human race, 
 as well as of Jews and Christians, yet to think and 
 act as if His providential eye and care had been 
 confined in ancient times to the narrow valley of 
 Jerusalem, and since the Advent to the Christian 
 pale, or even to something which, enforcing some 
 yet narrower limitation at our own arbitrary will, 
 we think fit to call such. But surely He, who cared 
 for the sixscore thousand persons in ancient Nineveh 
 that could not distinguish between their right hand 
 and their left, He without whom not a sparrow falls, 
 He that shapes, in its minutest detail, even the 
 inanimate world, and clothes the lily of the field 
 with its beauty and its grace, He never forgot those 
 sheep of His in the wilderness, but as, on the one 
 hand, He solicited them, and bore witness to them of 
 Himself, by never-ceasing bounty and by the law 
 written in their hearts, so on the other hand in 
 unseen modes He used them, as He is always using 
 us, for either the willing, or if not the willing, then 
 the unconscious or unwilling, furtherance and accom- 
 plishment of His designs. The real paradox then 
 would be not to assert, but to deny or even to 
 overlook, the part which may have been assigned 
 to any race, and especially to a race of such unrivalled 
 gifts, in that great and all-embracing plan for the 
 rearing and training of the human children of our 
 Father in heaven, which we call the Providential 
 Government of the world. 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 Such preparation, ascertained and established upon 
 the solid ground of fact, may be termed prophecy in 
 action ; and is, if possible, yet stronger for the con- 
 firmation of belief, and yet more sublime in aspect as 
 an illustration of Almighty greatness, than prophecy 
 in word. 
 
 But in this Providential government there are 
 diversities of operations. In this great house * there 
 are vessels of gold and silver, vessels of wood and earth. 
 In the sphere of common experience we see some 
 human beings live and die, and furnish by their life 
 no special lessons visible to man, but only that general 
 teaching, in elementary and simple forms, which is 
 derivable from every particle of human experience. 
 Others there have been who, from the time when 
 their young lives first, as it were, peeped over the 
 horizon, seemed at once to 
 
 " Flame in the forehead of the morning sky ;" f 
 
 whose lengthening years have been but one growing- 
 splendour, and at the last who 
 
 " leave a lofty name, 
 A light, a landmark, on the cliffs of fame." J 
 
 Now, it is not in the general, the ordinary, the 
 elementary way, but it is in a high and special sense, 
 that I claim for ancient Greece a marked, appro- 
 priated, distinctive place in the Providential order of 
 the world. And I will set about explaining what I 
 mean. 
 
 I presume that all philosophy, claiming to be 
 
 * 2 Tim. ii. 20. f Lycidas. $ Moore. 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 Christian, regards the history of our race, from its 
 earliest records down to the Incarnation and Advent 
 of our Lord, as a preparation for that transcendent 
 event, on which were to be hung thereafter the 
 destinies of our race. 
 
 Let us, however, examine more particularly that 
 opinion which has prevailed in the world, sometimes 
 sustained by argument, oftener by sufferance, some- 
 times lurking underground, and sometimes embold- 
 ened to assert itself in the face of day, that although 
 the Divine care extends in a general way to all men, 
 yet we are to look for this preparation, at least for 
 the positive parts of it, nowhere except in the pages 
 of the Old Testament, and in the history and tradi- 
 tions of the Patriarchs and the Jews. This opinion 
 has what some of our fathers would have termed " a 
 face of piety :" it has undoubtedly been held by pious 
 persons, and urged in what are termed the interests 
 of religion. But that face I am persuaded is a face 
 only, a mask which ought to be stripped off, as it 
 hides the reality from our view. 
 
 According to this theory, we are to consider the 
 line of the patriarchs and the descendants of Abra- 
 ham as exclusively the objects of any Divine dispen- 
 sation which, operating in the times before the 
 Advent, is to be reckoned as part of the preparation 
 for the great event. To them we are to look as the 
 guardians of all human excellence in all its infinite 
 varieties ; and when we seem to find it elsewhere, we 
 are either to treat the phenomenon as spurious, or 
 else, believing without sight, we are to consider it as 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 derived, through some hidden channel, from the stores 
 communicated by Divine revelation to the favoured 
 race. This theory found perhaps its fullest, nay 
 even its most properly fanatical, development in the 
 6 Paradise Regained ' of Milton. There the works of 
 the Greek intellect and imagination are depreciated 
 in a strain of the utmost extravagance ; and, what is 
 worse, the extravagance is made to proceed from 
 those Divine lips, all whose words were weighed and 
 measured in the exactest balances and lines of truth. 
 First, the proposition is advanced by the poet that 
 divine inspiration precludes the need of any other 
 knowledge, even " though granted true : " " but 
 these," so proceeds the speech 
 
 " But these are false, or little else hut dreams, 
 Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm." 
 
 The Greek philosophers are dismissed, as a body, 
 with wholesale condemnation : while Homer and 
 the tragedians are stated, with a gravity in itself 
 wonderful enough, to have learned the art of poetry 
 from the Jews : 
 
 " All our law and story strewed 
 
 With hymns, our psalms with artful terms inscribed, 
 Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon 
 That pleased so well our victors' ear, declare 
 That rather Greece from us these arts derived." 
 
 The orators are set to compete with the Hebrew 
 prophets : 
 
 " Herein to our prophets far beneath 
 As men divinely taught, and better teaching 
 The solid rules of civil government." * 
 
 A competition this, which would probably have 
 
 * Paradise Eegained,' Book iv. 291, 334, 356. 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 caused the greatest astonishment to those to whom 
 the prize in it is awarded. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how Milton's genius 
 could have prompted him thus to pit against one 
 another things really, in the main, incommensurable ; 
 or how his learning, which must have made him 
 acquainted with the Greek philosophy, could have 
 failed to impress him with the belief that men like 
 Aristotle and Plato were earnest seekers after truth. 
 
 Warburton observes upon these passages, that 
 they were in accordance with the fashion of the 
 time. And it appears that, especially in the later 
 years of Milton's life, there were a number of learned 
 men, English and foreign, such as Bochart, Huet, 
 Voss, Gale, and Bogan, who busied themselves in 
 showing correspondences between the Hebrew and 
 the Pagan traditions, and who in some instances, 
 particularly that of Huet, Bishop of Avranches, 
 pushed their undertaking into undue and fanciful 
 detail. But I have not found that they propounded 
 any doctrine in reference to the derivation of heathen 
 literature from Jewish sources, either to the sweep- 
 ing extent, or in the cynical spirit, of the ' Paradise 
 Regained.' Their object appears to have been a 
 different one, namely, to fortify the historical credit 
 of the sacred records by tracing elsewhere matter 
 essentially corresponding with their contents ; either 
 as clothed in contemporary disguises, or as flowing 
 from a common fountain-head. 
 
 In truth, the seed-plot of this peculiar learning 
 belongs to a much earlier and a more interesting 
 
and important literature. Paganism, which had been 
 for the two greatest races of the ancient world in 
 their infancy a creed, and in their riper age a pro- 
 fession, did not, when assailed by the victorious 
 advance of Christianity, retire from the intellectual 
 battle-field without a desperate struggle, carried on 
 in its behalf with all the resources of powerful and 
 subtle intellects. As a revelation of the designs of 
 God for the recovery and moral renovation of man- 
 kind, the Gospel was not unfairly required to give 
 an account, not only of itself, but of everything else 
 in the world that preceded or opposed it. The 
 Pagan system, if it had nothing else, had at least 
 one important advantage in the controversy. It 
 represented a continuous unbroken tradition, dating 
 from beyond the memory of man : it had come down 
 from father to son through more than a hundred 
 generations with an ostensible sameness and a very 
 widely-extended sway ; and none could name the 
 day when, in the two far-famed peninsulas that had 
 given the breath of life to the ancient world, it did 
 not exist and prevail. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it was most difficult for 
 the Christian apologists to admit that there lay in 
 the old religions of the world, and particularly in the 
 Greek or the Latin mythology, any nucleus or germ 
 of the primeval truth. For the logical consequence 
 of such an admission might have seemed to be that 
 they should not sweep the old religion off the face of 
 the earth, but endeavour to reduce it to some imagined 
 standard of its purer infancy : that they should not 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 destroy it, but reform it : whereas, on the contrary, 
 their purpose was, and could not but be, not to 
 reform but to destroy. They met, then, the'traditional 
 claims of Paganism by taking their stand upon the 
 purer, clearer, and still older tradition of the Hebrews. 
 They parried the negative value in argument of an 
 undefined antiquity with the positive record of the 
 creation of the world, and with the sublime exordium 
 of the human race, propagated in a definite line from 
 man to man, down to the firm ground of historic 
 times. So far so good. But still they were obstinately 
 confronted by a system conterminous both in space 
 and in duration with the civilised world, and^able, 
 too, to say of itself, with some apparent truth, that 
 when civilisation and culture themselves began they 
 did not make or bring it, but found it on the ground 
 before them. Thus upon the merely historic field 
 the battle might have looked, to the ordinary spec- 
 tator, like a drawn one ; while it seemed needful for 
 the dignity and high origin of the new religion to 
 conquer not at one point but at all. Hence perhaps 
 the tendency of the Christian apologists, in uncon- 
 scious obedience to the exigencies of controversy, 
 after they had proved by reasoning the truth and 
 authority of the Gospel, and had smitten their enemy, 
 as they did smite him, to the dust, by their moral 
 arguments against Paganism, to accelerate its end, 
 and to demolish the very last of its seeming titles, 
 its antiquity of origin, by refusing to affiliate any 
 part or parcel of it, at any point of time, to the stock 
 of a primeval religion, and by contending that so 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 much of truth as was scattered through the rolls 
 of its literature had been filtered in detail through 
 successive media, from Greece to Rome, from Egypt 
 to Greece, but was ultimately to be traced in every 
 case to the ancient people of God, and to the records 
 and traditions which had had an historical existence 
 among them. 
 
 I turn now to the remarkable work of Eusebius, 
 commonly called the ' Prseparatio Evangelica.' In 
 that work he sets forth the moral impurity, im- 
 becility, impiety, and falseness of the Pagan system. 
 He contrasts with it the marvellous prerogatives of 
 the older Scriptures. In what lies beyond this 
 province, he is not so injudicious as to depreciate 
 the intellectual development of the Hellenic race, 
 alike original and vast. But, he says they learned, 
 in its elementary form, the u superstitious error " of 
 their religion, which by their own genius they 
 afterwards recast and adorned,* from Egyptian, 
 Phoenician, and other foreign sources : but their 
 glimpses of the Godhead, and whatever they had 
 of instruction for the soul's health, they obtained, 
 by importation mediate or immediate, from the 
 Hebrews only, except in as far as it was supplied 
 them by the light of nature. f 
 
 The question here arises, if the Hellenic race got 
 their religion from Phoenicia and Egypt, from whence 
 did Egypt and Phoenicia obtain it ? And here it is 
 that we come upon the chief error into which Eusebius 
 
 * Note I. 
 
 t Note II. 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 was led by the controversial exigencies of his posi- 
 tion. He treats the religions of the world as having 
 been purely and wholly, even in their first beginnings, 
 errors and inventions of the human mind, without 
 any trace or manner of relationship to that Divine 
 truth which, as he truly tells us, had been imparted 
 to the Hebrews long before the days of Moses and 
 the composition of the Pentateuch. According to 
 him, the old religions were made up of worships 
 offered to the heavenly bodies, to the powers of 
 nature, to the spirits of departed men, to useful or 
 important arts and inventions, and to the demonic 
 race in its two families of the good and the evil. 
 
 He admits, in every part of his work, that he 
 appears in the arena to maintain and justify the 
 Christians as the authors of a schism in the religious 
 world ; and this admission it is, which, by the nature 
 of his propositions and his argument, he converts 
 into a boast. 
 
 The view taken by Eusebius was I apprehend that 
 generally taken by the Christian apologists. Saint 
 Clement of Alexandria* not only denies the origin- 
 ality of the Greeks in what they possessed of truth, 
 but treats as a theft their appropriation of Hebrew 
 ideas :f and fancifully, I might say whimsically, 
 supports the charge by instances of plagiarism perpe- 
 trated by one Greek author on another. Justin 
 Martyr J allows no higher parentage to the Greek 
 mythology than the poets, who were bad enough, or, 
 
 * Strom. B. vi. p. 618, ed. Col. 1688. f Note III. 
 
 J Cohortatio ad Graces, 43, 51, 52. 
 
still worse as he says, the philosophers. Lactantius* 
 ascribes to fallen angels, or daemons, the invention 
 of image-worship. Theophilusf affirms that the gods 
 of the heathen were dead men : Lactantius, J that they 
 were reges maximi et potentissimi. But time does not 
 permit and the argument does not require me to 
 pursue this part of the subject into greater detail.^ 
 Suffice it to say that the early Christian writers, not 
 the narrow-minded men that many take them for, did 
 not deny or disparage the intellectual prodigies of 
 the great heathen races, of those marvellous philoso- 
 phers as Eusebius often calls them, that Plato so 
 eminently commended by his intellectual debtor the 
 great Saint Augustine :|| nor did they make light of 
 the voice of nature in the soul of man, nor of the 
 Divine Government over the whole world at every 
 period of its existence, nor of the truths to be found 
 in ancient writers. But the defiled and putrescent 
 system of religion which they found confronting 
 them, formidable as it was from antiquity, wide 
 extension, general consent, from the strength of habit, 
 and from the tenacious grasp of powerful interests 
 upon temporal possessions and advantages, this evil 
 system they hunted down in argument without 
 mercy, and did not admit to be an historical and 
 traditional derivation from a primeval truth, which 
 the common ancestry of the Semitic and the European 
 races had once in common enjoyed. 
 
 * Div. Inst. ii. 16. f Ad Autol. i. p. 75, A. 
 
 J Div. Inst. i. 8. Note IV. 
 
 || De Civ. Dei, viii. 4, and Contra Acad. iii. 37. 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 It can hardly be said that there was intentional 
 unfairness in this proceeding. The Christian writers 
 laboured under the same defect of critical knowledge 
 and practice with their adversaries. They took the 
 lives, deeds, and genealogies of the heathen deities, 
 just as they found them in the popular creed, for the 
 starting-points of their argument. Their immediate 
 business was to confute a false religion, and to sweep 
 from the face of the world a crying and incurable 
 moral evil : not to construct an universal philosophy 
 of the religious history of man ; for which the time 
 had not then, and perhaps has not yet, arrived. But 
 we have new sources of knowledge, new means of 
 detecting error and guiding inquiry, new points of 
 view open to us : and the more freely and faithfully we 
 use them the more we shall find cause to own, with 
 reverence and thankfulness, the depth, and height, 
 and breadth of the wisdom and goodness of Grod. 
 
 Meantime, it is easy to perceive the polemical advan- 
 tage which was obtained by this unsparing manner of 
 attack. He brought the case straight to issue, not be- 
 tween differently shaded images of a Deity confessedly 
 the same, with their respective champions ready to 
 uphold their several claims amidst the din of con- 
 tending preferences and of interminable dispute, but, 
 taking his stand on the threshold of the argument, 
 and like a soldier in fight disencumbering himself 
 of all detail, between the God of the Hebrews on the 
 one side, worshipped from the beginning of mankind, 
 and pretended gods on the other, which could render 
 no distinct account of their origin, and were in truth 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 . 
 
 no gods at all. And, to estimate the greatness of this 
 advantage, we must take into view the nature of the 
 adverse arguments. The Pagan champions did not 
 too much embarrass themselves by defending the 
 popular forms and fables of the old religion. Perhaps, 
 to the credulous villager, the religion of Porphyry 
 might have been as unintelligible or as odious as that 
 of St. Paul. All these incumbrances were at once 
 disposed of by being treated on the Pagan side as 
 allegorical, figurative, secondary manifestations of the 
 true Deity, or even as having been in many cases 
 due to the intrusive and mischievous activity of the 
 spirits of evil. The Pagan champion, then, was him- 
 self contending, not for the forms, but for the one great 
 unseen Deity, which, driven to his shifts, he affirmed 
 to lie hid within the forms. To admit, under circum- 
 stances like these, that any principle of inward life, 
 under whatever incrustations, was latent in the my- 
 thology as it lay before their eyes, would have been 
 to betray the truth. And any seeming approach to 
 that admission, such as allowing that that foul and 
 loathsome corpse had once been alive in youthful 
 health and beauty, might have sorely hindered and 
 perplexed the Christian argument on its way to the 
 general mind. 
 
 As respects the religious ideas of the Greeks, 
 properly so called, and their philosophic tenets, the 
 scholars of the seventeenth century seem to have 
 occupied much the same ground with Eusebius and 
 the early Christian writers. But as respected their 
 mythological personages, not having the Pagans to 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 argue with, they had no prejudices against finding for 
 them a lineage in Scripture. I am not competent to 
 determine how far in the prosecution of their task 
 they went into excess. But those who admit the truth 
 of the Sacred Eecords, must surely decline to say that 
 they were wrong in principle. We are not called 
 upon to believe that Neptune was Japhet, or that 
 Iphigenia was Jepththa's daughter ; or that Deucalion 
 was Noah, or that Bellerophon was really Joseph in 
 the house of Potiphar, notwithstanding certain resem- 
 blances of circumstances by which these and some 
 other such cases are marked. But if we believe in 
 the substantial soundness of the text of Scripture and 
 in the substantial truth of its history, we must then 
 also believe that the Hamitic and Japhetic races, as 
 they in their successive branches set out upon their 
 long migrations, brought with them, from the early 
 home which they had shared with the sons of Shem, 
 the common religious traditions. They could not but 
 go, as ^Eneas is fabled to have gone from Troy 
 
 " Cum patribus populoque, Penatibus, ac magnis Dis." * 
 
 But if there be those who would strangely forbid us 
 to appeal to what may be called, by the most modest 
 of its august titles, the oldest and most venerable 
 document of human history, the argument still remains 
 much the same. The progress of ethnological and 
 philological research still supplies us with accumu- 
 lating evidence of the chain of migrations, north and 
 westwards, of the Turanian, and especially of the Aryan 
 races, from points necessarily undefined but in close 
 
 * Mn. viii. 679. 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 proximity with the seats of the patriarchal nomads ; 
 and has not supplied us with any evidence, or with 
 any presumption whatever, that their known traditions 
 sprang from any fountainhead other than that which 
 is described in the Book of Genesis as the three- 
 branching family of Noah. If, then, upon this ground, 
 there is, to say the least, nothing to exclude or to 
 disparage, but so much to support, the doctrine of 
 the original intercommunion of these races with the 
 Semitic tribes, which could not but include religion, 
 the question recurs in all its force, how was it even 
 possible that they could leave behind them their 
 religious traditions upon the occasion of their first 
 local separation from their parent stock ? They did 
 not surely, like the souls in transmigration,* drink of 
 the river of forgetfulness, and raze out from the 
 tablets of the brain, as a preparation for their journey, 
 all they had ever known, or heard, or felt. The 
 obscuration and degeneracy of religious systems is 
 commonly indeed a rapid, but is necessarily a gradual 
 process. Nemo repente fuit turpissimus ; and no tribe 
 or nation passes either from light to darkness, or from 
 the possession of a religious belief to the loss of it, at 
 a moment's notice. 
 
 It was therefore antecedently probable that, in 
 examining the actual religious systems of later times, 
 and of countries at a distance from the earliest known 
 seat of mankind, but connected with it by the great 
 current of human migration, we should find remaining 
 tokens of affinity to any religious system, which upon 
 
 * Plat, de Rep. B. x. 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 competent evidence we might believe to have prevailed 
 among the races most closely and directly connected 
 with that seat. And this antecedent probability is 
 sustained by a mass of evidence running through the 
 whole web of the Hellenic mythology, obscure indeed 
 in its latest and most darkened ages, but continually 
 gaining in force and clearness as we ascend the stream 
 of time, and so strong in itself as to be, I am firmly 
 persuaded, incapable of argumentative confutation. 
 
 To collect and present this mass of evidence, with 
 a careful and strict appreciation of the respective 
 value of its parts, is a work not to be attempted 
 within the limits, however extended by your indul- 
 gence, of what is termed an Address. But I will 
 now endeavour to bring to a head what has been 
 stated, and to apply it to the purpose which I 
 announced at the commencement. 
 
 I submit then to you, that the true Prceparatio 
 Evangelica, or the rearing and training of mankind 
 for the Gospel, was not confined to that eminent and 
 conspicuous part of it, which is represented by the 
 dispensations given to the Patriarchs and the Jews, 
 but extends likewise to other fields of human history 
 and experience ; among which, in modes, and in 
 degrees, varyingly perceptible to us, the Almighty 
 distributed the operations preliminary and introduc- 
 tory to His one great, surpassing, and central design 
 for the recovery and happiness of mankind. So that, 
 in their several spheres, some positive, some negative, 
 some spiritual, some secular, with a partial conscious- 
 ness, or with an absolute unconsciousness, all were 
 
 c 2 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 co-operators in working out His will ; under a guidance 
 strong, and subtle, and the more sublime, perhaps, in 
 proportion as it was the less sensible. 
 
 In the body of those traditions of primitive religion 
 which are handed down to us in the Book of Genesis, 
 and which I shall make no further apology for treat- 
 ing as records of great historic weight, there was 
 manifestly included what I may term an humanistic 
 element. It was embodied in the few but pregnant 
 words which declared that the seed of the woman 
 should bruise the serpent's head.* The principle of 
 evil was to receive a deadly shock in its vital part, 
 and this at the hands of One who should be born 
 into the very race that He would come to deliver. 
 
 The next observation I would submit is this : that 
 there was no provision made, so far as we are aware, 
 at any rate in the Mosaic system, for keeping alive 
 this particular element of the original traditions, 
 otherwise than as an anticipation reaching into the 
 far distant future. On the contrary, every pre- 
 caution was apparently taken to prevent any human 
 being, or any human form, from becoming the object 
 of a religious reverence. To this aim the abstraction 
 of the body of Moses f from the view of the people 
 seems to be most naturally referred : and the strin- 
 gent prohibitions of the Second Commandment of the 
 Decalogue appear to have been especially pointed 
 against the execution by human hands of the figure 
 of a man. For we hear in Holy Writ of the serpent J 
 
 * Gen. iii. 15. f Dent, xxxiv. 5, 6. 
 
 J Num. xxi. 8, 9 ; John iii. 14. 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 made by Moses and exhibited to the nation : and the 
 brazen sea of the Temple * rested upon twelve brazen 
 oxen. There were cherubim in the Ark framed by 
 Moses ;f and " cherubim of image- work " were made 
 by Solomon for the Temple :{ but they were not, it 
 is commonly believed, in human figure : and the four 
 living creatures of the vision of Ezekiel had each the 
 mixed character of man, lion, ox, and eagle. 
 
 And it would appear, that these measures were 
 effectual. Ready as were the Jews to worship the 
 serpent or the golden calf, their idolatry never was 
 anthropomorphic. The majesty of the Deity was thus 
 kept, in the belief of the Hebrew race, effectually 
 apart from that one form of lowering association, 
 which, as we see from the experience of Paganism, 
 was by far the subtlest, the most attractive, and the 
 most enchaining. A pure Theistic system was main- 
 tained : a redemption to come was embraced in faith : 
 and, in a religion laden with ritual, and charged with 
 symbol, no rite, no symbol, was permitted to exhibit 
 to the senses, and through the senses to the mind, of 
 the people, the form of Him that was to be the worker 
 of the great deliverance. Thus was kept vacant until 
 the appointed time, in the general belief as well as in 
 the scheme or theory of religion, the sublime and soli- 
 tary place which the Redeemer of the world was to fill. 
 Counterfeits there were, but they had not that dan- 
 gerous resemblance to the truth, which would enable 
 them to make head against the Messiah when He 
 
 * 2 Chron. iv. 2-5. f Exod - xxv - !7. t 2 Chron. iii. 10. 
 Ezek. i. 5-10. 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 should arrive. And so, after He had come, His only 
 rivals and competitors in Judaea were conceptions, 
 distorted in the abstract, of His character and office ; 
 far different from those solid formations of an embo- 
 died and organised religion, whose dangerous contact 
 the Gospel had not to encounter, until the life and 
 work of its author, and the foundation of the Christian 
 society with all its essential powers, were complete. 
 
 Let us now turn to the religion of the Hellenic 
 race ; and we shall find that, as matter of fact, it 
 appropriated to itself, and was intensely permeated 
 by, that very anthropomorphic * element which the 
 Mosaic system was so especially framed to exclude, 
 and to which the other religions of antiquity gave, 
 in comparison, but a doubtful and secondary place. 
 
 If I am asked to point out a link which espe- 
 cially associates the early Greek mythology with 
 the humanistic element of primitive tradition, I ven- 
 ture to name the character of Apollo as pre-eminently 
 supplying such a link. He is born of Zeus, but he is 
 not born of Here. Through him the divine counsels 
 are revealed to the world as the God of prophecy and 
 of oracle. This lamp of knowledge, burning in him, 
 establishes an affinity between him and the sun ; but 
 the anthropomorphic energy of the religion is jealous 
 of the absorption of Deity into mere nature-power. 
 At what period the identification of Apollo with the 
 sun took place in the Hellenic system, we cannot say ; 
 but this we know, that it had not taken place in the 
 
 * Note V. 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 time of Homer, with whom Apollo and the Sun are 
 perfectly distinct individuals. To him is assigned 
 the healing art, and the general office of deliverance. 
 To him again, who remains to the last the perfect 
 model of masculine beauty in the human form, is 
 assigned by tradition the conquest alike over Death 
 and over the might of the rebellious spirits. In his 
 hands we find functions of such rank and such range, 
 that we cannot understand how they could pass to 
 him from Zeus the supreme deity, until we remember 
 that they are the very functions assigned by a more real 
 and higher system to the Son of God ; the true In- 
 structor, Healer, Deliverer, Judge, and Conqueror of 
 Death, in whom the power and majesty of the God- 
 head were set forth to the world.* 
 
 The character of this deity, whom Eusebius calls 
 " the most venerable and the wisest " f of the whole 
 Olympian order, affords, in my opinion, the most 
 complete and varied proof of the traditional relation- 
 ship to which I now refer. Abundant evidence, 
 however, of the same character, might be adduced 
 under many other heads. But I do not refer to this 
 weighty subject at present with a view of leading you 
 to affirm the existence of such a relationship: that 
 could not legitimately be done, except upon a scrutiny, 
 both deliberate and minute, of a great mass of evi- 
 dence, gathered from many quarters, and dependent 
 for much of its force upon careful comparison and 
 juxta-position. I now advert to the question only as 
 
 * Note VI. f Prep. Evang. iv. 17. 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 casting light upon matter which will follow. What 
 I take, however, to be indisputable, apart from all 
 theorising upon causes, is this fact that the Hellenic 
 mythology is charged throughout with the humanistic 
 element, in a manner clearly and broadly separating 
 it from the other religions of the ancient world. It 
 has anthropomorphism for the soul and centre of 
 all that is distinctive in it ; and that peculiar quality 
 seems to enter, more or less, into the religion of other 
 tribes nearly in proportion as they were related to the 
 Hellenic race. 
 
 Let us now shortly contemplate that mythology, 
 such as it appears in the works of Homer, its prime 
 and most conspicuous author, and himself the true 
 representative of the purely Hellenic spirit in its 
 largest and most authentic form. 
 
 The theology of Homer is variously composed. He 
 seems to have lived at the critical moment in the 
 history of the Hellenic, or, as they were then called, 
 Achaian families or tribes, when the different ethnical 
 elements or factors with which they were to assi- 
 milate Pelasgic, Ionian, Egyptian, Phoenician, and 
 the like settled down and compounded themselves 
 into the firmly-knit and sharply -defined character of 
 a people, and they were no longer a chaotic assem- 
 blage of unassorted or even conflicting units, but as a 
 people were born into that world on whose fortunes 
 they were to exercise an influence almost immea- 
 surable. 
 
 The theology of Homer is the Olympian system ; 
 and that system exhibits a kind of royal or palace-life 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 of man,* but on the one hand more splendid and 
 powerful, on the other more intense and free. It is a 
 wonderful and a gorgeous creation. It is eminently 
 in accordance with the signification of that English 
 epithet rather a favourite apparently with our old 
 writers the epithet jovial^ which is derived from the 
 Latin name of its head. It is a life of all the plea- 
 sures of mind and body, of banquet and of revel, 
 of music and of song; a life in which solemn gran- 
 deur alternates with jest and gibe ; a life of childish 
 wilfulness and fretfulness, combined with serious, 
 manly, and imperial cares ; for the Olympus of 
 Homer has at least this one recommendation to esteem, 
 that it is not peopled with the merely lazy and 
 selfish gods of Epicurus, but its inhabitants busily 
 deliberate on the government of man, and in their 
 debates the cause of justice wins. I do not now, 
 however, discuss the moral titles of the Olympian 
 scheme ; what I dwell upon is, its intense humanity, 
 alike in its greatness and its littleness, its glory and 
 its shame. 
 
 As the cares and joys of human life, so the structure 
 of society below is reflected, by the wayward wit of 
 man, on heaven above. Though the names and 
 fundamental traditions of the several deities were 
 wholly or in great part imported from abroad, their 
 characters, relations, and attributes passed under a 
 Hellenising process, which gradually marked off for 
 them special provinces and functions, according to 
 laws which appear to have been mainly original and 
 
 * Grote's ' History of Greece,' vol. i. pp. 4 seqq. and 462 seqq. 
 f Note VII. 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 indigenous, and to have been taken by analogy from 
 the division of labour in political society. As early 
 as in Homer, while the prerogatives of Apollo and 
 Athene are almost universal, yet the Olympian society 
 has its complement of officers and servants with their 
 proper functions. Hephaistos moulds the twenty 
 golden thrones which move automatically to form the 
 circle of the council of the gods ; and builds for each 
 of his brother deities their separate palaces in the deep- 
 folded recesses of the mighty mountain. Music and 
 song are supplied by Apollo and the Muses: Gany- 
 mede and Hebe are the cup-bearers : Hermes and Iris 
 are the messengers : but Themis, in whom is imper- 
 sonated the idea of deliberation and of relative rights, 
 is the summoner of the /rcn-aA-X^om * or Great As- 
 sembly of the Twentieth Iliad, when the great issue of 
 the war is to be determined. Nothing nearer this on 
 earth has perhaps been bodied forth by the imagina- 
 tion of later poets than the scene, in which Schiller 
 has described the coronation of Eodolph of Hapsburg, 
 with the Electors of the Empire discharging their 
 several offices around him : I quote from the only 
 translation within my reach : 
 
 " The ancient hall of Aix was bright : 
 
 The coronation-board beside 
 Sate king Rodolph's anointed might, 
 
 In Kaiser's pomp and pride : 
 His meat was served by the Palatine, 
 Bohemia poured the sparkling wine ; 
 
 The seven Electors every one 
 Stood, fast about the wide-world's king, 
 Each his high function following, 
 
 Like the planets round the sun." 
 
 Note VIII. 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 But a still deeper trace of humanitarianism lay in 
 the transportation of the family order into heaven. 
 Only the faintest rudiment of such a system could 
 have been drawn from Semitic sources ; but it was 
 carried by the Hellenes to its furthest consequences, 
 and used for the basis of their supernatural structure. 
 The old Pelasgian deities of the country, the impor- 
 tations from Thrace, Phoenicia, Egypt, or elsewhere, 
 and the traditions proper to the Hellenic tribes them- 
 selves, were all marshalled and adjusted in a scheme 
 formed according to the domestic relations familiar 
 to us on earth. The Nature-powers of the older 
 worship received the honorary distinction of being 
 made parents and grand or great-grand sires to the 
 ruling dynasty ; but, while thus tricked out with 
 barren dignity, they were deprived of all active 
 functions, and relegated into practical insignificance. 
 Still the very arrangements, which are anomalous in 
 the abstract, testify to the strength of that anthro- 
 pomorphic principle, to which they owed their recog- 
 nition. For the elder deities were not the more 
 powerful ; and parents were supplanted by their sons. 
 Oceanus the sire of the whole family, and Tethys 
 their mother, have for practical purposes no power 
 or place in the Olympian system. They exercise no 
 influence whatever on the life or destinies of man. 
 As the mere representations of certain physical 
 forces, they were ejected from their old supremacy 
 by the more aspiring and truer tendencies of the 
 first Hellenic creed ; but that same creed, still copy- 
 ing earth in heaven, found for them a place, as the 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 decrepit and superannuated members of the system, 
 who had passed from the exercise of sovereignty into 
 retirement, like Laertes * on his rural farm in Ithaca. 
 More or less of the same domestic structure is ascribed 
 without doubt to the theogonies of some other 
 countries ; but our accounts of them may have been 
 influenced by Greek sympathies, and besides I am 
 not aware that in any of them the domestic theory 
 was worked out with the same genial feeling, and 
 almost universal consistency. 
 
 In one respect indeed, at the least, there was a 
 conflict of contending sentiments. The early Hellenes 
 seem to have had a peculiar horror of incestuous 
 connection. But the notion of unity of descent 
 among the gods excluded the possibility of arranging 
 them in the family order except by nuptial relation- 
 ships which, upon earth and for themselves, Greeks 
 would have abhorred. The strong repugnance gave 
 way under the bidding of a necessity yet stronger : 
 their profound sense of the natural order was less 
 disturbed by having Zeus a polygamist, with his sister 
 for his principal wife, than it would have been by 
 abandoning that scheme of propagation from parent 
 to child upon which the whole Olympian hierarchy 
 was arranged. The acknowledgment of what was 
 forbidden on earth as established in heaven repre- 
 sents, in all likelihood, the concessions which were 
 necessary in order to prevent a breach in the frame- 
 work of the popular creed, and to weld into one 
 system elements that belonged to many. 
 
 * Odyss. xxiv., 205 seqq. 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 The materials for the old religions, outside of 
 Greece and the Greek races, were in great part 
 afforded first by the worship of nature, and secondly 
 by the worship of animals. Both of these the early 
 Hellenic system steadily rejected and eschewed ; and 
 their religion took its stand upon the idea, which 
 inseparably incorporated deity in the matchless human 
 form. This, and much besides, obscured in the later 
 and more mixed traditions, stands out clearly in the 
 earliest records of the Greeks. The ' Theogony ' of 
 Hesiod, which must be regarded as a work of very 
 great antiquity, exhibits to us the elemental and the 
 Olympian gods in groups clearly enough distin- 
 guished. The poems of Homer, far more Hellenic in 
 their spirit, may be said to exclude and repel from the 
 sacred precinct alike the heavenly bodies and the 
 elemental powers. The plague in the first Iliad 
 bears evident marks of solar agency : but, without the 
 least allusion to that luminary, it is ascribed to Apollo 
 in one of the noblest anthropomorphic passages of the 
 poems. The Sun * only once appears as a person in 
 the Iliad, when he reluctantly obeys the command of 
 Here that by setting he shall end the day, which was 
 the last day of Trojan success ; thus indicating the 
 side to which, as an elemental deity, he inclined. 
 Again, Xanthos, a river god, appears in the Theo- 
 machy : but he appears on the side of Troy ; and he 
 seems also to have had one name as a deity with the 
 Trojans,f another with the Greeks or Achaians as a 
 
 * Note IX. f Note X. 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 stream. When Agamemnon offers solemn sacrifice 
 for his army only, he invokes Zeus alone, and 
 invokes him as dwelling in the sky.* But when he 
 offers the joint sacrifice of the two parties in the 
 Third Book, then he invokes Zeus as governing from 
 the hill of Ida, which was in his view, and invokes 
 with him the Sun, the Earth, and the Eivers.f The 
 Rivers are summoned to the Olympian assembly of 
 the Twentieth Book ; but it is .an assembly in which 
 the gods are to take their several sides. It is a mis- 
 take to suppose that Poseidon was an elemental god : 
 he was the patron of the sea, as he was of the horse, 
 but he was more the god of navigation than of water. 
 The sea had its elemental god, the hoary Nereus, with 
 Amphitrite seemingly for his wife ; but Amphi trite 
 is always the moaning Amphitrite, and Nereus never 
 emerges from the depths ; nor, though he is fre- 
 quently referred to, is he ever named on the Hellenic 
 page of Homer.J I turn to another head. 
 
 Loath on the one side to admit the imposing ele- 
 ments of Nature-worship on the grand scale, the 
 Olympian system is yet more alien to the other 
 favourite form of religious illusion, the worship offered 
 to animals, and particularly to the ox ; of which 
 Egypt seems to have been the head-quarters. In the 
 full exhibition, which the poems of Homer afford us, 
 of the religion in its earlier forms, there is not a trace 
 of animal worship. In the Odyssey, indeed, an awful 
 and mystic sacredness attaches to the Oxen of the 
 
 * II. ii. 412. f II. iii. J Note XI. ;~ 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 Sun. In the island of Thrinakie, detained by ad- 
 verse winds, the companions of Odysseus are warned 
 that under no extremity should they supply their 
 wants by the destruction of these animals. Accord- 
 ingly they resort to birds and fish, unusual food with 
 the Homeric Greeks ; they finally put some of the 
 animals to death, only to avoid dying themselves 
 by famine ; and for this offence the entire crew, 
 except Odysseus, who had not shared in it, are 
 drowned when next they take to sea. Now, although 
 there is no animal worship here, there is what may 
 be called animal sanctity ; but it is in connection 
 with a deity not even recognised at the time in the 
 Hellenic system ; and introduced as it is during the 
 voyage in remote parts, which must have been based 
 upon the tales of Phoenician mariners, it appears cer- 
 tainly to belong to the Phoenician circle of mythology. 
 And here we find an example of the manner in 
 which the immense plastic power of the Hellenic 
 mind dealt with foreign ideas of all kinds, so as to 
 make them its own. What their sculptors did with 
 the rude and formless art of Egypt, what their philo- 
 sophers did with the shreds of Eastern knowledge 
 picked up on their travels, their theology did with 
 the many and crude varieties of superstition, which 
 flowed in upon them from the numerous quarters 
 that furnished by sea and land immigrants for the 
 Hellenic peninsula. The old Pelasgian gods, not 
 rudely overthrown, but gently taken from their 
 pedestals, were set down harmless in the shade of a 
 mellow distance ; and the animals, before which lower 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 types of men were content to bow down the godlike 
 head, were not, when the traditions that deified them 
 set foot on Grecian soil, thrust wholly out of view ; 
 but they were put into appropriate and always se- 
 condary places. The eagle of Zeus, the falcon of 
 Apollo, the peacock of Here, the owl of Pallas, stood 
 no higher in Greece than as accessories to the figures 
 on which they attend. 
 
 In the scheme of Homer, not all even of these are 
 found. And while in Homer we should look in vain 
 for anything beyond the faintest and most ambiguous 
 trace of a connection between Apollo and the wolf, 
 we find that connection full-blown in the Egyptian 
 mythology, as it is reported by Diodorus, where 
 Horos, his counterpart in the system of that country, 
 is rescued from death by Osiris in the form of that 
 animal ; and on the other hand, the later Greek tra- 
 dition, more deeply charged with foreign elements, 
 abounds with traditions of the wolf,* which in Athens 
 was the protective emblem of the courts of justice. 
 But, even thus far down the stream, the rule seems to 
 hold, that when the figures of the brute creation are 
 allowed to appear in the Hellenic system, they seem 
 to be reduced to subordinate and secondary uses. 
 
 Saint Clement, indeed, charges f upon the Greeks 
 certain instances both of nature- worship and of the 
 worship of animals ; but in a manner, and with par- 
 ticulars, which show how slight and local were the 
 instances of either. It will not be expected that in 
 
 * Miiller's * Dorians,' i. 273, 325. (Tufnell and Lewis's translation.) 
 t S. Clem. Admonitio ad Gentes, p. 16, B. 
 
( 33 ) 
 
 an Address of this nature I should attempt those minuter 
 shadings, which general statements like the foregoing 
 must require in order to perfect accuracy. Besides, 
 a common substratum of ideas runs through the mass 
 of the old religions of the world : but we trace the 
 genius of each nation, and it may be the Providential 
 purpose for which that genius was imparted, in its 
 distinctive mode of handling the common stock, here 
 enlarging, there contracting, here elevating, ther e 
 depressing, so as to produce a distinctive and charac- 
 teristic result. 
 
 And now I will endeavour to point out, in rude 
 and rapid outline, some of the remarkable results of 
 this idee mere of the Greek religion, the annexation 
 of manhood to deity, and the reciprocal incorporation 
 of deity into manhood : which made the human form 
 the link between the visible and the invisible worlds, 
 the meeting-point of earth and heaven. And here 
 my object will be only to give you a sample of the 
 redundant materials which seem to rise up around 
 me thickly piled on every side ; most of all, perhaps, 
 in the Homeric or Achaian period. 
 
 First I will remark a profound reverence for 
 human life and human nature, which even the 
 fiercest passions of war would but rarely, and only 
 for a moment, violate. Hence we find the highest 
 refinements of the manners of the gentleman exist- 
 ing at a time, when, among the Greeks, the material 
 appliances of civilisation were in their infancy, and 
 when writing and the alphabet were practically un- 
 known. The sentiment of honour is indicated, at 
 
 D 
 
( 34 ) 
 
 this epoch, by a word (cuW) too delicate for our 
 rendering by a single term in the English, perhaps 
 in any modern tongue. A catalogue of horrors that 
 have stained the life of man elsewhere, sometimes 
 even in the midst of the triumphs of culture and 
 refinement, were unknown to the Achaian period. 
 I will dwell for a moment on one of these, the 
 practice of human sacrifice. 
 
 You will find* from a charming volume, the 
 Miscellanies of Lord Stanhope, that a few years ago, 
 some of the most famous men of our day were 
 brought by him into correspondence on the interest- 
 ing, but to many startling, question whether human 
 sacrifices were in use among the Eomans : not the 
 unlettered semi-barbarians of Eomulus or Tarquin, 
 but the Eomans of Eome in its highest political 
 power and its palmiest civilisation. Naturally 
 enough, a considerable repugnance was manifested 
 to entertaining this supposition : but as the inquiry 
 proceeded, a younger yet profoundly learned scholar, 
 Sir John Acton, was brought into the field. His 
 full and varied researches do not appear in the 
 pages of Lord Stanhope. But they range well nigh 
 over all space and time. His conclusions are that 
 " we find traces of it, that is of human sacrifice, 
 "throughout almost the whole Hellenic world,. in the 
 " cultus of almost every god, and in all periods of their 
 " independent history." f That among the Eomans it 
 was still more rife : and that, though attempts were 
 
 * Stanhope's 'Miscellanies,' p. 112. f Acton, p. 19. 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 made to restrain or put down the practice, even the 
 famous edict of Adrian, to which Eusebius allows 
 the honour of its extinction, failed to effect it : nay, 
 more, that " in every generation of the four centuries, 
 " from the fall of the Kepublic to the establishment of 
 " Christianity, human victims were sacrificed by the 
 " Emperors " themselves. 
 
 The conclusions of Sir John Acton are not admitted 
 in their full breadth by other great authorities ;* but 
 it seems impossible to doubt the wide-spread and 
 long-continued, or often recurring prevalence of the 
 practice, in contact, more or less, with civilised times 
 and nations, and sustained in various degrees by per- 
 verse but accepted ideas of religion. 
 
 Notwithstanding this terrible and too well sus- 
 tained indictment against the unenlightened and the 
 enlightened world, it is pleasing to observe that this 
 horrible rite did not originally belong to the usages 
 of Greece. It seems to have come in by a late 
 contagion from abroad : and human sacrifice is not 
 found in Homer. The slaughter of some Trojan 
 youths by Achilles, in his unsated vengeance, has 
 none of the marks of a religious rite, and no relation 
 to a deity. Of the tradition of Iphigenia, sacrificed 
 in Aulis for the welfare of the Achaian host, Homer 
 is wholly ignorant : and Agamemnon in the Iliad 
 speaks of his daughters as open to the option of 
 Achilles, as many fathers may since have done who 
 had two or three of them ready to marry, but so as 
 
 * Milman's 'Hist, of Christ.,' i. p. 27, 1st edition. 
 
 D 2 
 
( 36 ) 
 
 almost to supply sufficient evidence that no such 
 blood-stained gap had been made in the circle of his 
 family. It is many centuries later, when the tradition 
 reaches us in the works of the tragedians. In that 
 grandest of all Greek dramas, the ' Agamemnon ' of 
 -ZEschylus, his murderous wife Clytemnestra seeks 
 an apology for her act partly in the immolation of 
 Iphigenia by her father's hand : and the tone of the 
 play is so condemnatory as to suggest that an 
 Athenian audience, of the middle of the fifth century 
 before Christ, did not allow religion to be an adequate 
 apology for the deed. 
 
 At a somewhat later period, the * Iphigenia in 
 Tauris' of Euripides supplies us with more direct 
 evidence that the practice, while not indigenous in 
 Greece, was foully rife among other races. The 
 scene is laid abroad in barbaric territory : and the 
 chorus of Greek attendants on the doomed Princess, 
 addressing the Deity, says, "Receive, venerable 
 one, this sacrifice, if it be a sacrifice agreeable to 
 thee, which the law of us Greeks declares to be 
 unholy." Thus showing that the tradition of the 
 foreign origin of the abominable rite, and the original 
 freedom of the Hellenic system from it, was cherished 
 in the memory of the people. 
 
 I have already had to observe that the Achaians 
 eschewed both incest and polygamy. I may add that 
 even the unconscious incest of (Edipus and Jocasta 
 drew down the heaviest calamities : and further that 
 we have no trace, among the Homeric records, not 
 only of cannibalism but of violence to nature in any 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 form. The crimes of abortion and the exposure of 
 infants, authorised and commended by Plato in his 
 ideal State,* have no place in the Homeric poems : 
 nor do they aiford the slightest indication of those 
 shameless lusts, which formed the incredible and 
 indelible disgrace f of Greece in the time of its con- 
 summate supremacy in Art, and at the climax of its 
 boasted civilisation. 
 
 If I am right in my estimate of the place which 
 the human form held in its relation to the Hellenic 
 religion, we may naturally expect to find it attested, 
 among other ways, by the following signs : an in- 
 tense admiration of personal beauty :J a resentment 
 against and avoidance of deformity, as a kind of sin 
 against the law of nature : and a marked disposition 
 to associate ignorance with vice. 
 
 I cannot now undertake to exhibit the remarkable 
 manner in which these anticipations are realised in 
 Homer: whose appreciation of the beauty of the 
 human form appears from unequivocal signs to 
 exceed that of any author in any age or country : 
 while upon the other side, introducing but one 
 vicious character, Thersites, among the Greeks of 
 the Iliad, he describes his personal appearance with 
 a degree of detail foreign to his habit, in order, seem- 
 ingly, that, even as we read, we may see him before us 
 in his hideous deformity. The same topics might be 
 illustrated in detail from the later history of Greece, 
 in modes inconsistent or questionable enough, yet 
 
 * Plat, de Eepubl., B. vi. t Note XII. t Note XIII. 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 abundantly significant. Courtesans of extraordinary 
 beauty were sometimes chosen to march in the pro- 
 cessions of the gods. By the side of the evil tradition 
 of Aphrodite the promiscuous, there lingered long 
 the rival tradition of an Aphrodite the heavenly. 
 On the other hand, with respect to deformity, I do 
 not remember that Aristophanes,* in his campaign 
 against Socrates, makes the use which we might have 
 expected of the ugliness of the philosopher. And 
 though jests were freely passed upon actual eccen- 
 tricity of feature, I have not seen it proved, in such 
 partial examination of the subject as has lain within 
 my power, that the Greeks were wont to make use 
 of that which we call caricature ; which I understand 
 to be, the founding upon some known or peculiar 
 feature a representation of deformity that does not 
 exist, for the purpose of exciting ridicule or hatred. 
 Among the moderns this practice appears to have 
 been employed even to stimulate religious animosity 
 or fury : and the rarity or absence of it, among a 
 people possessed of such high sarcastic power as the 
 Greeks, suggests that it may have been excluded by 
 the predominating force of a traditional reverence, 
 grown into instinct, for the beauty of the human 
 form ; having its origin nowhere with greater likeli- 
 hood than in the early and continued association of 
 that form with the highest objects of religion. 
 
 I will now refer to the feeling of the Homeric 
 period concerning the sacredness of the human body 
 
 * Note XIV. 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 against both violation and exposure. The horror of 
 Priam in anticipating his own death at the coming 
 sack of Troy rises to its climax, when he brings into 
 the picture the tearing and defilement by dogs of his 
 own exposed and naked figure.* And the extremest 
 point of punishment threatened to the degraded 
 Thersites appears to be the stripping of his person 
 for the disgust and derision of the camp, and the 
 seaming it with " indecorous " wounds.f Nor was 
 this respect for decency a shallow or shortlived tra- 
 dition. It was indeed rudely tried ; since it came 
 into conflict with the eagerness of the race for high 
 physical activity and athletic development, stimulated 
 to the uttermost by the great national institution of the 
 Games, in which, as Horace said with little exagge- 
 ration, the palm of the victor uplifted even the lords 
 of earth to the honours of the gods. Yet, important 
 as it was for perfection in those unparalleled contests 
 to free the person from the restraints of clothing, 
 Thucydides J in his Preface tells us that the athletes 
 were formerly covered: that the Lacedaemonians 
 were the first to strip in the arena, and that it was 
 not many years before his time when the fashion 
 reached its height. 
 
 But when we are seeking to ascertain the measure 
 of that conception which any given race has formed 
 of our nature, there is perhaps no single test so 
 
 * It. xxii. 66-76. 
 
 f II. ii. 261-64; deiitcovi ir\nyfi<nv. To appreciate the force of the 
 remark, the passages should be consulted in the original. 
 
 J Thucyd. i. c. . See Aristoph. Ne<. 972 seqq., on the garb of 
 youths when with their master of gymnastics. 
 
( 40 ) 
 
 effective as the position which it assigns to woman. 
 For as the law of force is the law of the brute 
 creation, so, in proportion as- he is under the yoke of 
 that law, does man approximate to the brute : and in 
 proportion, on the other hand, as he has escaped 
 from its dominion, is he ascending into the higher 
 sphere of being, and claiming relationship with deity. 
 But the emancipation and due ascendancy of woman 
 are not a mere fact : they are the emphatic assertion 
 of a principle : and that principle is the dethrone- 
 ment of the law of force, and the enthronement of 
 other and higher laws in its place,, and in its despite. 
 Outside the pale of Christianity, it would be diffi- 
 cult to find a parallel, in point of elevation, to the 
 Greek woman of the heroic age. Mr. Buckle candidly 
 acknowledges that her position was then much higher 
 than it had come to be in the most civilised historic 
 period of Greece ; and yet he was a writer whose 
 bias, and the general cast of whose opinions, would 
 have disposed him to an opposite conclusion. Again : 
 if the pictures presented by the historical books of 
 the Old Testament and by Homer respectively be 
 compared, candour will claim from us a verdict in 
 favour of the position of the Greek as compared with 
 that of the Hebrew woman. Among the Jews poly- 
 gamy was permitted; to the Greeks, as has been 
 said, it was unknown. Tales like that of Amnon 
 and Tamar,* or like that of the Levite and his concu- 
 bine,! are not found even among the deeds of the 
 
 * Judges xix. 
 
 2 Sam. xiii. 
 
dissolute Suitors of the Odyssey. Among the Jews 
 the testimony of our Lord is that because of the 
 hardness of their hearts Moses suffered them to put 
 away their wives : but that " from the beginning it 
 was not so." * Apart from the violent contingencies 
 of war, manners seem to have been, in the momentous 
 point of divorce, not very different among the Greeks 
 of the heroic age, from what they had been in " the 
 beginning." The picture of Penelope waiting for 
 her husband through the creeping course of twenty 
 years, and of Odysseus yearning in like manner for 
 his wife, is one of the most remarkable in the whole 
 history of human manners ; and it would lose little, if 
 anything, of its deeper significance and force, even 
 if we believed that the persons, whom the poet names 
 Odysseus and Penelope, have never lived. It must 
 be observed, too, what, in the mind of Homer, consti- 
 tutes the extraordinary virtue of the royal matron. 
 It is not the refusal to marry another while her 
 husband is alive, but her stubborn determination not 
 to accept the apparently certain conclusion that he 
 must have ceased to live. Not even the Suitors 
 suggest that, if he be indeed alive, any power can 
 set her free. 
 
 Scarcely less noteworthy, for the purpose of the 
 present argument, are the immunities which she 
 enjoys even in her painful position. She is impor- 
 tuned, but she is not insulted. She feels horror and 
 aversion, but she has no cause for fear. Such, in the 
 
 * St. Matt. xix. 8. 
 
( 42 ) 
 
 morning of Greek life, was the reverence that 
 hedged a woman, as she sat alone and undefended in 
 the midst of a body of powerful and abandoned men. 
 
 Again : the famous scene of Hector and Andromache* 
 is not more touching by its immeasurable tenderness, 
 than it is important for the proof which it affords, 
 with reference to the contemporary manners, of what 
 may be called the moral equality of man and wife. 
 And the general effect of the poems is, to give an 
 idea of a social parity, and of a share borne by 
 women in the practical and responsible duties of life, 
 such as we seek in vain, notwithstanding some 
 charming specimens of character, among* the Jews. 
 Still less can it be found among the Greeks of the 
 more polished ages. In their annals, we scarce ever 
 hear of a wife or mother, though the names of 
 mistresses and courtesans are entered on the roll 
 of fame, and Phrynef dedicated in a Phocian temple 
 a gilded statue of herself, which was wrought by 
 the hand of Praxiteles. Indeed, not to speak of 
 the poetry of Euripides, even the most solid and 
 impartial judgments, such as those of Thucydides 
 and Aristotle, were unfavourably warped in their 
 estimate of women. 
 
 It would, I have no doubt, be possible to illustrate 
 in great detail from ancient records the high value 
 set by the Greeks upon man, in his mind, life, and 
 person. I will mention two instances from Pau- 
 sanias. An Arcadian, named Skedasos, living at 
 
 * II. vi, 390 seqq. f Pausanias, x. c. 14, sub fin. 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 Leuctra, had two daughters, who were violated by 
 Lacedaemonian youths. Unable to bear the shame, 
 they put an end to their lives. Their father, also, 
 having in vain sought justice' from the Spartan 
 authorities, sternly recoiled from the disgrace, and 
 destroyed himself. In after times Epaminondas, about 
 to join battle with the Spartans at the place, made 
 offerings and prayers to the insulted maidens and to 
 their parent ; and then won the victory which laid 
 low the power of Sparta. 
 
 The other is of a different, and a yet more singular, 
 character. The statue of Theagenes, the Thasian 
 athlete,* after his death, fell upon an enemy of his, 
 and killed him. The sons of the man, who thus lost 
 his life, brought an action against the statue ; and it 
 was thrown into the sea, under a law of Draco, which 
 made inanimate objects punishable for destroying 
 human existence. Nor was this law peculiar to 
 Athens, where it was maintained in the legislation of 
 Solon. For, as we see, it was recognised in Thasos. 
 Now there is an apparent resemblance between this 
 law and the English law of deodand, which involved 
 the forfeiture, says Blackstone,f of " whatever per- 
 sonal chattel is the immediate cause of the death of 
 any reasonable creature." But I think that, with 
 much seeming similarity, the cases are essentially 
 different. Deodand was originally a payment to the 
 Sovereign to be applied to pious uses, and seems 
 to have passed into a manorial right, or, in the 
 
 * Pausanias, vi. 11, 12. 
 
 t Blackstone's Commentaries, i. 8, 16. 
 
Germanic codes,* into a compensation for homicide, 
 payable to the surviving relatives. But it proceeded 
 upon the principle of making owners pay ; though 
 they paid in respect of homicide effected through a 
 material instrument. The Greek law inflicted punish- 
 ment upon the inanimate matter itself, for having 
 violated the sanctity of human life. In this essential 
 point it exactly corresponded with the remarkable 
 law of Moses, which said, " If an ox gore a man that 
 " he die, the ox shall be stoned, and his flesh shall not 
 " be eaten."f But even this provision falls greatly short 
 of the full spirit of the Greek law, since even the animal 
 that kills is conscious, ? and gores from excited passion. 
 
 I pass, however, to a subject of larger scope, and I 
 venture to suggest that the anthropomorphic spirit of 
 the Greek religion was the source of that excellence 
 in art, which has become to after ages a model for 
 imitation, and a tribunal without appeal. 
 
 All are aware that the Greek religion was emi- 
 nently poetical ; for it fulfilled in the most striking 
 manner that condition which poetry above all requires, 
 harmony in the relation between the worlds of soul 
 and sense. Every river, fountain, grove, and hill, 
 was associated with the heart and imagination of the 
 Greek ; subject, however, always to the condition 
 that they should appear as ruled by a presiding spirit, 
 and that that spirit should be impersonated in the 
 human shape. A poetical religion must, it seems, be 
 favourable to art. The beauty of form which so much 
 
 * Grote's ' History of Greece,' ii. 10, and iii. 104. 
 t Exodus xxi. 28. 
 
( 45 ) 
 
 abounded in the country was also favourable to art. 
 The Athenians, however, are stated not to have been 
 beautiful ; and at Sparta, where art was neglected, 
 beauty was immensely prized. And, indeed, the per- 
 sonal beauty of a race is by no means usually found 
 sufficient to produce the development of the fine arts : 
 and as to the poetry of religion, and its bearing upon 
 art, while a general connection may be admitted, it is 
 very difficult to define the manner and degree. The 
 practice of image-worship promotes the production of 
 works, first rude and coarse, then more or less vulgar 
 and tawdry. Over the whole continent of Europe 
 there is scarcely at this moment an object of popular 
 veneration, which is worthy to be called a work of art. 
 Of the finest remaining works of Greek art, not very 
 many, I imagine, bear the mark of having been intended 
 for worship. The great size required for statues like 
 the Athene of the Parthenon and the Zeus of Olympia, 
 seems unfavourable to the exhibition of fine art in 
 the highest sense.* In Pausanias we find notices of 
 an immense number of statues in and about the 
 temples : they are not commonly, I think, praised 
 for excellence in this respect ; and the mixture of 
 materials, to which we find constant reference, could 
 hardly have been chosen by the artist for the sake of 
 his own proper purpose. I have heard Lord Macaulay 
 give his opinion that this mixture in the Zeus of 
 Phidias at Olympia, made of ivory and gold, simple as 
 was that form of combination, may probably have 
 
 * Note XV. 
 
( 46 ) 
 
 been due to the necessity of condescension to the 
 popular taste in connection with an object of worship. 
 Although, therefore, the highest artists were employed, 
 it does not appear probable that they derived any 
 part of their higher inspiration from the fervour or 
 the multitude of the worshippers in the temples. 
 Neither will it avail to urge the great esteem in which 
 the professors of the arts were held. High indeed it 
 was ; and the successions of sculptors in the different 
 schools * seem to have been recorded apparently with 
 almost as much care as the Archons of Athens, or the 
 Priestesses of Here at Argos, those landmarks of the 
 history of States. But the question recurs, was their 
 estimation the cause of their excellence, or was their 
 excellence the cause of their estimation ; and if the 
 estimation flowed from the excellence, whence came 
 the excellence itself? Both the one and the other 
 were perhaps due to another cause. 
 
 That many accessories contributed to the wonderful 
 result I do not doubt. But mainly and essentially, 
 every art and method, every device and habit, in the 
 language of Aristotle, has an end ; and is modelled 
 upon the end at which it aims ; and by that end its 
 greatness or its littleness is measured. Now the 
 climax of all art, it seems to be agreed, is the render- 
 ing of the human form. What, then, could be so 
 calculated to raise this representation to the acme of 
 its excellence, as the belief that the human form was 
 not only the tabernacle, but the original and proper 
 
 * Pausamas, in divers passages. 
 
( 47 ) 
 
 shape, the inseparable attribute, of Deity itself? In 
 the quaint language of George Herbert, 
 
 " He that aims the moon 
 Shoots higher much, than he that means a tree." 
 
 And again as Tennyson has sung : 
 
 " It was my duty to have loved the highest : 
 We needs must love the highest when we see it, 
 Not Lancelot, nor another." * 
 
 It was this perpetual presentation of the highest to 
 the mind of the Greek artist, that cheered him, and 
 rewarded him, and yet, while it cheered him and 
 rewarded him, still ever spurred him on in his pur- 
 suit. Whatever he had done, more remained to do, 
 
 " Nil actum reputans dum quid superesset agendum." 
 
 The desire of ambition was fulfilled : he had always 
 more worlds to conquer. The divine was made fa- 
 miliar to him, by correspondence of shape : but on 
 the other side, its elements, which it was his business 
 to draw forth and indicate to men, reached far away 
 into the infinite. And I know not what true defini- 
 tion there is for any age or people of the highest 
 excellence in any kind, unless it be perpetual effort 
 upwards in pursuit of an object higher than ourselves, 
 higher than gur works, higher even than our hopes, 
 yet beckoning us on from hour to hour, and always 
 permitting us to apprehend in part. 
 
 I venture then to propound for consideration the 
 opinion, that the fundamental cause of the transcen- 
 dant excellence of the Greek artist lay in his being, 
 by his birth and the tradition of his people, as well 
 
 * Idylls of the King : Guinevere. 
 
48 ) 
 
 as with every favouring accessory, both in idea and 
 in form, and in such a sense as no other artist was, 
 a worker upon deity, conceived as residing in the 
 human form. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to observe how the rich and 
 many-sided composition of the Greek mythology 
 favoured the artist in his work, by answering to the 
 many-sided development of the mind and life of man. 
 
 Unconsciously then to himself, and in a sphere of 
 almost parochial narrowness, the Greek not only 
 earned himself an immortal fame, but was equipping 
 from age to age a great School of Art, to furnish 
 principles and models made ready to the hand of 
 that purer and higher civilisation which was to be ; 
 and over the preparation of which, all the while, 
 Divine Providence was brooding, like the Spirit on 
 the face of the waters, till the fulness of time should 
 come. 
 
 But besides the Art and the Poetry of the Greeks, 
 there were other provinces in which their achieve- 
 ments were no less remarkable ; and, with reference 
 to the present argument, I must shortly touch upon 
 their philosophy. 
 
 The first philosophers of the Greek race were not 
 for the most part natives and inhabitants of Greece, 
 nor subject exclusively to Greek influences. Their 
 speculations turned mainly on the nature of the first 
 principle, arid partook of an eastern spirit. But 
 when philosophy took up her abode in the country 
 where Hellenism was supreme and without a rival, 
 that human element, which lay so profoundly em- 
 
( 49 ) 
 
 bedded in the whole constitution of the Hellenic 
 mind, unfolded itself in the region of speculative 
 thought ; and the true meaning of the famous saying 
 that Socrates called down philosophy from Heaven 
 would seem to be, that he gave expression to the 
 genius of his country by propounding, as the prime 
 subject for the study of man, the nature, constitution, 
 and destiny of man himself. And the illustrious 
 series of disciples, some of them probably greater 
 than their master, who followed his example, were 
 not therein aping or adopting the mere peculiarity 
 of an individual, but obeying a congenial impulse 
 that sprang from the depths of their being. What- 
 ever philosophy was to be indigenous in Greece 
 could not but be predominantly and profoundly 
 human ; and their power and fame, as analysts of our 
 unfathomable constitution, are fresh and unabated at 
 the present hour. Fashion may wave her wand, but 
 it is with small result. Idolatrous veneration of 
 course has at times begotten temporary reaction and 
 neglect ; but the power of Greek culture seems again 
 and again to assert itself by virtue of the law which 
 makes all things find their level, and since it came 
 into existence it has never ceased to be in the most 
 instructed periods the chief criterion and means of 
 the highest intellectual training: not, of course, 
 necessarily for each individual, but for classes and 
 for countries. 
 
 The point, however, to which I wish to draw 
 particular attention at this moment, is the large and 
 
 E 
 
( 50 ) 
 
 well-balanced view, to which Greek Philosophy 
 attained, of the compound nature of man. 
 
 Never, probably, has there appeared upon the 
 stage of the world so remarkable an union, as in the 
 Greeks, of corporal with mental excellence. From 
 the beginning of the race, Homer shared the privi- 
 lege of his most gorgeous epithet* between battle 
 and debate. The Odes of such a poet as Pindar, 
 handing onwards the tradition of the Twenty-third 
 Iliad, commemorate, so to speak, the marriage of 
 athletic exercise with the gift of Song. We do not 
 trace among the Greeks that contrast, which is found 
 so rude and sharp elsewhere, between energy in the 
 body and energy in the brain. The Greek was in 
 this respect like Adam in the noble verse of Milton, 
 
 " For contemplation and for valour born." 
 
 And the Greek philosophy was for nothing more 
 remarkable than the manner in which it not only 
 asserted but felt, as an elementary law, the place of 
 the Body in human education. 
 
 This was with no exclusive or peculiar view to 
 what we should call utilitarian purposes, such as 
 those of defence or industry, or even art. It seems 
 to have been rather an ample recognition of the right 
 of the body to be cared for, and to be reared in its 
 various organs up to the highest excellence it is 
 capable of attaining, as being, what indeed it is, not 
 
 * KvSidveipa. II. i. 490 ; iv. 225, et alibi. 
 
( 51 ) 
 
 a mere vesture, or tool, or appendage of the soul, but, 
 like the soul, an integral part of man himself. 
 
 This plenitude and accuracy of view on such a 
 subject is the more to be regarded on some special 
 grounds. In general, the philosophies of the world, 
 outside of Christianity, have shown a tendency to 
 fluctuate between sensuality on the one hand, and on 
 the other a contempt and hatred of matter, and a 
 disposition to identify it with the principle of evil. 
 The philosophy of Socrates, of Plato, and of Aris- 
 totle, seems to have steered clear and safe between 
 this Scylla and this Charybdis. But again, the 
 Greek saw, as all men see, the body parted from 
 the soul at death, and hastening rapidly, as by the 
 law of its nature, to corruption. To none could this 
 severance, and its mournful and painful incidents, be 
 more repulsive than to him, with his delicate percep- 
 tions and his lively emotions. Of a future existence 
 in any shape he usually knew or even surmised little ; 
 of the revival of the body, or of the reunion hereafter 
 of the two great factors of the human being, he had yet 
 less conception. We may say then that he lay under 
 every temptation to a disparaging view of the body 
 and of its office. Yet, in spite of his immense disad- 
 vantage, it fell to him to find a place for the body in 
 the philosophy of human nature, and to incorporate 
 the principle thus conceived in laws, usages, and insti- 
 tutions, with a clearness and general justness of view, 
 by which Christian learning has done and will yet do 
 well to profit. What with us is somewhat dubious 
 and fluctuating both in theory and in practice, with 
 
 E 2 
 
( 52 ) 
 
 him was familiar and elementary in both; and the 
 teachers of mental accomplishment taught also the 
 science, if not the art, of bodily excellence. 
 
 Thus for example Plato, in his Treatise on the 
 State, has to consider what men are fit to be chosen 
 for rulers. They should if possible, he says, have 
 the advantage of personal beauty. They must be 
 energetic : and he therefore proceeds to treat of the 
 character of the <j>i\6Trovo<>* or diligent man. He must 
 be ready and keen in study : for human souls are 
 much more cowardly in strong studies '.than in exer- 
 cises of corporal strength : as in the former they bear 
 all the burden, instead of sharing it with the body. 
 But philosophy itself, he admits, has fallen into some 
 dishonour, from a tendency to partiality in handling 
 this question. The truly diligent man, then, must not 
 be halt or one-sided in his diligence. If he be fond of 
 athletic exercise and of sports, but not apt for learn- 
 ing and inquiry, then he is but half-diligent. And 
 no less " lame " will he be, says the philosopher, if, 
 addicted to mental pursuits, he neglects the training 
 of the body, and of the organs with which it is 
 endowed. This may serve for a sample, but it is a 
 sample only, of the large and complete grasp of the 
 Greek philosophy upon the nature of man : and I 
 connect this largeness and completeness with the 
 fact that the Greek, from the nature of his religion, 
 cherished in a special degree the idea of the near 
 association of human existence, in soul and body, 
 
 * Plat, de Rep. B. vii. p. 535. 
 
( 53 ) 
 
 with that existence which we necessarily regard as the 
 largest and most complete, namely with the Divine. 
 
 It may indeed be said, that the Greek lowered and 
 contaminated the Divine idea by weak and by vile 
 elements carried into it from the human. Yes : this 
 and much more may be said, and said with truth. 
 Nothing can be more humbling or more instructive, 
 than the total failure of the Greek mind with all its 
 powers either to attain or even to make progress 
 towards attaining the greater ends of creation by 
 rendering man either good or happy. This is the 
 negative but most important purpose, which the 
 Greek of old may have been destined to fulfil ; 
 the purpose of casting down the strongholds of our 
 pride, by first showing us how great he is, and 
 then leaving us to see how little, when standing 
 alone, is all his greatness, if it be measured with 
 reference to its results in accomplishing those ends of 
 life, without which every other end is vain. But I 
 am not now engaged in endeavouring to ascertain 
 what Greek life or what the Greek mind was in 
 itself, and for itself; nor for what negative or 
 secondary uses the study of it may be available. I 
 wish to point out in some degree what it was for a 
 purpose beyond itself, what materials it was pre- 
 paring for our use, how it was, if I may so express 
 myself, the secular counterpart of the Gospel ; and 
 how it became, in one word, the great intellectual 
 factor of the Christian civilisation. 
 
 Now it is not I think difficult to see that materials 
 and instruments, such as it furnished, were required. 
 
( 54 ) 
 
 I will not attempt by argument to show, that all the 
 powers and capacities of man, being the work of God, 
 must have their proper place in His designs ; and that 
 the evil in the world arises not from their use but 
 from their misuse, not from their active working each 
 according to its place in the Providential order, but 
 from their having gone astray, as the planets would 
 if the centripetal force, that controls their action, 
 were withdrawn. 
 
 We see then in the Greeks, beyond all question, 
 these two things : first, a peculiar and powerful ele- 
 ment of anthropomorphism pervading their religion, 
 and giving it its distinctive character : secondly, a 
 remarkable fulness, largeness, subtlety, elevation, and 
 precision in their conception of human nature ; taking 
 form in, or at least accompanying, an immense vigour 
 both of speculation and of action ; a language of 
 marvellous reach, elasticity, variety, and power ; a 
 scientific excellence in art never elsewhere attained ; 
 and an eminence in the various branches of letters 
 which has given to them, for more than two thousand 
 years, the place of first authority in the cultivated 
 world. The Latin literature, though it has both a 
 character and a purpose of its own, is, in its most 
 splendid elements, derivative from the Greek. 
 
 Now, if we survey with care and candour the 
 present wealth of the world I mean its wealth intel- 
 lectual, moral, and spiritual we find that Christianity 
 has not only contributed to the patrimony of man its 
 brightest and most precious jewels, but has likewise 
 been what our Saviour pronounced it, the salt or 
 
preserving principle of all the residue, and has main- 
 tained its health, so far as it has been maintained at 
 all, against corrupting agencies. But, the salt is one 
 thing,, the thing salted is another : and, as in the world 
 of nature, so in the world of mind and of human 
 action, there is much that is outside of Christianity, 
 that harmonises with it, that revolves, so to speak, 
 around it, but that did not and could not grow out of 
 it. It seems to have been for the filling up of this 
 outline, for the occupation of this broad sphere of 
 exertion and enjoyment, that the Greeks were, in 
 the councils of Providence, ordained to labour : that so 
 the Gospel, produced in the fulness of time, after the 
 world's long gestation, might have its accomplished 
 work in rearing mankind up to his perfection, first 
 in the spiritual life, but also, and through that spi- 
 ritual life, in every form of excellence, for which 
 his varied powers and capacities have been created. 
 
 If this be so, it is quite plain that the Greeks have 
 their place in the Providential order, ay, and in the 
 Evangelical Preparation, as truly and really as the 
 children of Abraham themselves. 
 
 But indeed there is no need, in order to a due 
 appreciation of our debt to the ancient Greeks, that 
 we should either forget or disparage the function 
 which was assigned by the Almighty Father to His 
 most favoured people. Much profit, says St. Paul, 
 had the Jew in every way. He had the oracles of 
 God : he had the custody of the promises : he was the 
 steward of the great and fundamental conception of 
 the unity of God, the sole and absolute condition under 
 
( 56 ) 
 
 which the Divine idea could be upheld among men at 
 its just elevation. No poetry, no philosophy, no art 
 of Greece, ever embraced, in its most soaring and 
 widest conceptions, that simple law of love towards 
 God and towards our neighbour, on which " two com- 
 " mandments hang all the law and the prophets," and 
 which supplied the moral basis of the new dispensa- 
 tion. There is one history, and that the most touching 
 and most profound of all, for which we should search 
 in vain through all the pages of the classics, I mean 
 the history of the human soul in its relations with its 
 Maker ; the history of its sin, and grief, and death, 
 and of the way of its recovery to hope and life, and to 
 enduring joy. For the exercises of strength and skill, 
 for the achievements and for the enchantments of 
 wit, of eloquence, of art, of genius, for the imperial 
 games of politics and war, let us seek them on the 
 shores of Greece. But if the first among the pro- 
 blems of life be how to establish the peace and restore 
 the balance of our inward being ; if the highest of all 
 conditions in the existence of the creature be his 
 aspect towards the God to whom he owes his being, 
 and in whose great hand he stands ; then let us make 
 our search elsewhere. All the wonders of the Greek 
 civilisation heaped together are less wonderful than 
 is the single Book of Psalms. Palestine was weak 
 and despised, always obscure, oftentimes and long 
 trodden down beneath the feet of imperious masters. 
 Greece for a thousand years, 
 
 " Confident from foreign purposes," * 
 * King John, ii. 1. 
 
( 57 ) 
 
 repelled every invader from her shores, and, fostering 
 her strength in the keen air of freedom, she defied, 
 and at length overthrew, the mightiest of empires; 
 and when finally she felt the resistless grasp of the 
 masters of all the world, them too, at the very moment 
 of her subjugation, she subdued to her literature, lan- 
 guage, arts, and manners.* Palestine, in a word, had 
 no share of the glories of our race ; they blaze on 
 every page of the history of Greece with an over- 
 powering splendour. Greece had valour, policy, 
 renown, genius, wisdom, wit, she had all, in a word, 
 that this world could give her ; but the flowers of 
 Paradise, which blossom thinly, blossomed in Pales- 
 tine alone. 
 
 And yet, as the lower parts of our bodily organiza- 
 tion are not less material than the higher to the 
 safety and well-being of the whole, so Christianity 
 itself was not ordained to a solitary existence in man, 
 but to find helps meet for it in the legitimate use of 
 every faculty, and in the gradually accumulated trea- 
 sures of the genius, sagacity, and industry of the 
 human family. 
 
 Besides the loftiest part of the work of Providence 
 entrusted to the Hebrew race, there was other work 
 to do, and it was done elsewhere. It was requisite 
 to make ready the materials not only of a divine 
 renewal and of a moral harmony for the world, but 
 also for a thorough and searching culture of every 
 power and gift of man, in all his relations to the 
 
 * Note XVI. 
 
( 58 ) 
 
 world and to his kind ; so as to lift up his universal 
 nature to the level upon which his relation as a 
 creature to his Creator, and as a child to his Father, 
 was about to be established. 
 
 And the question arises whether, among the auxi- 
 liaries required to complete the training process for 
 our race, there were not to be found some which 
 were of a quality, I will not say to act as a corrective 
 to Christianity, but to act as a corrective to the nar- 
 row views and the excesses which might follow upon 
 certain modes of conceiving and of applying it. 
 Doubtless the just idea of their general purpose is 
 that they were a collection of implements and mate- 
 rials to assist in the cultivation of the entire nature of 
 man, and to consecrate all his being to the glory and 
 the designs of his Maker. Yet in part they might 
 have a purpose more special still, the purpose of 
 assigning due bounds to the action of impulses spring- 
 ing out of Christianity itself. 
 
 Now, that narrow conception, which I have men- 
 tioned, of the Jews as virtually the sole object of the 
 Providential designs of God, while it began doubtless 
 in a devout sentiment, passed into superstition when 
 it led men to assign to the Jewish people every ima- 
 ginable gift and accomplishment, and into virtual 
 impiety when it came to imply that the Almighty 
 had little care for the residue of His creatures. And 
 certainly it was not to Scripture itself that opinions 
 like these were due. In a Dissertation 6 On the Pro- 
 phecies of the Messiah dispersed among the Heathen,' 
 Bishop Horsley has shown what a large amount of 
 
testimony is yielded by the Sacred Books to the 
 remaining knowledge of the true Grod among the races 
 in the neighbourhood of Judea. With them religion 
 seems to have been for long periods, as was also to no 
 small extent the religious practice of the Jews, an incon- 
 sistent combination of lingering and struggling truth 
 with rampant error. Melchisedec, the type of Christ, 
 Job, one of the chosen patrons of faith and patience, 
 were of blood foreign to the patriarchal race ; and 
 the same agency of the prophetic order, which was 
 employed to correct and guide the Jew, was not 
 withheld from his neighbours : Balaam, among the 
 Moabites, was a prophet inspired by the Most High. 
 Of the minor prophetical books of the Old Testament 
 two are expressly devoted to setting forth the burden 
 of Nineveh and the dealings of Grod with its inhabit- 
 ants : and Eastern Magi were, in the words of Bishop 
 Horsley, " the first worshippers of Mary's Holy 
 Child." * 
 
 A system of religion, however absolutely perfect 
 for its purpose, however divine in its conception and 
 expression, yet of necessity becomes human too, from 
 the first moment of its contact with humanity ; from 
 the very time, that is to say, when it begins to do its 
 proper work by laying hold upon the hearts and 
 minds of men, mingling, as the leaven in the dough, 
 with all that they contain, and unfolding and apply- 
 ing itself in the life and conduct of the individual, 
 and in the laws, institutions, and usages of society. 
 
 * ' Dissertation,' &c., p. 117. 
 
'( 60 ) 
 
 In the building up of the human temple, the several 
 portions of the work, while sustaining and strength- 
 ening each other, confine each other also, like the 
 stones of a wall, to their proper place and office in 
 the fabric. 
 
 Divine truth contained in the Gospel, is addressed 
 to the wants and uses of a nature not simple but 
 manifold, and is manifold itself: though dependent 
 upon one principle it consists of many parts, and in 
 order to preserve reciprocally the due place and 
 balance of those parts, means that we call human are 
 available, as well as means more obviously divine ; 
 and secular forms and social influences, all adjusted by 
 one and the same Governor of the world, are made to 
 serve the purposes that have their highest expression 
 in the Kingdom of Grace. The Gospel aims not at 
 destroying this equilibrium, but at restoring it : and 
 in the restoration it accepts, nay courts, and by 
 natural law requires, the aid of secondary means. 
 
 It is manifest indeed that there was in Christianity 
 that which man might easily and innocently carry 
 into such an excess, as, though it would have ceased 
 to be Christian, would not have ceased to seem so, 
 and would under a sacred title have tended to impair 
 the healthful and complete development of his being. 
 
 Rousseau* objects to the Christian system that it 
 is opposed to social good order and prosperity, 
 because it teaches a man to regard himself as a 
 citizen of another world, and thus diverts him from 
 
 * Rousseau, ' Contrat Social,' b. iv..c. viii. 
 
( 61 ) 
 
 the performance of his duties as a member of civil 
 society. " Far from attaching the hearts of the 
 " citizens to the state, it detaches them from it, as 
 " from all other earthly things. I know nothing 
 " more opposed to * the social spirit .... A society 
 " of true Christians would no longer be a society of 
 " men .... What matters it to be free or slave in 
 " this vale of misery ? The one thing needful is to 
 "go to Paradise, and submission to calamity is an 
 " additional means of getting there." 
 
 In an age and in a country such as this, it is not 
 required, it is scarcely allowable, to seem to depreciate 
 those various forms of self-restraint and self-conquest 
 which the spirit of man, vexed in its sore conflict 
 with the flesh and with the world, has in other times 
 employed to establish the supremacy of the soul, by 
 trampling upon sense and appetite and all corporal 
 existence. Even in the time of the Apostles, it seems 
 to have been manifest that a tendency to excess in 
 this direction had begun to operate in the Christian 
 Church. As time passed on, and as the spirit of the 
 unrenewed world became more rampant within the 
 sacred precinct, the reaction against it likewise 
 grew more vehement and eager. The deserts of 
 Egypt were peopled with thousands upon thousands 
 of anchorites ; * who forswore every human relation, 
 extinguished every appetite, and absorbed every 
 motive, every idea, every movement of our complex 
 nature in the great but single function of the relation 
 to the unseen world.f True and earnest in their 
 
 * Note XVII. f Note XVIII. 
 
( 62 ) 
 
 Christian warfare, they notwithstanding represent a 
 spirit of exaggeration, which it was requisite to check, 
 uprooting what they ought rather to have pruned, 
 and destroying what they ought to have chastised, 
 and mastered, and converted to purposes of good. 
 That internecine war with sin, which is of the very 
 essence of Christianity, seems to have been understood 
 by them as a war against the whole visible and 
 sensible wor]d, against the intellectual life, against a 
 great portion of their own normal nature : and though 
 as regarded themselves, even their exaggeration was 
 pardonable and in many respects a noble error, yet 
 its unrestricted sway and extension would have left 
 man a maimed, a stunted, a distorted creature. And 
 it would have done more than this. By severing 
 the Gospel from all else that is beautiful and glorious 
 in creation, it would have exposed the spiritual 
 teacher to a resistance not only vehement but just, 
 and would have placed the kingdom of grace in per- 
 manent and hopeless discord with the kingdoms of 
 nature, reason, truth, and beauty, kingdoms estab- 
 lished by the very same Almighty Hand. 
 
 Those principles of repression, which were indis- 
 pensable as the medicine of man, were unfit for his 
 food. What was requisite, however, was not to expel 
 them, and thereby to revert to the mental riot and 
 the moral uncleanness of heathenism, but to check 
 their usurpations, and to keep them within their 
 bounds ; and this was to be effected not by prohibi- 
 tion or disparagement, but by vindicating for every 
 part, and power, and work, of human nature, and for 
 
( 63 ) 
 
 every office of life, its proper place in the Divine 
 order and constitution of the world. The seed of 
 this comprehensive philosophy was supplied by the 
 words of the Apostle : " Whatsoever things are true, 
 whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
 just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
 are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report : if 
 there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think 
 on these things." * And so the solid and fruitful 
 materials of the Greek civilisation came in aid, by a 
 wise Providence, of the humanising principles and 
 precepts of the Gospel, to assist in securing a well- 
 balanced development of the powers of the Christian 
 system, and to prevent the instruments designed for 
 eradicating the seeds of disease from subverting the 
 yet higher agencies appointed for the fostering and 
 development of life in every region of our being and 
 our activity. 
 
 Volumes might be written with profit to trace the 
 .application of the principles touched upon in this 
 Address to the whole history of the Church, and of 
 the Christian civilisation, down to the present day ; 
 and the more we said, the more there would remain 
 to say. That which I have now attempted is no 
 more, in effect, than a suggestion, which may open 
 the way for others into a wide and ever-widening 
 field. And if that suggestion be just it will be diffi- 
 cult to deny its importance. Let us glance in a few 
 concluding words at some of its results. 
 
 First, it places on high and safe grounds that genial 
 
 * Phil. iv. 8. 
 

 primacy of the Greeks in letters and in human cul- 
 ture, to the acknowledgment of which Christian 
 Europe has been guided not so much by a logical 
 process, or a definite forethought, as by a sure instinct 
 with the after confirmation of a long experience. 
 Nor can this primacy be justly disturbed by the mul- 
 tiplication, and the energetic and growing pursuit, of 
 those branches of knowledge for which this age has 
 been so remarkable. For Aristotle it was excusable to 
 regard the heavenly bodies as objects nobler than man. 
 But Christianity has sealed and stamped the title of 
 our race as the crown a"nd flower of the visible creation : 
 and with this irreversible sentence in their favour, the 
 studies, well called studies of humanity, should not 
 resent nor fear, but should favour and encourage all 
 other noble research having for its object the globe 
 on which we live, the tribes with which it is peopled 
 in land, air, and sea, the powers drawn forth from 
 nature or yet latent in her unexplored recesses, or 
 the spaces of that vast system 
 
 " Ultra flammantia mamia mundi," 
 
 to which our earth belongs. 
 
 But more than this : we live in times when the 
 whole nature of our relation to the unseen world is 
 widely, eagerly, and assiduously questioned. Some- 
 times we are told of general laws, so conceived as to 
 be practically independent either of a Lawgiver or a 
 Judge. Sometimes of a necessity working all things 
 to uniform results, but seeming to crush and to bury 
 under them the ruins of our will, our freedom, our 
 
( 65 ) 
 
 personal responsibility. Sometimes of a private 
 judgment, which we are to hold upon the hard con- 
 dition of taking nothing upon trust, of passing by, 
 at the outset of our mental life, the whole preceding 
 education of the world, of owning no debt to those 
 who have gone before without a regular process of 
 proof, in a word of beginning anew each man for 
 himself: a privilege which I had thought was re- 
 stricted to the lower orders of creation, where the 
 parent infuses 110 prejudices into its litter or its fry. 
 Such are the fancies which go abroad. Such are the 
 clouds which career in heaven, and pass between us 
 and the sun, and make men idly think, that what 
 they see not, is not, and blot the prospects of what is 
 in so many and such true respects a happy and a 
 hopeful age. It is I think an observation of Saint 
 Augustine, that those periods are critical and formi- 
 dable, when the power of putting questions runs 
 greatly in advance of the pains to answer them. 
 Such appears to be the period in which we live. 
 And all among us, who are called in any manner to 
 move in the world of thought, may well ask who is 
 sufficient for these things? Who can with just and 
 firm hand sever the transitory from the durable, and 
 the accidental from the essential, in old opinions? 
 Who can combine, in the measures which reason 
 would prescribe, reverence and gratitude to the past 
 with a sense of the new claims, new means, new 
 duties of the present ? Who can be stout and earnest 
 to do battle for the Truth, and yet hold sacred, as he 
 ought, the freedom of inquiry, and cherish, as he 
 
 F 
 
ought, a chivalry of controversy like the ancient chi- 
 valry of arms ? One persuasion at least let us embrace : 
 one error let us avoid. Let us be persuaded of this, 
 that Christianity will by her inherent resources find 
 for herself a philosophy equal to all the shifting and 
 all the growing wants of the time. Let us avoid the 
 error of seeking to cherish a Christianity of isolation. 
 The Christianity which is now and hereafter to flou- 
 rish, and, through its power in the inner circles of 
 human thought, to influence ultimately, in some 
 manner more adequate than now, the masses of man- 
 kind, must be such as of old the Wisdom of God was 
 described. 
 
 " For in her is an understanding spirit, holy, one 
 " only, manifold, subtil, lively, clear, undefiled, plain, 
 " not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is good, 
 " quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good, 
 " kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having 
 " all power, overseeing all things. . . . 
 
 " For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, 
 " the unspotted mirror of the power of Grod, and the 
 " image of His goodness." * 
 
 It must be filled full with human and genial 
 warmth, in close sympathy with every true instinct 
 and need of man, regardful of the just titles of every 
 faculty of his nature, apt to associate with and make 
 its own all, under whatever name, which goes to 
 enrich and enlarge the patrimony of the race. And 
 therefore it is well that we should look out over the 
 
 * ' Wisdom of Solomon,' viii. 22, 23, 26. 
 
( 67 , 
 
 field of history, and see if haply its records, the more 
 they are unfolded, do or do not yield us new materials 
 for the support of faith. Me at least, for one, ex- 
 perience has convinced that, just as fresh wonder and 
 confirmed conviction flow from examining the struc- 
 ture of the universe and its countless inhabitants, and 
 their respective adaptations to the purposes of their 
 being and to the use of man, the same results will 
 flow in yet larger measure from tracing the footmarks 
 of the Most High in the seemingly bewildered paths 
 of human history. Everywhere, before us, and behind 
 us, and around us, and above us and beneath, we 
 shall find the Power which 
 
 " Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent." * 
 
 And, together with the Power, we shall find the 
 Goodness and the Wisdom, of which that sublime 
 Power is but a minister. Nor can that wisdom and 
 that goodness anywhere shine forth with purer 
 splendour, than when the Divine forethought, work- 
 ing from afar, in many places, and through many 
 generations, so adjusts beforehand the acts and the 
 affairs of men, as to let them all converge upon a 
 single point, upon that redemption of the world, by 
 God made Man, in which all the rays of His glory 
 are concentrated, and from which they pour forth a 
 flood of healing light even over the darkest and 
 saddest places of creation. 
 
 Mr. Vice-Chancellor, Professors, and Gentlemen, I 
 
 Pope's ' Essay on Man,' iv. 
 
 F 2 
 
( 68 ) 
 
 commend to your notice and your impartial research 
 the subject of the foregoing remarks. It is at least a 
 less unworthy offering than the mere commonplaces 
 of taking leave. Yet I claim one remaining moment 
 to convey to you my gratitude for your confidence, 
 to assure you that I shall ever feel a lively interest 
 in all that pertains to the welfare of your famous 
 University, and to bid you respectfully farewell. 
 
69 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE I., p. 12. 
 
 This appropriating power of the Greeks is well expressed in a 
 passage quoted by Eusebius from Diodorus, who is describing the 
 view taken of that power by the Egyptians (Prsep. Evang. ii. 6) 
 e (fcacri TOI>S 
 77/30)019 re KOL Oeovs. 
 
 NOTE IL, p. 12. 
 
 These sentiments are not only contained in particular passages 
 of the ' Praeparatio,' but run through the whole work. See for 
 instance : 
 
 On the foreign origin of the Greek religion, B. i. 6, i. 10, ii. 1, 
 and ii. 3. The Hellenic ^vOoXoycai KdruOtv 6/o/xwvrat, iii. 4. 
 
 On the composition of the old religions, v. 3. 
 
 On the commendation of the Greek genius and the philosophers, 
 i. 6 (TCI cre/xva rJys ycvvatas 'EAArJvwv <iAocro<tas), i. 8, i. 10, xi. 1, 
 and ii. 6 (6 OavfAaa-ios UXarcav .... 6 Travrwv apioros), V. 33. 
 
 On the light of nature, ii. 6 (</>v(m Kat auToSiSa/orots evvotai?, 
 fj.aXX.ov Se $eoStSaKTOis), and elsewhere C^VO-LKOL eWoiat. 
 
 On the appropriations from the Hebrews, Books ix. and x. 
 
 NOTE III, p. 13. 
 
 Celsus appears to have used the same imputation of being copyists 
 against the Hebrews : and to have been confuted by Origen on 
 account of the greater antiquity of the Jewish histories. Stilling- 
 fleet, Orig. Sac. ch. i. (vol. i. p. 16, Oxf. ed.) 
 
 NOTE IV., p. 14. 
 
 Saint Augustine traced the prophecies of Christ in the Sibylline 
 Btfoks (De Civ. Dei, B. xviii. c. 23). Like the other Christian 
 apologists, he commonly treats the heathen deities as real spirits of 
 evil. He seems, in part, like Eusebius, to resolve the personages 
 of the Greek and Roman Mythology into, 1. Men deified after 
 
( 70 ) 
 
 death, 2. Elements or Nature Powers, 3. Daemones (De Civ. Dei., 
 B. xviii. c. 14). He recognises divine aid given to the philosophers 
 of Greece (de Civ. Dei, B. ii. c. 7) : and in tracing the history of 
 the two Civitates, the Coelestis, and the Terrestris, he says (B. xvi. 
 c. 10), that probably there were children of the former in the latter, 
 as well as of the latter in the former. 
 
 NOTE V., p. 22. 
 
 Mr. Grote remarks upon this anthropomorphic genius of the 
 Hellenic religion, under the name of an universal "tendency to 
 personification." 'History of Greece,' i. 462. Mr. Euskin has 
 some striking observations on the same subject. 
 
 NOTE VI., p. 23. 
 
 Apollo. Mr. Max Miiller says, in his most able work on * Lan- 
 guage,' vol. ii. p. 433, that Apollo drew to himself the worship of 
 the Dorian family, Athene of the Ionian, Poseidon of the ^Eolian, 
 but that the worship of Zeus reached over all. I venture to doubt 
 the accuracy of this classification. The Greek mythology was 
 eminently favourable, as one of popular idolatry, to the develop- 
 ment of particular local worships, and the preferences were much 
 associated with race. But it would surprise me to see any proof 
 that the worship of Apollo, or that of Athene, was anything less 
 than universal among the Greeks. The invaluable work of Pau- 
 sanias, with its careful and patient enumerations, appears to form 
 a conclusive standard of appeal on this subject. 
 
 On the character of Apollo, see C. 0. Muller's ' Dorians,' Lewis 
 and Tuffnell's translation, i. 329. 
 
 NOTE VII., p. 25. 
 
 The word "jovial " appears to be one of that group of words, too 
 little noticed, which have come into the English tongue direct 
 from the Italian, and to abound in our old authors. It is explained 
 by Johnson as meaning, 1. Under the influence of Jupiter, 2. Gay, 
 airy, merry. But I do not find in any of our dictionaries or word- 
 books which I have consulted any notice of what appears to be its 
 differentia, and to make it reflect the idea of the Olympian life : 
 namely, that in its proper use it does not mean merriment simply, 
 but an elevated or royal kind of merriment. Thus Dray ton speaks 
 

 ( 71 ) 
 
 of the " princely jovial fowl :" and the sense is exactly touched in a 
 
 speech of Lear (Act iv., Scene 6) 
 
 What? 
 
 I will be jovial : come come, I am a king, 
 
 My masters, know you that. 
 
 This distinctive flavour of the sense has been in part rubbed out : 
 yet jovial is not even now synonymous with merry : we should 
 more properly say jovial men, merry children, than vice versa. 
 
 NOTE VIII., p. 26. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that in Homer the political life of man is 
 reflected even as to some portion of its detail by the divine life. 
 The institution of the povXy, or council, was already well marked 
 off from that of the dyo/o?), or Assembly. So the ordinary meeting 
 on Olympus seems to be the ftovXr], but this, which precedes the 
 Theomachy, to correspond with the Assembly. 
 
 NOTE IX., p. 29. 
 The Sun in the * Iliad,' see II. xviii. 
 
 ijfXiov 6' aKapavra J3o>7ris irorvia "Hpiy- 
 irfp^l/'cv TT 'QKeavolo poas deKOVTo. veea-Qai. 
 
 Why being thus passive, and scarcely animate, is the planet repre- 
 sented as unwilling ? The answer must be founded on conjecture. 
 But I conceive it to be probably this. The Trojan worship seems 
 to have been more elemental than the Greek : so the Sun was 
 unwilling to cut short that famous day, which was to be the last 
 day of prosperity to the Trojan arms. 
 
 In the ' Odyssey ' we have no mention of the worship of the Sun 
 by the Greeks : and when Eurupulos in Thrinakie persuades his 
 companions to slay the oxen of that deity for food, he says, " when 
 we return to Ithaca, we can make him a rich temple and precinct, 
 with abundant votive gifts " (Od. xii. 346). 
 
 TTiOVa VTjOV 
 
 Tvop.v, cv de K Oel/JLev dyaXfiara TraAAa KOI ea6\d, 
 thus raising the inference that he had none already existing in that 
 very small island. 
 
 NOTE X., p. 29. 
 On the Invocation of Rivers. 
 
 It is probable that these may have been admitted more or less 
 into purely local worship : Achilles in Troja not only invokes his 
 
( 72 ) 
 
 own Spercheios, but mentions his father's prayer and vow to offer 
 an hecatomb to the stream, in the place where was its glebe and 
 altar. In this class of cases, the anthropomorphic force of the 
 Greek system showed itself by investing the rivers. with human 
 forms. Achelous, the most famous of them, fought against Hera- 
 kles for Deianira, sought her hand, and had many other wives. 
 Odysseus invokes the river in Corfu, but then he is in the sphere of 
 the outer geography, and of a theology differing from the Greek. 
 Asteropaios, a Paaonian hero, is grandson to the Eiver Axios. 
 
 NOTE XL, p. 30. 
 
 The single clear trace that I remember to have perceived in 
 Homer of the elemental creed is this, that, in one single passage, 
 he calls the sacrificial fire by the name of Hephaistos, the god of 
 fire. II. ii. 426. 
 
 NOTE XII., p. 37. 
 
 On this subject, as a testimony instar omnium, see the passage in 
 Aristophanes Ne^. 1087-1100. 
 
 NOTE XIII., p. 37. 
 
 " Philippus of Crotona was actually deified by the inhabitants of 
 Segeste, and had sacrifices offered to him in his lifetime on account 
 of his beauty. Cypselus instituted prizes for beauty : while such 
 was the honour conferred by its possession, that Elpinice, the sister 
 of Cimon, did not hesitate to sit as model to Polygnotus." 
 Falkener's ' Daedalus,' p. 33, note. 
 
 NOTE XIV., p. 38. 
 
 On the contrary, in the Clouds, v. 540, Aristophanes takes credit 
 to himself because his play made no jest upon baldness 
 
 and this is believed to be a rebuke to Eupolis for having con- 
 descended to ridicule Aristophanes himself on the score of baldness 
 (Mitchell in loc.). The conclusion I have stated in the text as to 
 caricature, seems to me, on the whole, to be supported by the 
 collection of instances in the work of Champficury. On the use of 
 caricature for religion, see Locky's * Eationalism,' vol. ii., p. 1. 
 
( 73 ) 
 
 NOTE XV., p. 45. 
 
 The Zeus of Phidias at Olympia is stated to have been sixty feet 
 high, and the Athene of the Parthenon forty. Falkener's Dseda- 
 lus,' p. 94. 
 
 NOTE XVI, p. 57. 
 
 It has been, perhaps, too little noticed that the expedition of 
 Alexander, by carrying not only the political, but especially the 
 intellectual, dominion of Greece through the East, was no less 
 signally a Preparation for the Gospel than was the growth of the 
 Eoman Power, which placed the civilised world under the sway of 
 a single sceptre (S. Aug. De Civ. Dei, B. xviii. c. 22). The dis- 
 solution of Alexander's empire after his death has made us take for 
 a short-lived, meteor-like phenomenon, what really was a great work, 
 with results not less permanent than wide-spread. Its importance 
 reached a climax in the Translation of the Jewish Scriptures 
 executed by the Seventy. 
 
 NOTE XVII., p. 61. 
 
 Vividly described by Lecky, ' Rise and Influence of Rationalism 
 in Europe,' vol. ii. p. 28. The same principle runs through Church 
 History : as where the admirable Mere Marie- Angelique Arnauld 
 describes the Infirmaries in her convent as " basses et humides 
 comme des caves," making the nuns ill, and yet " cela ne les 
 degoutoit point. Dieu nous en envoya plusieurs." (Relations du 
 Port Royal, p. 30.) 
 
 NOTE XVIIL, p. 61. 
 
 Saint Augustine says of the body, ad ipsam naturam hominis pec- 
 tinet (De Civ. Dei, i. 13). Eusebius in his account of the Hebrew 
 religion shows a tendency to depreciate this constituent part of 
 man, when he relates that they viewed it simply as a space for the 
 soul to dwell in (TO Se, rovrov ^wpav 7repi/3oA,?}s e7T^tv), and says 
 all bodily pleasures are no higher than those of the brute creation 
 (B. v. c. 4). Saint Augustine had felt deeply the influence of the 
 Greek philosophy, and hence perhaps it is that with his warmly- 
 coloured views he combined so much breadth of conception. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BST W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, 
 AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
 
SPEECHES 
 
 OF THE 1UGHT HOX. 
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P., 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 WARRINGTON, ORMSKIRK, LIVERPOOL, SOUTHPORT, 
 NEWTON, LEIGH, AND WIGAN, 
 
 IN OCTOBER, 1868. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
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SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IX THE 
 
 TOWN HALL, WARRINGTOK 
 
 OCTOBER 12iiT, 1868. 
 
 MR. EIGBY and gentlemen, together with my friend, and I hope I na ay 
 say my future colleague, Mr. Grenfell, I have met to-day with such a 
 reception in Warrington as I am quite certain that neither of us will 
 readily forget. We are aware, gentlemen, that within the limits of the 
 borough a contest is in progress of no ordinary interest to you all, and 
 with respect to which, though it would be unbecoming in me to dwell 
 upon it particularly, I cannot but express the confident and sanguine belief 
 that some five weeks five short weeks from the time at which I now 
 have the honour to address you, will see the town of Warrington repre- 
 sented after the manner of our Constitution in the British House of Com- 
 mons by the free votes of the people, and in the person of my friend Mr. 
 Eylands. But, gentlemen, the duty which, in conjunction with MJ-. Gren- 
 fell, I have to perform to-night is to address you in respect to the election 
 for the south-western division of the county. And perhaps, gentlemen, I 
 may be permitted to begin by stating that, as a matter of fact, the contest 
 in which Lancashire men are now engaged with Lancashire men is not a 
 contest of our seeking. The history of its origin is this. As you are 
 aware, the southern division of the county is at present represented by 
 two supporters of the present Administration, together with myself. 
 Well, I think that is a distribution to which at least the supporters of 
 the Government a minority of the House of Commons have no great 
 reason to complain. However, in the exercise of their wisdom, or else of 
 their zeal, our opponents early in the present year began to take measures 
 for the modest purpose of securing to themselves the whole of the county 
 
 A 2 
 
4 , SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 representation in this division ; and you, gentlemen, who are electors and 
 of Liberal opinions are to answer whether you will submit to this exclusion 
 which was attempted to be enforced. Perhaps you will ask me how it was 
 attempted, and there is no difficulty in the answer. It was not attempted 
 to affect your opinion or even to appeal to your prejudices. It was 
 attempted in a manner which it is easy to understand. It was attempted 
 by that most ingenious but frequently effectual method of clubbing 
 together to make a long purse. That being so, the Liberal party in this 
 division adopted such precautionary measures as appeared to be justified 
 /or the purpose of ascertaining its sentiments, and came to the conclusion, 
 first, that they would not submit to be excluded from the representation, 
 and, secondly, to accept the challenge which they gave, and to seek to 
 return to Parliament two representatives of Liberal opinions for the 
 county. "Well, the campaign is to begin to-day. It is not the 12th of 
 August, a day fatal to many of our fellow-creatures ; but it is the 12th 
 of October, a day on which we set out for a season in which I believe our 
 motives are at least as elevated as the motives of those who commonly 
 take to the moor on the 12th of August, and in which, I must add, that 
 our sport will be quite as good. We are in for it now, and we must go- 
 through with it. I agree with the resolution which characterises the 
 men of England, and, not least, the men of Lancashire. "We ought to 
 consider questions of public interest with a determination in no instance 
 wilfully to misconstrue our adversaries' intentions or their acts, but with a 
 firm determination to beat them if we can. The war to be carried on this 
 evening is a war of argument, and I rejoice to think that we have arrived 
 at a period when the masses of the people of this country are supplied, 
 through the inestimable machinery of the daily press, and, above all, of 
 the cheap press, with the means of bringing an enlightened judgment to 
 bear upon questions of public interest and policy. I cannot depart from 
 this subject without observing that the establishment of the cheap press 
 was not secured without a struggle, and that we who stand here upon this 
 platform are the representatives in our humble sphere of those who procured 
 for the people that inestimable benefit. It was, gentlemen, by many 
 efforts in the front both of enemies and of half-hearted friends ; it was in 
 the front, I am sorry to say, of the misguided action of the hereditary 
 branch of the Legislature, that those of us who were determined to set free 
 the press of this country, persevered in our purpose, and obtained for the 
 country the enormous advantage which they now derive from having 
 brought to their doors from day to day information upon public affairs, 
 which, although it is not in every instance infallible, yet contains within 
 itself the secret and means of the cure of this defect, because it is, though 
 not infallible, yet free ; and the errors of opinion which proceed from one 
 quarter are corrected by the more just judgment of another. Well, gentle- 
 men, that is the footing upon which we meet, so far as regards your means 
 of information ; and we meet likewise, as I am rejoiced to think, upon a 
 ground in which the borough franchise to a very large extent, and in which 
 the county franchise to some considerable extent, now stands upon a basis 
 wider than that upon which it stood when I last had the honour to submit 
 my claims to the constituency of Lancashire. Gentlemen, it would not be 
 unnatural if I were to presume to detain you upon the subject of the im- 
 portant change which has occurred in our Parliamentary constitution. It 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. V. E. GLADSTONE. 5 
 
 would not be unnatural even on account of the moment and the extent o 
 that change. There would still be more cause for it on account of another 
 circumstance less satisfactory I mean, the particular provisions of the 
 Act for amending the representation of the people, which I must say have 
 been perversely and wilfully so constructed as to impose upon the people, 
 together with the benefits of the franchise, a fine upon its exercise, to 
 which I have objected from the first moment when it was named, and 
 which I, for my part, shall be earnestly desirous to take the first oppor- 
 tunity of effacing from the statute-book of England. For the present, 
 gentlemen, I won't detain you further on that subject, which is one that 
 might open out into a multitude of details, because, in truth, we live in. 
 times when so many and such pregnant matters of public interest solicit 
 our attention that we must be content to take them one by one, and 
 endeavour to present each in turn in a clear and open light to the public 
 mind. I think thus we shall probably best be enabled to contribute, so far 
 as in us lies, to your exercising a right judgment upon the coming occasion. 
 Of the great questions that are now before us, that which meets me, 
 after the question of Parliamentary Reform, is that of the public 
 expenditure of the country. I have, gentlemen, notwithstanding the 
 crowded state of this assemblage, your patient attention ; and I think it 
 probable that I have the honour of addressing to-night, along with a large 
 body of the electors for the county, a large number also of the 
 electors for the town. The subject of public expenditure is one of great 
 and standing importance. Other questions come and go, but this is a 
 question that always abides. It is a question that sometimes comes 
 into the very first place, and absorbs the attention of all men ; but when 
 it does so it is commonly because the evils have become too profound and 
 too inveterate to admit of easy cure, and the true wisdom on all political 
 subjects, but especially with regard to finance and public expenditure, is to 
 direct the mind of the country to the consideration of them at a time before 
 mischief has attained to unmanageable dimensions, in order that, if possible, 
 a remedy, and an effective remedy, may be applied. This is the condi- 
 tion in which we now stand with reference to finance and to the expenditure 
 of the country. I ventured about six weeks or two months ago to call 
 attention to this subject in a meeting at St. Helen's. I stated with great 
 moderation of language that of which I do not intend to qualify or retract 
 one single iota. I intend, on the contrary, both to corroborate and enlarge 
 the assertions I then made ; but I did then state that within the two years 
 during which the present Government had been in office the sum of 
 3,000,000 had been added to the permanent expenditure of the country. 
 Now, I did not lay the exclusive blame of that augmentation upon the 
 existing Administration, and the reason that I did not lay upon them the 
 exclusive blame is that, as an observer of public affairs within and without 
 the walls of the House of Commons, I cannot but be sensible of these two 
 truths in the first place, that the people are the natural defenders of their 
 own purses ; and, in the second place, that the vigilance and watchfulness 
 with which the public mind has at some periods been directed to the 
 control of the public expenditure have of late years been very greatly relaxed. 
 You may think that is a reproach to you. You may think it a 
 reproach which comes from one who has no right to make it. Gentlemen, 
 your true friend is the man who ^ speaks openly the sentiments of his mind 
 
6 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 and his heart. I dare tell you this, that no Government, however well 
 disposed, will at any time be able to keep the expenditure within moderate 
 bounds unless backed up by the constant and unsleeping vigilance of 
 public opinion. You will ask me, perhaps, why is this ? I will tell you in 
 one sentence. It is because there are knots and groups, and I may say 
 classes, who have a constant and unsleeping interest in feeding themselves 
 on the produce of the public industry. The counterpoise to this perfectly 
 natural tendency on the part of individuals and classes is the vigilance of 
 the public mind. The present Government goes to sleep ; the other power 
 never goes to sleep. On the contrary, it is watching for every opportunity 
 to improve its position. And unfortunately there is an unhappy circumstance 
 affecting the condition of the public servants. When men in private life 
 improve their position, whether in commerce or manufacture, whether they 
 improve the produce of the soil or the mines, they improve the position of 
 all other classes ; but, unhappily, when those who have an interest in the 
 public service improve their own position they do so and I do not see 
 how the difficulty is to be avoided rather with reference to their own 
 interest than the advantage of the public. I do not say this for the 
 purpose of fixing a stigma on the present Government. It has been my 
 happy fortune to know in the public service men who have rendered labours 
 to the public and have served the State with a spirit as disinterested and 
 honourable to their station of life as any other class of men. It is the 
 nature of t the case that the public service should seek to improve its position, 
 and that this improvement must take the form of an addition to the public 
 burdens. I do not hesitate to say that the present Government has been 
 slack, and I do not presume to impute the whole of the blame to them, but 
 having said this much I will'proceed to point out.the blame which attaches to 
 the present Government, and it is for you to say whether that description 
 is fair or not. I ask you, gentlemen, something more. When I had the 
 honour of addressing the electors of St. Helen's, and of laying before them 
 the state of the case in very few and brief words in respect to the public 
 expenditure, I went the length of suggesting to them I hope it was nob 
 disrespectful that they should ask our opponents, our honourable and 
 respected opponents, Mr. Cross and Mr. Turner, what they thought of the 
 matter, because Mr. Cross and Mr. Turner request you to return them to 
 Parliament to support the men by whom this augmentation has been 
 brought about ; therefore I think it is a very serious matter that they 
 should be prepared to justify to you that which has been done. It was 
 with the greatest satisfaction I perceived that the public mind was ripe for 
 receiving a statement of that kind, and that the arrow I ventured to 
 discharge from the bow appeared to have gone home. It will not be my 
 fault, gentlemen, if that discussion is stifled or suppressed. I wish to 
 extend it and enlarge it. I don't wish to escape from blame. If you 
 think the Liberal party has been to blame, let it by all means be laid upon 
 us. The object really in view is that the public should receive advantage, 
 and I presume to tell you this the public have received advantage already. 
 I presume upon a prophecy let the elections go exactly in that way, in 
 which we don't think they will go ; let them result in the return of a 
 triumphant majority on behalf of the present Government, still, gentlemen, 
 I will venture to tell you that if you keep alive this question of the public 
 expenditure that fatal progression which has been established for the last 
 
SPEECHES 01' THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, 7 
 
 two or three years in the amount of the charges for the different branches 
 of the public service unless some great calamity should happen which 
 God forbid I venture now on the 12th of October to tell you, you will 
 have no increase of the estimates next year. I know that Mr. Cross, your 
 neighbour, is a man not only of high character, but of great intelligence, 
 and not only of great intelligence, but of great practical experience, parti- 
 cularly in those matters which relate to the management of pounds, 
 shillings, and pence. It was, therefore, with a peculiar satisfaction that I 
 observed that almost immediately after the meeting at St. Helen's the 
 mind of Mr. Cross appeared to have been impressed with observations 
 that had dropped at that meeting, and that he had addressed to the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer a letter on the subject of the increase of the public 
 expenditure. I am so much pleased and so much encouraged by the cir- 
 cumstance that Mr. Cross should thus have taken the matter so to heart, 
 and addressed a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, more- 
 over, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have answered that 
 letter, and, not only this, but that the private and personal feelings thus 
 gracefully expressed between these two gentlemen should have become 
 part of the public property by being printed in all the journals of the 
 country why, gentlemen, after this you cannot be surprised if I tell you 
 fairly that I mean to persevere in the same course, and I mean to find for 
 Mr. Cross, if I can, the materials of another letter to the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, and I have not the least doubt that if Mr. Cross 
 faithfully transmits queries that I will endeavour to put into his mouth, 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer will find sufficient occasion for 
 another reply to Mr. Cross. Gentlemen, my charge against the 
 present Government is this, I did not do to them what their followers in 
 the country did to us. I did not mix up with their estimates for the 
 ordinary services of the country demands arising out of the wars that had 
 to be carried on in this or that quarter of the globe, but, carefully separat- 
 ing every item that the most impartial or the most friendly judge could 
 have desired to see excluded, I showed that the charges for the ordinary 
 service of the country had been raised by three millions during the time 
 for which the present Government had held office. Since that a great 
 number of placards have been published, and I believe that I have got a 
 very complete collection of them, but it does not require that I should 
 trouble you with the whole of them. One is just like the other ; they 
 contain exactly the same misrepresentations misrepresentations which I 
 am quite certain have proceeded from nothing but the grossest and most 
 absolute ignorance of the whole affair, because unless I were to interpose 
 that charitable supposition I should be driven to a statement far more 
 painful namely, that the authors of these placards had not that minute and 
 superlative regard for truth by which, after all, it is desirable that we 
 should be governed in public as well as in private life. Various answers 
 have been made to the statement that 3,000,000 had been added to the 
 ordinary expenditure of the country, and that the present Government were 
 in the main responsible for that charge. Let me consider what these 
 answers are. One of the answers is a very peculiar one, and it is the one 
 to which I will first refer, for it is to the fact that in former times, eight or 
 ^.en years ago, and 15 and 20 years ago, the Conservative party were very 
 e conomical, and the Liberals very extravagant. Suppose that were true, 
 
SPEECHES OP THE HIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 would that mend the matter ? If those who were formerly extravagant 
 have become parsimonious, is it for you to refuse them the place of re- 
 pentance ? and if those who were formerly economical have become 
 prodigal, is it for you to be prevented from awarding to them the sentence 
 deserved by their guilt ? It seems to me that this answer does not mend 
 the matter in the least. It is wholly irrelevant. If the Liberal party 
 really were in former times the advocates of extravagance, and have now 
 become the advocates of parsimony, I can prove that by our recent conduct 
 there is no reason why they shouldjturn from us. Therefore the answer 
 is wholly irrelevant even if it were true ; but in addition 
 to being irrelevant it is totally untrue. Let me take the 
 points, and take them out of one of their own placards a placard in 
 Welsh and English. I hope the Welsh one is the same as the English, 
 but I cannot say positively. In this placard there is a discussion upon the 
 Income-tax, and it is stated that Lord Derby left the Income-tax at 5d. in 
 the pound, and that Mr. Gladstone raised it to 7d. It is true that Lord 
 Derby left the Income-tax at 5d. for his successors, but he never had the 
 Income-tax at 5d. for himself. Now, if you will bear with me for a few 
 moments I will give you the explanation. The placard says that in 1859, 
 under the Government of Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, the Income-tax 
 was 5d. in the pound. It is true that the law said 5d. in the pound, but 
 how was the Income-tax then levied ? You know that what you are 
 charged on the Income-tax you are charged on profits for the previous 
 year, and during the first half of that year that which is called 5d. in the 
 pound was levied, and the Conservative Government received the produce 
 not at 5d. in the pound, but at 7d. This statement which has been put 
 forth is one of those instances which we may charitably construe as gross 
 ignorance, and if we do not we must construe it as nothing less than 
 downright falsehood. Another ingenious method that was resorted to 
 was this. There is a long list of years of Income-tax, beginning at 7d., 
 and going through various figures, and ending, in 1864-1865, at 6d. in the 
 pound, but forgetting there was such a year as 1865-6, in which we were 
 able honestly to reduce the Income-Tax to 4d. I say honestly to reduce it 
 in consequence of the growth of the public revenue and of thrift in the 
 public expenditure. But I go to that which is more relied upon. It is 
 said that in 1858-9 we had low Estimates under a Conservative Govern- 
 ment ; that in 1859-60 we had high Estimates under a Liberal Govern- 
 ment ; and in 1860-1 we had Estimates on a higher scale. I must say a 
 few words on each of these three points. It is perfectly true that in 
 1858-9 you had low Estimates, and I ask you who proposed those 
 Estimates ? Why, the Liberal Government. In the case of a country of 
 this kind, with an expenditure of 70,000,000, which amounts to one-tenth 
 or one-eighth part of the whole permanent income of the country, it 
 cannot be regulated from hour to hour, from week to week. All plans re- 
 lating to the public charge must be prepared and organised months before 
 they are put into execution. The Estimates of 1858-9 were prepared by 
 the Government of Lord Palmerston. I did not belong to that Govern- 
 ment. I objected to many things that it did. What did the Conservative 
 Government do when they came in ? On the llth of February, 1858, the 
 Government of Lord Palmerston laid on the table Army Estimates 
 amounting to 11,538,000. The charge for the Militia, 432,000, must be 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 added, making 11,970,000. That was shortly after the Liberal Govern- 
 ment went out. When the Conservative Government came in I heard with 
 great satisfaction the Budget of Mr. Disraeli. He proposed to reduce that 
 sum of 11,970,000 to 11,750,000 a reduction of 200,000. Sudden 
 reductions are too often questioned in cases of this kind. Public faith- 
 and honour must be kept, our soldiers must be paid, contracts must be 
 fulfilled. Now, what was the end of the proposed reduction ? The 
 expenditure was increased to 12,512,000. Now, that's a matter of fact 
 to which I invite your attention, and the attention of Mr. Cross, and the 
 attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There was a saving of 
 288,000 in the Naval Estimates of the year, but the Army expenditure 
 exceeded the Estimates by more than 400,000 which we had to account 
 for, and ask the House of Commons to vote in 1860. So far as regards the 
 expenditure of 1858-9, the Estimates were in the main the Estimates of a 
 Liberal Government. The Conservative Government, when they came 
 into power, proposed somewhat to reduce them, but instead of doing so, 
 we found they had increased them. So much for that year. Now comes, 
 gentlemen, the year 1859-60, and in that year there was a great increase 
 of expenditure which can hardly have escaped the memory of any of those 
 who paid attention to such matters. In 1858-9 the expenditure had been 
 64,800,000 ; in 1859-60 the expenditure rose to 69,600,000 it rose, that 
 is to say, by 4,800,000, and that, it is said, is the work of a Liberal 
 Government. Now, I do not at all claim for the Liberal Government any 
 exemption from this responsibility. They came into office, when ? At the 
 end of the month of June, 1859. They proposed to Parliament the Esti- 
 mates which they found made ready for them. The Estimates imposing 
 the extension to 5,000,000 in the expenditure were the Estimates prepared 
 by the Conservative Government, and not only that, they were Estimates 
 of which, a great deal of the money had been voted and actually spent, 
 because the financial year of this country begins on the 1st of April, and 
 it was not until the month of July that a Liberal Government had an 
 opportunity of considering the state of the expenditure of the year. Now, 
 I ask you whether it is not the height of hardihood or of ignorance for the 
 adherents of a party who prepared those Estimates in the winter and in 
 the course of the spring, and who spent a great deal of money, so that it 
 was totally irrecoverable, to lay upon us the sole responsibility of the 
 increase which then occurred in the public expenditure ? Gentlemen, the 
 augmentation was a very great augmentation, and it was followed by 
 another augmentation in the year 1860, and of that also the responsibility 
 is laid upon us by the opposite party. Now, listen to a plain tale and a 
 short one. We came into office at the end of June, 1859. At the end of 
 June, 1859, Lord Elgin arrived at the mouth of the Peiho in China to sign 
 a treaty of peace with the Emperor of China, and, under the wise instruc- 
 tions of the Conservative Government, he went to sign this treaty of peace 
 with a large fleet to help him to guide the pen. The Chinese did not 
 understand the method of guiding a pen by a fleet, and thought that the 
 Ambassador might do it himself. The consequence was they laid a sort 
 of ambuscade for our fleet. A great disaster happened under the instruc- 
 tions of the Government of Lord Derby, and before we had been ten days 
 or a fortnight in office we found not that we found it when we had been 
 ten days or a fortnight in office, but before we had been ten days or a 
 
10 SPEECHES OF THE 11IGKT HOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 
 fortnight in office events had happened at the other side of the world 
 which launched us in another war with China, under the instructions of 
 the Government of Lord Derby, and that war cost us in the year 1860-61 
 at the very least from four to five millions of money. And now, in answer 
 to an attack of mine in which I have carefully separated the cost of 
 the Abyssinian war from the rest of the expenditure, those scribes 
 who support this Government go back upon the Chinese war, due 
 not to us, but to them, the fruit entirely of their policy and of 
 their instructions, and put the charge which that war entailed before the 
 country as a proof of our extravagance. Gentlemen, that, I think, is 
 a proceeding which I certainly hope never to be guilty of, and I trust that 
 no man in this room, however warm his feelings of partisanship may be, 
 ever will allow himself so grossly 'to violate the rules of fairness and 
 decency. And it is upon these statements, and statements like these, that 
 those computations are made out and placarded in the country, sometimes 
 in the letters which you see here, sometimes in letters a great deal larger, 
 saying that the Eadicals forsooth Lord Palmerston was a Eadical ! that 
 the Kadicals have spent 5,000,000 in the year more than the Conserva- 
 tives. Gentlemen, a very serious question in the minds of many is 
 whether the expenditure of those years was warranted by the circum- 
 stances. I have not in the slightest degree shrunk from telling you that in. 
 1859 we accepted the responsibility of proposing the estimates that had been 
 prepared, and providing the money that had been spent in a considerable 
 part by our predecessors in 1860. We had taken upon our shoulders the 
 Chinese war which they had brought about by their policy. Now, gentle- 
 men, this is a very serious question ; but again, I go back to the point. 
 It is impossible for an Administration to limit the expenditure if the 
 country is set upon it. 1 believe I am disposed to go as far as most men 
 in matters of thrift. But I am not disposed to say whether if I was 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer I should think it my duty to set my individual 
 will against the will of the whole country with regard to the question 
 whether two or three millions more should be spent in a particular year. 
 What you have a right to expect from a Government is this, that it shall 
 sedulously strive to keep down the public expenditure, and that it shall 
 never run in advance of the public feelings and of the public wants ; but 
 more than that I think you hardly can expect. But now, gentlemen, 
 what was our case ? I am now going to make a very serious and 
 deliberate charge. I will tell you what our case was. It was this that 
 great as was the expenditure of 1859, great as was the expenditure of 1860 
 great as was the expenditure of 1861, it was only by the utmost efforts and 
 the most desperate struggles that we kept down the expenditure where it 
 stood, in consequence of the constant and persevering efforts of a large 
 portion of the Opposition, and of many leaders of the Opposition, and of 
 many men who are now Ministers of State, to compel us to spend more 
 public money. Now, gentlemen, that is not a charge which a man ought 
 to make without being able to support it. I will support it. I invite to 
 it the attention of Mr. Cross, I invite to it the attention of the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, and I say deliberately that throughout the Government 
 of Lord Palmerston large portions of the Opposition never desisted by its 
 leaders in compelling the Government to spend more money. I say that, 
 on the contrary, during the period of administration of Lord Derby and 
 
SPEECHES OF THE 1UGIIT HON. V. E. GLADSTONE. [ 11 
 
 Mr. Disraeli, instead of the Opposition endeavouring to stimulate the 
 Government in the matter of expenditure, we did the little we could 
 to check them and control them in that course. Now, gentle- 
 men, when you see and hear these statements about the economy 
 of the Conservative Government as it is called though I do not think it 
 is Conservative myself in former years, you would suppose they had 
 done their best to restrain it, or at all events, that they had remained silent 
 in the matter. You never would dream that they had endeavoured to force 
 it to a point beyond which it actually reached. Now, there is a mode by 
 which this matter may be brought to a statistic test. There are three 
 ways in which opinions are promoted and forced forward in the House of 
 Commons ; the one is by division, and of course you will understand that 
 those who divide in favour of a motion for expenditure help to press- 
 forward expenditure ; another way is by motions, which [have very often 
 great influence even though they be not pressed to a division ; and another 
 way is found in a very harmless operation as it looks, but I may tell you 
 it is sometimes a rather invidious act, that you may often have noticed 
 reported in the newspapers. You will see before the solid business of the 
 evening commences a number of gentlemen frequently get up in the House 
 of Commons and ask this Minister and that Minister what he is going to 
 do on a particular subject " Mr. So-and-so to ask the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer whether he will consent to increase the salaries of the Post- 
 office sorters and letter-carriers in such-and-such a borough;" "Mr. So- 
 and-so to call the attention of the House to the case.of the Colonels of such- 
 and-such regiments which have been placed in such-and-such a position 
 of disadvantage ;" " Mr. So-and-so to move for a committee on the pay of 
 naval captains." These are questions which are multiplied in an indefi- 
 nite number of forms. Now, I say this and the Government have the 
 means of doing it if they like let them reckon up throughout the 
 Parliament of 1859-1865, all the questions which were put with a view of 
 increasing the expenditure ; let them reckon up all the motions that 
 were made with the view of increasing expenditure, and let them 
 reckon up all the divisions that were taken with a view of increas- 
 ing the expenditure ; let them see by whom those questions were 
 put, by whom those motions were made, and who voted in those divi- 
 sions. Now, that is a fair test let Mr. Cross make that proposal to the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. He would have nothing to do but to sefc 
 a couple of clerks to work, and in three days they would do it. I do 
 not say that we of the Liberal party are wholly exempt far from it ; but 
 the effect would be that you would find three-fourths, or perhaps nine- 
 tenths, of those proceedings in endeavouring to force the Government into 
 a higher expenditure proceeded from the Conservative party when sitting 
 upon the benches of Opposition. And they may understand that T am 
 not speaking without book. I will give you two particular instances. It 
 so happens that they are instances in which the motion, I believe, was made 
 by gentlemen who sat on the Liberal side of the House, but that is 
 immaterial to my purpose. I want to test the disposition of the Conserva- 
 tive Government of that kind of Government which you are asked to 
 support, by returning to Parliament men who will support it. The year 
 1859, it seems, was a year in which the tender consciences of the supporters 
 of the present Government were terribly scandalised on account of the 
 
12 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 
 greatly increased expenditure. There was at that time a most' formidable 
 question afloat a question connected with the proposal to create fortifica- 
 tions for the defence of the great arsenals of this country. We desired to 
 appoint a commission to inquire into the necessity for these fortifications, 
 and into the manner in which, if they were to be erected, they could be 
 erected with the greatest advantage, and at the smallest cost. But the 
 House of Commons were so fervent in their desire to have these fortifica- 
 tions, that they would not endure the delay entailed by a commission. 
 They required that we should proceed at once. This motion was made on 
 the 29th of July : " That the expense of completing the necessary works 
 of national defence should be met by a fund specially provided for that 
 purpose." That meant by a public loan, and independent of the votes of 
 Parliament. You see how the declaration of that act launched by the 
 House of Commons that it was ready to borrow money to any extent, 
 would have tended to increase the expenditure. The Government resisted 
 the motion, and it was defeated by 167 votes to 70, but in the minority 
 which voted for the motion I see the names of six members of the present 
 Government, who wanted at that very time, when the expenditure had 
 been so much enlarged, to force us into a loan. The six members of 
 the present Government who voted for the motion contained two members 
 of the present Cabinet, Lord John Manners and Sir John Pakington, the 
 latter of whom has been one of the gentlemen most connected with the 
 spending departments of the country, and he has shown as liberal a 
 disposition if it be the true essence of Liberalism to tap the pockets of 
 the tax-payers of this country as any Minister I have ever known. But 
 this was not only in relation to matters of war, it was shown in matters 
 of peace also. Did you ever hear of the plan for erecting harbours of 
 refuge ? Perhaps not ; because most of those harbours were to have 
 been on the eastern side of the country. But there was such a plan, and 
 it was proposed to spend, I think, in the first instance, 5,000,000 of 
 money/' out of which two-thirds were to be at the cost of the Exchequer, 
 and the other third was to be lent by the Exchequer. It was a scheme 
 which could not have failed to cost 10,000,000 or 12,000,000 to the 
 country. Now, what did Lord Palmerston do in those days of high 
 expenditure ? We set ourselves firmly against that scheme, and this 
 motion was made in the House of Commons on the 19th of June, 1860 : 
 " That, in the opinion of this House, it is the duty of her Majesty's 
 Government to adopt at the earliest possible period the necessary measures 
 to carry into effect the recommendations of the Commissioners appointed 
 in 1858 to inquire into the formation of harbours of refuge on the coasts 
 of Great Britain and Ireland." Observe the character of that motion. It 
 was a motion that contemplated at the very outset the spending of several 
 millions of public money, and the lending of some millions more ; and, 
 from what we know of the nature of that irresponsible expenditure, we 
 may be certain that amount of five millions would have been doubled or 
 trebled before it was over. Nine members of the present Government 
 voted for the motion, but I will only give you the names of those who are 
 in the present Cabinet, for they are entitled to that distinction. There 
 were three who are now Cabinet Ministers who voted for that motion 
 Lord Stanley, our friend Sir John Pakington, and the present guardian 
 of the public finances, Mr. Ward Hunt. They voted for an address in 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT IIOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 the House of Commons to compel the Government to spend this money, but 
 the Government did one of the greatest things on behalf of public economy 
 that I have ever known done. The motion was made, as I have told yon, 
 and I regret to say it was carried by 145 to 128, so that the House of 
 Commons addressed the Crown to have harbours of refuge made, but the 
 Government of Lord Palmerston, to his great credit, refused to act upon 
 that address of the House of Commons. There is another portion of this- 
 question to which I must briefly allude, reserving my right to go into ib 
 more fully on some other occasion. Still, I may say a few words on the 
 present occasion ; but I have, as it were, archa3ologically and in an anti- 
 quarian spirit, to relate the acts of former Governments simply for this 
 reason that our opponents have not been able to say anything on the 
 present issue, but have been obliged to disinter and disembody questions, 
 which in all practical reality are bygones. Now, I come back to the charge, 
 and I repeat it, that the Government has added to the present permanent 
 expenditure of the country a sum of three millions, without taking into- 
 account one farthing for the money expended for the Abyssinian war. 
 Now, I must say a word on this subject of the expenditure on the 
 Abyssinian war. I believe the estimate was that it would cost 5,000,000. 
 That was made in the month of April or May, when the war was practically 
 at a close, and the whole expenditure ought to have been accurately known 
 if there had been no gross blundering or negligence. I can only hope that 
 the Government has told us the whole truth, and that we know the real 
 estimate of the expenditure of that war. But I am told that we shall have 
 another bill to pay. I will not treat as a fact that which I do not know to 
 be a fact ; but if it be the truth the present Government has incurred a 
 most enormous and a most serious responsibility. But the three millions, 
 are supposed to be divided as follows : 1,400,000 for the army, 600,000 
 for the navy, and 1,000,000 for the civil service. You will soon have 
 most ingenious efforts to draw away the attention of the public from the 
 real question by seeking to show that the public services of the country are 
 inefficient that is, the naval and military services are in an inefficient state, 
 and that money must be spent to make them efficient. There is nothing- 
 that you ought to be more upon your guard against than the alleged in- 
 efficiency of the public service. It is in itself a good plea, but in the 
 mouth of a Government which wants to find an excuse for a great increase 
 of the public expenditure, it is a plea not to be admitted without a great 
 deal of careful scrutiny. I will tell you the result of some of my expe- 
 rience. When the Government wishes to raise money it is invariably done- 
 by saying that the public service is inefficient, that the money is spent ; and 
 the next thing declared is that the public service has at last been made 
 efficient. It would be well if this ended here. But somebody else comes in,, 
 who declares the public service again inefficient, and the money is again 
 spent. The same process goes on time after time, the public is utterly 
 bewildered, and at last arrives at the only certainty in the whole matter a. 
 large augmentation of the public charges. I have heard that the troops- 
 have been badly armed for the last five years ; that the late Government 
 did not finish the contracts for iron-plated ships, improved artillery, 
 and small arms. The late Government, feeling that a vast expenditure: 
 had been uselessly incurred for iron-plated ships and improved arms, 
 the last pattern being superseded by something superior before it was. 
 
14 SPEECHES OP THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 even served out, determined to proceed cautiously, and not rashly, 
 to incur a vast expenditure, as the present Government have done 
 on the latest new invention. The lesson we taught was to proceed with 
 moderation. Some have heard a great deal said about the addition of 
 500,000 to the public charges, in order to give an additional 2d. a day to the 
 pay of the soldier. Gentlemen, I do not say that too much lias been done. 
 On the contrary, I am by no means of that opinion, but I do mean to say 
 that all that has been done might have been done at much less cost to the 
 country. But what is the defence urged by the Government ? They say 
 that we ought to object ; but when the Executive Government of the Crown 
 proposed an increase of pay to the army, it was impossible for any Opposi- 
 tion to step in and say no. No one who considers in the slightest degree 
 the relation between the Executive Government and the army, and the 
 right which the army has to rely on the promises and determination of 
 the Executive, will fail to see that the judgment of the Executive 
 Government was perfectly conclusive when such a proposal was made, and 
 as they were entitled to its merits, so, in consequence, they must bear its 
 responsibility. Let me give you another instance they built a number of 
 ships, and they said that what were called reliefs, and were intended to take 
 the place of other vessels on distant stations, were in an unsatisfactory and 
 inefficient state, and that it was necessary to put the country to a great 
 charge to build more of them. We endeavoured to stop this measure in 
 the House of Commons and failed. We could not bring the House of 
 Commons to see the folly of this policy. If you are to have a real retrench- 
 ment in your Navy Estimates you must have it by a great modification of 
 that antiquated system of keeping fleets all over the world, by means of 
 these reliefs, as they are called, or by a multitude of wooden ships, which 
 would be almost entirely useless for the defence of the country. There- 
 fore I at once say that the money had better, perhaps, have been thrown 
 into the sea ; but for the expenditure of it I hold no one responsible but the 
 Government. It is quite true that the House of Commons declined to stop 
 the Government in its career, but the House of Commons is a body which 
 had during last Session particularly, and during the Session before, the 
 greatest difficulties to contend with in dealing with the Government. 
 It has been compelled to meet the Government at every turn for 
 the purpose of changing its bad proposals into good ones. But 
 you must not expect too much from the House of Commons. This 
 is, I think, all I need state to you with regard to these subjects, 
 except that I will sum it up in one sentence, and I will tell you 
 this. You observe there is a million in civil expenditure that has 
 been added. Now, I know very well that the case set up by the 
 adherents of the Government will be that there were new wants that 
 required to be met. Who supposes that in a country which expends 
 65,000,000 every year it is now, I am sorry to say, beyond 70,000,000 
 who supposes that you can estimate down to every farthing of your 
 expenditure ? You cannot stereotype the wants of a great empire. New 
 wants are always coming forward, but where there are new wants, and pro- 
 vision is made for them, that provision ought to be counterbalanced by new 
 economies. What has been done by the present Government ? I affirm 
 this, that they have adopted with regard to the civil expenditure a 
 system to which was once applied in a different sense a phrase which is 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT IIOX. TT. E. GLADSTONE. 15 
 
 a very expressive one a system of making things pleasant all round. 
 How do you understand that ? You understand that everywhere 
 there are demands on the public purse, and a great deal of trouble 
 and unpopularity to be escaped, and a great deal of political influence to 
 be obtained in local towns by making things pleasant all round. 
 I affirm this, that before the Government had been in office one 
 month it commenced its career of granting requests which we had 
 refused, of undoing and reversing decisions to which we had come 
 in the interests of the public purse, and of substituting for them 
 other decisions, at an increase of the public charge. I will give you but 
 one instance of the way in which this works. I read it in the address of a 
 candidate I will not say where ; but there is no doubt about the facts, for 
 they are a matter of public notoriety. The Government had advanced 
 20,000 for the purpose of carrying out a public work at the time of this 
 election. A candidate comes forward in the interests of the Government, 
 and he states that in the time of the Government of Earl Russell or Lord 
 Palmerston I forget which he proposed that the State should surrender 
 that debt of .20,000 upon receiving the sum of 2,500. That proposal, he 
 said, was opposed by the Liberal Government, and he could not carry it ; 
 but when a Conservative Government came in, they agreed to it. That, 
 I think, is an instance of making all things pleasant. The candidate pleads 
 the sacrifice which the Government had made of public money as a reason 
 why the constituency should return him to Parliament. If you meditate 
 upon this little matter, I think you will find it full of useful informa- 
 tion, and it may convince you that it arises out of a system of a very 
 liberal administration of the public funds and a contempt of small, 
 niggardly and unworthy saving. 
 
 There is another question which cannot be overlooked I mean 
 the question of the Irish Church. I endeavoured on a former 
 occasion at St. Helen's to express this opinion, which I am con- 
 fident is founded on fact, that the question respecting the Irish 
 Church as it stood during the last Session was really, whether in 
 Ireland you would adopt our proposal and our policy under the 
 circumstances of the country, and have no Church Establishment, or 
 whether you would have three or four. It was necessary to point 
 out that those who were responsible for the government of Ireland 
 agreed with us in the opinion that we could not stand as we were, 
 and they have proposed a plan, against which we have proposed 
 ours. Many of you probably, and a considerable number of the 
 people who are Protestant, feel opposed in conscience to the payment 
 of the grant to Maynooth College, and many who are Roman 
 Catholics may feel not less aggrieved at the payment of the sum of 40,000 
 to the Presbyterians under the name of Regium Donum. What is the 
 meaning of these two grants ? They are the buttresses of the Irish 
 National Church. The Irish Church is such a contradiction of all 
 the principles on which Church Establishments ever have been 
 founded and recommended, and of all the feelings of the country, and I 
 may say of the common sense of men and the judgment of the civilised 
 world, that it is impossible to get it tolerated except upon conditions, and 
 therefore the policy of those who desire its continuance has been to main- 
 tain and to multiply these grants which I have called the buttresses of the 
 Irish Church ; but it was felt that Maynooth and the Itegium Donum were 
 
J-6 SPEECHES OP THE BIGHT HOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 not enough, and that there must be some more of those buttresses, for 
 the wall was weak, and was beginning to bulge horribly outwards, so 
 that there was a fear that it would fall. Therefore a new buttress was 
 devised in the shape of a foundation of a Koman Catholic University, and 
 u second one viz., the increase of the Regium Donum. In the 
 House of Commons I read a letter, written by the authority of Lord Derby 
 in the year 1867, with respect to the increase of the Eegium Donum, in 
 which he said that he was extremely sorry it was too late to do anything 
 that year, but when the Estimates for the next year were framed the 
 matter would be considered, which is understood to mean that the prayer 
 would be granted. I read that letter in the House of Commons. The 
 First Minister of the Crown, the present Prime Minister, said that he was 
 not in any manner bound by what was done by the Government of Lord 
 Derby. I thought that rather odd considering that he was not merely a 
 member of Lord Derby's Government, but that he was the leader 
 of the House of Commons, and I thought it still more odd when I 
 read the address in the newspapers the other day, in which I saw that the 
 present Prime Minister has been upon terms of brotherly kindness with 
 Lord Derby for the last 20 years ; they had had but one common soul and 
 spirit one thought and mind in public affairs. And so it appears that 
 there are two faces to this deity, which may be turned about alternately as 
 occasion serves. When Lord Derby has made an inconvenient declaration, 
 then, indeed, we had nothing to do with the Government of Lord Derby; but 
 when there is no inconvenient declaration in the case, and when it is known 
 that the name of Lord Derby of which from many points of view I can 
 speak with cordial respect when it is known that the name of Lord Derby 
 is by far the best name that can be presented to the country at the approach 
 of a general election, then, indeed, a complete amalgamation with Lord 
 Derby appears to be effected, and you are invoked in his name to support 
 the present Government. But, gentlemen, whether it be Lord Derby, or 
 Mr. Disraeli, or Lord Anyone-else or Mr. Anybody-else, that is not the ques- 
 tion in view. The question in view is this are we, these three kingdoms 
 of her Majesty, to be one united kingdom, or are we not ? You have been 
 united with Ireland, so far as law could unite you and so far as force and 
 the strong hand of military power could unite you you have been united, 
 if you call it united, for 700 years. The union that has subsisted between 
 you has at no period been a source of strength or security to this country, 
 but has at all periods been a source of wonder and of scandal to the 
 civilised world. Now, gentlemen, you are the persons to whom it is to be 
 referred in the last resort how long these matters are to be carried on. 
 Do you intend, or do you not intend, that our relations with Ireland shall 
 continue such as they have been ? I ask you, the people of England, be 
 you Conservatives, be you Liberals, be you Radicals, or what you like, 
 do you think it is honourable to you, as civilised people or as a Christian 
 people, that your relations towards Ireland shall continue in this state ? 
 It is the strong hand of civil authority and of armed force and not the love 
 or respect for the law or for the British connection that preserves the peace 
 of Ireland. This is the question you have to answer, and this is the ques- 
 tion for a reply to which you wilf be responsible. We have fairly raised it 
 and laid it before you. You might, in other times, have laid it in a great 
 degree upon the governing classes of the country ; you might have laid it 
 
SPEECHES OP THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 17 
 
 on the Houses of Parliament, but you can do so no longer ; you are about 
 to create that House of Parliament, the judgment of which will be all- 
 powerful with respect to the settlement of this great question. The next few 
 weeks must determine whether for years to come the present state of things 
 is or is not to continue. What is the policy opposed to ours ? I should like 
 to know that. I should like to know if there is a man out of this room who 
 could answer that question ? We have a right to look for the answer in 
 the address of the Prime Minister. If we have had for months and 
 months past one topic more than another reiterated beyond all endurance 
 it is that my conduct and the conduct of others has been mischievous 
 beyond measure because of our rabid desire for office. We rushed at the 
 Irish Church without waiting for the report of the Commissioners. "Why 
 did you not wait for the report of the Commission," we have been asked 
 " for the report of the ten wise men who were to settle all these diffi- 
 culties ? " Well, gentlemen, I was content to say that in my opinion the 
 report of the Commission could not possibly have anything to do with the 
 matter. The report of the Commission was a report to consider how the 
 Irish Establishment should be managed supposing it were to continue an 
 Establishment, but as I wished that it should not continue an Estab- 
 lishment, I very naturally wished not to give the Commissioners the 
 trouble of making any report at all. It is perfectly obvious that as far as 
 the report of the Commission is concerned it could have no value. But 
 how does the matter stand on the other side ? That is a very different 
 affair. They did wait for it, and the report has been published. Yet 
 what is the result? The Prime Minister publishes his address, which 
 contains an outline of the policy on which the three kingdoms are to be 
 governed, and there is not a single reference in his address to that report. 
 He did not even acknowledge the portentous labours by which the Com- 
 missioners have contrived to produce a huge mass of figures in a great 
 blue book. As a matter of policy, that argument of waiting for the report 
 of the Commission, in order that the Government might be able to 
 form some idea of what was required on the question of the Irish 
 Church, is now utterly exploded. I have said, and I am bold and 
 free to repeat, that I am not a reformer of the Irish Church, but 
 an anti-reformer. There is no use in reforming the Irish Church. In 
 the Irish Church you have a body which, as regards the character 
 of its bishops, its clergy, and its laity, deserves and has my cordial 
 respect. I do not want to extinguish a single Irish bishop, but I 
 object to their living on other people, and I am perfectly convinced that as 
 an ecclesiastical body, as a holy Church, a religious communion, and as a 
 spiritual body, when you have once by your votes put them through the 
 process of disestablishment they will be happier, better, and more useful, 
 and live more nobly than they ever did before. As to the charge of being a 
 promoter of the interests of the Roman Catholic Church, I do not wish to 
 use an argument that may be odious ; but I repel and repudiate that charge, 
 and I repeat that those who make it are not prepared to substantiate it. 
 I distinctly deny that our proposal was made in the interests of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, for, while I admit that the Roman Catholics refuse to 
 take what we offer, it gives to the Roman Catholic people of Ireland civil 
 justice. What is the gift of civil justice ? It is made rather to promote 
 the interests of Christianity and to spread the dominion of the Protestant 
 
18 SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT IIOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 Church. If you say that it is not so you admit that the Koraan Church 
 is the only true Church ; and I must say that it does the Eoman Catholic 
 Church some credit when I consider their readiness and determination to 
 rely on their ancient and unbroken traditions, on the zeal and perseverance 
 of their subordinates. That is to say, their choice is not to have an Estab- 
 lishment. They say, " We can support our own Church," and they tell the 
 Protestant Establishment that it must come down from its vantage-ground 
 and meet the challenge of its rivals. That it is replied will be the ruin 
 and destruction of the Protestant Church. And this, gentlemen, is said 
 by the friends of Protestantism ! Well, I suppose that if there be any 
 friends of Protestantism that are worth its having they are those who are 
 inspired by some belief in its truth, and if there be any men that have any 
 belief in its truth, I think their desire will be that the Church of Rome, 
 and the Church of England, and the Church of the Presbyterians, and every 
 other Church under the circumstances in which Ireland is placed should 
 meet on a fair and level field, and free from the odious recollections and 
 the painful associations that must attend every system where the one party 
 has necessarily hanging about it the sense and the spirit of ascendency, and 
 where the other carries with it all the recollections of wounded feelings re- 
 sulting from oppression that lasted for long ages. Gentlemen, the question 
 is a great issue for you to consider and to decide. I think that we have 
 done our duty in the endeavour to lay it before you. Its gravity is not to 
 be disguised. It is said that we, forsooth, have made it a party question. 
 Well, gentlemen, at all events you know this, that when we charged our- 
 selves with the question of Eeform, and when we found that we must 
 abandon the question of Eeform or our offices, we determined to abandon 
 our offices. After that we are not to be driven back by these idle imputa- 
 tions. We have made our appeal fairly, openly, in the face of day to the 
 people of England to abolish the Church of Ireland as an Establishment, 
 with every consideration that equity can give in the arrangement of the 
 measures necessary for the execution of our designs, to abolish along with 
 it every other grant that involves the State in the responsibility of con- 
 nection with any particular religion, and to establish no other Church and 
 no other form of religious teaching in its place, after we shall have done all 
 that equity and indulgence can require in winding up this great scheme 
 of policy. That, I say, is the design that we have laid before the coun- 
 try, and which the country does understand. There is no other scheme, 
 gentlemen, before you ; there is nothing but a multitude of misty, foggy, 
 vaporous declarations, as far as they have meaning, all in conflict. One 
 says he is for holding high the Protestant religion in Ireland ; another 
 says, "Undoubtedly the question of the Church of Ireland is difficult 
 and requires much consideration;" another says, "Probably it will be 
 necessary to give away some part of its property." Gentlemen, don't follow 
 any one of these narrow, obscure, and devious paths, that will lead you into 
 the desert, into the mists, and into the fog. Let us go straightforward on 
 the road of civil justice and equal rights ; giving unto others that which 
 we desire they should give to us, doing unto them as we, in their place, 
 would be done by, and confident that in serving the right we are serving 
 the God of right and justice, and that wherever be the truth of faith and 
 religion, wherever be the superior claims of this or that ecclesiastical com- 
 munion, the supreme interests of truth will and must be served by the 
 adoption of such a policy. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 AMPHITHEATRE, LIVERPOOL. 
 
 OCTOBER 14iH, 1868. 
 
 ME. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN, I hope I do not presume too much 
 when I express my belief that my friend Mr. Grenfell has done much to- 
 night within these walls to establish his title to your favour. In one 
 respect, if in one only, I am happier than he, and that is that I am enabled 
 to look back to former occasions on which I have had the honour to 
 address yon, and to be cheered by your approval in the conduct of questions 
 of great public interest and moment. Mr. Grenfell has, indeed, given 
 me a friendly challenge to enter to-night on the subject of retrenchment ; 
 but as I hold that mercy is a part of justice, and as I remember that it 
 was my duty to inflict a long explanation on that matter only 48 hours 
 ago upon a portion of this constituency, I do feel that it is but fair that a 
 certain time of repose should be allowed to the minds of the men of Lan- 
 cashire. There is no want of topics upon which it is to be desired, and, 
 indeed, it is urgently necessary, that there should be a free interchange of 
 ideas between yourselves and those who are the candidates for your 
 suffrages. I cannot but go back, addressing you as I now do, towards the 
 close of the existence of this Parliament I cannot but go back to an 
 occasion, two years ago, when we were engaged in the struggle for the 
 Eeform Bill of 1866. My friend Mr. Grenfell has told you that he was 
 not one of the most sanguine adherents of that Reform Bill, but he 
 significantly added that he voted for it on every occasion. Now, I think 
 that we have not much to complain of, and certainly I, for one, don't com- 
 plain at all of those who might have thought that we were premature in 
 raising the question, or who might have thought that when we did raise it 
 we did not take the right path to success, provided they did that which 
 was done by my hon. friend, namely, that when he saw the public interest 
 
 B 2 
 
20 SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HOX. V. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 was involved, and that the principles of Liberal Government must either 
 enjoy a triumph or suffer defeat, he lent the aid of his vote on every 
 occasion in order to insure that triumph and avert that defeat. In the 
 month of April, 1866 repeating a sentiment which had been uttered by 
 my noble friend, Earl Russell, who was at the head of the Government re- 
 peating the sentiment, although in other words, I told you using a phrase 
 which was much ridiculed at the time that we had broken our bridges 
 and had burnt our boats, and that, come what might, we held ourselves 
 bound in faith and honour to the people, and would not recede from the 
 ground which we had taken. Gentlemen, I hope you think that that 
 pledge was honourably fulfilled. I trust you may also be of opinion that 
 the men who gave those pledges when they give others, and make solemn 
 declarations upon other subjects, do it, not for the purpose of paltering 
 with your feelings and serving their own interest, but because they have 
 great public objects in view, because they require your aid to enable them 
 to compass those objects, and because, in order to obtain your aid, they 
 know it is necessary to possess your confidence. Now, upon the subject 
 of Reform it is necessary that we should travel a little backwards, for, un- 
 happily, that question, although it has reached a position which undoubtedly 
 involves a great popular triumph, is not, I am afraid, to be regarded 
 as one of which we have completely taken leave. ( In 1867 we were 
 introduced to a scries of extraordinary scenes. First of all we had 
 a general intimation and promise that something would be done ; then 
 a series of resolutions, which strutted a brief hour upon the stage as they 
 might do on this stage and then disappear ; then there was a Bill which 
 we have been told, on the authority of a Gabinet Minister, was framed in 
 ten minutes, and which was withdrawn in very little more than ten minutes ; 
 and, lastly, there was a Bill which undergoing the strangest transforma- 
 tions in its coarse through Parliament has now, I will not say, become 
 the law of the land, but has been altered into something like that which 
 has become the law of the land. / When that Bill was introduced I frankly 
 stated my opinion that it was the worst Bill that was ever laid upon the 
 table of the House of Commons ; and, moreover, I believed then, and I be- 
 lieve now, and I will give you the means of judging whether I am reasonable 
 in that sentiment, that it was a Bill the veiy presenting of which would have 
 deserved and justified a vote of censure from Parliament. For what did 
 that Bill contain ? Under the name of a measure of progress, it was a 
 measure of reaction; under the name of a measure for enlarging the 
 political influence of those great classes who were almost excluded from 
 the representation, it actually narrowed and lowered the influence of those 
 classes. I have no doubt that what I now say appears like a revival of 
 ancient and forgotten history, so rapidly were the features of that measure 
 one by one effaced, and so anxious were its authors that the recollection of 
 them should not be revived. But what was the aspect with which that 
 Bill was presented to us ? It contained a provision which would have 
 enfranchised by an enlargement of the suffrage under the name of house- 
 hold suffrage from 100,000 to 120,000 men of the classes inhabiting houses 
 below 10 in value. That was the enlargement which it contained. But, 
 along with that, it contained a provision under the name of the dual vote 
 which would have doubled in the middle and the wealthier classes of this 
 country some 300,000 ; so that .instead of receiving from that measure, if 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 21 
 
 it had passed as it stood, the benefit of an enlarged share of influence in 
 the representation, the labouring men of the country, including those men 
 of Lancashire who had proved alike their intelligence and their 
 heroism during the terrible period of the cotton famine, would 
 have found themselves condemned to a still narrower sphere in 
 the influence they could exercise upon the representation of the country 
 than the sphere afforded them by the confessedly defective provisions of 
 the Keform Act of 1832. ( Therefore, that measure, called a measure of 
 Reform, was really a measure of retrogression and reaction, and, although 
 called a measure for conferring popular privileges, it was really a measure 
 for diminishing the popular privileges already conferred^ And permit me 
 to say that if we are to estimate the judgment of the Government, if we 
 are to estimate the intentions and principles of the Government, we must 
 estimate them not by the final form of an Act of Parliament, which ex- 
 hibits all the influences that the various sections of Parliament may really 
 have brought to bear upon it during its discussion, we must estimate them 
 mainly from the form of the Bill when it was laid upon the table. The 
 simple facts I have given will enable you, the electors of this large county 
 constituency, and the electors of the borough of Liverpool, to judge how 
 far it is true and how far it is not that Her Majesty's present advisers did 
 address themselves to the question of Eeform with the honest intention of 
 enlarging the sphere of popular influence and of representation. But, 
 gentlemen, over and above what I have said, there were other provisions 
 in the Eeform Bill almost as blameworthy as the provisions relating to 
 the dual vote, and these were the provisions which make me now feel it 
 necessary to address you for some little time upon the subject, because 
 they involve matters that must, necessarily, come under the early atten- 
 tion of the Parliament about to be chosen. I mean now the provisions 
 relating to compound householders. There was a fashion adopted by 
 members of the Government of sneering at what was termed the compound 
 householder, as if the compound householder was other than a British 
 citizen fulfilling all his duties of citizenship ; nay ,more, in utter for- 
 getfulness that the compound householder generally was not a compound 
 householder by his own choice, but by arrangement between his landlord 
 and his own parish. And these compound householders were two-thirds 
 of the whole population below the 10 line. The Bill presented to Parlia- 
 ment excluded the whole of those compound householders, but it allowed to 
 them the power of what do you think ? (A voice : Paying their own 
 rates.) Paying the rates ! says my friend. And what does that mean to a 
 man who never heard of rates, whose landlords had paid the rates and been 
 reimbursed in the rent without the occupant's knowing anything about the 
 matter ? Why, you know, there were tens of thousands even in this town, 
 and hundreds of thousands of such throughout the country. Now, what was 
 the option, what was the privilege conceded to the artisan of England in 
 that condition ? It was this : he might go to the most learned in the law 
 among his friends and inquire of them what course he was to take in order 
 to find out the nature and amount of his liability as a rate-payer ; he 
 must then find out and I am sure I do not know exactly how he would do 
 it what rates had been paid recently in the parish to which he belonged, 
 of which he had no business, as the law stood, to know anything at all. 
 And then he was allowed the privilege of devising a form under which 
 
22 SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 he might apply to the parish officer to pay up the full' difference 
 between the rate last levied on the parish and the composition 
 rates which his landlord had paid for him, and of which he knew 
 nothing whatever. Gentlemen, it was a pure mockery. It was 
 little short of an insult to the labouring men of England, 
 engaged from morning to night in the honourable exertions whereby 
 they support their wives and families, to tell them that if they wished to 
 enjoy the privileges of citizenship they were to set about the process of 
 this legal inquiry to ascertain facts and learn the forms in which to pre- 
 sent the documents, and then to pay a sum in hard money in order to be 
 educated to the franchise. "Well, on the night on which that pro- 
 posal was made I said that it was a Bill for imposing upon the 
 people of England that is upon two-thirds of the people of England 
 below 10 a pecuniary fine, as the condition for obtaining and 
 exercising the franchise, and to that statement 1 now deliberately adhere. 
 The Liberal party in the House of Commons were accordingly dis- 
 satisfied with the provisions of the Bill, and they authorised and in- 
 structed me, at a meeting which was held at my house for the purpose, to 
 state the formidable objections, as we considered them, to the Bill. I will 
 run over these objections. The first was that while the voter of 10 was",to 
 reside for one year to entitle him to the franchise, the voter under 10 was 
 to reside for two years to entitle him to the franchise, and the Minister 
 who explained that clause, Sir John Pakington, the present Minister of 
 "War, very frankly stated in the House of Commons that the main object 
 of creating that distinction and imposing the condition of two years indeed, 
 of one was to restrain the numbers that would be admitted to the fran- 
 chise. Well, gentlemen, that clause disappeared, and the two years, through 
 the action of the Liberal party upon a division, were reduced to one year. 
 The second point was the dual vote, in which I have already told you that 
 it was estimated by the best-informed persons that while it would have 
 been enjoyed exclusively by those wealthier portions of the community that 
 were already amply represented, to them would be given an influence of 
 not less than 300,000 additional votes. The statement of the Minister was 
 that it would very largely exceed 200,000, but I know I do not speak 
 without book when I place that amount at 300,000. Well, gentlemen, that 
 clause also disappeared. The next was a set of franchises given to 
 persons who had obtained degrees in Universities, given to persons who 
 paid a certain amount of assessed taxes, or who paid a certain amount of 
 income-tax, all invested with the same apparatus viz., that of depressing 
 popular influence in the constituencies. Those clauses were powerfully 
 opposed by my learned friend Sir Roundell Palmer, and the Government 
 was compelled to withdraw them. The next point, gentlemen the fourth 
 of those I have named was that the Bill did not contain what is known 
 by the name of a lodger franchise. Now, possibly in Liverpool certainly 
 in many towns of the country as a general rule, each head of a family 
 has his own house, and where that is the case the question of the lodger 
 franchise is of little importance ; but in large portions of London and 
 London, you will recollect, contains one-third of the entire town population 
 of the country in large portions of London, by far the greater part of the 
 artisans and labouring population are not householders but lodgers ; 
 therefore we entirely objected to passing by this well-qualified class of 
 citizens; and the Liberal party required, and at length obtained, the 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. ' 23 
 
 insertion of the clause which grants the lodger franchise. Well, gentlemen, 
 the fifth point I will mention is this there was an ingenious provision in 
 the Bill that any voter might give his vote by means of a form written 
 upon paper ; it was represented that this would be a matter of great 
 convenience, and one distinguished member of Parliament very friendly 
 indeed to the proposal, a man of whom I never can speak but to his 
 honour described the proposal in this sense: The declaration upon 
 paper was to be made, I think, before a magistrate, and he said it would 
 be exceedingly convenient if it would turn the magistrate's drawing-room 
 or sitting-room into the polling-booth. Well, gentlemen, we did not think 
 that a great recommendation. It appeared to us that we especially those of 
 u s who object to the ballot most undoubtedly wish rather to see the British citi- 
 zen give his vote with his fellow-citizens at the polling-booth than carry 
 it to the house of the magistrate, very possibly the magistrate being his 
 landlord, very possibly under the conduct of the landlord's agent on his 
 way to the drawing-room. We deemed the provision adverse to free 
 election and a popular franchise, and upon a division we were able to 
 expunge it from the Bill. The sixth point upon which we objected was 
 that the county occupation vote was not sufficiently extended ; it was 
 proposed to fix the line at 15 of rated value. We did not obtain with 
 respect to that point as much as we could have wished. However, we 
 obtained the reduction to 12 rated value, and, undoubtedly, I hope that 
 any voter who happens to be of 12 rated value in the county, and not to 
 be of 15, and happens to hear any Tory candidate dilating on the great 
 generosity of her Majesty's Government in granting you this Reform Bill, 
 will inquire into the history of the party operation by which the 12 got 
 a vote in the teeth of the views of her Majesty's Government. The 
 seventh point related to the scheme of the redistribution of seats, and 
 upon that I will only say that, as it was introduced, it was miserable, 
 narrow, and totally unsatisfactory. By force of adverse divisions and 
 considerable majorities, we did obtain some enlargement of that scheme. 
 I own we did not obtain all the enlargement that we should have wished ; 
 that was not our fault ; it was the fault of the resistance with which we 
 were met from the Treasury benches. My eighth point was this, that 
 the Bill, as it was introduced, did not grant any reduction whatever upon 
 the leasehold franchise in the county constituencies. We deemed that it 
 was (most desirable to increase that class of voters, and again upon a 
 division we were enabled to obtain the reduction of that franchise from 
 10 to 5, at which it now stands. These are eight of the ten points I 
 mentioned which I put down to-day ; the ninth I really don't at this 
 moment recollect ; but the tenth related to the personal payment of rates, 
 on which I shall say a few more words. But I am bound also to add, for 
 I think they are among the very valuable provisions of the Reform Bill, that 
 we were enabled to introduce into that measure not, indeed, all the clauses 
 that are desirable for the purpose of restraining the heavy cost of Parlia- 
 mentary elections, which cost, depend upon it, gentlemen, is neither more 
 nor less, when you look at it closely, than another fine upon the exercise 
 of popular privilege, another limitation placed upon the freedom of your 
 choice we did not succeed in introducing all that we sought to introduce 
 for the purpose of limiting that heavy charge. Some provisions applicable 
 io the whole country, and some, in particular, applicable to boroughs, we 
 
24 SPEECHES OP THE IUGIIT HON. TT. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 did introduce, which as far as they go are of a very salutary and useful 
 character, but which, unfortunately, did not receive the approval of her 
 Majesty's Government, and were carried by that last and painful resort, 
 the resort to the process of counting numbers on a division. There is an- 
 other point I must mention, although it relates in this county more to 
 towns than to tlio county, and it is also a point on which I frankly own 
 to you there was a considerable division in the Liberal party itself; bufc 
 the great majority of the Liberal party did resist, and resist with increasing 
 energy the more they considered the matter, that clause which is called 
 the clause for the representation of minorities, and which, as far as I am 
 able to comprehend its operation, appears to be considered a common 
 nuisance to the towns into which it has been introduced. You will have 
 seen that, out of the ten points I have mentioned, eight points were either 
 carried wholly or in great part. The same, I believe, was the case with the 
 ninth, and nothing now remains of the identity of the Bill originally brought 
 in except the personal payment of rates. That being so, it was still a 
 matter of vital consequence to her Majesty's Government to show that 
 they were the authors of the Keform Bill which had been passed during the 
 period when they undoubtedly held office as Ministers of the Crown, 
 and for this purpose an ingenious theory was constructed by the present 
 Prime Minister in the speech delivered by him at Edinburgh about twelve 
 months ago, which is, perhaps, most commonly known by the name of the 
 " Education Speech." The Prime Minister on that occasion making no 
 reference to any of the nine points, of great importance, every one of them, 
 that had been in the Bill, but which had all been turned topsy-turvy by 
 the Parliamentary activity of the Liberal party said the Bill was founded 
 upon five principles, and these five principles were introduced to supply the 
 place of the ten points. Now here, gentlemen, were the five principles. 
 The first was that the whole question of Keform was to be dealt with at 
 once ; but the whole question of Reform was not dealt with at once, for 
 the Reform of Parliament for Scotland and the Eeform of Parliament for 
 Ireland were entirely postponed to a subsequent Session of Parliament. 
 Perhaps it may be meant that the redistribution of seats was to be 
 dealt with in the same measure as the franchise ; but what became 
 of redistribution of seats for Ireland? Why, that the Government 
 cut it out of their own Irish Franchise Bill, and it now stands over to 
 be taken up next year, or five years or ten years hence, or whenever 
 anybody pleases. So much for the first principle that the whole 
 question was to be dealt with at once. The second principle was 
 that no borough was to have its representation extinguished. That was a 
 very broad and manful avowal I think a most erroneous opinion, but still 
 one with regard to which it was bold, clear, and intelligible. So far as I 
 am informed as to the matter of this process of education that had been 
 assiduously carried on, I believe that the promise that no borough should 
 be extinguished was one of the many promises and inducements held out 
 to the Conservative party to lead them to swallow, with as good grace as 
 they could, the Bill of Household Suffrage. But although, in 1867, 
 we failed in extinguishing any of these small boroughs which certainly 
 are a disgrace to our representation, for they do nothing to contribute 
 to the vigour of that representative system I am happy to say 
 that in 1868, on the introduction of the Scotch Reform Bill, we did service 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 25 
 
 in knocking upon the head some of those small and paltry delinquents, 
 those peccant members of the representative system, and, along with that 
 decision of the House, disappeared the second of the five principles. The 
 third principle was that a Boundary Commissionjwas to extend the boundaries 
 of the principal boroughs of the country. That Boundary Commission sat. 
 Its recommendations were subjected to the consideration of a committee of 
 the House of Commons, presided over by Mr. Walpole. The committee, 
 which was a small one, was composed of members sitting on both sides of 
 the House, and that committee reported unanimously in favour of again, 
 knocking on the head all the principal recommendations of the Boundary 
 Commissioners. Liverpool, Manchester, Marylebone, Lambeth, Birming- 
 ham, almost all the great towns of the country, were intended to be en- 
 larged to remove many of you from the county, and deprive you of the 
 county franchise. This was one of the five points which entered into the 
 education of the Conservative party, and which was intended to induce 
 them to acquiesce in the Reform Bill by showing how complete a hold 
 would be given them on the county representation. The third principle 
 went the way of the first and second, and disappeared from the system of 
 Eeform. The fourth principle was that the county representation should 
 be increased. Well, who introduced the county representation ? The 
 Liberal party. We were not satisfied with the increase in the county re- 
 presentation given by the Bill of the Government and enlarging the scheme 
 of the redistribution of seats ; we gave a larger amount of county repre- 
 sentation than the Government had proposed to give, and I myself stated in 
 the House of Commons the irresistible claims of the county of Lancashire 
 to a much larger amount of representation than was given by the Bill. 
 I was unable through the opposition of the Government to procure for you 
 that augmentation. The fourth principle has not been effaced from the 
 Bill, but it was our principle and not that of the Government. We gave 
 augmentation to the counties beyond what the Government proposed, 
 which would have been further augmented if our numbers had been 
 sufficient to secure it. I have given you nine out of ten points, and 
 four out of the five principles. I now come to the tenth point> 
 and to the fifth principle, and that is the principle which was 
 described in the debate as the personal payment of rates. Now, what do 
 you suppose is meant by the personal payment of rates ? I can tell you, 
 what it does not mean. It does not mean that the rates shall be paid by 
 the person. There is not the least necessity that the rates should be paid 
 by the person ; there is not the least necessity that any man should pay 
 the rates in order to become a voter ; any person who pleases may arrange 
 with his landlord to pay the rates, and it may happen that there may be 
 thousands of persons under the present law who do not know there is such 
 a thing as a rate, and who yet come upon the register. I am most anxious 
 to draw your attention to this because it will show what the Government 
 have clung to with such tenacity, and the real sting of the Eeform BilL 
 When the discussion was introduced at the beginning of 1867 the personal 
 payment of rates did not mean the payment of rates by the person. Not only 
 so, but a high moral tone was adopted by the Government and their advo- 
 cates. It was said that it was not necessary for the occupier to pay the rate 
 provided the rate was but paid, and we were decried as upholders of the 
 doctrine which tended to demoralise the community, and we were met 
 
"26 [ SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT IIOX. TT. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 on the other side by the most affecting declarations to show up to how 
 high a pitch of virtue the householders of the country would be educated, 
 by being called upon three or four times a year to such an exercise of self- 
 denial as would enable them to lay by the money ready to give to the rate- 
 collector when he came. I assure you that this is the whole staple of the 
 argument. We said, " "What business have you to require heroism as a 
 condition of the franchise ? You don't require the rich man to prove that 
 he is a self-denying man in order that he may vote ; why are you to ask 
 from the poor man, in the most inconvenient form, that which he now pays 
 in the most convenient form ? We admit it to be desirable that he should 
 put by, but although he may not be able to put by, he may be able to 
 exercise the franchise hereafter if he can discharge the claims of the land- 
 lord, and enable the landlord to meet the claims of the parish." However, 
 gentlemen, the advocates of the Government got upon the high horse of 
 virtue and morality, and in their anxiety to carry the highest principles of 
 action through all the lowest strata of the community, they insisted upon 
 that personal payment of rates ; but, as I have told you before, when the 
 Bill was passed it was found that the whole attempt to enforce the payment 
 of rates by each individual would be so ridiculous, as well as so oppressive, 
 that on the question being put in the House of Commons as to whether the 
 personal payment of rates meant that the man himself must pay them, the 
 answer was that it was not in the slightest degree necessary. And therefore 
 all this virtue, all this heroism, all this self-denial, and this noble moral basis 
 which was laid for the Reform Act of a chivalrous Government, have been 
 wholly swept away ; and what remains ? I have told you that the morality 
 has been swept away ; but there is something else that has not been swept 
 away, and that is our old friend the fine. Before the Reform Act of the 
 present Government, it was competent for the parish and the landlords to 
 agree together, and for the landlords or owners to agree with the occupiers 
 in conformity therewith, that the landlord should pay the rates and should 
 receive a reasonable discount in consideration of his advancing the money 
 and of his running the risk. The landlord may still pay the rate, but he 
 must pay the rate without the discount, and that is all that remains ; but 
 what does that mean ? It means a fine upon the occupier. Now, listen to 
 me for two minutes, for I do not use the language, at least purposely, of 
 exaggeration. The occupier is liable, we will say, to pay 10s. in the name 
 of rates. Convenience makes it desirable that the landlord should pay it for 
 him, and the law allows it. But if the landlord is to pay it, I tell you as 
 a simple elementary truth of political economy, he must have some com- 
 mission for paying it. He will not advance the money, he will not run the 
 risk of not recovering it without that commission. I want to know who 
 is to pay that commission ? The answer is inevitable, the occupier of 
 the house ; and, therefore, this is the basis on which we now stand, that, 
 besides the inconvenience which is suffered in many cases of having the 
 composition broken up, the occupier has to pay to the landlord in his rent- 
 book the full rate, if the landlord pays it for him, and along with the full 
 rate a commission to the landlord for advancing the money, and for incur- 
 ring the risk. That, I say, is a fine which is imposed on the occupier. 
 Now, gentlemen, you have heard it said that a majority of the Liberal 
 party opposed the Reform Bill. We opposed a great many of the pro- 
 visions of the Reform Bill, no doubt, and I have shown you with what 
 
SPEECHES OP THE RIGHT HON. TT. E. GLADSTONE. 27 
 
 result. We opposed the Beform Bill in the endeavour to improve it, and 
 .at one time those endeavours to improve it very nearly endangered the life 
 of the Bill itself. When we proposed to disfranchise some more small 
 boroughs, what did the Minister say ? He said that if the House dis- 
 franchised any boroughs the Government must reconsider its position and 
 determine whether it would drop the Bill, and I took the liberty of saying 
 immediately that the Bill was no longer the property of the Government, 
 but of the House, and I distinctly signified that if they thought fit to 
 drop the Bill there would be others perfectly ready to take it up. 
 However, there was one point on which we did go to vital issue with 
 the Government ; we objected entirely to the whole of those complex pro- 
 visions about compound householders. We saw that as the Bill was framed, 
 while it would be quite possible for the independent artisan to procure his 
 own enfranchisement, it would also be perfectly possible for the electoral 
 agent to do ^it, not so much in boroughs where people are numbered by 
 tens of thousands, but in all the small boroughs ; in those places where 
 the election is turned by 10, 20, or, it may be, by 100 votes. We saw that 
 a new fountain of corruption would be opened by those provisions ; while 
 they left the franchise to the independent action of the man himself, they 
 left it perfectly open to the local legal gentlemen who conducted the 
 operations of the elections to enfranchise compound householders by 
 hundreds to secure the success of a particular candidate. We were 
 determined to get rid of that mischief, and we insisted that the 500,000 
 whose rates were paid by their landlords should not on that account be 
 deprived of the franchise. That was a motion on which we took issue with 
 the Government ; and, though I think that 289 voted for it, we were, 
 unfortunately, beaten by a majority of 22. We said it was infinitely better, 
 if they thought fit to do it, to restrict the franchise in an open manner, 
 and by a plain andlntelligible process, than restrict it in [an underhand 
 manner by pretending to give it and then multiplying unintelligible pro- 
 visions that would prevent the enjoyment of the boon. There were two 
 ways by which the matter could be dealt with. The first, and the better 
 way, was by providing that the franchise should be enjoyed alike, whether 
 the rate was paid by landlord or by tenant, without interfering with com- 
 position at all ; that was the better way, and the one we recommended. 
 The other, and the worst way, was by providing that the landlord should 
 not pay the rate, and that composition should be abolished. That method 
 was adopted by the Government, and it was far better in my opinion than 
 the original provisions of the Bill, which would have left the great mass of 
 the people unenfranchised, except those who were enfranchised by election 
 trick and chicanery. But at the same time the provisions entailed a 
 great amount of inconvenience and of cruel vexation on a large portion of 
 the ratepayers of the country, and I have troubled you with this long story 
 because I know it is a matter of deep practical importance to the 
 comfort of tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of families in 
 humble circumstances, and I want to show what I have objected 
 to from the first the absurd provisions of a law which, under pretence 
 of virtue and morality, by-and-by thrown aside, inflicted -that incon- 
 venience. T have objected to those provisions from the first, and if I 
 should be a member of the Parliament about to be elected, among the 
 objects which I shall deem to be essential to the comfort and advantage of 
 
28 [ SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. V. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 the country will be the relief of the newly-enfranchised classes from this most 
 needless and most vexatious interference with their social arrangements. 
 
 My lion, friend has referred briefly to the great and absorbing ques- 
 tion that more than any other presses on the minds of the people of 
 this country the question of the state of Ireland and to proposals which 
 we have made in regard to the Irish Church. My lion, friend has most 
 justly pointed out that the proposals with regard to the Irish Church are 
 not the only proposals which will be requisite in order to pay the full debt 
 of justice to [that country, and I will add of justice to this country, for 
 justice to this country requires just as much as justice to Ireland that we 
 should establish throughout the three kingdoms of her Majesty a real 
 equality of rights. But, gentlemen, what I wish you to take heed of at 
 this moment is the real and actual state of Ireland, for I own to you that 
 it seems to me that the most extraordinary blindness rests upon the minds 
 of our opponents with reference to that subject. They persist I won't 
 say and I don't think it can be wilful, but yet it is that kind of ignorance 
 and blindness which it is impossible to comprehend they persist in 
 refusing to take any true and adequate measure of the great evil by which 
 Ireland is afflicted. I mean the estrangement of the minds of the people 
 from the law, from public authority, from this country ay, and even, to 
 a great extent, from the very Throne, under the shadow of which we are so 
 happy to live. Now, gentlemen, is it true, or is it not true, that there is 
 here a real evil to deal with ? I ventured, in an appeal to the House of 
 Commons in the course of last Session, to entreat those whom I saw 
 opposite to me to join with us in an effort to efface from the memory 
 of Ireland, by reparation and by justice, all that she had suffered. Well, 
 but what was the answer made to me, and made by a gentleman 
 whom I believe ^to be an upright as well as an able defender of 
 the opinions he holds namely, Mr. Gathorne Hardy, the present 
 Home Secretary ? He made to me this answer, and I beg you to 
 consider the terms. I had said, " Apply, if you can, a medicine to 
 this disaffection which exists in Ireland ;" and he answered, " It is the 
 mind of Ireland that is diseased, a disease caused by long traditions 
 of hatred to the Saxon race that have been kept alive by misrepresen- 
 tation and by constant agitation. It is thus you have diseased the kindly 
 and generous mind of Ireland, which would otherwise have been in har- 
 mony and peace with us." Now that is the representation made, gentle- 
 men, by our political opponents that there is no real mischief and no 
 real grievance of a serious kind in Ireland, and that all the discontent that 
 exists is due to what is called agitation. Why, gentlemen, the first token 
 of gross error that immediately meets the mind when we examine such 
 reasons is this that such a speaker as Mr. Hardy, seems to suppose that 
 when a people is well and justly governed, it is in the power of an agita- 
 tor to make it discontented ; and you cannot go through the length and 
 breadth of the world into any country where tyranny prevails without 
 finding that this is the very language and the very excuse of the tyrant. 
 The tyrant always says, " If there is no real mischief, there is no real 
 grievance ; it is all due to agitation." Well, but what is the state of facts 
 in Ireland ? On that, after all, the difference as to the matter of fact is 
 possibly not so very great. The state of facts in Ireland is described by 
 this that on four successive occasions, through three successive years, we 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT IIOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 29 
 
 have been obliged to suspend in Ireland the law of liabeas corpus, which 
 provides for the personal liberty and security of every one of you. We 
 have been obliged to suspend that law to provide for the maintenance of the 
 peace of the country. (A voice, "More shame/') A gentleman says, "More 
 shame." I do not agree with him. It is our duty to maintain the peace 
 of the country ; it is our duty to suspend that law if its suspension be ne- 
 cessary for such a purpose ; but it is also our duty, in suspending that 
 law, to look gravely and carefully at the causes which have led to the sus- 
 pension of the law, and obviate, if we can, the recurrence of occasions so 
 painful and scandalous, which oblige us, on account of the alienation and 
 estrangement of the public mind, to take away from Ireland one of those 
 guarantees of liberty which every one of us values dearer even than life. 
 Lord Mayo, speaking on behalf of the present Government in the House 
 of Commons, told us that a very large portion of the population of Ireland 
 of the lower classes and, unfortunately, in Ireland what we call the 
 lower class is an overwhelming portion of the whole that a very 
 large portion of that population was either in positive sympathy with 
 Fenianism, and ready to seize the very first opportunity of armed resist- 
 ance to the law, or was at all events disposed to look on with favour 
 or with a cold neutrality, and not disposed to render that loyalty 
 and that warm and firm attachment which we desire to see pre- 
 vailing between the whole of the subjects of the country and the laws 
 under which they live. Gentlemen, what I want to call your attention to 
 is this that it is a most remarkable picture. Lord Mayo, having de- 
 scribed the manner in which the educated classes in Ireland are almost 
 entirely, though not altogether, opposed to the mad and wild attempts of 
 the Fenian conspiracy, went on to say that Fenianism had its root in 
 another land. Well, if there were time, I should like to tell you what the 
 Americans think of Fenianism, for it is most desirable we should hear 
 what they have to say on the subject ; but for the present what I wish to 
 point out to you is this, the real state of the Irish mind in America; 
 because, if not we who are assembled here, yet many of our countrymen, 
 delude themselves with the idea that Fenianism in Ireland is only the fancy 
 of the mere scum of the community of the drunkard, of the beggar, of the 
 thief, of what are called the dangerous or disreputable classes ; and they 
 think that in America Fenianism is nothing but the result of a military 
 excitement which necessarily has invaded that country, engaged as it has 
 been in the distracting struggles of a civil war. Now, I am going to read 
 to you some notices which are short, but they are of the deepest interest, 
 from a work on which I think that full reliance may be placed. It is the 
 work of Mr. Maguire, the Member of Parliament for Cork, and a most 
 intelligent man, a very able Member of Parliament, and, I believe, a per- 
 fectly faithful and honest witness, and a true and warm-hearted Irishman. 
 No man is more opposed to Fenianism than Mr. Maguire ; but he paid a 
 visit to America; he published the results, and I do not believe that either 
 his good faith or his accuracy has been impugned. He made it his 
 business to ascertain what were the elements of the strength of Fenianism. 
 in America. Because the question is this : Is it the result of merely acci- 
 dental cases ? is it confined to the outcasts of society ? or is it a deeply 
 rooted inveterate passion that has taken hold of the mind of the people of 
 that country as the violent recoil from the sufferings they have undergone, 
 
30 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 and which is likely to become a passion as permanent as it is vehement, 
 unless we can apply the remedy to the fountain-head of the disease ? 
 Now, we are fond of thinking that a sentiment of irritation in the 
 Northern States of America has had to do with Fenianism. Take this 
 anecdote told by Mr. Maguire. He meets with an Irish Southerner 
 who has been crippled in the war by the loss of one of his arms, 
 fighting for the Southern cause, but that man holds up the other 
 arm, and he says, "This is the only arm I have left, and so help me God, 
 I'd give it and every drop of my heart's blood if I could only strike one 
 blow for Ireland." Mr. Maguire goes again to a mine wrought almost 
 entirely by Irishmen, about 300 in number, in the State of Illinois. 
 Among those 300 men he says there were not six drunkards, but he said 
 he found among them the same feeling of passionate love for Ireland 
 the same feeling of passionate hatred to its Government, of course 
 meaning the British connexion. Mr. Maguire gives his opinion in these 
 words generally : " My belief is that among Fenians in almost every 
 State or Union there are many thousands of the very cream of the Irish 
 population ; indeed, in several places in which I have been I have learned, 
 on unquestionable authority, very frequently of those who regarded 
 Fenianism with positive dislike and its leaders with marked mistrust, 
 that the most regular, steady, and self-respecting of the Irish youth, or 
 the immediate descendants of Irish parents, contributed its chief strength." 
 Gentlemen, I know not what impression such statements make on your 
 minds. They make a deep impression on mine. I think we, perhaps, 
 were pretty well aware of the state of the case ; but I would to Heaven 
 that those who are opposed to us, and who think as the Minister of the 
 Crown thinks who has the seals of the Secretary of State for the Home 
 Department, that all the evils of Ireland are owing to agitation I wish 
 they were aware of this state of feeling. Why, gentlemen, Mr. Maguire 
 adds this he meets with an Irishman in America who had been evicted 
 from his holding in Ireland 25 years ago. Mr. Maguire says he cherished 
 a feeling of hatred and vengeance not so much against the individual by 
 whom the wrong was perpetrated as against the Government by whom it 
 was sanctioned, and under whose authority it was inflicted. You have 
 read probably within the last few weeks the painful and heartrending 
 accounts of those attempts at eviction on the estate of Mr. Scully in 
 Ireland, which ended in the death of one or two policemen. Possibly 
 you have read in the newspapers the condition of the leases which those 
 holders of the land were required to accept, or else to .leave their holdings 
 without a hope of livelihood of any kind. If you have read those con- 
 ditions, if you bear in mind that such laws can be proposed to the poor 
 occupiers of land in Ireland without offending the law, and if you then add 
 to this recollection that the strong arm of the Government is ever at com- 
 mand to defend the enforcement of whatever is legal, I think every one 
 of us can well conceive cannot indeed justify but can excuse, or, if we 
 cannot excuse, can at least understand how it is that this deep and sullen 
 feeling of estrangement passive estrangement, sometimes arising into 
 active and burning hatred has grown up in the minds of that unhappy 
 people. But now, gentlemen, I am going to present to you a contrast, for 
 many of those gentlemen who admit in their full breadth the unhappy 
 effects with regard to the state of the national mind of Ireland I mean of 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 31 
 
 a very large portion of that people many of those who admit, the facts 
 dispute the causes, and they tell you with a grave face and many of them, 
 I believe, are conscientiously convinced, strange as it may appear that all 
 this is owing, not to agitation, as a Minister of the Crown thinks, but to 
 some unhappy, incurable perverseness of mind in the Irishman that makes 
 him love to live in the atmosphere of turbulence and discontent, just as 
 much as an inhabitant of any other country loves to live in an atmosphere 
 of contentment and loyalty and peace. Certainly, gentlemen, that is a 
 creed of astounding strangeness. I was going to say it was a libel upon 
 Providence. Supposing it happened that there was a particular country 
 on the face of the earth where all mankind were born with only one arm 
 and one leg instead of two arms and two legs, we should think it a most 
 strange and incredible circumstance until we had ocular demonstration of 
 the fact. Rely upon it, it is not one whit less strange, not one whit less 
 incredible, that there should be a people a civilised people, a Christian 
 people, a people engaged like ourselves in the pursuits of industry, a people 
 living as we ourselves do in every domestic relation of life, and fulfilling 
 their duties well yet that this people should have an insatiable [and inex- 
 tinguishable passion for turbulence and discontent and a hatred of that 
 state of peace which is the only road to prosperity. I might, I think, 
 stand for the confutation of that belief upon its rank absurdity. When 
 such things are told us we have a right to refuse all credit to them. They 
 involve revolutions of the whole course of nature and the whole order of 
 the world, which, many as are the imperfections of the state in which we 
 live, nevertheless are not to be found. But we have the confutation of 
 facts. Lord Mayo even has shown you the state of the Irishman in 
 Ireland ; Mr. Maguire has shown you the state of the Irishman in the 
 United States. ISTow go with me across the Canadian border and look for 
 a few minutes to the state of the Irishman in Canada, and here, instead of 
 referring to lengthened and various documents, I will quote the words but 
 of a single witness. Possibly the name I am going to mention may be 
 known to you. It is the name of Mr. D'Arcy M'Gee, a gentleman who, I 
 believe, was well known in Ireland during so much of his life as he passed 
 there, as one of the most vehement of Irish patriots, and as one of those 
 who either exposed himself on that account to the penalties of the law, 
 or else was within an ace of so exposing himself. That was the character 
 of Mr. D'Arcy M'Gee. He went to Canada. Canada is under the 
 sway of the same beloved Queen. In what does Canada differ from the 
 United Kingdom ? Canada has a free Parliament, and so have we, bub 
 Canada has not got unjust laws regulating the tenure of the land on which 
 the people depend for subsistence, and Canada has not got installed and 
 enthroned in exclusive privileges the Church of a small minority. It was 
 said of old that men who crossed the sea changed their climate but not 
 their mind ; but mark the change which passed upon the mind of Mr. 
 D'Arcy M'Gee. Let me read you his testimony, for it is in words more 
 significant and more weighty than I can give you words that cannot be 
 carried home too forcibly to the minds and hearts of the people. Only a 
 few months ago Mr. D'Arcy M'Gee spoke as follows at a public festival 
 given to himself and his colleague at Montreal. Speaking of Fenianism, 
 and of the spirit with which he was prepared to resist it, he says " I wish 
 the enemies of her internal peace, I wish the enemies of the Dominion, to- 
 
32 SPEECHES OP THE RIGHT HOX. TV. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 consider for a moment that fact, and to ask themselves whether a state of 
 society which enables us all to meet as we do in this manner, with the full- 
 est feeling of equal rights and the strongest sense of equal duties to our 
 common country, is not a state of society, a condition of things, a system 
 of laws, and a frame of self-government worthy even of the sacrifice of 
 men's lives to perpetuate and preserve." Such is the metamorphosis 
 effected on the mind of a disaffected Irishman by passing from a country 
 of unjust laws to a country of just laws ; but has he changed his mind 
 "with respect to Ireland ? He thinks and speaks of Ireland as he thought 
 and spoke of it before. He says, " Speaking from this place, the capital 
 of British America, in this presence, before so many of the honoured men. 
 of British America, let me venture again to say in the name of British 
 America to the statesmen of Great Britain, ' Settle for our sakes and your 
 own, for the sake of international peace, settle promptly and generously 
 the social and ecclesiastical condition of Ireland on terms to satisfy the 
 majority of the people to be governed. Every one sees and feels that 
 while England lifts her white cliffs above the waves she never can suffer 
 a rival Government, a hostile Government, to be set up on the other side 
 of her. Whatever the aspirations of Irish autonomy, the union is an 
 inexorable political necessity, as inexorable for England as for Ireland. 
 But there is one miraculous agency which has yet to be fully and fairly 
 carried out in Ireland. Brute force has failed. Proselytism has failed. Try, 
 if only as a novelty, try patiently and thoroughly, statesmen of the Empire, 
 the miraculous agency of equal and exact justice for one or two generations.' " 
 'Gentlemen, I wish to impress on the minds of the people of England this 
 advice of Mr. D'Arcy M'Gee. Since these words were uttered the man 
 from whose mouth they proceeded has been removed from this lower world, 
 arid his death due, as some think, to Fenian licentiousness has added 
 a melancholy dignity and an augmentation of weight and force to the 
 impressive sentiments which he had uttered. It is in pursuance of 
 these opinions that we have proposed to Parliament the policy on which 
 you have to pass your judgment. The first fruits of that policy are 
 before you. I will describe to you in few words what it is that has been 
 said and done what it is that you are called upon to ratify or to reverse. 
 The House of Commons in 1868, and the House of Commons which 
 still subsists, is certainly not a revolutionary assembly ; but that assembly 
 has declared by its vote that it is expedient that the Established Church in 
 Ireland should cease to exist as an Establishment ; that all appointments 
 to offices in that Church, of whatever character and that means all 
 political or State appointments should be stopped upon the first vacancy 
 in each case ; that all life interests and proprietary rights should be care- 
 fully respected ; and we should likewise put a stop, with similar reserves, to 
 the Regium Donum paid to the Presbyterians, and to the Maynooth Grant. 
 So much has been voted by the House of Commons, and as it was my fortune 
 to make the proposal on which that was founded, some interest has been 
 felt about the declarations of opinion with which, on my part, that pro- 
 posal was accompanied. I have st< *ed the effect of the vote apart from 
 those declarations of opinion, bec<: se you are well aware of the very 
 different order of weight and impoi .ance that must attach to one and to 
 the other. What the House of Commons thinks, is already far on the way 
 -to become the law of this great empire, but what an individual may think. 
 
SPEECHES OP THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 33 
 
 though ifc is certainly matter most legitimate for the scrutiny of his con- 
 stituents, is in comparison with the former light as air. However, I do 
 not scruple to say that I am deeply convinced in the first place, of the 
 necessity of our putting an absolute stop to the system of a State 
 Establishment of religion in Ireland. But, on the other hand, 
 in doing that, over and above the declaration that the life interests 
 are to be respected, and that proprietary rights are not to be 
 invaded, I say it is a dictate alike of wisdom and of generosity 
 that, keeping our end steadily in view, and never failing to 
 march before it, we shall adopt the utmost possible measure of mildness 
 in the means. Everything that equity and that reasonable indulgence 
 could suggest without being inconsistent with the end in view, and that 
 does not impair the efficacy of the measure, should, in my opinion, be 
 favourably entertained. That I may show what I mean I will just refer 
 to two points on which I know great interest has been felt. I can give 
 no guarantee as to what will be the ultimate judgment of Parliament, but 
 I may express my opinion on these points. In the first place there are 
 in the Established Church of Ireland a certain number of endowments 
 which have been given by private persons, which have become in the law 
 public and national property, but which, nevertheless, were given by 
 members of the Church of Ireland for the purposes of the Church of 
 Ireland just as a Wesleyan Methodist might, if he thought fit, give his 
 money for the purposes of Wesleyan Methodism. My opinion is (that 
 those endowments, though technically they may have become portions, 
 you. may say, of the public and national property, ought to be carefully 
 respected. In the same way a question arises with respect to the churches 
 that are now possessed and used by the ministers and members of the 
 Irish Establishment, and the parsonages which the clergy inhabit. My 
 opinion, gentlemen, is that the feeling of this country, apart from logic, 
 never would endure that if those clergy and laity are disposed to continue 
 the use of those parsonages and churches for public worship never 
 would endure that they should be taken away from them. I give these 
 as samples. I must add one important illustration more, and that is, 
 whatever principles of equity or tenderness you may think it wise to 
 employ in winding-up, if I may so speak, the affairs of the Established 
 Church of Ireland, you must apply those same principles of equity and 
 tenderness to the other religious endowments of the country, in 
 so far as from their scope and circumstance they come within 
 range of the principle. I have heard of some who think that vested rights 
 .are very sacred things if they are found within the limits of the Establish- 
 ment, but not so very sacred if they are found within the limits of the 
 Roman Catholic College of Maynooth. If there are persons here who hold 
 that opinion, I must respectfully differ from them one and the same rule 
 of equity and liberality must be applied to the whole. Forgive me if the 
 word " must " has escaped from my mouth, I meant " ought " to be, in my 
 opinion, applied to the whole. But you will naturally say there is more 
 than this. After we have satisfied every fair and equitable claim, there 
 will be a residue of the ecclesiastical property of Ireland a residue 
 possibly reaching to a very considerable amount. What are we to do with 
 that ? I will state it to you, gentlemen, in another form. In my opinion, 
 .that question cannot be conclusively answered by any but those who shall 
 
 c 
 
34 SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. "W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 be responsible Ministers of the Crown, and shall have an opportunity of 
 examining all the facts that bear upon the answer. But, while I say that, 
 I likewise add that the funds which shall have been taken from the Church 
 now established in Ireland I mean the residue of funds after satisfying 
 every just claim upon them ought not to be applied to the teaching of 
 religion in any other form whatever. It will be our duty, should you 
 return us to Parliament and when I say " us " you will forgive me for 
 saying that I have in my mind and in my eye several others gathered upon 
 this platform besides Mr. Grenfell those who are soliciting the suffrages 
 of this great borough ; the gallant officer who has been to contest Birken- 
 head ; my friend Mr. Thompson, who is fighting, one side of this county, 
 towards the rising sun, that same battle which we are fighting, who look 
 the setting sun in the face ; and last, but not least, two other gentlemen, 
 one of them a respected inhabitant of this town, who are performing the 
 same patriotic work in a great midland borough. I earnestly hope, 
 gentlemen, that the goodly company that I have endeavoured to describe^ 
 and that is now gathered together in perfect harmony upon this platform, 
 will not be dissociated one from the other by any accident on the hustings 
 or the polling booth, but that we shall be found sitting upon the same 
 benches, or upon benches very close together, for the purpose of setting 
 forward that great work, one portion of which I have endeavoured to bring 
 under your view. (A "Voice. : " And your son.") I am much obliged to 
 my friend in that quarter (pointing to the gallery), for reminding me that 
 I have a very near and close paternal, as well as public interest in another 
 election, likewise towards the rising sun on the other side of this county, 
 and I am very glad to think that there is any one within these walls to whom 
 the return of my son to Parliament is a matter of interest. Gentlemen,. 
 there are a number of points connected with this question which I trust 
 you will not think I have forgotten merely because I may have failed to- 
 notice them on the present occasion. What I am desirous most of all to 
 do is to bring into the public view the broad facts connected with the state 
 of Ireland. The first business of public men, and the first business of the 
 electors of a free country, is to bind together the whole of the country in 
 harmony and concord. That business has not been effected so far as 
 Ireland is concerned. We call upon you, gentlemen, to give us the means 
 and to put us in the place where we may use our utmost endeavours to 
 effect it. It is not enough to revile us as enemies of the Constitution in 
 Church and State and foes of Protestantism in disguise these are matters 
 on which we are perfectly willing to enter into argument. We think we are 
 the best friends of the Constitution; we think that those are the best 
 friends of Protestantism who wish that it should be justice and no more. 
 And as to the Constitution, when we are told that we are going to rain it, 
 let us bear in mind how many times it has been ruined and destroyed 
 before. It was destroyed I will only take what has happened within my 
 own recollection it was destroyed in 1828 by the repeal of the Corporation 
 Tests Acts. It was destroyed again in 1829 by the admission of the Eoman 
 Catholics to Parliament. It was destroyed a third time by the Keform Act 
 of 1832. It was destroyed the fourth time by the repeal of the Corn Laws 
 in 1846. It was destroyed a fifth time by the Kepeal of the Navigation 
 Laws in 1849. It was destroyed, gentlemen, if my memory does not fail 
 me but it is really difficult to remember, so many lives has this Constitu- 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 35 
 
 tion had, and so sad has been its fate it was destroyed a seventh time 
 when the Jews were admitted within the walls of Parliament ; and it was 
 destroyed an eighth time when the Government of Lord Russell had the 
 incredible audacity to propose a Eeform Bill to Parliament, with the inten- 
 tion of carrying it or of dying in the attempt. And, therefore, gentlemen, 
 this being so, it appears that our Constitution resembles that animal which 
 is said to have nine lives ; but with this fortunate distinction, whereas the 
 cat each time that it loses one of its lives gets a step nearer to dissolution, 
 our Constitution, on the other hand, each time that it is destroyed, comes 
 forth more vigorous than ever from the process, and promises to us all, 
 with more and more of hope and joy, the expectation of handing it down 
 as a blessing to our children. Gentlemen, we ask you for your help in the 
 efforts that we are to make. We ask you in the name of the Constitution 
 not less than in the sacred name of justice. We ask you to listen to the 
 voice alike of policy, and of prudence, and of generosity, and of equity. 
 Listen to that voice the voice now of the dead, which has come to us 
 from across the Atlantic, and give us your strong help to drive our feeble 
 arms, and enable us to go fearlessly forward in the career of truth and 
 iustice. 
 
 c2 
 
SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IX THE 
 
 TOWN HALL, NEWTON. 
 
 OCTOBER 17m, 1868. 
 
 ME. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN, I am afraid that your zeal for the cause 
 in which you are engaged has led you to attend this meeting in such 
 numbers that you cannot but be suffering some personal inconvenience, 
 and as that may be so, I think that the best mark of respect I can pay 
 you will be to make no preface at all on this occasion, but to go to work 
 at once upon topics that may interest you. Now, gentlemen, we have 
 heard a great deal during the present election, I am thankful to say, on 
 the subject of public expenditure, and I trust we shall hear a great deal 
 more. For you may rely upon it that the agitation of a question of that 
 nature during an election is attended with most profitable effects. Somehow 
 or other, I cannot tell how it is, but the questions discussed at that period 
 seem to sink in the minds of the candidates, as if there was a kind of 
 dew resting upon them, which made them accessible to genial influences: 
 You may rely upon it that so far as I am concerned that subject will not 
 be neglected ; but I have seen lately a statement made by one of those in 
 the field on the other side to this effect a very ingenious statement that 
 I have invented this subject of the public expenditure, and dragged it into 
 the field, in order to shirk .the discussion on the Irish Church. Well, 
 gentlemen, I intend, therefore, to-day, to trouble you in order to disabuse 
 the minds of those who entertain any such idea. I intend to speak upon 
 one or two practical points, which I think to be of great importance with 
 respect to the Irish Church. And, gentlemen, it is needful to do so, for I 
 hold in my hand a pamphlet which is now being circulated in the south of 
 England I think sent to me by an elector of the county of Surrey, 
 who complains bitterly of the misstatements made by the opponents of 
 the Irish Church. He says "To speak of these attacks as merely 
 exaggerated statements would be to characterise them much too faintly. 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 37 
 
 They carry with them, in general, so little of the semblance of truth 
 or candour as to make it hardly possible to acquit their fabricators 
 of intentional deception." This, therefore, gentlemen, is the 
 author who desires to lift from your minds the clouds of mis- 
 understanding that have enveloped them. Bub how does he 
 set about it? In the next page bub one he says "The property 
 of the Church of Ireland consists of glebe land and tithe- 
 rent charge." And this worthy gentleman, who appears as an 
 oracle upon this question, a gentleman of such tender conscience and 
 abundant information, in quoting the intentional deception of those who 
 have made statements hostile to the Irish Church, coolly asserts that the 
 property of the Irish Church consists of glebe laud and tithe-rent charge ; 
 but if you have read the report of the Eoyal Commission on the Irish 
 Church, you will have seen that the Church of Ireland, besides glebe land, 
 charitable and glebe land, parsonages and incumbencies, possesses bishop 
 land and chapter land to an enormous extent, believed to be of far greater 
 value than the annual income they yield, and they are stated to yield an 
 income annually of between 140,000 and 150,000. Now, gentlemen, 
 when I mention that, I dare say unintentional, misstatement, I only do so 
 to induce you to be upon your guard, particularly against those gentlemen 
 who affect to be in possession of invaluable information, and against those 
 who are particularly abusive of men from whom they differ. That you 
 will find to be a good rule. And now, gentlemen, I think it is quite time 
 to have a little public discussion upon the subject of this Irish Church 
 Commission, which was set to inquire into the revenues of the Irish 
 Church; because you may bear in mind that much blame has been, 
 bestowed upon the members of the Liberal party, and upon myself nob the 
 least among them, because we were determined to raise the question of the 
 Irish Church during the last Session of Parliament, and because we were 
 deaf to the appeals that were made to us to wait until after the report of 
 the Commission had been issued. Now, the report of the Commission has 
 appeared, and what is our position with respect to the policy which is to 
 be pursued upon the question of the Irish Church ? That is an important 
 subject, upon which it is quite plain the principal issues will be taken in 
 the elections that are now impending. Consequently, I make no apology 
 in endeavouring to lay before you what I consider to be the real merits, 
 what I consider to be the particular points connected with that subject. 
 Now, gentlemen, consider the various methods of proceeding that have 
 been recommended with respect to the Irish Church. There is the method 
 of standing still. Well, it is not necessary to say much about that method. 
 It would be a waste of your time to show you the doctrine of standing 
 still ; it is an insult to your common sense ; so gross an insult to your 
 common sense that it is not even recommended by the opposite party in 
 this country, because they go from place to place saying, " We are entirely 
 opposed to Mr. Gladstone and his schemes, though we are for the removal 
 of abuses." Therefore, I will put aside the plan of standing still. The 
 next plan is the plan we recommend the plan of disestablishment, putting 
 an end entirely to the State Church in Ireland. We will not discuss that, 
 because the merits of it we may discuss at other times. The third plan 
 was the plan of multiplying Church endowments in Ireland. That was a 
 plan which has had great countenance in former times ; and it has had 
 
38 SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. V. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 great countenance as late as the month of last March, because in the month 
 of last March was produced the plan of Her Majesty's Government. But, 
 somehow or other, though Her Majesty's Government had never said they 
 would not refer to that plan, yet unquestionably they had, for the moment 
 at all events, turned their back upon it, and as they have turned their 
 back upon it, and as for many reasons I don't approve it, I will not trouble 
 you at present with a discussion on that plan. Now, having disposed of 
 three, we come to the fourth plan to the plan that is recommended to you 
 by those among the Conservative candidates who have ventured to open 
 their mouths at all upon the subject. But these are gentlemen, it is right 
 that I should say, who, though they cannot endure the removal of the 
 Irish Church Establishment, notwithstanding that, are men who, they beg 
 you to believe, are very favourable to the removal of abuses, though, as far 
 as I know, they have given very little information on the subject. But I 
 have seen one or two of them who say that they wish that some of the 
 recommendations of this Commission should be acted upon for the removal 
 of abuses in the Church of Ireland. Now, I have heard of no plan for the 
 removal of abuses, except the plan of the Church Commission. I feel, 
 gentlemen, that this is one of our difficulties. We are in Opposition, we 
 are not the Government of the country, and yet we are in this strange and 
 extraordinary position, that while we are proposing a policy to direct the 
 Government of the country, the Government of the country the Queen's 
 Ministers propose no policy in answer to ours. But, although they have 
 not ventured to propose any policy, although they will be waiters upon 
 Providence, looking for the moment which way the cat is to jump, and 
 perfectly ready to come to any conclusion, establishment, disestablishment, 
 or anything else you like, so soon as it is clear that the adventure would 
 be likely to be a good one, for the present we must consider that to be the 
 plan actually before us. Let us see what is the plan of the Commission. 
 There are, gentlemen, a matter of 12 bishops in the Irish Church, and the 
 first important recommendation of the Commission is that we should bury 
 four of them. Not to bury the actual men themselves, but to bury what 
 they call " corporations." For you must know that every bishop of a see, 
 and every incumbent of a parish, is in law a " corporation sole," and four 
 or six " corporations sole " they propose to bury. Well, gentlemen, this 
 proposition of the Commission, I stop to say, is by no means the most 
 liberal bid that has been made. These are all, you will understand, gentle- 
 men, bids to save the residue of the property of the Irish Church. The Irish 
 Church, considered as a spiritual body, is certainly no richer by burying 
 four?of its bishops, but the residue of the Irish Establishment is. Well, 
 but we have had a much better bid than that in the report of the Com- 
 mission. A gentleman, who does not date his letter, writes a long letter 
 to me. He is a strong opponent of our plan, and objects extremely to the 
 disestablishment of the Irish Church, though he is ready to remedy 
 abuses. He thinks that the number of bishops ought to be reduced ; and 
 if anybody may seduce you from the path upon which you have entered, 
 from your stern and firm resolution, it is the writer of the letter I hold in 
 my hand it is by the liberal offer he has made to you. He proposes, 
 gentlemen, to reduce the whole Irish Church to one bishop. And not 
 only so, he says by no means shall that one bishop sit in the House of 
 Lords. Well, gentlemen, I admit that is a most handsome bid. It is 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 39 
 
 Impossible to conceive, if we are to have an Episcopal Church, anything 
 -more liberal by way of reform than the offer to reduce that Church to 
 one bishop. We cannot go lower ; but even that handsome bid will not 
 satisfy me. I am not satisfied with it as a politician, because I object to 
 the Establishment of the Church in Ireland, even though they were to 
 go beyond my friend who writes the letter to me, and were not only to 
 reduce the bishops to one, but were to propose also to reduce the number 
 of clergymen to one, because there would still be the Establishment, and I 
 object to it on the principle of religious communion. But I must say 
 this, that from what I know of the Irish bishops and clergy, I believe 
 they will repel and reject this recommendation of the Irish Church Com- 
 mission. They don't want to be cub and carved in this way. I believe 
 many of them are rapidly coming to the conclusion, in the position in 
 which they stand, that the best thing for them is freedom, a clear stage, 
 arid no favour. Strong in their conscientious convictions, they are ready, 
 ^at all events a great deal more ready than they were, and are growing 
 riper every day, to accept the inevitable issue, trusting to the Almighty 
 and their cause to meet all the chances of the future. Well, then, 
 gentlemen, besides these bishops being disposed of and put away m 
 this indecorous manner (to which I entirely object) besides this, it is 
 proposed to reduce the income of the bishops. Now, the income of the 
 bishops in Ireland is various some of them have more, and some of them 
 ; have less and it is proposed to place them all at 3,000 a-year. But 
 there is a most singular proposal in the report of the Commission, and it 
 is this : the Irish bishops, you may be aware, sit in Parliament by turns, by 
 rotation ; and the proposal of the Commissioners is that any bishop who 
 sits in Parliament shall for the year when he sits in Parliament have 500 
 extra to pay his expenses. Ay, but wait a moment, don't be in a hurry 
 pray recollect what this is. It is our old friend the " payment of mem- 
 foers," one of the five points of the Charter. I certainly did not expect to 
 find that this plan of paying gentlemen to sit in Parliament, which has 
 always been objected to vehemently as far as I know by the whole Con- 
 servative party, and by a very large portion of the Liberal party in this 
 countiy, and which is not approved at all that it was first of all to come 
 out under a Commission appointed by the Crown, and having for its pur- 
 pose to save the Irish Established Church. That recommendation, gentle- 
 men, does not very much help the report of the Commission. Let me say, 
 ; however, I do not blame the Commissioners. I really believe they have 
 done the best they could. When a man undertakes an impossible task, you 
 must not look too strictly to the performance of it, or judge him, too 
 severely. If a man says " I will jump over the Thames" (or rather I 
 should say the Mersey), and happens unfortunately to alight in the middle, 
 the result is unfortunate, although the man may 'be a very good jumper. 
 These Commissioners I believe to be perfectly upright, honourable, intelli- 
 gent men, and I have not a word of blame to cast upon them for the manner 
 in which they performed their functions. My object is to show you the 
 hopelessness of the functions themselves, and to confirm you in the adoption 
 of that other plain, simple, and practical alternative which we have recom- 
 mended to your notice. Well, the incomes of the bishops are to be 
 reduced; four sees are to be suppressed altogether, and a number of 
 ^benefices are to be suppressed; where there are not more than 40 
 
40 T SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 members of the Established Church the benefice is to be suppressed. 
 Now, I wonder, gentlemen, whether any of you could inform me why there 
 is to be a State income for a clergyman where there are 40 persons in the 
 parish, and why there should not be a State income where there are less 
 than 40 ? What do you think now has induced the Commissioners I have 
 not heard an intelligible explanation of it to fix upon that number ? I 
 own to you, I am entirely at a loss. Now, 40 won't make a congregation, 
 for it is only one in three that can attend church at a time, and 13, which 
 is one-third of 40, is hardly a congregation. I don't know if there is a 
 man in this room who has an idea why the number 40 was chosen. I for 
 my part cannot explain it. I cannot offer a reasonable solution. It did 
 occur to me that perhaps it was because there are 39 articles and one over, 
 This is not conclusive, but it is the nearest approach to a solution that as 
 yet I have been able to get. (A gentleman on the platform, " It is the 
 Jewish order 40 stripes less one.") That is a mode of representing the- 
 ministrations that I should be very sorry to follow, and for the present I 
 know of no satisfactory means for the choice of that number. It appears 
 to me, if it were a matter of private arrangement of gentlemen form- 
 ing themselves into congregations, and finding the means for their 
 support, nobody has any right at all to criticise the number that they 
 choose, whether it be two or three, or two and three hundred ; but 
 this is to be a State arrangement, and the national property is to be 
 applied wherever there are forty members, and for that reason I think we 
 are perfectly entitled to ask why that number is chosen, and I don't know 
 what the answer is to be. However, I think the report says that 20Q 
 parishes would be suppressed, and the ecclesiastical benefices would be 
 deprived of their ministry by that proceeding. Now, gentlemen, observe- 
 the effect of that operation/ When you argue the question of the Irish. 
 Church, you are constantly told that, though it may be quite true that 
 there are not, in all cases, congregations for the clergy of the National 
 Establishment, yet that, in the peculiar condition of Ireland, it is of the 
 highest civil consequence to her to have spread throughout the country 
 gentlemen who are gentlemen, who are persons of refinement by education,. 
 who are bound to good conduct by their profession, who are charitable 
 almost of necessity, and who are constantly resident in the country. 
 Well, now if that be a great necessity, you will observe that these 
 Commissioners, who are to remove the abuses of the Irish Church, 
 propose entirely to deprive 200 out of the 1,400 or 1,500 benefices in> 
 Ireland of the advantage of this resident clergy. Well, gentlemen, there 
 is another recommendation or two. It is recommended that a number 
 of chapters shall be suppressed, and it is recommended that, wherever 
 it is possible, the parish clerk shall be consolidated into the grave- 
 digger. I am of opinion, gentlemen, that we have got beyond that. It is 
 a great deal too late to save the Established Church in Ireland by con- 
 solidating parish clerks and grave-diggers. But, as they say in Scotland, 
 "mony a mickle maks a muckle," and all these things put together make 
 a considerable sum of money, from the four bishops downwards; and 
 you will be perfectly astonished when I tell you that the Commissioners 
 have not told us how much it makes. Now, I have often been surprised 
 at things I have found in documents, but I never was so much surprised 
 before at a thing that I did not find in a document. Why, if this Com- 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 41 
 
 fl " 
 
 mission was appointed for anything in the way of removal of abuses, 
 what they ought especially to have done was to have shown how much 
 could be gathered together by the removal of those abuses, and under 
 what rules and to what useful purposes it could be applied. Gentlemen, 
 it is a very hard case. I can get no assistance from the Commission ; but 
 after looking roughly over the thing, and really having very few means of 
 accurate computation, it seems to me, as well as I can reckon, that by the 
 bishops they would save something between 22,000 and 25,000 a year ;, 
 that by the parishes they might save from 40,000 to 50,000 a year ; that 
 by the chapters they would save 10,000 a year ; and I cannot tell exactly, 
 but I think they might save 3,000 or 4,000 a year by the grave-diggers. 
 Now, putting all these things together, this removal of abuses would pro- 
 duce a fund of 80,000 a year. That is a very considerable fund ; what 
 is to be done with it ? Well, gentlemen, the Inquiry Commissioners have 
 simply said that the body which exists in Ireland a permanent body, and 
 which is called the Ecclesiastical Commissioners ought to have large dis- 
 cretion to apply it to the increase of the incomes of the clergy in places 
 where there are low incomes with considerable congregations. Now, it is 
 a most extraordinary thing to me, and I am certain that there is a 
 cause for it, why these Commissioners have not computed the savings 
 they were going to make, and why they have not described the manner 
 of applying them. Because, pray observe that under this application 
 you might give it away in sums of 10,000 a year, or 20,060 a 
 year, for they have said nothing as to the amount of augmenta- 
 tions to be made. A more extraordinary omission than this I never knew. 
 But they are men of sense and intelligence, and have not omitted these 
 things without a reason. They were afraid to put them on paper. They 
 were afraid, in my judgment, to say, "We are going to scatter 80,000 a 
 year more among these incumbents of the Irish Church." They knew 
 very well that the Irish Church, of all churches upon the earth, has at this 
 moment the most pay and the least work. Gentlemen, I don't say that in 
 disparagement of the Irish clergy, whom I believe to be an excellent and 
 self-denying set of men, but we must here consider them as public officers. 
 It is not their fault if they have been put in offices with little or nothing 
 to do, but the fault of those who continue them in those offices ; and, 
 gentlemen, it is the fault of the Parliament and the fault of the Ministry 
 if that system is allowed to subsist ; and, therefore, permit me to say, last 
 of all, it will be your fault, as the electors of the country, if you are so 
 hoodwinked and deluded as to send as your representatives to Parliament 
 men from whom these things are to receive countenance. Well now, 
 gentlemen, just to illustrate what I have said. I have made a rough 
 computation of the remuneration of the clergy of the Church of England, 
 and certainly in many cases I admit it is miserably small; but still 
 upon the whole, taking one office and another, it is at any rate a remu- 
 neration which procures for the people of this country the services of an 
 able, an instructed, a diligent, and a devoted class of men. There is no 
 doubt about that ; you may agree with or differ from them, but that 
 praise it is admitted on all hands they deserve. In England we have 
 it is a very rough computation some 20,000 clergymen, and I assume 
 that there are twelve millions of souls in England belonging to the 
 Church of England ; that also is a rough computation ; and my owa 
 
42 SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. uLADSTONE. 
 
 opinion is there are more, but to be within the line I take it at twelve 
 millions. The revenues of the Church of England may in round num- 
 bers be stated at 4,000,000, and it follows that if upon the average- 
 there is one clergyman for every 600 souls, that clergyman upon the 
 average has 200 of revenue. 1 hope you don't think that too much. 
 Gentlemen, I must give you this opinion, which is an opinion I candidly 
 entertain. Of course, there are in this country, mixed up as the revenues 
 of the Church are with every kind of social and domestic and political 
 arrangements, a great number of cases of over- paid clergymen, I have 
 no doubt of the existence of individual cases, but this I must say, that 
 when I look at the greater part of the parochial clergy of this country, 
 and at the many thousands of curates who are labouring in the parishes 
 of the land, from one end to the other, when I consider the education 
 these men have received and the cost of that education, and the 
 manner in which they give themselves to the work of consoling, 
 instructing, and guiding both young and old I honestly tell you 
 that I think the labour of what is called the working clergy compared 
 with other labour in this country is about the cheapest labour that any 
 man gives. But, however that may be, I am going to make a com- 
 parison. I have said that in England one clergyman with the care of 600 
 souls gets 200 a year. On the other hand, in Ireland there are 2,000 
 clergymen, or thereabouts, of the Irish Church, but I don't think it is 
 clearly stated in the report of the Royal Commission. There are under 
 700,000 souls who are members of that Church, and the revenues I take 
 at 600,000, which is a little below the sum put down by the Commission, 
 and I am bound to say very considerably below the sum at which, for the 
 purposes of this comparison, they ought to have been put, because, in 
 comparison with its resources, 700,000 would have been a more accurate 
 statement of the revenues of that Church. Therefore, it follows that the 
 clergyman in England has 200 a year for looking after 600 persons, while 
 the clergyman in Ireland has 300 a year and looks after 350 persons. (" Oh" 
 and " Shame.") At this rate, and on this basis, the clergyman in England, 
 instead of 200, would have about 515, which might do more, perhaps, to 
 warrant or, at least, to call for the utterance which we heard just now, than 
 the very moderate standard to which I before referred. Well, gentlemen, 
 if that is the case if the remuneration of the Irish clergy relatively to 
 work, mind, because that is the true standard for remuneration if the 
 remuneration of the Irish clergy is, as I believe it to be, relatively to 
 work, somewhere about three times that of the English clergy then, I 
 think, we can get a pretty good idea why it was that the Commissioners 
 did not tell us they were going to save by their plans 80,000 a year 
 that the 80,000 a year was to be distributed among those gentlemen 
 whose rate of pay according to work is already so favourable, compared 
 with the rate of pay of the clergy of the Church of England. Well, but 
 now, gentlemen, J want to tell you, they talk about this removal of abuses ; 
 but I ask you to put yourselves in the place of the peasantry of an Irish 
 county, mainly destitute of great towns, in the west and the south of 
 Ireland, and peopled mainly as the great bulk of the counties are by 
 Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholic, not unnaturally, recollects 
 that in other times the tithe of those parishes was applied directly 
 for the purposes of his religion. He does not desire that that should 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 43 
 
 now be done, and I think he is wise in not so desiring. He does 
 not desire it, and you don't desire it, although the Government of the 
 country did desire, if not the tithe to be devoted to . the Koman 
 Catholics, yet that for Presbyterians, Koman Catholics, and for others in- 
 comes from the public purse should be provided. But go back with me 
 to the condition of the Eoman Catholic peasant. The Koman Catholic 
 peasant, at all events, if he has not directly had the benefit of the tithe, 
 yet he has seen living in his neighbourhood that which has been truly 
 Described, according to the account of it I cited a few minutes ago, as an 
 educated gentry, resident in a country that wants residents, bound to good 
 conduct, and usually given to benevolence and kindness. And it is always 
 alleged, and I, for one, do not deny it for I can believe it possible in 
 most cases, and in many cases it is true that the Irish peasant has 
 benefited largely by the goodwill of the Protestant clergymen. It is 
 notorious that in the time of the Irish famine the Protestant clergy of the 
 Established Church were the channels through which the large portion of 
 the bounty of England was administered to Ireland, and that in that way 
 and in many ways they have had an opportunity of cultivating the per- 
 sonal goodwill of the people. But that, in my opinion, is no apology at all 
 for diverting the Church property from the purposes for which it ought to 
 be applied, if there is to be an Establishment at all namely, the bulk and 
 majority of the people. But observe this, that at all events it has been 
 some consolation to the Irish peasant that the tithe which was taken off 
 the land which he cultivated has been spent in the neighbourhood, and in 
 his view, by the men with whom, in many instances, he had kindly rela- 
 tions, and from whom on many occasions he would receive secular, civil, 
 and even moral benefit. But now it is proposed to cure abuses, and what 
 is to be the cure of the abuse ? They propose where there is a parish 
 say, in Mayo or Galway with 5,000 or 10,000 Koman Catholics and a 
 mere handful of Protestants, that the tithe of that parish shall be carried 
 away out of the parish altogether, and, under the recommendation of the 
 Commission to cure abuses, the proceeds of their land and the fruits of 
 their labours, where will they go ? They will be carried into the suburbs 
 of Dublin and Belfast, where wealthy members of the Establishment 
 abound. Wealthy, at all events, in comparison with those from whom 
 they are taken, and many of them wealthy in the strictest sense of 
 the term. They will be exported from one portion of the country 
 and imported into another portion of the country. While retaining all 
 the odium of being applied to the Church of the minority, it will lose the 
 graces, recommendations, and consolations which hang about it from the 
 kindly relations between these Protestant clergymen and the Koman Ca- 
 tholic population. They may hear nothing more of it ; and, in my opinion, 
 I am speaking truly, you hear sometimes that we are charged with confis- 
 cation, but in my opinion that is confiscation. Those funds, gentlemen, 
 are local funds. The tithe of a parish was never given except for the pur- 
 pose of maintaining religion in the parish ; and to take the tithe out of a 
 parish of Galway or Clare for the purpose of meeting the wants of Protes- 
 tant populations in Dublin and Belfast I do not care who hears it is, in 
 my opinion, whatever the intention may be, dangerously like to an act of 
 public plunder. Gentlemen, I ventured to say two months ago that I was 
 .an anti-reformer in the Church of Ireland ; that I am not for the removal 
 
44 SPEECHES OF THE BIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 of these abuses, because I know that every attempt to remove one abuse- 
 causes another, and perhaps one more gross and more offensive, to spring 
 up in its place. Please to hear a short illustration of what I had in view 
 that when you remove the abuse of having a Protestant clergyman 
 planted in the midst of a large Roman Catholic population, with only a 
 handful of Protestant souls to whom to minister, by carrying the tithe 
 away altogether, and by applying it in a manner in which the peasant has 
 no interest whatever, approximate or remote, civil or religious, you do 
 away with one abuse, but you put another in its place. Now let us see, 
 if you have patience for a moment because this is a matter of really great 
 public interest and importance let us see how far this removal of abuses 
 would be effectual, even upon the professions with which it is set out ; 
 because, pray recollect that it is no satisfaction to me, gentlemen, if I am 
 an elector of this country, to receive those general statements, however well 
 they may be intended, from this candidate or that, " I am very well disposed 
 to remove abuses." Why, gentlemen, I could go over the whole world and 
 reform everything very cheaply indeed on those terms, because wherever 
 I find any question of evil that afflicts humanity I have only to say, 
 " Very well, why don't you remove the abuse ?" But here we want to 
 know what are the abuses and how they are to be removed, and I have 
 done something to exhibit to you the hopelessness, and, I cannot help say- 
 ing, viewed in these days in which we live, the absurdity, of attempting- 
 to remove those abuses. The abuse which is to be removed is the 
 abuse of over-paid clergymen in the midst of scanty populations and scanty 
 flocks, or no flocks at all. But, now, let us see how far the plan of the 
 Commissioners will carry us. I have told you that it is to suspend or put 
 an end to, all appointments or benefices in parishes where there are less 
 than forty members of the Established Church. What I have been speak- 
 ing so far I speak on my own responsibility alone, but now the figures 
 which I am going to give you I take from a gentleman whom I be- 
 lieve to be as well informed as any one in the three kingdoms 
 upon this subject an Irish clergyman, Dr. Maziere Brady, who for 
 some years has made himself conspicuous in Ireland by his courageous 
 advocacy of a just and manly policy in regard to the Irish Established 
 Church. Now, these cases I am going to mention to you will, I think, 
 perhaps rather surprise you. These are the cases which he gives me, and 
 I hope his letters will be published before many days are over, so that every 
 one may be able to judge of them for themselves, because error here and 
 there may lie hid, but whatever the facts, they cannot be shaken in the 
 main, they are so strong. Here are the facts. He gives me the cases and 
 the names of 14 benefices in Ireland. Now, in those 14 benefices, in each 
 of them, besides the incumbent there is a curate, and the curate upon the 
 average receives 100 guineas a year, and the population of the 14 benefices 
 is 1,332 souls of the Irish Established Church; and the 1,332 souls have 
 14 curates to look after them, independent of the incumbents, receiving 
 100 guineas a year apiece. Well, you will agree with me that where there 
 are 14 clergymen to look after 1,332 souls, that is a rather liberal allow- 
 ance, when you come to consider that if you were to apply that rule to the 
 town of Liverpool the town of Liverpool would be equipped with between 
 5,000 and 6,000 clergymen. I assume, therefore, gentlemen, that the 14 
 curates had the cure of those 1,332 souls. Well, but over and above the 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 45 
 
 100 guineas apiece paid to the curates, there is an income received by the 
 14 incumbents of those 14 benefices ; and those incomes, according to Dr.- 
 Brady, amount to 8,192. And Dr. Brady says, truly, I think, and very 
 fairly, that you may well say, considering the 14 curates and the 1,332 souls, 
 that the eight thousand odd pounds is received for doing/ho work at all. 
 Well, gentlemen, if there are abuses in the Irish Church, I should think 
 -this is one of them. That is an average of 95 souls*, but it is useless to 
 take the average of the souls to each, because the work is done by the 
 curate, but the incumbent, however, receives 6 per head for doing nothing 
 in respect of these 1,332 human beings. Now, let me see what the Com- 
 missioners do, because I remember once seeing a ludicrous and most 
 ingenious picture of a man who was vaunting of some wonderful solution 
 or unguent that he had for the hair, and in order to illustrate the wonder- 
 ful and astonishing fertilising properties of his mixture he printed two 
 woodcuts. The first was the head of his victim, his patient, before he used 
 the mixture, and the second was the head after he used the mixture. 
 "When he began he was nearly bald; when he ended the course of this 
 application his whole head was covered with luxuriant flowing locks and 
 brown beard down to his waist ; in fact it was a ravishing description. 
 That is exactly what is proposed to be done with the Irish Church. It is 
 admitted there are abuses in the Irish Church ; it is now presented to you 
 by Mr. Cross and Mr. Turner as admittedly in a ricketty condition; bub 
 then it is to have this application it is to have the receipt of the Commis- 
 sioners applied to it, and after the recommendations of the Commissioners 
 have passed into law, then you are to have the Irish Church turned out as 
 n model Establishment. Therefore, you want to know what this model 
 Establishment will be, and I will tell you. You have 14 of these 
 churches. On the recommendations of the Commissioners nothing 
 will take place until one generation at least they will not take full 
 effect, j'ou understand until one generation has gone by, because, as 
 is very proper, life interests have to be respected ; but if you have the 
 patience to wait until after these recommendations have passed into law; 
 if you have patience until 30 or 40 years, the recommendations will then, 
 it, is probable, have taken full effect, and out of the 14 churches five will 
 have ceased to exfet that is to say, they will cease to exist as benefices, 
 and then there will remain nine, and the nine will present this picture to 
 you. There will be nine benefices, with 1,172 people among them, not 
 .1:150 apiece. There will be nine curates at 100 guineas each, to take care 
 of the 1,172 people that is about 130 apiece, and I think they may manage 
 t!i at. And there will be nine incumbents having nothing to do, because 
 the curates will do it, and they will receive for doing nothing 5,639 in the 
 Church out of which all the abuses have been removed. Now, gentlemen, 
 unless there be the grossest of errors in the figures that have been supplied 
 to me, and on which I am bound to say I rely I am convinced there may 
 be errors, but if there are any errors they will be trivial and slight that is 
 the result of the plan of the reform in the Irish Church that is now recom- 
 mended, and attended with all the injustice I have pointed out in trans- 
 ferring the tithes of Connaught and Munster to enrich the congregations 
 of Ulster and Leinster. That will be the result attained in the way of 
 curing the abuses after I and most of you are dead and gone, some 40 years 
 hence. Well, gentlemen, I think I may fairly say that it is not necessary 
 
46 SPEECHES OF THE BIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 to dwell upon the plan of the Commissioners to cure the abuses of the Irish 
 ' Qtyi&Zti. The Commissioners themselves, and I cannot blame them, are 
 apparently afraid to explain them ; they keep back the principal and most 
 important figures that are necessary to make their plan intelligible 
 a plan which satisfies none of the just demands of the Irish people, 
 which removes none of the slight and insult offered to them through the 
 medium of their religion ; it would abate none of the painful difficulties 
 and controversies that now tear and rend that people into one party and 
 another party, instead of being a brotherhood of united citizenship. I 
 think, gentlemen, I am justified in saying we do right to reject that plan. 
 Now, gentlemen, before I sit down there is another point that I must 
 mention to you. You are told that the Irish Church is to be maintained 
 for the benefit of Protestantism. Now, that is not an unfair statement of 
 mine. You know that is a favourite argument of all those who are op- 
 posed to us, and you are reproached probably many of us are, at all 
 events, reproached-^from time to time with being the favourers of the 
 Roman Catholic religion. With the Koman Catholic religion, gentlemen, 
 we have nothing whatever to do ; the controversy in which we are en- 
 gaged is a controversy of civil justice. We look on the Irish people as 
 the Irish nation, and what we say is this we refuse to withhold justice 
 from them, not on the ground alleged by you namely, that they are 
 Soman Catholics but that they are entitled to justice as full and unre- 
 stricted as any man among us. I need not add they are entitled of 
 course they are entitled to nothing more. But the allegation is that 
 this Church is maintained for the benefit of Protestantism. Now, the fairest 
 test of that is found in the number of Protestants that have been reared 
 under the present system compared with the other or Eoman Catholic 
 population of the country. Now, you must recollect that it is utterly im- 
 possible for us to form a true judgment on that subject except by going back 
 as far as we can ; and the earliest authentic statement that we have upon that 
 subject is this : In the year 1672 Sir William Petty, a statesman of that 
 day, gave the results of an inquiry which I believe is admitted to have 
 been not very far from the truth into the relative numbers of Protestants 
 and Koman Catholics, and they were these: There were three Pro- 
 testants for every eight Roman Catholics in Ireland ; and in order that I 
 may make the comparison in an intelligible manner, I will compare these 
 different fractions in the way in which we used to do when we went to 
 school that is, I will reduce them to what is called a common denomi- 
 nator, and that means 45 Protestants to 120 Eoman Catholics. That was 
 the proportion in 1672, some 200 years ago. Ever since that time you 
 have had the whole ecclesiastical property of the country in the hands of a 
 small minority under the name of supporting Protestantism. Not only 
 that, but for the greater part of that time you have had in operation cruel 
 and abominable laws for the purpose of suppressing the Kornan Catholic 
 religion by means that were grossly wicked and unjust; and the strongest 
 Protestant among you, I am quite sure, would say, if I were to run through 
 the particulars of these laws, even that strong language is not too strong 
 to describe the laws. Now, I have got to say one thing for the Irish penal 
 laws that is the name by which they are known and that is this : they 
 were not wholly devoid of efficacy ; they applied the screw pretty closely ; 
 and so long as the penal laws were in operation, so far as our information 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. Tf E. GLADSTONE. 47" 
 
 goes, it does appear that to some extent they succeeded in keeping down 
 the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland. All I can say of the figures I 
 give you, gentlemen, is they are the best that can be had. They have not 
 the precision of a modern Census of population, but I have given them in 
 the House of Commons and they have never been impugned. They have 
 never been scrutinised and found wanting. In 1730 a Government inquiry 
 into the relative numbers of Roman Catholics and Protestants found that 
 there were two Protestants for five Roman Catholics. Well, I told you 
 before that in 1672 there were 45 Protestants to 120 Roman Catholics ; in 
 1730 there were 48 Protestants to 120 Roman Catholics ; but about that 
 time there was a certain Bishop Burke, a Roman Catholic prelate in 
 Ireland I forget of what see who made an estimate of the numbers, 
 and he estimated that there were two Protestants for four Roman Catholics- 
 that is, 60 Protestants for 120 Roman Catholics. The application of 
 the screw was doing, in some degree, its work. In 1672, again, Bishop 
 Burke computed that the Protestants were increasing. Shortly after 
 that the penal laws began to be relaxed. In 1784 a computation wa& 
 made, in a manner which I admit is a very rough one ; it was by estimat- 
 ing the proportions of the people of different religions in the beggars. 
 There was then no Poor Law in the country. What I wish you particu- 
 larly to observe is this, that those figures I am giving you about numbers 
 are what are called ex parte figures. I take them from Mr. Giffard's "Life 
 of Pitt," a book written in a totally different sense, and they are the best 
 figures I can obtain. In 1784, according to the return, which is loose, but 
 not very far from the mark, it is still said there were two Protestants for 
 lour Roman Catholics that is to say, 60 Protestants for 120 Roman Catho- 
 lics ; therefore, you will observe, gentlemen, that under this penal system, 
 beginning in 1672 with 45 Protestants for 120 Roman Catholics, that they 
 had by 112 years of persecution amended if it is to be called amended 
 the position of the Protestants so far as to have 60 instead of 45 Pro- 
 testants to 120 Roman Catholics. At that time we began to relax the 
 penal laws. In 1801 I now quote the authority of Mr. Musgrave, the 
 historian of the Irish revolution, who is certainly a very thoroughgoing 
 partisan in 1801 the penal laws having now been materially relaxed, and 
 the Roman Catholics even admitted to the elective franchise, he found 
 that the Protestants were 40 to 120 Roman Catholics, having been 60 some 
 20 years before. We then went on and had further relaxation. We even 
 admitted the Roman Catholics and I am very thankful we did to Par- 
 liament, and in 1834 we had another religious Census, and the proportion 
 was now one Protestant to four Roman Catholics, or 30 Protestants 
 to 120 Roman Catholics. Now, gentlemen, in 1861 it is true there 
 is a slight improvement it is a fractional improvement. I must get 
 another denominator in order to exhibit it, I cannot exhibit it well upon 
 the denominator of 120 that I have got. In 1834 the Protestants were a 
 trifle under one to four ; in 1861 they are a trifle over one to four that is 
 all the difference. But recollect what had happened in the meantime that 
 awful famine of 1847, and the enormous wholesale exportation of the poorer 
 population that is the Roman Catholic population of Ireland, across the 
 Atlantic. Therefore, gentlemen, I say that although, casually, the return 
 of 1861 is a trifle better than that of 1834, in reality, if you allow ever so 
 moderately for the operation of these powerful causes, it is a worse return. 
 
48 SPEECHES OF THE BIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 than that of 1834 ; and I reiterate the assertion that Protestantism, under 
 the influence of this system, which we did once maintain in the form of 
 penal laws but then there was a kind of efficacy, at any rate a kind of 
 brutal and bad efficacy attached to it since we have relaxed those penal 
 laws, while the system continues to be unjust, it has ceased to be effectual, 
 and Protestantism has dwindled under its operation. Now, gentlemen, I 
 must refer to one more point, which will, perhaps, require your attention, 
 because I have been greatly found fault with for this statement, and I will 
 enow you the answer which has been made to me. I will take it from 
 this pamphlet [" Short Notes on the Irish Church Question," by a 
 Layman] : " Mr. Gladstone insists that as a missionary Church the 
 Irish Church has failed." I do insist with great regret, naturally, 
 bub at the same time with strong conviction. " In order to prove 
 this he quoted Sir William Petty to show that in 1672 there were 
 800,000 Roman Catholics to 300,000 Protestants." Now comes the answer 
 to me, and I think you will be somewhat amused when I unfold the mean- 
 ing of it : " But Mr. Gladstone kept back the fact that of these 300,000 
 Protestants only 100,000 were members of the Irish Church, and the re- 
 maining 200,000 Nonconformists." And therefore, they say it is true that 
 the Protestants may have dwindled as a whole, but look at the relative 
 numbers of the Church and the Nonconformists, and then you will see 
 that the Church of Ireland has not failed at all, but has very largely in- 
 creased her numbers. Well now, gentlemen, I think that will be a view 
 of the matter entirely new to you ; I think it will be new to my friends 
 on the platform of all denominations. It appears, then, after all, that 
 the Church of Ireland does not exist in Ireland for the purpose of 
 maintaining the light and glory .of the Reformation, as Mr. Gathorne 
 Hardy says, but that the business of the Church of Ireland is to con- 
 vert stray Nonconformists and bring them back to the fold. Now, 
 gentlemen, this really is a discovery. It is a magnificent discovery. 
 It seems to shift the whole state and position of affairs. It gives us 
 a new " point of view," as they call it. It is a most serious matter if, 
 after all the consideration we have given to this matter, which we 
 thought lay mainly between the Church of Ireland and the people of 
 Ireland, we are to be told that it does not lie between them at all ; that it 
 is admitted that the Church of Ireland has failed wholly, utterly, miserably 
 as regards the people of Ireland the mass of the people of Ireland who 
 are Roman Catholics but that it has had a magnificent success, and those 
 unfortunate Presbyterians who were two to one to the Church people 200 
 years ago are now somewhat less than the Church people in number. 
 Therefore, gentlemen, pray consider that it is an anti-Protestant propa- 
 gandism you are invited to pursue. That is the answer they give ; I 
 believe it to be the only answer ; but I must also tell you this, that if ifc 
 were true it would not be a very good answer. I suspect the six or seven 
 millions of Nonconformists in this country in England the three millions 
 of Presbyterians in Scotland, and the half-million or more of Presbyterians 
 in Ireland, would not be particularly well pleased at this new view of the 
 position of the Church, the friends and advocates of which, in the days 
 when things are quiet are apt to turn what is called the cold shoulder to 
 the Presbyterians ; but of late there are a portion of them, and particularly 
 the active politicians, who make the most warm and moving appeals to 
 
SPEECHES OP THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 49 
 
 the Presbyterian body, and entreat them to put shoulder to shoulder and 
 confront the enemy in the field in the name and for the sake of the interests 
 of their common Protestantism. 'Now, gentlemen, the explanation 
 is this but I musfc f not go at length into it. In Ireland, in the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century it is difficult, indeed, to trace 
 minutely the confused ecclesiastical history of a country which at that 
 time was but half- organised but it is well known that a large portion 
 of the parishes and incumbencies of the country, a very large 
 portion indeed of the province of Ulster, and some portions, I 
 believe, beyond it, were in the hands of Presbyterians. Of course, 
 therefore, the Presbyterians counted at that time as a very large 
 number in proportion to the numbers of the Church ; and it is perfectly 
 true up to a certain point that by the fact of becoming Episcopalian, by 
 the fact of having an Episcopalian Government placed over these parishes, 
 as the Episcopalian Government became uniform over the country, instead 
 of having a Presbyterian Government placed over them, a number of per- 
 sons came to be counted as Episcopalians who before that had been counted 
 as Presbyterians. That is the explanation of it. There is no truth in the 
 assertion that the Irish Church has been successful in putting down 
 Dissent either by force or persuasion. It has been successful in putting 
 down nothing ; but it has been successful in putting up something. It 
 has put up agitation; it has put up controversy; it has put up bitterness; 
 it has put up, as I have shown, in comparison with Protestantism, the 
 Roman Catholic religion, which has thriven, and does thrive, under that 
 sense of civil injustice which makes all its professors who are loyal men 
 rally round it with determined adherence. Gentlemen, our motto is " Be 
 just and fear not." Do you approve the motto or do you not ? It may 
 be that we have strong interests arrayed against us. Never mind. What 
 we shall do, gentlemen, my hon. friend near me and I we shall use the 
 slender means in our power to lay out the truth and the reason of the case 
 before you. Having done that, as we shall do it from place to place, we 
 shall appeal to you for aid ; we appeal to you to lay aside all timid fears 
 and apprehensions, to be on your guard against mistake and delusion, to 
 put on the courage of Englishmen nay, more, I will add, to clothe your- 
 selves with that spirit of equity which ought to distinguish every Christian, 
 and to carry our cause onwards to a speedy triumph. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IX THE 
 
 CO-OPERATIVE MILL, LEIGH. 
 
 OCTOBER 20TH, 1868. 
 
 Itf addressing you to-night, the first duty, and not the least pleasant 
 duty, I have to perform, is to thank you for the hearty reception you 
 have given us to-day, both out of doors and in doors ; and my second 
 duty is to express my share of gratitude to the Co-operative Society at 
 Leigh, which has supplied us with this spacious place of assemblage, and 
 1 will now, with your kind assistance and support, endeavour to do that 
 which would not be possible except with such aid namely, to address 
 you upon some of" the subjects which are at this moment of the deepest 
 interest to yourselves and England. Gentlemen, the na ne of the 
 Co-operative Society at Leigh induces me to say a few word?) upon a 
 question which is the subject, at the present time, of a very national 
 interest, and is, I think, likewise of a very needless alarm. 1 mean the 
 question of the relations between capital and labour. There are those 
 who consider that this is among the great difficulties if it be not the 
 greatest difficulty that clouds the future of our country. I own I am 
 not of that opinion. I have sufficient confidence in the good sense of 
 my countrymen of all classes, and especially of the two great classes 
 that are more immediately concerned, to feel a perfect conviction that, 
 not perhaps without some occasional and local difficulty, but without 
 any general or hopeless difficulty, they will find their way through the 
 meshes and the mazes of that question to a satisfactory solution. 
 Certainly, one class of measures to which I look with the greatest 
 interest for the purpose of helping the attainment of that solution are 
 the measures which, without removing the labouring man from the class 
 of labouring men, nevertheless give him some of the sentiments and 
 some of the interests of the capitalist. Don't suppose from what I have 
 said that I am one who believes that the function of the retail tradesman 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 51 
 
 the distributor of commodities ever can be either permanently or 
 beneficially supplanted that I do not believe. I believe that the union 
 of working men among themselves in co-operative societies may be 
 extremely beneficial as a check upon the more ordinary method of 
 manufacture that of great capitalists, and of disturbing either the 
 wholesale or retail tradesmen ; but that it will supplant those methods 
 I, for one, wholly disbelieve. And I think it but fair to say two things : 
 on the one hand, I am convinced it is only in the very advanced of 
 the labouring wage-earning classes that co-operation can be carried 
 on to a beneficial extent, and it argues that in this particular neigh- 
 bourhood the labouring classes are greatly advanced ; but, on the other 
 hand, the risks and responsibility of joint-stock companies are serious. 
 I must own to you that although ever since my mind was given to 
 commercial subjects I have been a pretty steady adherent to the 
 .principles of free trade, yet I have not had that unflinching faith in the 
 principles of joint-stock companies, as offered to individual energy and 
 enterprise, which I know has been entertained by many who are far 
 greater authorities than I am myself. I hope, therefore, that the 
 greatest caution will ever be exercised by the labouring classes with 
 regard to joint -stock enterprise, and I may add every other class ; but 
 wherever their joint-stock enterprise succeeds, I heartily rejoice in it, 
 and bid them God-speed. There is another mode, favoured, I know, by 
 some highly intelligent men of this district, and to which I can't but 
 wish an unqualified prosperity, and it is this mode where private 
 individuals, or a limited number of private individuals, carry on their 
 business on the principle of joint-stock companies, and are enabled so 
 to adjust their operations and accounts that they can contrive to 
 give to the workpeople an interest in the proceeds. I know not, 
 and it would be presumptuous in me to attempt to know, when that 
 principle is capable of extension ; but I believe that wherever it is 
 capable of application it is one of the most bent-ficial methods of 
 dealing with the difficulty which besets the question between capital 
 and labour now presented to us. There is one other method to which 
 I can but refer, although the name of the person connected with it 
 most honourably connected with it a gentleman of foreign descent, is 
 less known in this part of the country than in the country where 
 he resides, and where his beneficial exertions have been particularly 
 felt I mean Mr. Mundella. He is a man who has devoted, at no small 
 sacrifice, his time, and no common abilities and energies, in organising 
 those methods of friendly and systematic communication between 
 workmen and capitalists in the form of boards of arbitration, which, 
 so far as the operation has yet been tried, has produced the most happy 
 results. Gentlemen, I refer to that not as if I were competent to give 
 a judgment that proceeds with much greater weight from practical men, 
 nor because I believe we have as jet exhausted the whole catalogue 
 of expedients for adjusting those difficulties which must necessarily 
 arise in the natural and wholesome competition for it is wholesome 
 competition between the capitalist and labourer in the division of the 
 products of industry, but because I think they are hopeful indications 
 of what we may expect under the teaching of experience, and that they 
 go to warrant the sanguine opinion I have myself expressed, that although 
 
 D 2 
 
52 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 this undoubtedly may be a serious problem, which would be dreadfully 
 aggravated by narrow views or by angry passions a problem: 
 demanding the closest and most careful attention that cnn be given to ifc 
 by the most competent persons yet it is a problem of which we may 
 look for a satisfactory solution, and which we need not reckon 
 among the difficulties that threaten the happiness and prosperity 
 of our country. But I pass from that subject, and I wish to take 
 this opportunity, seeing that we are favoured to-night, as upon former 
 occasions, with the assistance of that powerful agency that disperses- 
 over England and over the world what is addressed to local audiences 
 in connection with the occurrences of an election I wish to take 
 advantage of the presence of that agency. That purpose, perhaps, you 
 may think a little personal, and you may possibly think it a little selfish ;, 
 but it is this I am at this moment overwhelmed with communications 
 from correspondents of every rank and degree, of all circumstances and 
 conditions, with relation to matters of controversy that it would be 
 impossible to enumerate. Sometimes they ask me for answers which, 
 having but twenty-four hours in one day, it is not possible for me to- 
 give, and sometimes they ask me to explain the points to which they 
 refer at public meetings. Now, I wish to beg my correspondents, one 
 and all, through the medium of this assembly, to be assured that 
 their communications, most of which I can truly say are both friendly 
 and intelligent, have the best consideration I can give to them, and that 
 if I seem to neglect them it is only because of the greater pressure of 
 other subjects, and of my duty, in occupying your time as I do, to 
 occupy it with those questions which appear to be of the greatest and 
 of the most commanding interest. Now, I will make another remark 
 which is not personal, but local, and I can make it with pleasure because 
 it concerns, not only ourselves, but those against whom we are pitted 
 in this contest. "We, gentlemen, in South- West Lancashire, are like 
 our friends and our opponents in the other division, engaged for the 
 moment in a pretty arduous contest; but, I rejoice to say that up to this 
 time, so far as I can judge, in the South-Western division of the county 
 it has been conducted with exemplary good humour. Everybody knows 
 throughout Lancashire when a man enters into a contest he is in earnest, 
 and means to do his best. On that side, gentlemen, we shall not be 
 suspected ; if we are, I trust our men will redeem us from the suspicion. 
 But in other parts of this country I must say that it appears to me, to- 
 judge from placards, from letters, and from many communications that 
 have reached me it appears to me that the course pursued by our 
 opponents has gone beyond the just limits of political warfare that 
 truth has been too much tampered with that private life has been 
 violently, insolently invaded that violence and almost fury of language 
 has been indulged in ; and if I refer to these things it is for the purpose 
 of congratulating you and others, paying a debt that is due to our 
 opponents, when I say that whatever may take place beyond our 
 borders and into that I won't enter I have not seen within those 
 borders, on the one side or the other, the slightest disposition 
 to trespass beyond the fair and just bounds of public controversy; 
 and I humbly hope that for my own part I may do what I am 
 sure vou do observe those bounds with the same care for the- 
 
SPEECHES OF THE 11IGIIT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 53 
 
 future. I have made this preface because I am obliged to grapple 
 pretty closely with the language of our opponents upon some matters 
 of great public interest, but I wish to do so with the most frank 
 expression of my personal respect, and deal with the argument, but 
 not with the man apart from the politician. Gentlemen, yesterday week, 
 in the town of Warrington, I drew attention at some length to the 
 subject of the public expenditure, and I pointed out what appeared to 
 me to be the main considerations necessary to be instilled into the 
 minds of the electors at this juncture. Those considerations turned 
 mainly upon this that the investigation of the past was of secondary 
 importance, but that the topics, however, which had been raised with 
 respect to the past in no degree diminished the responsibility of those 
 "who are now in pow r er for the rapid, and I think even alarming increase 
 that has begun to take place in our expenditure, and that as regards 
 that increase, not indeed the whole responsibility, but the chief 
 responsibility of it, was to be charged upon the Ministers of the 
 Crown, although it may be your opinion that the House of Commons is 
 likewise to blame, and although 1 do not shrink from expressing my 
 opinion that wherever there is sluggishness in the House of Commons 
 it is because there is always a corresponding lethargy in the country. 
 Gentlemen, I wish to take the opportunity of correcting a verbal 
 inaccuracy into which I fell. You must have seen it stated that there 
 was a great increase of expenditure in the year 1859, which is perfectly 
 true, and again in the year i860, which is perfectly true. In speaking 
 of the expenditure in the year 1800, I s:iid that that was due to a war 
 in China which had broken out, not under us, but under the instructions 
 
 fiven by the Government that had preceded us, and in connection, as 
 said, with Lord Elgin's going to the mouth of the Peiho to sign a 
 treaty with China. In my haste, when I said Lord Elgin, I ought to 
 have said his brother, Sir Frederick Bruce, and I ought to have said 
 that he went to ratify, not to have signed, a treaty with China. These 
 errors I ought to correct, because it was supposed I gave an opinion 
 upon the policy! I gave no opinion upon the policy whatever. That is 
 a large matter to discuss. What 1 wished to point out was this that 
 the de facto cost of that war had arisen in connection with the operations 
 of a former Government, and not with our Government, and the fault I 
 found at that moment was not with those who had given instructions, but 
 the fault was with those who have at this time endeavoured to persuade the 
 country that the cost of that war, which had grown from transactions 
 entirely belonging to a former Government, was due to the Government 
 ^of Lord Palmerston instead of being due to their predecessors. But, 
 gentlemen, asking that you will excuse me for this digression, I come to 
 a matter which lies more nearly at close quarters. It is not denied that 
 J63,000,000 have been added to the expenditure in two years to the 
 permanent expenditure, gentlemen, not to the occasional expenditure, 
 not to the expenditure brought about by the emergencies of what we 
 hoped was a momentary and an incidental war, but to the permanent 
 expenditure of the country connected with the maintenance of its 
 ordinary establishments. But, gentlemen, that fact stands. I rejoice 
 that it stands, and not only so, but that it has been brought home to the 
 mind of the people of this country. For believe me, gentlemen, that 
 
54 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 to a question of praise or blame, whether you think censure belongs to 
 us, or whether you think censure belongs to our opponents, I am com- 
 paratively indifferent, though I do not say I am absolutely indifferent, 
 provided the effect of these discussions will be, as I have good hope it 
 will, to bring about in future, if you, gentlemen, do your duty, some 
 more careful stewardship of the finances of this country. Well, now, 
 gentlemen, one of our honourable opponents meets my charge, not by 
 vindicating the present Administration, but by saying that it was my 
 duty to have prevented this expenditure, and I have received to-day 
 some verses which are the production of a Conservative working man. I 
 think they do great credit to his ingenuity ; and, moreover, I value these 
 verses very much, because we ought always to value greatly all speci- 
 mens of a species that is rare. You know, perhaps, that a few years 
 ago a mammoth was discovered frozen in the ice upon the shores of the 
 "White Sea. An enormous value was set upon the bones of that 
 mammoth, and would have been set upon its flesh if it had not been that 
 the moment it was thawed the dogs ^ot at it and devoured it. Now, my 
 wish is to preserve to preserve in ice if you like, or in any way you 
 like the eifusions of a Conservative working man. But, however, he 
 is a very ingenious fellow. I recognise him as a man and a brother, of 
 the same flesh and blood, and he states this objection extremely well. 
 These are his verses, gentlemen : 
 
 <: Now you are lecturing thro' the land 
 And leading working- men astray, 
 By telling them things were not good 
 For which, they did their money pay. 
 We wish to know, Sir, how it is 
 To oppose these measures you did not strive, 
 While there was on your side, you say, 
 A majority of sixty-five." 
 
 I don't think Mr. Turner stated his point badly, but I think the 
 working man has stated it better still. Still, I must endeavour to pull 
 the working man to pieces a little. He says I said I had a majority of 
 65. When did I say so? He says so; but I never said it. It 
 would be very difficult, indeed, gentlemen, between the time of the 
 general election and the time of the Kesolutions on the Irish Church, to 
 state what the majority in this House of Commons was or where it lay. 
 " But," he says, "why did you not object to this expenditure ? " My 
 answer is twofold. In the first place I must tell you this, that the great 
 questions of expenditure connected with the maintenance of the army 
 and navy are questions of the life or death of the Government, and when 
 you challenge a hostile issue in the House of Commons upon such a 
 question as whether, for example, 40 new ships are to be built for the 
 defence of the country, it is equivalent to moving a vote of want of con- 
 fidence in the Government. That being so, I tell you plainly that our 
 resignation of office in 1866 made it our duty to give to those who 
 succeeded us a chance of dealing with the question of Reform ; and, 
 however we might object to their mode of proceeding in regard to the 
 public expenditure, the paramount and commanding interests connected 
 with the franchise and the Constitution made it impossible for us to 
 take issue with the Government upon questions of that order. Short 
 of taking issue with the Government, I tell you that we did object. I 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 55 
 
 could show you the passages in Hansard, if you wished ifc, where I have 
 drawn down on myself the wrath and a terrible wrath, no doubt of 
 several members of the present Cabinet for finding fault with and 
 impeaching what I thought their most needless and wanton expenditure 
 in naval and military matters. Not only was it what was said by me, 
 but I have the happiness of sitting in the House of Commons in constant 
 connection with many of the ablest men in that House, and my friends 
 Mr. Childers, Mr. Stansfeld, and other gentlemen perfectly competent, 
 did arrange with me and carry on in connection with me that plan of 
 questioning the Government on that scheme of building 30 or 40 un- 
 armoured ships for the purpose of maintaining the distant services at 
 various parts of the globe. Gentlemen, we did endeavour to act on the 
 Government and to produce an impression on the House ; but the 
 House and I do not find fault with it was unwilling to enter into 
 matters which, though important, were secondary to the main question 
 at issue. You have heard something this year about meetings in my 
 sitting-room. We had meetings in my sitting-room to consider seriously 
 whether we should venture this year to ask the vote of the House nf 
 Commons on the state of the public expenditure, and we deliberately 
 decided that we should not, because the answer would have been this 
 It would have been felt impossible to interfere with the progress of the 
 Reform Bills, and we should have procured from the House of Com- 
 mons an adverse vote on questions of expenditure, which would have 
 been given probably from motives extraneous to questions of expen- 
 diture, but which would have been damaging to the permanent 
 prospects of the cause of public economy. I say, therefore, that on 
 this great question we went as far as we could as far as we dare, as 
 far as we should have been justified, with regard to your interests, to 
 go in declaring our opinion of the conduct of the Government. It is 
 idle and untrue to say that these views and proceedings of the Govern- 
 ment were not questioned, as anyone can satisfy himself who chooses to 
 consult the records of Parliament, while it is quite true that the sum 
 total of the public expenditure depends on these greater subjects. It 
 is also true that there are many subjects less important, but not 
 altogether unimportant, on which it may at times be possible to 
 question or challenge the proceedings of the Government. With respect 
 to these minor subjects, I beg to assure you that we saw the oppor- 
 tunity we did question them, both by debate and division. And here 
 I come to my answer to Mr, Turner, and my answer to my friend the 
 working man, and it is that whenever we did question them, there was 
 Mr. Turner in his place to vote against us. I will give you an example. 
 We had a very good opportunity offered us last year. What you have 
 to fear when you raise these questions of economy is that the supporters 
 of the Government will denounce them as party questions, and will in 
 that way envelope them in a cloud of prejudice. But we saw on the 
 notice-paper this year a notice which would have saved the country a 
 certain sum of money I think some 20,000 a year perhaps more. 
 It was to the effect that the expenses of certain Commissions relating 
 to copyholds, enclosure, and tithe which had been charged on the Con- 
 solidated Fund should be borne, not by the State, but by the persons 
 who took benefit from the operation of those Commissions. This 
 
56 SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 motion, which we thought a very rational motion, was made by Mr. 
 Goldney. Mr. Goldney is a man of much intelligence, who sits on the 
 Government side of the House. Thus we had an opportunity, because, 
 Mr. Goldney being the mover of the motion, and not acting in concert 
 with us, it was not possible to cast upon it the discredit of being a 
 party motion. Well, what did we do ? We supported Mr. Goldney. 
 And what happened ? We carried our motion by one not by 
 sixty-five, let my friend the working man observe. We carried our 
 motion by one. The noes against the vote were 105 that was in 
 favour of Mr. Goldney's motion ; and the ayes, 104 in favour 
 of the Government. So keen were the Government to resist 
 this reduction of expenditure, that, after being thus beaten in a 
 division, some rumour went abroad that one or two members had come 
 into the House that they might, if they divided again, obtain a dif- 
 ferent issue. They divided again, and again they were beaten by one. 
 In the first division we were 105 to the Government's 104 ; in the 
 second division we were 106 to the Government's 105. Gentlemen, I 
 need not tell you I was among the 106. But who was among the 104 
 of the first division and the 105 of the second? Mr. Charles Turner, 
 member for South Lancashire. Therefore I tell Mr. Turner, with all 
 possible respect, that one of the reasons why we could not operate the 
 reductions we desired was that he was always in his place to oppose 
 them. But there is another form of proceeding. I have given you 
 one specimen because I think one practical specimen is worth a great 
 deal of vague and general statement. I will now go to another point 
 connected with the same important subject. I told our friends at War* 
 rington that there appeared to me to have grown under the present 
 Government a system of what I called, in regard to the public expen- 
 diture, making things pleasant all round. That means going from town 
 to town, granting what this community wants, granting what that 
 community wants, granting what the other community wants, 
 and leaving out of sight that huge public which unfortunately 
 has not got the voices and the advocates ready always to 
 defend it against these local and particular claims, but of which it is 
 our highest boast that we seek to be the advocates and the champions. 
 I told you that was the system pursued. I told you of a case where a 
 candidate in the Government interest this moment goes to a consti- 
 tuency, and complains that he could not get a Liberal Government to 
 surrender for 2,^00 a debt due to Government of 20,000, but that 
 when a Conservative Government came in, then, indeed, the weather 
 had changed greatly in his favour, and he found there was no difficulty 
 at all in arranging the matter. Thereupon he snys, " Return me to Par- 
 liament, and riot a member of the Liberal party." That is the operation 
 which is constant y going on, and that is the operation which I call on 
 you to baffle and defeat. But even since yesterday week I have had the 
 clearest proof, which 1 w r ill now give, of the truth of what I then said. 
 What I then said was that this Government and its adherents are 
 constantly endeavouring to create electioneering interests by means of 
 local expenditure defrayed out of the public puree. This is my charge. 
 I stated that on Monday week, and what did I hear before the week 
 was out ? There came to me a letter from Whitby. Whitby is a town 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLA.DSTOXB. 57 
 
 in the politics of which I take great interest at this moment. Whitby 
 is a seaport on the eastern coast, and the Conservative party in Whitby 
 not having a chance of winning the election by any fair means, or a 
 chance in any way whatever, I believe, in their desperation immediately 
 publish a placard, the purport of which has been sent to me, but not 
 the thing itself. It says, a Who prevented the creation of a harbour of 
 refuge at Whitby ? The Liberals. Who wanted to spend four millions 
 in making harbours of refuge on the eastern coast ? The Conserva- 
 tives." That is the sort of thing going on from time to time, aye, and 
 pretty constantly too. (A voice : " We'll stop it.") I am much 
 obliged to you, Sir ; and let me add, if it be an allowable mode of 
 speech, you are very much obliged to yourself, because by sending my 
 friend (Mr. Grenfell) and myself to Parliament you will be doing that 
 which is good to the public and that which is good to you as an 
 individual member of the public. Now, I had never said that 
 it was wrong to assist in the foundation of harbours of refuge. Those 
 Conservatives at Whitby ought to have known, if they knew anything 
 about it, that the Government of Lord Palmerstou passed through 
 Parliament a Bill for giving judicious assistance instead of wild 
 extravagance and lavish assistance for such purposes. At New- 
 castle and down to the mouth of the Tyne are probably 
 the most magnificent marine works that were ever undertaken by 
 a local community, and they have never run to such an absurd 
 extreme as to say that under no circumstances will the State 
 recognise the public interest in the formation of local works. It is 
 proper that local works should be properly assisted, but what I do say 
 is this that it is an unjust plan to stimulate local cupidity to feed upon 
 the public purse ; and that that plan, supported and sustained by the 
 Conservative party generally and by many of her Majesty's present 
 Ministers, was resisted by the Government of Lord Palmerston ; and 
 that, although the House of Commons adopted it by an address to the 
 Crown, we refused to act on the address of the House of Commons. It 
 is well to get the people of Whitby, who are acting on local interests, 
 to find fault with us because we stood up for the public interest; but 
 what is said by our friends Mr. Turner and Mr. Cro^s of their friends 
 the Conservatives of Whitby, who are boasting of the expenditure of 
 many millions of money, for the fancied and supposed purpose of doing 
 good to one, or two, or three, or four, or five ports, on the surface of the 
 coast of England at an enormous and almost extravagant charge to the 
 country at lar^e? If you want to be served you must draw the distinc- 
 tion between those who want to serve you and those who don't, and if 
 the electors of South Lancashire and of the country generally are 
 contented to allow this method of expenditure to go on, this Continental 
 system of feeding the desires of classes and portions of the community 
 at the expense of the whole it is idle for you to satisfy yourselves with 
 vague and general promises, such as everybody can give you by the 
 bushel, of being desirous to promote all reasonable economy. If that is 
 to be the system on which public finance is to be administered, you must 
 be prepared to resign all hopes of remission of taxation, even in good 
 years, and in bad years you must look for a steadv augmentation of the 
 income-tax. That is the state of the case as i'ar as it is necessary to 
 
58 SPEECHES Or THE EIGHT HON. W. B. GLADSTONE. 
 
 enter into ifc with respect to the public expenditure. G-entlemen, I am- 
 afraid you have of late years suffered from the vicissitudes of trade, and 
 I am told that there are found those who think that trade has suffered 
 in consequence of the Treaty of Commerce with France. If that be so I 
 should not scruple to say that my solemn duty is to prosecute in all matters 
 of trade and commerce the interests of the country at large. There were- 
 places at all events there was one place, the town of Coventry with 
 regard to which it certainly happened that the French Treaty did arrive 
 at a moment which, in many respects, was a moment of severe pressure. 
 The great cause of the pressure was the stoppage of the American 
 demand in consequence of the civil war in that country. France 
 exports silk goods to the American markets much more largely than we 
 do. France being stopped from sending her goods to America when 
 there was comparatively no demand, did avail herself of the Treaty of 
 Commerce to throw considerable portions of goods on the British 
 markets. But what goods were they ? As far as I can understand, 
 they were not the goods in which you deal ; you are not producers, like 
 the dealers of Coventry, of light fancy goods. You are not the makers 
 of riband. You are not, like the weavers of Spitalfields, the makers of 
 goods of another class, the richest velvets and highly-figured silks. If 
 I am rightly informed, your trade is rather like the ytaple trade of 
 Manchester, consisting of solid and substantial goods. You are not 
 importers from France, but exporters to the world in general ; and it 
 France had the power of competing with you in their markets without 
 any difference in your favour, it is not to the admission of her goods 
 that you owed the distress under which you suffered, but to this, that 
 the door was bolted against you in America through which you had 
 been accustomed to find vent for your productions and the fluctua- 
 tions of trade. That is a question of argument as I understand it, 
 and scarcely can be discussed as if it were a matter of simple fact. 
 It is not possible to escape the fluctuations of trade, but this it 
 is possible to point out, that the fluctuations of trade are much les& 
 under a system of freedom than under a system of monopoly. 
 Of this we have proof in our own history. Many of us are old enough 
 to recollect the crises of trade brought about by trade causes. Before- 
 free trade was established, very frequently distress in the manufacturing, 
 districts used to follow bad harvests and monetary crises. You have 
 this advantage under the system of freedom, that you can form calcu- 
 lations with better security than when you trusted to artificial restric- 
 tions. You know not what causes may arise to bring distress upon you, 
 but it is experience by which in the long run these questions must be 
 determined ; and I speak in the hearing of those who are able to judge- 
 when I affirm confidently that for the last 20 years, setting aside the 
 cotton famine, which is a matter of a different character neither free- 
 trade nor any other trade could prevent civil wars but speaking of the 
 ordinary revolutions of trade, the vast extension of our commerce 
 which we have seen throughout the country has been attended, 
 not with an increase of fluctuation, but with an increase of stability 
 not less remarkable than the increase of scale. 
 
 I have hardly left myself time to say a few words on the question of 
 the Irish Church, which never can be omitted at an election meeting, 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 59 
 
 like this. I cannot do more than state a summary of the leading pro- 
 positions on which I have presumed to dwell at other places. I made it 
 my first duty to point out to the people of this county that the substantial 
 question which you have to determine' is this, whether you will have 
 one Established Church or none, or whether you will have many Church 
 Establishments in Ireland or none. I think I showed that when the 
 Government proceeded to disclose deliberately its policy for Ireland, 
 that policy did include a regular increase of endowments to the Presby- 
 terian Church in Ireland, the establishment of a Roman Catholic Uni- 
 versity at the expense of the State, and a plain declaration that there was 
 no objection to place the Roman Catholics on nearly the same footing as 
 the Church now established, provided it were done at the public 
 charge, and not by withdrawing the property of the present Church 
 Establishment. Since I spoke Her Majesty's Government has got a 
 new ally in the person of the Quarterly Review. Many of you will 
 recollect that about this time last year there was a remarkable paper in 
 that review, entitled " The Conservative Surrender," in which any words- 
 used by the Opposition or Liberal party are watery and faint compared 
 with the blasting, withering, and scorching scorn which this writer in 
 the Review bestowed on the Government. But now the Conservative- 
 surrender itself has surrendered : there is a new article in the Review in 
 which having blackened the Government twelve months ago with every 
 epithet the ingenuity of man could extract from the vocabulary tc* 
 destroy the last rag of its character and the last hope of prosperity and 
 success, the article winds up by saying that now that an election is 
 taking place the result will be the return of a decidedly Conservative 
 majority for the Government. This is the state of things at which we 
 have arrived. I may refer to it because I do not think the judgment of 
 that or any other review, or the judgment of any man or of any united 
 body of men, can contravene the judgment of public opinion, and because 
 this Quarterly Review itself has been for so many years one of the 
 loudest and most open-mouthed advocates for paying the Roman 
 Catholics in Ireland, and, of course, the Presbyterian clergy along with 
 them. I will not raise any prejudice against any portion of my fellow- 
 citizens in respect of religion ; as long as they are good citizens they 
 ought to be dealt with in the same manner ; but this had been the 
 favourite nostrum of that particular political review which has been an 
 organ of great importance, and has spoken in past years for the mass of 
 the Tory party. And, gentlemen, this is your choice. Now, you will 
 observe, on the part of the Government no plan is opposed to our plan - f 
 our plan is to remove and put an end to the Establishment, the plan of the 
 Government is to resist our plan and nothing else. The Government of the 
 country has no plan and no policy to offer you. 1 say it is utterly useless 
 to talk of what is called reforming abuses in the Church of Ireland, 
 and the report of the Commissioners that has lately been presented 
 proves and demonstrates the total inutility of any such scheme. I have 
 ventured also to show this that under that system which we have 
 maintained for the last 300 years, and especially during the last 100 
 years, though we have been removing by degrees the pressure of the 
 unjust and even cruel laws by which we kept down for some time the 
 population of Ireland, Protestantism has been dwindling away, not- 
 
60 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 
 withstanding that we maintained our Church Establishment in possession 
 of all the ecclesiastical property of the country. Gentlemen, this, in 
 my opinion, is a matter of the utmost gravity, because ifc appears to me 
 that it is perfectly idle to call those who would put an end to the 
 Establishment in Ireland the adversaries of Protestantism unless it can 
 be shown that the maintenance of the present system has resulted in 
 benefit to Protestantism. We assert the direct contrary, and we 
 support our doctrine not by vague and still less by unmannerly 
 exclamations, but by showing, from the public records that are accessible 
 to us at different periods, that the number of Protestants in Ireland 
 relatively to the Roman Catholics steadily diminished for a century or 
 more, and that if that diminution has been stopped within thelast fewyears, 
 it has been stopped owing to the operation of that fearful visitation of 
 Providence, the Irish famine, which decimated the Eoman Catholic 
 population, and owing to those social agencies which carry them by 
 hundreds and thousands to the shores of the United States. Gentle- 
 men, every other plea that has been set up is as idle as those pleas. "When 
 it is said that the maintenance of the Church Establishment in Ireland 
 mitigates religious animosity, I contend that it inflames religious 
 animosity. There is no country where men of the Irish race are placed 
 side by side with men of the English race, and where they do not get 
 along tolerably except in Ireland. Then it is said that the Roman Catholics 
 would never be satisfied, and would demand the repeal of the Union. Why, 
 gentlemen, that was the reason that was always urged against every 
 moderate and rational plan of Parliamentary reform. It was said, " The 
 people will not be satisfied without universal suffrage and without their 
 having a republic." In point of fact, it is the old principle on which our 
 antagonists systematically ask that you will refuse a request which is 
 reasonable because it may be followed by one that is unreasonable, 
 whereas the principle on w r hich we desire to act is this grant our 
 requests which are reasonable, and then you will have greater power to 
 resist the requests which are unreasonable. In saying this do not let 
 me be supposed to insinuate, for I do not believe, that there is that 
 disposition on the part of the people of Ireland to make these unreason- 
 able requests. It is in my opinion cruel to say that the people of Ireland, 
 alienated as a large part of them may now be, cannot be mollified, cannot 
 be conciliated, by justice. I know of nothing that warrants us for a 
 moment in treating them as unworthy to be associated with us. We 
 have never thought them unworthy of serving the purpose of our con- 
 venience. Lancashire has not been ashamed to profit by their labour. 
 England has not been ashamed to profit by their valour. In the best 
 time of your army one-half of its ranks have been filled by Irishmen, 
 and after thus turning them to account after thus getting out of them 
 all we can, are we, forsooth, brave and chivalrous England, to cast upon 
 them a look of scorn and say, " Reason and justice have no empire over 
 you. You are the creatures of passion and caprice, and therefore we 
 will deny to you the rights of equality and freedom " ? I repudiate with 
 all the force of which I am capable doctrines so unjust to them, so 
 unworthy of yourself, so unworthy of that glorious past of our history 
 on which our Conservative opponents are sometimes fond of dwelling, 
 and so unworthy of the glorious future towards which, as I hope and 
 trust, and believe, with your aid, the Liberal policy will lead us. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 TOWN HALL, ORMSKIRK 
 
 OCTOBER 21sT, 1868. 
 
 I WILL follow the example of my friend Mr. Hill, and without preface 
 upon matters of form or ceremony, at once proceed to say that I address 
 you as that portion of the South- West Lancashire constituency which 
 perhaps may best, upon the whole, be taken to represent the important 
 agricultural interest of this county, and I do not think that either my 
 hon. and respected friend Mr. Grenf'ell or myself have any cause to feel 
 abashed in appearing before those of you who are connected with the 
 agricultural interests of the land. There has been, indeed, a class of 
 politicians in England who have been called the farmers' friends, and 
 their great characteristic has been this, that they have always encouraged 
 the farmer to lean upon props that broke under his hand and pierced 
 it, and to call for remedies for his difficulties that were totally unattain- 
 able. On the other hand, there has been a class of persons known as 
 the adherents of free trade, who have ever held this language to the 
 agricultural and various other interests, that no one of them had any 
 right to be supported at the expense of the rest of the community. But, 
 nt the same time, amidst much unbelief and much mockery, they told 
 the agricultural interests of this country and I am bound to say that 
 1 don't believe the agricultural interest of Lancashire ever wanted much 
 telling they told the agricultural interests of the country in other 
 parts, where more delusion prevailed, that the true source of their 
 strength, as of the strength of us all, was in the utmost possible freedom 
 of industry and commerce. You know the state of things in this 
 district. You know the markets on which you depend. You know 
 whether the great market of Liverpool, with which the whole of this 
 neighbourhood is so much connected, is or is not now a larger market 
 i'i, \\as in times' of monopoly and restriction. It would be idle, for 
 
62 SPEECHES OP THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 it would seem to argue a supposition on my part of your being ignorant 
 of matters which you know perfectly, if I were to enter into details 
 on these subjects, interesting and profoundly important as they 
 are. In considering matters that are of practical importance to the 
 county ratepayers, the mind of Parliament has of late years been very 
 much turned, and I think very naturally and properly turned, to the 
 question of local expenditure. Now the local expenditure of this 
 country is very considerable, and not only has it always been very con- 
 siderable, but of late it has been subjected to great and rapid increase. 
 I am by no means prepared to pass any general censure upon the needs 
 and purposes for which the additions have been made to the local 
 expenditure, and so far as my very limited knowledge goes, I do not 
 believe that you have any reason to feel dissatisfied with the spirit in 
 which the local expenditure, and the county rate particularly, ia 
 administered in this county, or in this portion of the county ; therefore 
 it is by no means in the Avay of censure that I have in my address to 
 you ventured to tell you that I think the time has come when there 
 ought to be a change in the law. Our law with respect to local rates 
 and expenditure is, like many other of our laws, far from being 
 symmetrical or scientific in its construction. In the parishes we all 
 must agree that the ultimate burden of the rates comes upon the 
 landlord. Whether they be parochial rates or borough rates, they will 
 at last find their way to the landlord. However, the sole power of 
 voting you know in the parish vestries is with the ratepayer, and if the 
 landlord happens not to be an occupier, he has no control 
 whatever over the rates. Well, I do not know that there is any very 
 great evil in that, although it appears to be a somewhat anomalous 
 arrangement; but, as regards the county rate, the case is notably 
 inverted, because there, although again the rate ultimately finds its way 
 to the landlord, yet in the county as in the parish, the rate comes in the 
 first instance upon the occupier, who is apt to feel the pinch at a time 
 when the rates are growing, but he would get the first benefit when the 
 rates are diminished. The persons who administer the rates are the 
 magistrates of the county, in the choice of whom he has no share or 
 part whatever. Now, gentlemen, I own that I am of opinion that 
 representation in all these matters of expenditure is a good and 
 sound principle. It is the old principle of our Constitution 
 generally, both Imperial and local. I am friendly to it, not because 
 there is no clamour on the subject, but I am friendly, because 
 it would give a control to the ratepayers in the choice of their 
 representatives, over the expenditure of the rates by those who pay 
 them. It implies no disparagement of those who have exercised their 
 discretion, but I believe the operation would be good, and would tend 
 to enlighten the public mind on some difficult and threatening ques- 
 tions that are coming forward as to the relation between the local arid 
 the Imperial expenditures and the expediency of throwing the local 
 rates upon the public treasury. 
 
 I now pass from that subject, and will address you upon another one 
 of great public interest in the present contest that which relates to the 
 condition of Ireland, and particularly of the Church of Ireland. Ol'ten as 
 I have had the honour of addressing my constituents upon this matter, 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HOtf. W. E. GLADSTONE. 63 
 
 the subject is by no means exhausted, for here I must own that our 
 opponents endeavour to make up for the want weight in their objections 
 by the number which they make. Therefore it is necessary for us to 
 make draughts on your patience to bury those objections, in the full 
 confidence that the result of these discussions will be the establishment 
 of truth. I wish to say a few words as to the view I take of the attitude 
 held at this time by the different influential bodies, and more especially 
 the different religious bodies, as to the future of this great question. If 
 you look first at the House of Commons, you cannot but see the manner 
 in which it has been treated by the present House of Commons, which 
 seems to many a clear indication of the events that are about to arise; 
 and at this moment I am not addressing you as Liberal politicians 
 although nearly the whole of those present may probably be Liberal 
 politicians but I' am endeavouring to lodge an appeal to the good sense 
 of my countrymen, independently of political distinctions. The Parlia- 
 ment that is now sitting was elected in a period of extraordinary calm. 
 The moderation of sentiment by which it was characterised in some 
 instances may have been justly thought to proceed from lethargy and 
 torpor, and yet that Parliament, upon receiving the appeal that was 
 made to it, and, in spite of the opposition of the executive Government, 
 has passed at once by large majorities a Bill, I will venture to say, by 
 far the most important of any Bill which upon a constitutional subject has 
 ever been passed by any Opposition in any period of our Parlia- 
 mentary career. And observe, gentlemen, the mode of opposition 
 that was adopted. The other day there was sent to me, among many 
 documents that reached me, a lecture delivered by a gentleman I 
 believe a clergyman from the sister island against the disestablishment 
 of the Irish Church. He had migrated to this country for the purpose 
 of lecturing on that subject, and you will not be surprised to learn 
 that the general colouring of his lecture was warm. We, gentlemen, 
 were pretty smartly dealt with, so far as epithets would go, in the 
 course of the lecture; but the climax of the lecturer's eloquence and of 
 his indignation was arrived at when he came to consider, not the conduct 
 of the assailants, but the conduct of defenders of the Irish Church. He 
 did not scruple to say that if our object was attained, it would be owing, 
 not to the skill or determination with which we had made the assault, 
 but to the half-hearted, feeble, and cowardly manner these are not my 
 words, gentlemen, they are the words, or the equivalents of the words, of 
 the lecturer in which what was called the defence was conducted. 
 Now, observe what has happened. The highest authority the Prime 
 Minister has said, in a written document, that the consequences of 
 the disestablishment of the Irish Church would be much more formid- 
 able to this country than those of a foreign conquest. These are the 
 written words of the present Prime Minister. My Resolutions, there- 
 fore, proposed something more formidable than foreign conquest. And 
 how were they opposed? They were met by a motion which was the 
 deliberate result of all the counsels and examinations of the Cahinet, 
 moved by Lord Stanley, to the effect that a question of so much import- 
 ance had better be postponed till next Parliament. Now, when, on the 
 one hand, you are told by the Government that the matter was more 
 ruinous and destructive than that of foreign conquest, and when the 
 
4 SPEECHES OP THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 only remedy they had to offer was the suggestion that this question, 
 more formidable than foreign conquest, should be dealt with early in the 
 next Parliament, instead of at that time, every man of sense may see that 
 there is a half-heartedness, and perhaps an uncertainty of counsel, a want 
 of concord as to what should be the course of action on the part of those 
 who call themselves the defenders of the Irish Church, that would, 
 as my friend the lecturer says, be fatal to any cause on the face of the 
 earth. After speaking of the House of Commons, I must say that I do 
 not look with any dismay to the attitude of the House of LorJs upon 
 this question. I may regret, and I do regret very much, the attitude 
 taken by some particular peers, and even by one or two who have been 
 considered arid consider themselves as faithful adherents of what they 
 call the old Liberal creed. Lord Overstone, for example, a gentleman 
 of conspicuous skill and talent in the disposal of all monetary questions, 
 has felt constitutional scruples with respect to the Irish Church. Far 
 be it from me to question tor one moment the honour or character of any 
 man. If I did so I should only expose myself to most j ust blame ; but this 
 I think it fair to say, that when gentlemen claim your assent in opposing 
 us upon the gr >und that they adhere to the Liberal creed, I very 
 naturally, who have certainly no better claim to the title of Liberal than 
 other men, and perhaps a worse claim I very naturally look back to 
 those former facts of public life and history in which my name has been 
 associated with Liberal measures : and, as I recollect very well, at the 
 time of the Treaty of Commerce with France, and at the time when we 
 made great onward strides in the commercial and financial policy which 
 has received the approval even of the present Government since they 
 came into office, at that time Lord Overstone thought it necessary to 
 declare in the House of Lords that he looked upon the manner in which 
 the commercial legislation of this country was conducted as fat d to the 
 credit and prosperity of the country; and therefore if the prophecies 
 of Lord Overstone wtre so very considerably baulked of their effect 
 upon that great occasion, it is excusable in me, at any rate, who was 
 then, as now, the main object of the censure, to console myself a little by 
 looking back to the p riod, and to the results which have since followed, 
 and to say within my own mind, " As it then was, so it now will be, and 
 the present prophets of ruin and disaster will hereafter be compelled to 
 smile upon the beneficial results of the policy that was then opposed." 
 Gentlemen, I come now to two bodies, which I shall take together the 
 Nonconformists of this country and the Presbyterians of Scotland. I 
 do not include the Wesleyans, because I will refer to them separately. 
 I think there never was a time when the Nonconformist body of this 
 country and the Presbyterian body in Scotland were more heartily and 
 cordially united than now in the support of the policy which we profess 
 in reference to the E tablished Church of Ireland. I mention this for 
 the purpose of saying that 1 feel that the assent and adhesion of these 
 bodies are like an unassail ible bulwark and wall built up around us to 
 fortify us, it we wanted fortifications, against those who accuse us of 
 being the enemies, forsooth, of the Protestant religion. They pay a 
 very bad compliment to the instinct of the Nonconformists of England 
 and the shrewd and canny Presbyterians of Scotland, who think that 
 they have not got the power of scenting enmity to Protestantism ; for 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 65 
 
 I apprehend, if Protestantism has determined, devoted, thorough-going 
 uncompromising adherents, these men seven or eight millions of them 
 are the very men to whom that title belongs, without any disparagement 
 to the others to whom it also belongs. Now, gentlemen, the Wesleyans 
 likewise, I believe, have assumed au attitude upon this subject on which 
 I may remark with some satisfaction. I will not presume to say that 
 there is the same unanimity among them the same approach to 
 unanimity because I think that would be too much to say ; but 
 when you recollect how very stiffly the Wesleyans in former times 
 have as a body adhered to the principle of national Church estab- 
 lishments, we must not be amazed if they do not all of them at the same 
 moment open their eyes to the grave and weighty considerations which 
 make it impolitic and unjust to maintain a State Establishment in 
 Ireland. Great progress has been made among them, and my belief is 
 that the majority probably the great majority of that very influential 
 body will be found supporting the candidates of the Liberal party at 
 the elections which are now about to be held. I do not feel that I come 
 upon at all more tender ground when from the Nonconformists of this 
 country I pass to the Irish bishops and clergy, for I do not pass to them 
 with the view of expressing any disappointment at the conduct which they 
 have in general pursued ; on the contrary, it appears to me although, of 
 course, there have been exceptions that we have considerable reason to 
 anticipate that a large portion of that body will be disposed, and dis- 
 posed while there is yet time, to take the path that wisdom and prudence 
 dictate. A very considerable number of persons aye, and some very 
 eminent persons in the Church of Ireland have opened their eyes fco 
 the certainty of that which is about to arrive, and, as I believe, are 
 carefully, soberly thinking in what manner they can best meet the 
 crisis. Now, gentlemen, no one can be more determined or uncompro- 
 mising in the character of the language he uses than I am when I speak 
 of my hostility to the Irish Church as a National Establishment. There 
 are no words too strong, provided they be within the limits of decorum 
 and propriety, to state that hostility. I draw a broad distinction 
 between the Establishment and the Church, but, even as regards the 
 Establishment, this I feel that we are bound to consult in our mode of 
 procedure the dictates of equity and fairness. And there is one thing, 
 gentlemen, that I will be no party to doing, and that is to destroying 
 the Irish Church Establishment by what I call, or what the doctors 
 would call, the method of depletion bleeding it to death. I believe 
 that is one of the most cruel kinds of death to which you can put a 
 living creature. I rather think, but I have not time to look at any books, 
 that in the persecutions of the most cruel periods of the Inquisition 
 bleeding to death was one kind of punishment that was invented, and 
 unless 1 am much mistaken, we have had a great discussion in the news- 
 papers, not many months ago, as to the method of preparing veal for 
 the tables of the rich, in which likewise the process of depletion was 
 adopted, and that is a most cruel method of operation. Greutlemen,- if 
 the Irish Church does not take care, that is the method in which she will 
 be dealt with, that is the method in which her friends are disposed to 
 deal with her. Forty years ago the Irish Church had 22 bishops. Now 
 the Irish Church has 12 bishops. The Commissioners recommend 
 
 E 
 
66 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 that the Irish Church shall have eight bishops, but the Com- 
 missioners' recommendations are not thought strong enough, and 
 it is probable that the Government will improve upon that a 
 little, and they will most likely suggest six, or five, bishops. I ask 
 you, gentlemen, if that is not a process of bleeding to death. Now, 
 that which cheers me and that which pleases me in the attitude of the 
 Irish clergy and I do not exclude the bishops, at any rate not all of 
 them is this, that I think that they are beginning to see under the 
 pressure of events the clear distinction that it is in their power to draw 
 between the national Establishment and the spiritual Church, and that 
 this idea is gradually planting and forming itself in their minds, that 
 they will not for the sake of the national Establishment have the 
 spiritual Church bled to death. Consequently, gentlemen, I believe 
 we may look forward to a considerable amount of concurrence on their 
 part in meeting that which I believe is inevitable, whether they 
 concur or not, but that which undoubtedly will be effected with much 
 greater satisfaction to us all in proportion as those who are the 
 immediate subjects of the operation shall be willing to deal with us 
 in an amicable manner for the adjustment and settlement of its details. 
 Gentlemen, I have spoken of the Irish Church, and there are certainly 
 some strong declarations which have been made by eminent men 
 among others by the present Archbishop of Dublin against the 
 removal of the Irish national Establishment of religion. His language 
 is very strong. His arguments from astronomy are particularly 
 pointed, and altogether his conclusions are of a somewhat appalling 
 character. Now, I want to quote the dead Archbishop of Dublin 
 against the living Archbishop of Dublin. There was a very fine story 
 of a man who was once famous the great Duke of Ormond whose 
 son was dead, who said that he preferred his dead son to any living 
 son on earth. And in this way I will match the dead Archbishop against 
 the living one. Archbishop AYhately, a man whose name was highly 
 respected, did not admit that in the sense of political economy the 
 Irish Church was a burden. I think he was wrong. But, however, 
 that makes his declaration the more remarkable; and this is his 
 declaration taken from his life, published by his daughter : " The 
 establishment of a Protestant Church in Ireland should be viewed, 
 though no burden, yet as a grievance, as being an insult." And 
 now for the method of bleeding to death. If you were to cut off three- 
 fourths of the revenue and then three-fourths of the remainder, you 
 would not have advanced one step forward towards conciliation as long 
 as the Protestant Church is called the National Church ; and my belief 
 is, gentlemen, that there are many of the clergy in Ireland, and that 
 there are some of the dignified clergy, perhaps some bishops in Ireland, 
 who are not very far from agreeing with that sentiment of Archbishop 
 "Whately. Gentlemen, in the same way it is not difficult to say that I 
 look hopefully, though that may appear bold, at the attitude of the 
 .English clergy with regard to this matter. It is quite true that in the 
 last Session of Parliament the body of the Bishops of England voted 
 against the Bill which -was introduced to stop all new appointments in 
 the Irish Church. '] here were two exceptions, two marked exceptions, 
 at the least. Some might have been absent from other causes, but there 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, 67 
 
 were two whose absence must bave been deliberate. One of them was 
 Dr. Thirl wall, the Bishop of St. David's, one of the most masculine, 
 powerful, and luminous intellects that have for generations been known 
 among the Bishops of England. The other was a bishop of this diocese, 
 the Bishop of Chester a man who is best described by a monosyllabic 
 epithet that epithet is "wise" a man whose wisdom, however, and 
 whose caution, are not greater than his loyalty, and whom the longer 
 he remains among you the more you will esteem and love. It is im- 
 possible not to perceive that the attitude of the English clergy in 
 general though I am thankful to say, not only with many exceptions, 
 but with many marked exceptions, of persons who are among the best 
 and among the ablest of their number the attitude of the clergy of the 
 Established Church in general is hostile to this measure, and it is hostile, 
 in my opinion, not because a very large portion of those who oppose it 
 can, to their own minds, justify the existence of the Irish Church, 
 Establishment, if it stood alone, but because they apprehend the con- 
 sequences of its fall upon the Established Church of England. Now, 
 gentlemen, don't let me pretend to say that if the consequences 
 of this measure were to be injurious to the Church of Eng- 
 land, I should on that account for one moment feel myself justified 
 in withholding from my fellow-subjects, the people of Ireland, 
 what appeared to me to be their clear rights. That is not so. I 
 am persuaded that such a course as that would indeed, in the long 
 run, be most detrimental to the Church of England ; for I believe 
 the existence of the Church of England to be of necessity associated 
 with no injustice, and very sorry indeed should I be to see it placed on 
 a foundation that would involve its passing over to a different character. 
 But I wish to point out to you that this idea that because the Irish 
 Established Church ought not to exist, therefore the English Established 
 Church is to be done away with is an idea which may have been 
 honestly prompted and propagated by the fears and prejudices of some, 
 but has no foundation in the solid judgment of the community. I 
 cannot go as far as those who say it is necessary to maintain an 
 Established Church in order to secure the possession of religious 
 liberty. That I look upon as an idle and baseless doctrine. The 
 foundations of religious liberty are laid with perfect certainty and 
 solidity on the principles of universal toleration and equality of 
 religious rights. And this is no mere opinion of mine ; for we have 
 only to look across the water, to look at the United States of America, 
 which have no Established Church either connected with the Federal 
 Government, or connected with the State Governments, and where, 
 at the same time, it is entirely undeniable that the most perfect 
 religious liberty is enjoyed. But if there be some who have a prejudice 
 against the United States because they think it is not fair to quote the 
 example of a Eepublic though for my part I am always ready to quote 
 the example of any Government whatsoever on points where it can 
 be made available for our instruction but if that be their feeling, 
 let them with me simply cross the St. Lawrence into Canada. 
 Canada is under a monarchical Government. Canada has no sem- 
 blance of an Established Church. Canada has passed Acts of 
 Parliament, the very preamble of which recites that it is desirable 
 
 E 2 
 
68 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 to put an end to all semblance of connection between Church and State 
 in that country, aud has acted on those principles. Yet, who is there 
 that for one moment will pretend to say that religious liberty does not 
 prevail in Canada ? That was a country somewhat resembling, but far 
 less aggravated somewhat resembling the case of Ireland. Resembling 
 it in this important point that the members of the Church of England 
 formed a very small proportion of the whole community. And here, 
 gentlemen, I must digress for one moment to revert to what I stated 
 just now about the case of many eminent and excellent clergymen, 
 and even bishops, in connection with the Anglican Church, who are 
 favourable to the policy which we, the Liberal party, recommend. 
 Among them I can't fail to notice one, little known probably to you, 
 for his sphere of action was far distant Bishop Eulford, of Montreal, 
 the Metropolitan of the Anglican Church in Canada a gentleman 
 I had the honour to know, and whom no one could know without 
 respecting or revering, or without perceiving that he was a man of most 
 solid and piercing understanding and of most commanding qualities. 
 That gentleman, who died but two months ago, is the bishop under 
 whom the Canadian Church has undergone this process of disestablish- 
 ment. I had the honour of seeing him in London during the past year, 
 and of hearing his opinion from his own lips. About a fortnight before 
 his death I received a long letter from him stating in detail what had 
 occurred in Canada. He had seen his Church nourish under the opera- 
 tion of disendowment, and had it been in his power to reverse the 
 proceedings nothing would have induced him to make a single retrograde 
 step. Leaving Canada, I ask what is the true state of the case of the 
 Church of England ? And here I may observe that at Southport Mr. 
 Cross recently delivered a challenge to me. At another place I mean 
 to remind him that he has carefully avoided a number of challenges that 
 I have given him. In order to set him a good example, and encourage 
 him to walk in the paths of virtue, I will take up his challenge. He 
 wants to know whether I will pledge myself, come what may, to support 
 the Church of England. I shall use my own language in answering 
 that question, but I will answer it so that any intelligent man may be 
 satisfied. I think these two things first of all, the Church of England 
 cannot be disestablished ; and, secondly, I think it ought not to be 
 disestablished ; and these two propositions taken together are my answer 
 to the challenge of Mr. Cross. It would rot be difficult for me to 
 tell you in a few words why I think it cannot be disestablished. 
 Even the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland, when you 
 look at it in the face, is like what a little man is sometimes 
 called upon to do in the working operations of a big job. 
 I do not think it is beyond our power. I think it is within our power, 
 and I think that, if you will support us, and put Mr. Grenfell and me 
 and 300 or 400 more Liberal members into the House of Commons, we 
 shall be able to manage that. But I own that if I were a member of 
 the Liberation Society, which I am not, or if I agreed with the principles 
 of the Liberation Society, which I do not, I should still look two or 
 three times at the business of disestablishing the Church of England 
 before I set about it. I ventured to point out in the House of 
 Commons that if we attempted to disestablish the Church of England 
 
SPEECHES OP THE EIGHT HCXN". W. E. GLADSTONE. 69 
 
 on the same principles as we ought certainly to proceed in Ireland 
 that is, with a perfect regard for vested interests, a careful regard for 
 property rights, and for private and recent endowments the effect of 
 that would be that the Church of England, in commencing her existence 
 as a voluntary society, would, if they took stock, commence with 
 80,000.000 or 90,000,000 in her pocket. I have met with no one 
 who is prepared to establish a voluntary religious society, with a capital 
 of 80 or 90 millions to start with. But in my opinion the Church of 
 England ought not to be disestablished, and certainly not on account of 
 any argument drawn from the Church of Ireland. It is impossible to 
 conceive a greater contrast than that between the cases of the Church of 
 England and the Church of Ireland. One exception I will make ; I grant 
 that they are all alike in this and I am thankful that they are alike in 
 this that they both have bishops and clergy who are earnestly devoted 
 to their sacred calling, but in everything regarding their position and 
 situation they are not only unlike, but are directly the opposite. Look to 
 the past of the Church of England. All of us who are Englishmen, 
 who are members of the Church of England, and many who are Non- 
 conformists, know that the history of the Church of England has been 
 bound up with our national history, and that he who is in sympathy 
 with the Church of England founds that sympathy in a great degree 
 upon the honourable and noble recollections connected with it in former 
 times. But what is the case of Ireland ? Can the Church of Ireland open 
 up her past ? The very object of every champion of the Church of Ireland 
 is to avoid it, and the first words that proceed from his lips are these, 
 " Forget the past." He cannot, he dare not, open the book of history. 
 There is not a doubt that the Church of Ireland has been art and part 
 all along for two or three hundred years, throughout past generations 
 and I do not speak of the present generation she has been art and 
 part in all the worst and most shameful matters of English policy 
 towards Ireland. When the penal laws were passed, where were the 
 Irish bishops ? In the House of Lords passing those penal laws, and 
 not only consenting to them, but forming a large portion of that House 
 of Lords when they were adopted. Then remember the tithe war, when 
 the people were shot down for the collection of dues which were indeed 
 legally to be exacted, but which were to go to the ministers of an alien 
 religion. Is it possible you can venture to call up these recollections? 
 No. You are compelled to exclude the whole of the past from the case 
 of the Church of Ireland, in order to be able to argue for it at all. 
 Whereas, in the case of the Church of England, we know very well that 
 she has been the spiritual nurse of ourselves and of our fathers, and of 
 even now a very large proportion of the people of the country, but in 
 former times of a proportion much greater still. The past, then, of the 
 two Churches is totally different. Then, with regard to the future, 
 I cannot help feeling sanguine as to the fortunes of the Church 
 of England, notwithstanding what I do not at all conceal all 
 the difficulties arising from the internal divisions, and from 
 scandals that are given and offence that is taken here and there at 
 particular spots in the country. Still, I am quite satisfied that with an 
 instructed and devoted clergy, labouring from generation to generation 
 in their work, as the clergy do, there is every reasonable hope that the 
 
70 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HOK. TV. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 clergy of England will continue to discharge in an increasingly satis- 
 factory manner the responsibilities of their office. I will not trouble 
 you with a repetition of what you may fairly call a demonstration, in the 
 case of the Church of Ireland ; but I say that figures fully demonstrate 
 that the number of Protestants in Ireland, notwithstanding the removal 
 of the pressure of the penal laws, has diminished, and has not increased. 
 For the last few years, during which that diminution has been standing 
 still, it has been owing entirely to the fact that, of the Komaii Catholic 
 population, a large proportion have been removed from the country, or, 
 unhappily, removed from life, through causes which, we trust, are of a 
 wholly exceptional character. Neither the future nor the past of the 
 Church of England, however, can be for one moment compared with the 
 Church of Ireland. The arguments in favour of Church Establishments 
 are all available for the Church of England. In many portions of this 
 country the Nonconformists would consider, and gladly consider, that 
 the Church of England is the sole spiritual teacher of the people. Nor 
 is it only so, but between the Nonconformists and the Church of Eng- 
 land many kindly, social, and religious relations continue to subsist. 
 This is not so in Ireland, where the popular sentiment is altogether 
 against the Church and against everything that belongs to the Church. 
 But look, I say, at the relative strength of the two Establishments. I 
 lay down this proposition, that the weakest part of the Church of 
 England is stronger than the strongest part of the Church of 
 Ireland. The weakest part of the Church of England I am more or 
 less conversant with. It is in "Wales. In Wales the Church of Eng- 
 land is in a minority ; that minority has never been ascertained, 
 but in some limited districts of Wales it is very small, while in other 
 parts of Wales, and particularly where English is spoken, the case 
 approximates more to that of England. But I will assume that the 
 Church of England does not count more than one quarter of the popu- 
 lation of Wales, while the Church of Ireland counts quite a quarter or 
 the population of Ulster. Wales, then, may be taken as the weakest 
 part of the Church of England, and Ulster as the strongest part of the 
 Church of Ireland. One-half the proportion, or more than one-half 
 the people of Ulster, are Eomau Catholics, and are wholly and entirely 
 set against the Church of Ireland in that province. One-half of the 
 people are wholly opposed to the Establishment, but that is not true of 
 the people of Wales. There is no hostility of that character to the 
 Church Establishment in Wales, and there is nothing to produce 
 painful and irritated feelings, speaking as a general rule, between the 
 clergy and the Nonconformist portion of the population. It is now 
 long since the mass of the Welsh were Church-people. The Dissent of 
 the people is owing to the past neglect of the clergy. But it does not 
 amount to a decided religious hostility. But I will give you another 
 proof: look at the work of education, at'that great work which, had it 
 not been for the pressure of other subjects, I should have been glad to 
 have remarked upon concerning its bearing upon the whole country. 
 Now, I ask of the whole English people, who are the class that have for 
 the last 30 years borne the burden and heat of the day in England and 
 even in Wales, with respect to the education of the labouring classes 
 of the community ? I say they are the clergy. I do not mean to say 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 71 
 
 that the schoolmasters have not done their duty, but I mean that the 
 education of the labouring classes has been conducted under the super- 
 intendence of the clergy, and with the co-operation of the clergy 
 aye, 'and in a considerable degree at the personal cost of the clergy 
 and it is owing to their devotion and zeal that the children 
 have been collected in the day-schools throughout the country. 
 The overwhelming portion of that work has been in their hands 
 that is the great moral strength of the Established Church even in 
 "Wales. But what is the case in Ulster ? The case in Ulster is this 
 that that fatal antagonism which associates, in the mind of the Irish 
 peasantry, the Establishment of the country with everything that is odious 
 and distasteful to it that fatal antagonism which affects the tenure of 
 land, which affects the direct administration of religion, has gone also 
 into the province of education ; and that when the "Whig Government of 
 1831, aided happily at the time by Lord Derby, endeavoured to intro- 
 duce into Ireland a more liberal system, which would not be odious 
 and offensive to the Homan Catholic population, the great opponents 
 of the system, who would not allow it to gain one inch of ground 
 in any portion of the country where they could keep it out, 
 were the bishops and the clergy of the Establishment. Gentlemen, 
 it is not for me to condemn them they were acting according to 
 their consciences, and they had a right to do so ; but I may point 
 out the hopelessness of their relation to the masses of the country, even 
 in the part of Ireland where their position is the best. I am comparing 
 it with the hopelessness of the position of the clergy in that part of this 
 kingdom in which the position of the clergy of England is the worst. If 
 you proceed to survey the country at large, that disparity between the two 
 cases, which is strong enough even as bet ween Wales and Ulster, becomes 
 almost ridiculous, at any rate so glaring that it would be a waste of time 
 and no great compliment to your understanding if I w r ere to dilate upon 
 it. Gentlemen, the truth i3, the argument of our opponents seems to be, 
 that between the Church Establishment which does its work in the 
 main and has the hope of doing it in much in which it may now fall 
 short between such a Church Establishment on the one hand, 
 and a Church Establishment on the other hand that does 
 not do its work, and that has not the smallest hope of doing it, 
 there is no perceptible difference whatever. !Now that is the argument of 
 our opponents, and they say if you remove the Church Establishment of 
 Ireland, which does not do its work, has not done, and cannot do it, the 
 contagion will be so fatal that you will immediately proceed to remove 
 the Church Establishment of England, which to a very large portion of 
 the community does its work already, and which its friends are sanguine 
 enough to believe will, through the zeal and devotion of its clergy and of 
 its laity, make its usefulness more and more felt from year to year, and 
 from generation to generation. Gentlemen, it is true that affairs of 
 mankind are not always governed by reason. But it is not true, on the 
 other hand, that they are always governed by madness ; and you really 
 must, it appears to me, introduce idiocy into the high places of the land 
 before you can say that because you have thought it right to remove 
 the Church which is hostile to the people, you will, therefore, take away 
 a Church which is loved and respected by the people ; because you have 
 
72 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 thought it right to remove a Church Establishment which aggravates 
 every social evil and political difficulty, and which itself will thrive all 
 the better for being so removed, and removed from the hatred of the 
 masses of the people, therefore you shall remove a Church which, 
 on the contrary, is bound up with the sympathies and the recol- 
 lections of that enormous mass of the people that belong to its 
 communion, and of no small portion of those who do not owe to it a 
 direct spiritual allegiance. Now, gentlemen, these are not inflammatory 
 topics ; they may perhaps even be rather heavy at any rate, they are of 
 a character that make an appeal, not to the passions, but to the under- 
 standing. I have not exaggerated, gentlemen, the case of the Church of 
 Ireland. It is not possible to appreciate all the features of that case 
 without entering too largely into the history of the country, but it is 
 summed up in this, that every step and period of that history it has been 
 in conflict with the Irish nation, and has exhibited the consequences 
 of this conflict in a thousand lamentable deformities ; for I think Mr. 
 Cross, in a speech which I hold in my hand, declared a night or two ago 
 that " he did not hesitate to say with the deepest regret that he believed 
 the Government of Ireland had been one great mistake for years and 
 years " ; that is the mode in which Mr. Cross opens his case. What 
 he promises is apparently a total metamorphosis. Well, but these great 
 transformations do not ordinarily occur, and the promise of them is far 
 beyond the power of human strength to fulfil. It is impossible, gentlemen, 
 that the Irish Church Establishment ever can perform the duties attaching 
 to an Establishment of national religion. It is of no advantage to 
 that Establishment to be kept in the enjoyment, or at least in the 
 possession, of emoluments which are given for services they cannot 
 perform. You must look also to the view that is taken of these matters 
 by the people of England ; their mind is quite made up, and depend 
 upon it the position of this question is enormously altered, or is, I should 
 say, enormously advanced, by the proceedings of the present year. The 
 proceedings of the British House of Commons in 1868 have constituted 
 a virtual pledge and engagement to the people of Ireland. Tour 
 representatives, gentlemen, have taken a very solemn step in 
 your name a step which may be called rash and hasty, but 
 which has been taken upon long, serious, and grave deliberation. 
 At any rate, the thing is* done. The representatives of the people 
 have passed a Bill which aims at putting an end to the abusive 
 system that has existed for centuries in the sister country. That Bill 
 has been taken by the natives of the sister country as a promise of 
 better times and better doings for the future. It has gone forth, as 
 the dove might go forth, bearing the olive-branch of peace. But we 
 are an expiring House of Commons. We, the present House of 
 Commons, have no power to renew our action or to fulfil our engage- 
 ment. The responsibility now rests with you to say by your conduct 
 at the coming elections whether the fond expectations of Ireland are to 
 be gratified, or whether once more her hopes are to be crushed and dis- 
 appointed, and another chapter added to the long annals of her woes. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 ROYAL MUSIC HALL, SOUTHPORT. 
 
 OCTOBER 21sT, 1868. 
 
 MR. GASKELL AND GENTLEMEN, You have been pleased, by a vote most 
 gratifying to my feelings, to acknowledge that in the Parliament which is 
 now about to expire I have endeavoured to serve you faithfully, and have 
 not disappointed those pledges or professions in which at the commence- 
 ment of the Parliament I solicited your support; but, gentlemen, you 
 have given a practical acknowledgment to the effect which, if possible, is 
 still more gratifying to me and I believe to my hon. friend. You have 
 manifested, as you manifest to-night, a zeal in the cause, and a determina- 
 tion that that zeal shall not evaporate in mere words. You have shown it 
 in the Eegistration Court, you have shown it in all your proceedings, and 
 we have only to ask you to persevere in the exertions you have made to 
 ensure that success which is alike necessary for the fulfilment of our com- 
 mon aims. Surveying the wide field of politics, we are necessarily com- 
 pelled to dwell in the main upon those matters which form the subject of 
 present contention, and I trust of early settlement. I for one have 
 endeavoured during this controversy to avoid imputations and indiscrimi- 
 nate onslaught upon the Government. I think nothing can be more worth- 
 less than the method of warfare which has been so powerfully exposed by Mr. 
 Grenfell vague, general imputations, most mischievous in character, un- 
 proved by facts and unsupported by evidence, resting entirely on reference to 
 the names of the parties with which invidious feelings and suspicions 
 are associated, and endeavouring to poison or darken the atmosphere of 
 controversy, which it ought to be the desire of every honest man to 
 keep clear of every such imputation and suspicion, in order that we may 
 deal clearly and conclusively with facts. 
 
 We have had much controversy during the election upon the subject 
 of finance, a controversy which I did my best to light up by a 
 charge of a specific and definite nature. I was so far successful in 
 the object I have in view that a correspondence began between Mr. 
 Cross, the Conservative candidate for the county, and Her Majesty's 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, of which we were permitted to see the 
 
74 SPEECHES OE T1IE EIGHT HOtf. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 results in the public prints. Thereupon I endeavoured to supply Mr. 
 Cross, at a meeting at Warrington last week, with fresh matter for a 
 further correspondence ; and my belief is, although I cannot tell you as a 
 matter of fact, that the further correspondence has been actively 
 prosecuted, but that it has been thought better not to put the 
 results in the newspapers. However, our opponents have been active, 
 and I hold in my hand a tidily-printed pamphlet which assures jus that 
 one of the most numerous meetings during the contest was held a few nights 
 ago in the Town-hall of Southport. And, gentlemen, considering that the 
 Amphitheatre of Liverpool accommodates 4,000 people, and that we have 
 had the honour of attending other meetings where 3,000 at least have been 
 present, I marvel at the capacity of your Town-hall, which I understand to 
 be a building of more moderate dimensions, but which, under the enchanter's 
 wand of some scribe connected with the electioneering meetings of the other 
 party, has thus been expanded to convey to us an overpowering idea of 
 their activity and power. I read in the London newspapers [a day or two 
 ago that in the great metropolis an elderly gentleman presented himself 
 before one of the police-magistrates, and his object was to induce the police- 
 magistrates to interfere to prevent his neighbour's cock from crowing. The 
 police-magistrate sympathised with the feeble nerves of the applicant, and 
 promised to do all he could. Now, it was very natural, I think, for a can- 
 didate for South Lancashire to draw a kind of similitude between the cir- 
 cumstance in the London police-court and the circumstances in which we 
 are placed, but I do assure you that I am not in the smallest degree anxious 
 to prevent our neighbour's cock from crowing. My object is not to do as 
 the opposite candidates have done that is to launch out into vague and 
 undefined statements incapable of being confuted, because incapable of 
 being understood ; but to give clear, distinct, and definite propositions upon 
 which the intelligent electors of this county may each for himself deliver an 
 aye or a no with a view to guiding his conduct at the election. Now, 1 
 think we have had enough of discussion on the question of expenditure for 
 me to sum up very briefly the main propositions that have been pro- 
 pounded, and in some cases not challenged at all, in other cases made sub- 
 jects of discussion. It was stated on the part of our opponents that they 
 prepared moderate Estimates in the year 1858. Our answer was, " Those 
 Estimates were the Estimates of the Liberal Government which preceded 
 you fyou found them prepared when you came into office, and you added to 
 them as the expenditure of the year." Their next statement was that we 
 proposed high Estimates in the years 1859 and 1860. Our answer was 
 that the high Estimates of 1859, which we found upon entering office in the 
 month of June of that year, were the Estimates of our predecessors, and, 
 therefore, pre-charges which had been already incurred when we came into 
 office. We did not deny that we were responsible along with them 
 because we adopted for the remainder of the year Estimates of that de- 
 scription ; but we showed how absurd it was to make that a matter of charge 
 against ourselves. The next charge was that in 1860 those Estimates were 
 increased. We showed, without entering into any question of praise or 
 blame upon the policy of the proceedings, that, v the Estimates of 1860 
 were incurred in consequence of the China war, and that war had broken 
 out in the shape of a disaster to the British fleet at the mouth of the Peiho, 
 a few days after we assumed office in London, under instructions which 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 75 
 
 were distinctly and solely the act of our predecessors. Well, gentlemen, 
 so far for these matters. It has been said, that if it be true that three 
 millions were added to the expenditure in two years, we, says Mr. Turner, 
 ought to have objected to it. Now, gentlemen, as regards the main 
 charges of the country connected with the defensive services, Mr. Turner's 
 political experience should have taught him this, that it is impossible for you 
 to keep the Government in office and at the same time to reduce by votes 
 of the House of Commons those amounts of force which that Government 
 believes to be necessary for the defence of the country. A motion to 
 diminish, for example, the army or the navy proposed by an Administra- 
 tion, is, in effect, a motion for the removal of the Administration. Had 
 we made the motion, we should have made a motion for the removal of the 
 Administration. Was it right that we should have made that motion ? 
 Gentlemen, in my opinion it would not be right, because the] Government 
 had been engaged in matters more important even than the question of a 
 greater or less expenditure, and it would have been factious on our part, 
 for the sake of any subject which, though important, was yet secondary at the 
 moment in comparison with the great object, to endeavour to impede them in, 
 their career. That is, as regards the great services of the country, from which 
 the principal increased charge has resulted. To the increased charge we 
 have objected in our places. We have endeavoured to point out in many 
 particulars how erroneous the policy has been, and the mode of proceed- 
 ings under which it has been incurred ; but as I tell you, if you want to 
 have economy with regard to the navy and army of the country, there is but 
 one way of getting it, and that is by having an economical Government. 
 Well, gentlemen, u challenge has been thrown out to me by Mr. Cross, and 
 it is this. He says that between 1852 and 1866 there was an increase of 
 expenditure from 1 7 millions to 30 millions, and that during almost all the 
 time Liberal Governments were in office. Now, gentlemen, I am very 
 sorry that Mr. Cross misled, no doubt, by some of those authorities in 
 London who practised upon his simplicity is not accurate in this and in 
 several instances in the statements which he makes. I am quite sure this 
 inaccuracy of his is unintentional. There has been a great increase in the 
 expenditure of the country, but the increase of the expenditure for defensive 
 purposes between 1852 and 1866, when we left office, was not 17 to 30 
 millions, but from 17 millions to between 24 millions and 25 millions 
 certainly under 25,000,000, or say, in round numbers, 25,000,000. It is 
 not desirable that the little odd sums of 5,000,000 should be laid on when 
 they do not exist : and I observe the same matter again, because Mr. Cross 
 says that Lord Palmerston's Government spent 10,000,000 upon fortifi- 
 cations. Again, Mr. Cross's authorities in London whose letters, as I 
 have said, we have not seen in the newspapers this time, but it can hardly 
 be the Chancellor of the Exchequer have misled him. Lord Palmerston 
 never spent 10,000,000 on fortifications. I do not know whether, 
 when Lord Palmerston died, much more than three millions 
 had been spent; but the plan adopted contemplated, and the Act 
 authorised, an expenditure of about 5,000,000, a little more or a little 
 less, or just one-half the sum mentioned by Mr. Cross. But Mr. Cross 
 asked me why there was an increase between 1852 and 1866. Well, 
 gentlemen, I will not now go into the question as to whether every 
 particular of that increase has been justified; but this is a self-govern- 
 
76 SPEECHES OT THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 ing country, and you all know that in the interval between 1852 
 and 1866 there was at times a great sense of insecurity in the public mind, 
 and a great call for increase in the defensive resources of the country. 
 It will be found that these causes concurred in point of time with scien- 
 tific inventions which led to transformations more than once of the whole 
 of the munitions of war, and likewise of all the ships that compose our 
 fleet, and it is not the question now whether these things were in all cases 
 precisely right or not. My answer to Mr. Cross is very simple. What 
 was done between 1852 and 1866 was not the act of the Liberal Government 
 in office ; it was not even the act of the Tory Opposition, which always 
 wanted them to do more and to spend more ; it was in the main, whether 
 rightly or wrongly, the demand of the public opinion of the country, and I 
 tell you plainly that when the public opinion of the country thinks fit to set 
 itself in favour of expenditure there is certainly no other power upon earth 
 which can possibly resist it. That, I hope, is a fair answer to Mr. Cross's 
 challenge, and I will now point out to you the challenges which I have 
 given, and to which no answer whatever has been made. My first challenge 
 was this, that the increase which has arisen from 1866 to 1868 has not 
 been called for by any demands of public opinion; the Ministers have turned 
 the tide from an ebbing to a flowing tide of expenditure, and they have 
 done that by their own act and from their own view, in spite of many 
 remonstrances on points of great importance from the Opposition, and 
 without the slightest pressure from the people at large. Therefore this is 
 an augmentation which is in no sense to be referred to the public opinion of 
 the country ; it has been the pure act of the present so-called Conservative 
 Administration. My second challenge was this that whenever we had a 
 high expenditure setting in under Liberal Governments all the efforts of 
 the Tory Opposition were efforts to make that high expenditure higher, and 
 that proposition I was not content to state in general terms, but I quoted 
 particular instances in which it had been attempted, in regard to fortifica- 
 tions and with regard to other matters, by the members of the Opposition, 
 availing themselves of what they thought a current of opinion out of doors 
 favourable to expenditure, to force us into greater outlays, and into laying 
 greater burdens on the country. To that challenge no answer has been 
 given, and no notice whatever has been taken of it. When we were told that 
 we never objected to the extravagance of the present Government I speak 
 now with regard to its civil expenditure my answer was by an instance that 
 I have given when a motion was made, happily by a member on the Conserva- 
 tive side of the House, which gave us a favourable opportunity, inasmuch as it 
 could not be called a party motion. We voted for that motion and carried 
 it by a majority of one. The Government divided twice upon it, and were 
 twice beaten by one ; and among those who voted against us was Mr. 
 Charles Turner, the member for South Lancashire. It does appear to me 
 to show very considerable courage, on the part of those who have done 
 their best, by their implicit obedience to the Government, to keep up that 
 high expenditure when the Opposition endeavoured to reduce it, to throw 
 a challenge in the face of the Opposition, and say, " Why did you not keep 
 it down P" Well, gentlemen, I have also stated this, that ever since we 
 went out of office the present Government, for what purpose I will not 
 say I think in some instances in consequence of the disposition 
 that there always is to endeavour to create local political interests for the 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 77 
 
 purpose of elections at the expense of the public purse and neither 
 Mr. Cross nor Mr. Turner, nor their informants in London, will venture 
 to question what I say that from that time to this her Majesty's pre- 
 sent Government has been granting, at the solicitation of individuals and 
 classes, sums of the public money that we had steadily refused, and has 
 been increasing in cases which we have granted. Now, gentlemen, T think 
 that all these are tolerably definite charges. I have supported them in 
 each case by one or more particular instances, which I cannot now endea- 
 vour to repeat, for the fidelity of our friends below us has already placed 
 them on record. These challenges have not been taken up, and it has not 
 been attempted to answer them, and I say, therefore, gentlemen, as we are 
 now approaching to the close of these electioneering controversies, that 
 the charge of a needless and wanton expenditure is effectually fastened 
 upon the heads of Her Majesty's present Government and of those who 
 supported them in the House of Commons. Now gentlemen, as T have 
 said, I do not make indiscriminate charges against Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, nor do I say that in every department its conduct of public affairs 
 has been without credit. It is more pleasant to me though perhaps there 
 are some would not believe it to notice their good deeds than their bad 
 ones. The conduct of foreign affairs has certainly drawn down from, 
 me no censure and no reproach. I believe that Lord Stanley has been 
 actuated in his administration'at the Foreign Office by good sense, by quiet 
 moderation, by a love of constitutional freedom in all parts of the world, 
 which we always expect from our Foreign Minister and from every Mi- 
 nister, and, lastly, by a steady regard for the rights of other nations and 
 governments as the only condition on which we can expect our own rights 
 to be respected. I think that the reputation of Lord Stanley as Foreign 
 Minister, is in no danger at all except it be from the extravagant eulogies 
 of men who ascribe to him the powers of magic and enchantment, and who 
 tell us that the peace of Europe has been preserved the peace for instance, 
 between France and Prussia has been preserved entirely by the authori- 
 tative interposition of Lord Stanley. These eulogies, gentlemen, are 
 extravagant caricatures, and I have not the least doubt -that a man 
 of his good sense laughs at them in his sleeve ; they are among the ex- 
 pedients which are brought into play at election times, when such 
 things, and a number of other odd things, too, are supposed to pass 
 muster. Gentlemen, I have in the House of Commons had the satis- 
 faction of acknowledging that the whole of the executory detail of the 
 Abyssinian expedition, as far as we are competent to judge of it which is 
 only in the same degree as you, the public was conducted by the Govern- 
 ment and by the Secretary of State for India in a manner that did credit 
 to his administrative abilities. These things, gentlemen, are pleasant to 
 acknowledge. There is no such a desperate love of the element of strife 
 and contention in the minds of public men as outside observers sometimes 
 suppose. But it is not because some of the departments of the country are 
 unexceptionally conducted that we can afford to overlook those great 
 questions of cardinal policy which go to affect, not the mere routine of 
 affairs, not the subject of a little more or a little less expenditure, but 
 which descend to the very root of our social and our political being ; for 
 the question, gentlemen, of the peace, security, and satisfaction of Ireland 
 is a question which touches the unity and the integrity of the Empire. 
 
78 SPEECHES OP THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, there are one or two points connected with this great 
 subject of the national Establishment of religion in Ireland which I have 
 yet to open, and which I will endeavour now to bring before you. At a 
 recent meeting I said that I would not discuss, inasmuch as it is not 
 possible to discuss with great advantage all things at once I stated 
 that I would not discuss one plan that has been .proposed for deal- 
 ing with the religious question in Ireland viz. the plan of creating a 
 number of Established Churches. Gentlemen, that has been at various 
 times a popular plan, and a plan supported by Government authorities, 
 and it was supported in March last by Her Majesty's Government, but the 
 emphatic expression of the displeasure of this country has driven it into 
 the shade. But as we never have had from the members of the Govern- 
 ment any disclaimer upon principle of that which they adopted and declared 
 as a corner-stone of their policy for Ireland when Mr. Disraeli became 
 First Minister, it is quite possible that, under favourable circumstances, it 
 may be reproduced. So I think it desirable that we should look for a 
 moment at the merits of that plan. The object we have in view is, as my 
 friend Mr. Grenfell has said, to exclude from this debate all considerations 
 of theological contention. These subjects are not to be idly sneered at. 
 They are of the deepest importance to the happiness of man, and they 
 touch the inmost feelings ; but it is fatal to the hopes of satisfactory 
 political discussion if we allow these considerations to come between us 
 and the fulfilment of the principle of civil justice, and that is the plain 
 answer to those who, because the .Roman Catholics are in a minority in 
 England, and because their religion is considerably different from that 
 which prevails with the majority, endeavour by creating a prejudice and 
 outcry against them to prejudice plans which have no connection whatever 
 with the merits or demerits of their religion, but are founded solely on 
 the recognition of their religious equality. I ventured to say the other 
 day in another place that the Church of England could not be dis- 
 established, and that it ought not to be disestablished two proposi- 
 tions perfectly distinct from one another; and so I venture to say 
 that the plan of all endowment, the plan of meeting the difficulty 
 in Ireland by multiplying the number of churches in that country 
 by extending the narrow grant to Presbyterians into a sufficient 
 endowment, and by granting a small endowment to the Eoman Catholics 
 I say that this plan, which was shadowed by the Government in March, 
 is a plan which cannot be carried into execution, and ought not to be 
 carried into execution. You know that pretty well yourselves ; you know 
 that the Episcopalians of England, the Presbyterians of Scotland, and the 
 Roman Catholics of Ireland are all opposed to it, and in a self-governed 
 country it is a difficult matter to pass a law to which all the three countries 
 are opposed ; but I am bound to say that, although I am not prepared to 
 censure Mr. Pitt and other great men who looked with favour upon 
 a plan of this kind, I think the Koman Catholics in objecting to 
 the plan have judged wisely as well as for their own interests. I 
 do not mean for the narrow and sectarian interests of their religion ; I 
 mean for the establishment of peace and goodwill between them, and 
 their neighbours, and between them and the State. If large sums 
 were given for the endowment of the Eoman Catholic Church in Ireland 
 there would be an expectation that in return for that endowment conces- 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. TV. E. GLADSTONE. 79 
 
 sions should be made by the Eoman Catholics and a power of interference 
 be allowed by the British Government in the internal affairs of that Church, 
 which would be a perpetual source of dissension ; and because I think that 
 the existence of such subjects of discord would be equally injurious and 
 mischievous to them and us, and alike fatal to the purpose we have in 
 view of establishing harmony in Ireland, I am of opinion that the plan of 
 all endowment, which the Government choose as the proper method of 
 dealing with the Irish Church, while it cannot be adopted is a plan which 
 ought not to be adopted. There are those who say that the plan never 
 was intended by the Government. I am going to read a paragraph from 
 a newspaper published in Borne and no newspaper is published in Rome 
 without the authority and approval of the Government of that city. I 
 wish to show the view taken by that Government of the declaration of the 
 British Ministry. The newspaper is the Roman Observer of March, 1868, 
 and the article in question is a review of the debate on Mr. Maguire's 
 motion. It says : " Mr. Disraeli recognised the necessity of endowing 
 the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, and that it might not be supposed 
 that he wished to give stipends to the Catholic priests he declared that 
 lie rejected the idea of what is commonly called paying the clergy. He 
 declared accordingly that the Catholics should have the right of property 
 in Ireland as elsewhere. If together with the Catholic Church Mr. 
 Disraeli wishes that the Anglican Church should have property, we 
 must not forget that he is the Minister of a Protestant Government." 
 That was the attitude of the Government now in power, which has 
 raised the premature cry of " ISTo Popery," which is the promoter 
 of the cry of " Defender of Royal Supremacy," and the proclaimer 
 of all kinds of mischief from the policy of freedom and equality. That was 
 the aspect of the policy of the Government in March last, and you may 
 rely upon it that the person who wrote that paragraph did not do so from his 
 own opinion, but from inspiration conveyed through other channels and from 
 higher quarters. So much, gentlemen, for the subject of what I call the 
 all-endowment system. But one of the most popular charges against us 
 is that our policy is addressed to the encouragement of Ultramontanism 
 a long word, gentlemen, a difficult word, a word of which the significance 
 has caused a good deal of trouble to the world in former times, and may yet* 
 again. It is not for us, I think, in this place to pronounce any opinion 
 at all upon religious questions affecting the internal condition of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. But the question of Ultramontanism is partly religious 
 and partly political. I look at the political part of it exclusively. 
 In that light as I understand it I may be wrong, and I have no 
 authority to speak it is that system of opinions which includes a great 
 number of political and civil questions that are the very opposite of those 
 on which we act in these matters. In this country we say that religious 
 opinions ought not to be made the ground of disabilities for civil office. 
 "Ultramontanism, if I understand the matter aright, says that they ought 
 to be made such a ground. In this country we think that the circulation 
 of opinion should be free. Ultramontanism, if I understand it, is a system, 
 which states that the circulation of opinion should not be free. And so on 
 through a long string of propositions, nearly the whole of which were treated 
 of some few years ago in two documents emanating from the Roman Court, 
 not referring to matters of faith or belief, or I would not touch them here 
 
80 SPEECHES OF THE BIGHT HOE". W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 if they did. I do not look upon them in that point'of view, but as contain- 
 ing undoubtedly an enunciation of opinions of which I will only say that 
 they are entirely opposed to the practice of this country. The charge 
 against us is that we are favourable to these Ultramontane opinions, and 
 that we are about to promote them. My answer is double. In the first 
 place, I say if you want to favour Ultramontanism among Eoman Catholics 
 among the hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics in this country, 
 and among the millions of Eoman Catholics in Ireland I will give you a 
 recipe to do it, and it is this: treat them with civil injustice; compel 
 them to view themselves, not as members of this great and noble country, 
 having common interests and brotherly feelings with you, but as members 
 of a confederation apart, as men who are oppressed or discountenanced 
 on account of their religion, and who, being men of honour 
 and spirit, on that account cling to it or cling to everything that 
 comes to them in its name with the greatest fondness and tenacity. 
 That, gentlemen, in my humble opinion, is the true way to promote 
 Ultramontane opinions. But again, if you will allow me, I am going \ to 
 give you another short passage from the same source. The Roman 
 Observer of March, 1868, reviewing the debate in the House of Commons 
 on the motion of Mr. Maguire, gives an opinion expressed in Borne under 
 authority. Referring to the two documents that I have already mentioned 
 to you, and which are known in Rome and in the Roman Catholic com- 
 munity as the Syllabus and Encyclical Letter, the writer says : 
 
 " Among the speeches pronounced on this occasion is conspicuous that 
 of the First Minister, Mr. Disraeli, who pronounced so many noble truths 
 in defence of the proposition set forth in^ the Syllabus and Encyclical of 
 Pius the Ninth as should raise a blush on the faces of those pigmies in 
 Italy and elsewhere who pretend to be great men while they resist de- 
 cisions of the Pope, which have been justified, acknowledged, and pro- 
 claimed even by a heretic of the highest genius and the widest reputation, 
 such as the First Minister, Mr. Disraeli." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I am going to put to you a question Suppose that out 
 of that paragraph you strike the words, " First Minister, Mr. Disraeli,'* 
 and put " Opposition speaker, Mr. Gladstone/' and suppose the Roman 
 newspaper under the Pope's authority had written of me that I had pro- 
 nounced so many noble truths in defence of the Encyclical and of the 
 Syllabus as to make those pigmies blush, who refused to admit truths 
 acknowledged by a heretic like myself suppose there had been such a 
 paper, I ask you whether it would not have been placarded 011 every wall 
 in this country as a damning demonstration of the Popish intentions of 
 myself and the Liberal party ? Oh, gentlemen, what a plume that would 
 have been for Mr. Turner ! Why, it would have been a stock-in-trade 
 enough to carry the Conservatives through the whole election ; and now I 
 should like to know what they will say to it when they meet next in the 
 Town-hall at Southport or elsewhere. What will they say of the Encyclical 
 and the Syllabus ? Ah ! let there be equal dealings in these matters. 
 Suspicions are thrown out against us daringly thrown out with not a jot 
 or tittle of evidence to back them, and when you hear those suspicions, or 
 find them in circulation, refer gentlemen, to the reports which will be made 
 to-night of the passage I have just read to you, and ask Mr. Turner and 
 Mr. Cross for their explanation. Gentlemen, Mr. Turner and Mr. Cross 
 
SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 81 
 
 are to be felt for in different degrees ; Mr. Cross is a fortunate man, be- 
 cause, unlike the Church of Ireland, he has no past for which to be called 
 to account. Mr. Turner is an unfortunate man, because he has got to 
 explain that which never can be explained namely, that having been 
 elected as an anti-Reformer in 1865, he steadily joined in every measure to 
 resist Reform in 1866, and then in 1867, that his own friends might be 
 kept in office, gave his voice in favour of a plan agreeable indeed to the 
 views which prevail among us and within these walls, in its main 
 principles as it was ultimately shaped, but most disagreeable to the pro- 
 fessions, and tastes, and inclinations of himself and his party. Now, 
 gentlemen, I am going to do a very bold thing : I am going to suggest 
 to Mr. Turner the material for a speech. It is taking a great liberty, 
 but it refers entirely to a department which Mr. Turner is loth to 
 open namely, that of the past, and it is not a speech of my own 
 invention, or I would not venture to suggest it to him, but it is a 
 speech which, comprised in one sentence, is stated to have been made by 
 a gentleman of the name of Baggallay I believe, a distinguished 
 lawyer, who, for his merits, has been made Solicitor- General by 
 the present Government, and who has presented himself for re- 
 election, I believe, to his constituents at Hereford. At any rate, what 
 I wish to call your attention to is a sentence which, as far as I can j udge, 
 would suit Mr. Turner to a T. Mr. Baggallay says, " Gentlemen, I am 
 going to make it plain to all. I came here in 1865 and told you I would 
 do one thing, and I have been and done another." Now, in my opinion it 
 is impossible to nourish resentment against men who use plainness of 
 speech; it makes very short scores; it shows the people of England that no 
 attempt is to be made to hoodwink or delude them, and on this account I 
 am serious when I say, and I think you must be of the same opinion, that it 
 would be greatly to the permanent interests of the Conservative party and of 
 Mr. Turner, if he would simply take into his own mouth and publish the short 
 speech of Mr. Baggallay. But, gentlemen, I go on from our opponents to 
 the last topic upon which I shall trouble you, and that is the present con- 
 dition of Ireland, with regard to which though I said I had entirely done 
 with our opponents personally, I will say I see^in this speech that the same 
 gross delusion, the same thick darkness, if without disrespect I may so 
 speak, overspreads the minds of Mr. Cross and Mr. Turner as has been 
 said in former years to overspread the whole counsels of the Tory party 
 with respect to Ireland. Now, gentlemen, in my opinion, our friends of the 
 Conservative party entirely and absolutely misunderstood the condition of 
 that country. Mr. Cross speaks of it as having undergone very great im- 
 provement. He states that things have been very bad in Ireland in former 
 times, but he thinks now they are so much better, and, to use his expression, 
 so much good has been done in Ireland, that the result, as he says, has 
 been comparative happiness ; and his audience, I was almost going to say 
 his victim, greeted that statement with cheers ; and it is their opinion that 
 Ireland is now in a state of comparative happiness. It is only fair to them 
 to say that they are echoing the opinion pronounced by the Prime Minister 
 at a civic festival of the City of London given three months ago. Now, if 
 that is their opinion of the state of Ireland, what I say is that our Con- 
 servative friends are in a deep sleep. I do not mean as to electioneering 
 manoeuvres. Unfortunately, sometimes people walk in their sleep, and I 
 
 3? 
 
82 SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HOX. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 consider that their electioneering activity is that of men walking in their 
 sleep. The electioneering activity refers to the question of the poll ; the 
 sleep in which they are involved means a total incapacity to [discern the 
 signs of the times and the real causes of danger to the empire. Ireland 
 we are told is in a state of comparative happiness at a time when for 
 three years, in order to maintain the peace of the country, it has been found 
 necessary to suspend the elementary guarantees of personal freedom. That 
 is the doctrine of our opponents, and I am justified in saying they are 
 asleep ; and I will tell you more : the most friendly service you 
 could do them is to give them a good, hard, and rough shake to 
 awake them. Some hope I have that that operation will be 
 performed at the time of the election ; and really I feel that it "would be not 
 less for their profit than for ours. I had the honour of addressing you in 
 this hall some ten or eleven months ago, and then told you before the 
 meeting of Parliament, the view that I could not but take of the condition 
 of Ireland and the Fenian, manifestations ; and then I signified to you the 
 opinion that the time had in my view arrived when we must set about the 
 establishment of religious equality in Ireland. Now, what is the doctrine of 
 our opponents ? Mr. Cross says it is true that the Habeas Corpus Act has 
 been suspended, but not as against the people of Ireland. He says, " I deny 
 that the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended in Ireland against Irish people." 
 Well, there is the city of Rome, and the feeling of the bulk of the Italian 
 people is, that the inhabitants of that city are not well affected to the civil 
 Government of the Papacy. I speak without touching upon any of the con- 
 troversies in the matter, because I am using it merely for the purposes of 
 illustration, to endeavour to show truly how this matter stands. Well, but 
 when the volunteers of Garibaldi invaded the Roman States the Roman 
 people did not rise, and the explanation given was this : They were too 
 prudent, and they dared not ; they knew that an overwhelming force would 
 be used to put them down ; and they determined not to shed their blood to 
 no purpose. I speak of that as the explanation of what has occurred among 
 us in this country. Apply that to the case of Ireland. The people of 
 Ireland have not risen ; the people of Ireland are divided in sentiment, and 
 so probably are the people of Rome ; but this we know, and upon the 
 highest authority, that a large portion of the Irish people are either hostile 
 in their relation or neutral to the British Throne and Government. We 
 know that upon the authority of the Ministers of the Crown ; we know it 
 by the manifestations that occur from time to time in Ireland when 
 criminals are tried for political offences ; we know it by the processions 
 which were held in Ireland and in London after the execution of, I think, 
 three Fenian offenders who had murdered the policeman Brett. We know 
 it by every kind of symptom that can meet the eye of intelligent men ; 
 and yet still our friends for I call our opponents also our friends except 
 in the political sense will cling to their delusion that Ireland is thoroughly 
 British in feeling, sensible of the countless blessings which they derive from 
 our invaluable Constitution, and that it is only the troublesome agency 
 of the United States of America which renders it necessary to suspend the 
 Habeas Corpus Act. Now, gentlemen, I want to go to that point, because 
 this is a subject oi' vital importance, on which I am certain you will not grudge 
 me a very few moments. The language which is held by our opponents 
 is this Fenianism is a plant of foreign growth. Ireland is not disaffected, 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. IT. E. GLADSTONE. 83 
 
 though Lord Mayo stated that as regarded a large portion of the population 
 it was ; but that can't be admitted during the elections. Fenianism is a 
 foreign importation into Ireland, and the true origin of the hotbed of 
 Fenianism is in America. Now, gentlemen, isn't it a most extraordinary 
 thing that Irishmen should become more hostile to their own country in 
 consequence of leaving it than they were when they dwelt in it ? Did you 
 ever hear of such a case ? Did you ever hear of men who lived contentedly 
 under a Government, and then, because they happened to go under 
 another Government, become in their own breasts hostile to the Govern- 
 ment they had left ? No such case ever was known or heard of. Now, 
 gentlemen, I want you to understand what is the view that the Americans 
 take of Fenianism ; it is quite time that you should hear them upon that 
 subject. Our opponents are under the gross delusion of believing that 
 America has a love for this pestilential plant, and fondles and rears ifc 
 with the utmost care in order to make it an instrument of annoyance to 
 us. That is their creed. I tell you, on the contrary, that Fenianism is a 
 plant of Irish growth, and the only reason why it is suppressed and 
 smoulders in Ireland and is loud and noisy in America is that it is sup- 
 pressed in Ireland through the fear of an overwhelming power, and that 
 when the shores of America are reached the fear of that overwhelming 
 power has ceased. This is just like what happens in many cases when 
 there is a fire in a mine : they close the mine to stop it, and the fire is 
 not observed ; but if the air be let in the fire blazes up. The Fenianism 
 of Ireland is the fire smouldering in the mine ; the Fenianism of America 
 is the fire, with an abundant supply of fresh air. And, moreover, it is 
 most unjust to the Americans to accuse them of loving, and fondling, and 
 caressing this evil growth, with which it is we who annoy them. I hold 
 in my hand a letter which is well worth your hearing. I am not sure that 
 I should be justified in mentioning the writer's name, simply because it is 
 a private letter sent from America and supplied to me by a dignitary of 
 the Church of England, who is entirely of our mind with regard to the 
 Church of Ireland, but it expresses opinions which do not require a name 
 to authenticate them, and I am sure when you know that it is an American's 
 view of the Fenian question you will say that the two or three minutes 
 occupied in reading it are the most important portion of time I have spent 
 since I began. I am not quite certain as to the date of the letter, but 
 it is a recent one, having come within the last six months. The writer 
 says : 
 
 " The Irish come to our country by millions, and bring with them the 
 hate of the British Government so intense that to gratify it they would 
 gladly die. Every tried friend of Great Britain ardently desires that some 
 wise and sufficient measures may be devised to conciliate the Irish people 
 and make them friends of the Government by which at present they think 
 themselves so deeply injured. I wish English statesmen could see this 
 question in the light in which we regard it from our stand-point. There 
 is nothing so important to our country, as well as yours, as the mainte- 
 nance of peace between them, and even more than.fchat the most kindly 
 relations. The Irish already constitute a most influential portion of our 
 voting population, determining to a very large extent the policy of our 
 Government. This population is led and controlled almost absolutely by 
 able and unscrupulous politicians who are themselves well known among 
 
84 SPEECHES OP THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GL/LDSTONE. 
 
 us as being unfriendly to your country ; these men can at any moment 
 command the enthusiastic devotion of the entire Irish population among 
 us by a promise to inaugurate a policy of unfriendliness to Great Britain. 
 I am sure I speak the opinions of all the better part of our people when I 
 say that we wish to see your country prosperous and strong and her 
 people happy. At present we think Ireland adds very little to the power 
 of your nation, but regard it as an element of weakness in the event of a 
 war with any strong naval and military people. We are sure that the 
 proposed mode of dealing with the Irish Church would go far to placate 
 the Irish people, and, followed by other wise measures of conciliation, 
 would go far to reconcile the Irish to British rule. There is no more 
 ardent Protestant than I am than we are whose views I have endea- 
 voured to present but we feel confident that the Irish in this country, as 
 well as in yours, will always be hostile to your Government, and will de- 
 vise mischief to it in every possible way, without the adoption of some 
 measures which they think justice to Ireland demands. That God may 
 guide you and all your countrymen in the course best adapted to promote the 
 interest of your nation and the happiness of your people, is my sincere wish." 
 Now, gentlemen, I don't hesitate to say that that letter presents the matter 
 from the true point of view; The people of America wish to stand well 
 with us, but we discharge upon their shores every year 100,000 perhaps 
 more of men into whose breasts we ourselves have instilled a deep hatred 
 of ourselves ; and these men, finding themselves in a country abounding in 
 resources and in power, and carrying with them the passionate recollections 
 with which they have set out from their native shores, naturally enough 
 seek to turn the energies of America into channels hostile to us. And what 
 is our miserable policy ? To say that these feelings are of American growth. 
 It is flying, gentlemen, in the face of facts ; it is closing our eyes against the 
 noonday. These passions are passions born and fostered in Ireland, and 
 they are the unhappy children of our own misrule, and until we can by 
 some means awaken the minds of the English people to the perception of 
 these great essential facts, bearing as they do upon all the permanent 
 prospects of peace and of security for this empire, we never can stand in the 
 face of the world acquitted by the general opinion of civilised mankind of 
 gross injustice ; nor can we have that firm, immoveable position which we 
 ought to have for our own defence in times of danger as a strong, because 
 a united, people. Now, gentlemen, I endeavour in these words feebly to 
 present to you the great work which we have in hand in this election. Is 
 it not idle, in the face of facts like these, to talk of being governed by party 
 motives and the desire of office ? It is not difficult to meet such reproaches 
 with silence on the part of those who know they do not deserve them ; but 
 it is difficult with patience to think that it is by means of instruments and 
 pleas like these that men are content to practise on themselves the grossest 
 self-delusion, to encourage the Government of this great and noble empire 
 in a course of injustice and wrong. Gentlemen, we invoke you in the 
 mass you individually, every elector among you if the interests that I 
 have endeavoured to place before you really touch you as British citizens ; 
 if you really prize and cherish that which has been to us all a dear and a 
 sacred name, we invoke you to assist us in an enterprise which, however it 
 may be blackened by calumny, or more frequently by ignorance we believe, 
 and I think I may say we know, to be the enterprise of justice and of 
 truth. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 HENGLEE'S CIRCUS, IWIGAN. 
 
 OCTOBER 23BD, 1868. 
 
 MR. LANCASTER AND GENTLEMEN, I avail myself with the utmost 
 promptitude and pleasure of the introduction which you have been pleased 
 to give me, and I will endeavour to state my views on some points of 
 interest to the vast assemblage which I have the honour to witness before 
 me, with only this preliminary observation, that as the constituency of the 
 county has greatly favoured me with like opportunities at other places of 
 importance, I shall endeavour to avoid, as far as is in my power, repeating 
 the observations which it has been my duty to offer to other portions of 
 the electoral body, and you will, I trust, accept my apology, growing out 
 of the necessity of the case, if I rather endeavour [to convey to you^with 
 clearness and fairness, as much as is in my power, one or two points of 
 great importance, than attempt to travel over the whole wide field of the 
 political interests of the country at large. There are two subjects con- 
 nected with and forming branches of the great question of the Irish Church 
 which, as you know, absorbs at this time, far beyond every other single 
 topic, the general interest of the country there are two branches [of this 
 great question on which I have not said a word, but with respect to which, 
 any attempt to discuss the question in the face of the country would be 
 incompatible unless some endeavours were made to deal with them. One 
 of the allegations that are often made by the friends, or, at the least, those 
 who call themselves, and I have no doubt believe themselves, the friends 
 of the Irish Church, is this, that it operates with great power in the 
 mitigation of religious animosities. Well r now, gentlemen, I meet that 
 statement with one directly opposite, and I hold and contend that the effect 
 partly of the Established Irish Church, and partly of the general system 
 of ascendency of which that Irish Church is an important and a leading 
 
86 SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 part, has been not to mitigate but to inflame religious animosity in that 
 particular country to a point higher and hotter than it has reached pro- 
 bably in any country in the world certainly in any portion of Her 
 Majesty's wide and almost boundless dominions. I will endeavour 
 to supply you with an illustration of what I have said, and I begin with 
 an anecdote from the House of Commons. In the course of last Session, 
 a highly respected friend of mine, an Irish representative, Mr. Cogan, 
 gave notice that he would ask from the Government an explanation with 
 respect to a speech that had been delivered in Ireland by a gentleman 
 whom I need not name, connected with Trinity College, Dublin, and 
 which he considered to be a speech directly tending to a breach of the 
 peace ; and, undoubtedly, in that speech the speaker did appear to con- 
 template pretty distinctly the use of force as a means of resisting any 
 measures that Parliament might adopt with a view to the destruction of the 
 Protestant ascendency. That recital by Mr. Cogan appeared to produce a 
 considerable impression, for, in point of fact, I defy you, gentlemen, in the 
 whole length and breadth of England unless it be within the charmed 
 circle occupied by a certain Murphy, who I believe is now somewhere in 
 these parts, and whose proceedings we really cannot recognise as belonging 
 at all to the character which marks the laws of English debate I defy 
 you to find from ordinary English debate and controversy, though we 
 naturally are free in our language, anything to compare to the passage to 
 which I now refer. But a great impression was produced upon the 
 opposite side. There was considerable alarm from the obviously inflam- 
 matory, not to say seditious, tendency of the speech of the gentleman con- 
 nected with Trinity College, Dublin. But what was the mode of defence 
 adopted ? Not to explain the speech, not to retract the speech. The 
 mode of defence adopted was this : Another gentleman on the other side 
 of the House went and found another speech just as inflammatory from 
 the other side of the question, and he came down and read that violent, 
 inflammatory, and seditious language on the other side of the question 
 amid the triumphant acclamations of the supporters of the Government. 
 They did not in the least degree think it necessary to show that their man 
 had not used language tending to a breach of the peace ; it was quite 
 enough for them to show that similar language had been used on the other 
 side. But this is not the way, I am thankful to say, in which discussion 
 on political measures is conducted in this country. I hold in my hand a 
 published pamphlet relating to the parishes in the North of Ireland ; I 
 have never seen a contradiction of the statements it contains, and I think 
 they are such as will put you in a position to judge whether we are right 
 in contending that religious animosity is inflamed, and not mitigated, by 
 the existence of the Established Church in Ireland and by the system with 
 which that Church is connected. You will all remember that the present 
 settlement in Ireland was reached at a period of revolution, not as in 
 England, peacefully, happily, and by the spontaneous action of the 
 mind of a free people, but in the manner of an English conquest over 
 the inferior forces of Ireland. The battles of William III. and 
 his forces put down what was undoubtedly the sense and will of the 
 mass of the Irish people. I am finding no fault with that at this 
 moment it is a question of historical discussion ; but I think you will 
 ageee with me that after a civil war of that nature was over, it was 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 87 
 
 an odious and dreadful thing to keep alive by periodical processions, by 
 constant party dinners and celebrations, and by flags flouted in the face 
 of the general population of Ireland, the memory of bloodshed by which 
 the will and voice of the majority had been put down. You may remem- 
 ber that for a great length of time we did commemorate in this country 
 by a religious celebration, the anniversary of what was called the Gun- 
 powder Treason. That was a totally different matter ; that was not * 
 question of civil war fought out in the open field between two great partis 
 in the country. It was a question of returning annual thanks to th.* 
 Almighty for the deliverance of the Legislature from a terrible an*r 
 execrable plot aimed at its destruction. And yet there is no man who does 
 not feel that when we ceased a few years ago to maintain the usage for 
 that annual celebration we had done an act of justice and kindness to our 
 Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. But in Ireland, where it is a question 
 of civil war, of which the Orange flag is the emblem, the wretched 
 memory of former feuds is kept up year by year, by men banded together 
 for the purpose sincere men, conscientious men, I doubt not, but mis- 
 guided men. But how misguided ? They are misguided, to a great ex- 
 tent, by that which gives countenance to a system of ascendency, keeping 
 them in the blindness of delusion under which they are labouring, But 
 where do you suppose there is a favourable receptacle for the Orange flag ? 
 It is in the House and Temple of God. In the North of Ireland, within 
 the very walls where men meet to lay aside their passions, and confess 
 their sins, and give thanks for their mercies ; even there this unhappy 
 flag is hung. The pamphlet to which I refer is written by the Eev. 
 John Kobert Greer, incumbent of Kilderton, in the diocese of Armagh. 
 He speaks as a man who was on the best terms with his parishioners 
 until he differed from g them on the matter of the Orange 
 flag. He does not say that they did a thing without example, 
 but, on the contrary, he says that Kilderton Church was the 
 only church in his neighbourhood where the law had not been 
 previously defied. He goes on to say, "You as representatives 
 of the principal families, did, against my express wishes and request, 
 and well knowing my determination that I would not go with the 
 multitude to do evil by officiating in my church while such emblems were 
 upon it, you did secretly, and in the dead of night, desecrate my church 
 and profane its precincts by indulging there in strong drink and revelry, 
 while attaching to its very walls, and even actually over the Lord's Table, 
 these unholy emblems of strife." And he proceeds to say that, in conse- 
 quence of the resistance thus offered to the will of his parishioners, a 
 large number determined^nojlonger to attend on his ministry as a clergyman. 
 We are tempted to cry " Shame," but let us pass. I want to know if there 
 is not something to be said for these men. When they see that the laws 
 are violated, when the wealthy few are set up to remind them of wealth 
 and civil superiority, do not things of this kind excuse or account for pro- 
 ceedings such as I have detailed ? and are we not in some degree respon- 
 sible for exhibitions and manifestations of this kind so long as we continue 
 to maintain the system of ascendency and the Established Church in Ire- 
 land? But I must give you another proof of the manner in which the 
 Irish Church tends to mitigate religious animosities. Gentlemen, I am 
 now about to quote some words used in the debate in the House of 
 
88 SPEECHES OF THE BIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 Lords of the Session just expired, and used, according to report in 
 the public journals, and, therefore, I presume substantially correct, by 
 a person of the highest eminence the present Primate of Ireland. He 
 was discussing the Bill called the Suspensory Bill, which, as you 
 are aware, was passed by the House of Commons during the last 
 Session, but which did not succeed in passing the House of Lords. 
 Now, this was the view which he gave of the state of matters in 
 Ireland, he being a prelate at the head of this Church, whose office 
 and whose effect, we are told, it is to mitigate religious animosity, 
 and 1 must say, in justice to him, being, I believe, also a good and a 
 kind, as well as an earnest man ; but this is his view of the con- 
 dition of Ireland and of the Protestants and Koman Catholics of 
 Ireland respectively : " Don't imagine that if you overthrow the Irish 
 Established Church there will not be, as there was in earlier days, a 
 very extensive emigration of Protestants, comprising many of the best, 
 the soundest, the most loyal, and most industrious of her 1 Majesty's 
 Irish subjects. You will put before the Irish Protestants the choice 
 between apostasy and expatriation, and every man among them who has 
 money or position when he sees his Church go will leave the country. If 
 you do that, you will find Ireland so difficult to manage that you will have to 
 depend on the gibbet and the sword." Now, gentlemen, you have heard 
 these words probably with some astonishment. I look upon them as the 
 too direct and legitimate fruit, not of personal intemperance for I 
 don't believe the'speaker is personally intemperate but of a bad and in- 
 veterate system which has been maintained up to the present day, and 
 which you, together with the rest of the electors of this country, have now 
 to determine upon, either that you will still maintain it, or that you will 
 bring it to the ground. I now pass on from the point to which I referred. 
 I think I have given you some evidence that the allegation that the Irish 
 Church tends to mitigate religious animosity is a statement not only un- 
 true, but ludicrous, when the view taken by the head of the Protestant 
 Church of that country is that if the Protestants were to leave it the means 
 of governing the Eoman Catholic population would simply be by the gibbet 
 and the sword. There is another charge that is made, and a plausible 
 charge, which I beg you to consider with me for a little. It is this : we 
 are told that the Irish never will be satisfied. We are told that they in- 
 vent one demand after another, and that any concession that is made to 
 them only makes them keener to agitate for the next. Well, gentlemen, 
 there is some truth in the statement that the concessions hitherto made 
 have made the Irish people agitate more keenly for what they thought still re- 
 mained due to them; and I ask of any of you who might happen to be a creditor 
 what you would do if you had a solvent debtor, and if your solvent debtor, 
 having full means to pay you the whole of your just claims, attempted to put 
 it off from time to time by 2s. or 3s. in the pound. You might take the first 
 3s. if you could do no better, but you would very soon demand another, and 
 when you had got six, perhaps you would try to have ten, and when you 
 had ten you would begin to think of 15. You would say, " It is want of 
 will ;" and that is what Ireland has a right to say to England, and Ireland 
 is entitled, in my judgment, to ask of England, not 5s., nor 10s., nor 15s., 
 but 20s. in the pound. Now, gentlemen, our opponents would have you 
 believe that this matter of religious equality in Ireland is a new subject 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 89 
 
 invented for the purpose of the present hour, and what they say is, First 
 of all, we began by repealing the penal laws; then they wanted the 
 elective franchise, and they got it; then they wanted to come into 
 Parliament, and they got it ; and now they are not satisfied with 
 anything but the destruction of the Established Church and the at- 
 tainment of religious equality; and after that they will demand some- 
 thing else more formidable. This is no novel demand at all, and 
 no novel policy. I beg you to attend carefully to that which I am 
 about to say. The statesmen of two generations ago, with Mr. Pitt 
 at their head, when they were parties to investing the Koman Ca- 
 tholics with a portion of their political rights in the shape of the 
 elective franchise, knew perfectly well what they were doing; and 
 knew perfectly well that that must be followed, and ought to be fol- 
 lowed, by their admission into Parliament, and likewise knew that it must 
 be followed by the concession of religious equality. The difference is this, 
 and the only difference is this. At that period the intention undoubtedly 
 was to grant religious equality, not by disestablishing the Church esta- 
 blished, but by creating Roman Catholic and Presbyterian Churches by its 
 side. There is no doubt at all about that. The mode of attaining the end 
 was different, the end itself was the same ; and I affirm that the Irish Eoman 
 Catholics, in now demanding religious equality, are making a demand, the 
 fairness and equity of which have been allowed by the greatest statesmen 
 who dealt with the affairs of Ireland 50, 60, and 70 years ago. But do not 
 let that, inasmuch as it is important, rest on my mere dictum. I want to 
 give you an answer to make to those who assert that the project of esta- 
 blishing religious equality is a novel invention. Mr. Pitt himself, in 
 proposing the Act of Union, used these words : " When the conduct of 
 the Catholics should be such as to make it safe for the Government to 
 admit them to a participation of the privileges granted to those of the 
 Established Church " and that related to the endowment of their Church 
 and of their clergy " and when the temper of the times should be favour- 
 able to such a measure, when those events should take place, it was obvious 
 that such a question might be agitated in a united Imperial Parliament 
 with much greater safety than it could be in a separate Legislature." But 
 it does not depend alone upon the declaration of Mr. Pitt. Lord Castle- 
 reagh, some 20 years afterwards, said that the reason why the policy of 
 England with respect to Ireland had failed, was because she had chosen to 
 adopt nothing but a series of half measures. As to the mode of attaining 
 religious equality, the views of the Eoman Catholics themselves, and the 
 views of the people of this country also, are different now from what they 
 then were. It is quite possible, too, that at that time there might have 
 been no objection to establishing these three Churches, the one by the side 
 of the other, in Ireland ; but now, on the contrary, we know that the voice 
 of the three kingdoms is against that method of procedure. But what I 
 want you to observe is that the Eoman Catholics' claim to religious 
 equality is no new claim ; it was recognised by Mr. Pitt, and by Lord 
 Castlereagh too, shortly after the Union, and recognised as a necessary 
 part of the policy on which that Union was based. There are many other 
 points connected with the Irish Church with which I will not attempt to 
 detain you, as I have fully explained myself at other places. I have pointed 
 out that those persons are wrong who think that, because we take away a 
 bad Church Establishment in Ireland, we therefore desire to take away the 
 
90 SPEECHES OF TUB EIGHT HON. TF. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 good Church Establishment in England. The Church of England, like 
 the Church of Ireland, must be judged by its works ; and so long as, in 
 the judgment of the bulk of the people of this country, the Church, 
 of England can abide, she has no fears to entertain for herself from allowing 
 justice to be done in the sister country. Your real choice is between 
 having no Establishment and several Church Establishments. You 
 cannot maintain the Church which now exists and maintain it alone. 
 If you choose which you do not choose to adopt the policy of 
 creating a number of religious establishments in Ireland for all the 
 denominations by which that country is peopled, you may do so. 
 But the idea of maintaining the present Establishment alone is 
 wholly out of the question. We may dismiss the plea that the Establish- 
 ment is maintained for the sake of [Protestantism, because we have shown 
 that Protestantism has dwindled under its action. We have heard much 
 within the last 10 or 20 years of several parishes in the west of Ireland 
 where several thousands of Eoman Catholics have come over to the 
 Established Church, but it is a most extraordinary fact that that conquest, 
 which appears to be the only one to which the opponents of our course can 
 look that conquest was made, not by the agency of the Irish Church 
 Establishment, but by a missionary propaganda, established and working 
 from England as its centre ; in fact, by the agency of the voluntary principle, 
 and not by the agency of the Established Church. Now, gentlemen, you 
 are here an assembly of Liberals, but do not suppose you can on that account 
 have no interest in the well-being of the Conservative party. So long as 
 England is England there will be a Liberal party and a Conservative party. 
 Ay, even if it were possible to do what I do not think we wish to do alter 
 the form of the Government of the country even if we had a republic, we 
 should still have, as there is to so great an extent in America, a Liberal party 
 and a Conservative party, the one wishing to move on more freely and 
 fearlessly, and the other more apprehensive as ,to the mischief sudden 
 changes might do. Therefore, gentlemen, we have a great interest in the 
 Conservative party. It is for the interest of each party that the other 
 party should be truthful and honest in its proceedings, and firm in its 
 principles. You may rely upon it that you cannot have great demoralisa- 
 tion in one party without that demoralisation tainting and infecting the 
 other ; and, therefore, although we are the foes of that party, yet, always 
 presuming they do not so far ; succeed as to impress their policy on the 
 Government of the country, I wish them well. In my opinion, they have 
 been pursuing a suicidal course ; they have forgotten the sources of their 
 strength, they have sought Jto create a new and fictitious strength in an 
 awkward affectation of liberal methods of proceeding. What is it that we 
 have a right to expect from the Conservative party ? Certainly not much 
 instruction in the way of intelligible change, but we have a right to expect 
 firmness and courage in the assertion and maintenance of its principles ; 
 and rely upon it that the Liberal party is all the better for being face to 
 face with another party of different shades of opinion, making it its pride 
 and boast to show courage and tenacity in adherence to its creed. That 
 is the especial work of the Conservative party ; and although ib 
 may be backward with regard to many objects of public utility, 
 it is a useful element in the composition of political society, and such a 
 party will never fail to attract my respect. They may expect from us that 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 91 
 
 we should be more active in advising a policy of improvement. "We may 
 expect from them that they should be more tenacious in insisting on con- 
 sistency to creed that is not what we have had at their hands. "We [have 
 seen within the last two years an unparalleled manoeuvre executed by the 
 leaders of that party and by its followers, who perhaps had not much left to 
 them except what is commonly called " Hobson's choice." I am not going 
 to animadvert on the course of proceeding which has resulted in the 
 adoption of political changes from which we anticipate great benefit 
 to the country, and a great increase of strength to the Constitution, 
 but I direct my view to the future, and I ask what is the Conservative 
 creed at this moment? What are the prospects and intentions of 
 the Conservative party with regard to the policy to be pursued in the 
 coming Parliament? (Cries of "None!") A gentleman says "None.'* 
 Let us Bee if we can gain any light on this subject, which is one of an 
 entertaining character, if it did not suggest some melancholy reflections. 
 It is really singular to observe how much elbow-room in the direction 
 of Eadicalism is allowed at this moment by the agents of the Conserva- 
 tive party to those who come forward under its banner. I read not long 
 ago the manifesto of a gentleman who solicits the suffrages of the vast 
 town of Birmingham in the Conservative interest. Well, now, what 
 does he say ? He begins with a legal definition of Trades' Unions, to which I 
 do not object. He then proposes to abolish the law of primogeniture, that 
 is the next article of creed of this Conservative candidate ; and the third is 
 to make the use of the ballot optional. Next he goes out of his way to 
 introduce, by way of a side dish at the entertainment, the reform of the 
 Prayer-book, and then he proceeds to state that the last Reform Bill does 
 not at all correspond with his views as to the borough franchise ; and the 
 only thing that will satisfy him is residential household suffrage. And 
 that is the man, gentlemen, who is put up,*or was put up for whether he 
 has sunk in the political ocean or not I really do not know under the 
 colours of the Constitutional party, who, forsooth, oppose Mr. Bright as a 
 dangerous man, who ought on no account to be admitted within the walls of 
 Parliament. Now, gentlemen, one of the objections I have to this method 
 of proceeding is the extreme confusion of ideas it produces. When I hear 
 an address of this character I own to you I do not know whether I stand 
 on my head or on ray heels. Though he thinks there ought to be a wide 
 and extensive reform in the Irish Church, yet he objects to the policy that 
 we have proposed for its disestablishment and general disendowment. 
 Well, now, gentlemen, we should see in investigation of this interesting 
 question what is the Conservative creed, that, at all events, we had 
 hit at least upon one article of that creed. The present Government, we 
 will suppose, then, has great toleration and indulgence for all manner 
 of purely political vagaries, but one thing it cannot stand, and 
 that is tampering with the integrity of the Established Church of Ireland. 
 Well, but is this so ? Is that the ground that has been adopted by the 
 Constitutional party ? Is it the sine qua non of admission into its ranks, 
 or of admission to political office, that the integrity of the Irish Church 
 shall be maintained? No, gentlemen, we don't require to go far for 
 proof that it is not so. I believe our esteemed friend Colonel 
 Wilson Patten has been challenged to say whether, if Mr. 
 Disraeli proposes the disestablishment of the Irish Church, 
 
92 SPEECHES OF THE BIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 he will vote against it, and that he has declined to give a reply. And 
 the authority of Sir Stafford Northcote, Secretary of State for India, 
 has been asked whether, under the circumstances, he will resist the dis- 
 establishment of the Irish Church, but he says he refuses to go to Par- 
 liament with a pledge of that kind. What is it, gentlemen, what will- 
 o'-the-wisp, what phantasm is it that this Constitutional party is propos- 
 ing to you ? "We thought that the article of maintaining the Irish 
 Church was really written in their addresses, and on their understand- 
 ing, and in their hearts. But it does not appear that that is the case 
 with those gentlemen in high authority. I will take another case 
 relating to a person whom I cannot but name with unfeigned respect 
 the younger son of Lord Derby. What kind of allegiance does he 
 profess to the Irish Church, which it is our wickedness that we are 
 endeavouring to tamper with ? He says, " In the legislation which 
 will presumably follow upon the proceedings of the Commission, there 
 must, I conceive, be some considerable departure from the plan of 
 simply rearranging within the limits of the Established Church the en- 
 dowments of which she is now the recipient, and it is impossible to 
 avoid seeing that the present temper of the country is against making, 
 on the one hand, any further charge on the revenues of the United 
 Kingdom in aid of religious bodies unconnected with the Established 
 Church, while, on the other hand, there are means which in many in- 
 stances are undoubtedly superfluous for uses for which they had been 
 originally intended." JN"ow, that cuts a pretty large hole in the remaining 
 article in the Conservative creed, for it appears perfectly possible, with- 
 out losing any title to be a Conservative in North-West Lancashire, for 
 a man like Colonel Wilson Patten to decline to pledge himself what to 
 do, if Mr. Disraeli gives the word of command, against the Established 
 Church, and perfectly possible for the younger son of Lord Derby it 
 is not necessary to ask what the elder son of Lord Derby is disposed 
 to do plainly to proclaim to you that in his opinion the property of 
 the Church of Ireland cannot be, and ought not to be, confined to the 
 uses of that Church. So much for that half of the one article of the 
 Conservative creed. But there is another half to it, and it is this. 
 You have heard an infinity of outcry about Popery and about the 
 Liberals and the Nonconformists of this country, and the Presbyterians 
 of Scotland, as being the insidious agents and friends of Popery. The 
 meaning of that is a charge that they intend to give the Church property 
 taken from the Church to the religious uses of the Presbyterians and 
 the Roman Catholics. That is the charge that is insinuated under 
 these words. You know perfectly well how untrue it is ; you know 
 that we who, as public men, have taken part in this movement, 
 have from the time when the Government glanced at a plan of that 
 kind declared our insurmountable objection to it ; and you know 
 also that even if we had not declared that objection, even if we 
 had been so unwise as to fall in with that policy, the deter- 
 mined resistance of the people of the three countries would 
 have made it impossible to carry it into effect. But I am now 
 testing the Conservative creed, and I have shown you the Con- 
 servative creed allows of taking away money from the Established 
 Church. But let us see if it does not also allow of giving money for the 
 
SPEECHES OP THE EIGHT HON. W. E; GLADSTONE. 93 
 
 purposes of the Koman Catholics as well. I find in the address of 
 Captain Stanley these words : " I should strongly resist any plan which 
 tended to secularise any part of revenues which have been solemnly and 
 deliberately devoted to religious purposes by their donors." Now, 
 observe those two things, gentlemen. On the one hand, money is to be 
 taken from the Established Church of Ireland ; on the other hand, the 
 money is not to be secularised. Now, as to the meaning of the word 
 " secularised." I should like to give you one sentence. Some gentle- 
 men have asked me if I am in favour of secularising this property. I 
 should like to ask them what is meant by to secularise Church property. 
 If they are governed in the exposition of the term by history and law, 
 they would find it rather difficult to explain, because, gentlemen, you 
 ought to know in ancient times in the greater part, if not the whole, 
 of Europe, the law of the Church divided the Church property into four 
 parts. Of those four parts, one, I think, if I remember rightly, went to 
 the bishop, one went to the clergy, one went to the fabric, and one went 
 to the poor. Well, but if the ancient ecclesiastical law and the ancient 
 canon law of Europe in the Middle Ages recognised the needs of the 
 people, especially the poorer part of the people, as being within the 
 legitimate application of Church property, then I think I have a right 
 to ask those who ask me whether I am for secularising the property of 
 the Irish Church, what they mean by the word to " secularise ; " and 
 whether they intend to establish a new foundation of Church law, and 
 to impose a stricter definition on the uses of Church property than our 
 forefathers in Eoman Catholic times six or eight hundred or one 
 thousand years ago ? But there is no doubt what Captain Stanley 
 means by secularising Church property. He thinks that money ought 
 to be taken from the uses of the Established Church and given, not to 
 the uses he calls secular, but to the direct purpose of teaching religion 
 outside the Established Church that is, to the uses of the Presbyterians 
 and Eoman Catholics in Ireland. Well, therefore, gentlemen, so far as 
 Captain Stanley is concerned, is it not perfectly idle that the men of 
 North- West Lancashire should be stirred up in the name of the Con- 
 stitution, in the name of Church and State, in the name of the Queen's 
 supremacy, and I know not what, but probably in the name of " No 
 Popery" too, to support a man who is going to do for religious bodies 
 in Ireland that which his opponent and my noble friend Lord Har- 
 tington steadily refuse to do ? And is this only an examination of the 
 creed of an individual ? Certainly not. The son of Lord Derby never 
 can be unimportant as an individual, and the son of Lord Derby is not 
 merely the son of Lord Derby, he is the latest addition to the official phalanx 
 of Her Majesty's Government. And in the very crisis andheat of this elec- 
 tion a man who undisguisedly and manfully proclaims his intention to take 
 the property of the Irish Church and to give it to other religious bodies 
 for their purposes as religious bodies that very man is at this moment 
 brought forward, and not only put forward and adopted by the party in 
 North- West Lancashire, but is taken into the body of the Administration 
 which has declared that our plan of disestablishing the Church will 
 inflict upon the country consequences worse than those of foreign 
 conquest. Now, gentlemen, is it possible for inconsistency, for 
 absurdity, for mockery to public understanding, to go farther than 
 
94 SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 this ? "Well, gentlemen, we cut down the Conservative creed to one 
 article, then we cut off half of that article, and now we have cut out the 
 remaining half. And what is the Conservative or Constitutional creed ? 
 "Why, it is this, gentlemen. It is not to support any one measure or 
 any one institution ; it is not to be bound to the maintenance of any 
 one principle. It is simply this to this article I believe there will be 
 a rigid adherence it is to intend to vote for maintaining Her Majesty's 
 Government in power. 
 
 Having spoken of the Conservative party, I will now, if you 
 will allow me, say a few words upon the position of the Conserva- 
 tive Government, which is undoubtedly a very peculiar one. Gentle- 
 men, I am not here to say that I think the principles upon which that 
 Ministry has acted are compatible with what is called political 
 honour/ but I am here to say, without the smallest doubt, that 
 great advantage has been derived from the laxity of Jtheir creed and 
 practice I will not say now with regard to the question of Reform, 
 which is for the moment, as to most of its points at all events, set aside ; 
 but immense advantage has redounded to the country with respect to 
 this great question of the condition of Ireland and the disestablishment 
 of the Irish Church, from the fact that the Conservative Government 
 have been in office. I am thankful from my heart, on public grounds, 
 that at the commencement of this year it was they and not we who held 
 the reins of State. Being in office they were under responsibility; 
 when in office it was impossible for them to overlook the fact, however 
 little they may now try to make of it, that for three years constitutional 
 and personal liberty had been suspended in Ireland as an absolute 
 necessity for the maintenance of the public peace and the security of 
 life and property. They could not avoid announcing an Irish policy, and 
 in that they could not escape the question of education and religion. 
 They were compelled to declare their intentions, which were wholly 
 foreign and opposed to the general and deliberate decisions of the 
 people of this country, who, with the people of Ireland, would not 
 accept the policy which was shadowed out by the First Minister of the 
 Crown and by the Minister of Ireland. According to that policy we 
 were now, for the first time, to maintain out of the public purge a 
 University for the purposes of a particular religious denomination, 
 and two new Established Churches were to be created and endowed 
 in Ireland. An enormous strength was given to us and to our 
 cause by these extraordinary intentions, and by the adoption of 
 this policy by the Government it gave us a vantage-ground which 
 we have never lost. It prevented Her Majesty's Government from 
 appealing, as they might otherwise have appealed, to the religious 
 passion of the country with boldness and with effect. But suppose we 
 had been in office and they had been in Opposition, it would have been 
 our duty to propose the very same thing that we have proposed now ; 
 but we should have heard nothing then about the willingness of the 
 Prime Minister and his colleagues to establish religious equality in 
 Ireland. We should have heard nothing of the Roman Catholic Uni- 
 versity, and there would have been nothing but an animated, passionate, 
 spirit-stirring appeal to the Protestant feeling of the country by 280 
 gentlemen in Parliament, bound together for a sacred principle, firm 
 and chivalrous in their adherence to that principle, and deter- 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 95 
 
 mined to defend it to the death. That would have been an oppo- 
 sition much more formidable for us to confront than the half-hearted, 
 indecisive, paltering opposition that paltering opposition that we have 
 met with, watered down to the extreme of debility : the Government 
 telling us, in a great Constitutional battle, that we should wait until 
 the opening of a new Parliament sometimes flying to the seventh 
 heaven of rhetorical exaggeration, and telling us that we were pro- 
 posing that which was worse than foreign conquest. All these absurdi- 
 ties all these refusals to be bound and pledged in matters elementary in 
 the creed of every practical statesman all these declarations that it is 
 necessary to reduce bishops, to remodel the Church all those declara- 
 tions, like those of Lord Stanley, that portions of its revenue must be 
 given to other religions what do they show ? They show the voice of 
 the Tower of Babel. There are scarcely two men who speak in the 
 same language. One man is for one policy, another man for another ; 
 and it is amid these disordered ranks, I am thankful and happy to say, 
 that the great Liberal army of the country, knowing its own mind and 
 purpose, approaches it from stage to stage with the firm determination 
 that, so far as depends on human strength and courage, our end shall be 
 attained. I sometimes hear it said that it is the intention of the 
 Government to give way, and that they will produce at the commence- 
 ment of Parliament a plan larger, more comprehensive, more sweeping 
 than that which up to this time we have been accustomed to consider 
 comprehensive enough, and which is now before you in the name of the 
 Liberal party. Now, do you think there is any foundation for that, 
 or do you not ? I cannot tell, but it is a legitimate subject for 
 political speculation. There is nothing new under the sun; and 
 after what has happened in former days, this may happen in the days 
 that are about to come. Our business is to be prepared for all con- 
 tingencies, and it is impossible for me to express a confident 
 opinion whether, when the new Parliament meets, the language of 
 the Government will be that the disestablishment of the Irish 
 Church is worse than foreign conquest, or that their objection to our 
 mode of proceeding was merely that it was too limited and narrow 
 a method ; that, instead of legislating, instead of devising great and 
 statesmanlike schemes, we merely pottered over the production of a 
 miserable abortion, but that they are the men who will make a clean 
 sweep of the whole concern. On that ground we challenge the adhesion 
 of the Liberals of this country ; these are the two alternatives, and I am 
 not bold or confident enough to tell you which will be presented to you ;.. 
 but I wish to make this observation. I have said that I am thankful 
 the present Government were in power when we were able to produce 
 this great question, and bring it to a position so advanced ; but I cannot 
 allow this method of the passing of measures by men who, in principle, 
 are utterly opposed to them, to be dismissed from view without a remark. 
 Unfortunately, a very large number of the great measures of our time 
 have been passed by those parties. The repeal of the Test Act of 1828 
 was forced on the Government of the Duke of Wellington. Roman 
 Catholic Emancipation, in 1829, was forced upon the same Government. 
 The first plan of Reform in Parliament, which took effect in 1832 y 
 was resisted by the Tory party of this country until they were compelled 
 
t)6 SPEECHES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 to read the whole question in the lurid light of the fires of Bristol and 
 of Nottingham. That is not all. After that came the controversy on 
 the Corn-laws. Sir "Robert Peel determined not to wait for a popular 
 convulsion, and what was his reward ? that he left political life as a 
 man proscribed by the party which he had led. This does not exhaust 
 the catalogue. The same course was unfortunately pursued with 
 regard to the second chapter of the history of Reform. Eeform was 
 stoutly, tenaciously resisted throughout the Session of 1866, until we 
 were ejected from office, and it was again rejected when the population 
 of London, indignant at the manner in which the subject was paltered 
 with, began to meet in great assemblies, claimed the right to go to Hyde 
 Park and make known their grievances, and when the world was 
 astounded at hearing that in the centre of the English metropolis the 
 railings of Hyde Park had been torn down. You see the policy of the 
 party opposed to you. It is not that you will not get from them the 
 measures you get from us : it is that you will get them at that stage at 
 which, instead of enlightened conviction, a slavish fear has become 
 the motive. ]STow I aver, without fear of contradiction, that this 
 Constitutional party, by waiting, strikes a blow at the Constitution 
 such as we have never dealt to it ; that it destroys faith, destroys 
 confidence, destroys the ties which bind man to man in public 
 as well as in private life, and undermines at once the belief of the people 
 in the fidelity and sagacity of their rulers and their disposition to respect 
 even the sternest resolves of the Government ; when we know from a 
 long and repeated experience that all which is required of them is to be 
 a little more violent, a little more menacing, to take steps to violate the 
 laws of the country, and then that all they desire will be conceded. Do 
 not for one moment suppose that I mean to compare the proceedings of 
 the Duke of Wellington and Sir Kobert Peel with regard to Eoman 
 Catholic emancipation with the proceedings we have recently witnessed, 
 for when the Duke of Wellington and Sir Eobert Peel, foregoing their 
 deep and cherished convictions, frankly told the country that they 
 accepted emancipation, not as a good, but as the lesser of two evils, and 
 that if the people of this country were not prepared to accept it they 
 must be prepared for the risk when the Duke of Wellington and Sir 
 Eobert Peel made that avowal, however painful to themselves or whatever 
 disparagement it might imply to their political sagacity, at least they 
 acted the part of honest and straightforward and truth-speaking men, 
 and that was a great mitigation of the evil ; but the climax of mischief 
 is at last arrived when those who execute these extraordinary changes of 
 opinion and of conduct, instead of frankly confessing, after the manner 
 of those distinguished statesmen, that they have seen cause to change, 
 and therefore have changed, have to invent far-fetched and flimsy notions 
 about their own long-cherished opinions, about the " education " of their 
 party, and I know not what, and by palming upon the public all those 
 miserable pretexts, convert that which would at any rate be an honour- 
 able retreat into a retreat which is utterly ignominious. Gentlemen, as 
 I have said that, allow me to excej t from the scope of my proposition 
 one statesman. There is one statesman connected with the Govern- 
 ment who was a party to that great change of opinion and of policy, 
 but who has not attempted to disguise it and I am thankful to 
 
SPEECHES OF THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 97 
 
 say that he is a Lancashire man I mean Lord Stanley. Lord Stanley 
 descended to none of these subterfuges. At the Conservative banquet 
 at Bristol, lie said to the assembled guests, " Rely upon it, gentlemen, 
 we shall not abandon the posts we were appointed to defend without 
 having first arrived at the clear conviction that it was necessary for the 
 public good." That was an honest and a manly declaration, and I 
 respect the man who made it. It is in my power to do little towards 
 placing you in a position to form enlightened judgments on public affairs, 
 but I rejoice to think how abundant are the aids and instruments now 
 supplied in every shape to the masses of the population in this country, 
 and especially to that which is not the least intelligent portion of our 
 population I mean the people of Lancashire. So, that, however I 
 might regret my own defective power, I feel satisfied that you will be 
 well supplied with adequate opportunities and means of judging the right. 
 And, gentlemen, it is needful that you should, for you have a great 
 responsibility before you. The Duke of Wellington in 1829 glanced at 
 civil war, and said, " You must take the policy recommended, OP else as 
 honest men and courageous men you must be prepared to face the 
 consequences." I have only to point to the actual state of Ireland to 
 show that in Ireland you have been obliged to put an end to personal 
 freedom, and that the liberty of the people depends upon the 
 will of the Executive Government, instead of the firm foundation 
 of the law. You may judge from that, and I trust you will 
 judge, whether there is or is not a necessity for dealing boldly and 
 resolutely with the case of Ireland, be it by the present Government, 
 or be it any other. Let the present Government propose the policy 
 of resistance or the policy of concession, I feel certain that I may 
 presume to say, on the part of the bulk of those professing Liberal 
 opinions, our course will be governed by no mere avidity for office 
 which we have on a former occasion known how to sacrifice when we 
 thought it would serve the interests of the country but simply by a 
 desire to discern in what way, of all the ways that shall be opened to us, 
 we ought to walk in order to promote our internal welfare. It is clear 
 the Church of Ireland offers to us indeed a great question, but even 
 that question is but one of a group of questions. There is the Church 
 of Ireland, there is the land of Ireland, there is the education of 
 Ireland : there are many subjects, all of which depend upon one greater 
 than them all; they are all so many branches from one trunk, and 
 that trunk is the trae of what is called Protestant ascendency. 
 Gentlemen, I look, for one, to this Protestant people to put down 
 Protestant ascendency which pretends to seek its objects by doing 
 homage to religious truth, and instead of consecrating politics desecrates 
 religion. It is upon that system that "we are banded together to make 
 war. So long as that system subsists, our covenant endures for the 
 prosecution of that purpose for which we seek your assistance ; and 
 because although, as I said early in these remarks, we have paid instal- 
 ments to Ireland, the mass of the people would not be worthy to be 
 free if they were satisfied with instalments, or if they could be contented 
 with anything less than justice. We therefore aim at the destruction 
 of that system of ascendency which, though it has been crippled and 
 curtailed by former measures, yet still must be allowed by all to exist. It 
 
 G 
 
98 SPEECHES OF TilE EIGHT HOtf. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 is still there, like a tall tree of noxious growth, lifting its head to heaven 
 and darkening and poisoning the land so far as its shadow can extend ; 
 it is still there, gentlemen, and now at length the day has come when, 
 as we hope, the axe has been laid to the root of that tree, and it noda 
 and quivers from its top to its base. It wants, gentlemen, one stroke 
 more the stroke of these elections. It will then, once for all, totter to 
 its fall, and on the day when it falls the heart of Ireland will leap for 
 joy, and the mind and conscience of England and Scotland will repose 
 with thankful satisfaction upon the idea that something has been done 
 towards the discharge of national duty, and towards deepening and 
 widening the foundations of public strength, security, and peace. 
 
 : It. K. 13UET, PBIIS'TEE, WJNli OlllCli tOULT, M.iliT !STELI 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
A 
 
 CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE EIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. 
 
 " Blame not, before thou hast examined the truth : understand 
 first, and then rebuke." ECCLESIASTICUS, ch. ii. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1868. 
 
 The right of Translation is reserved. 
 
LONDON: FEINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, DUKE STREET, STAMFOED STEEET, 
 AND CHAKING CEOSS. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 AT a time when the Established Church of Ireland 
 is on her trial, it is not unfair that her assailants 
 should be placed upon their trial too : most of all, if 
 they have at one time been her sanguine defenders. 
 
 But if not the matter of the indictment against 
 them, at any rate that of their defence, should be 
 kept apart, as far as they are concerned, from the 
 public controversy, that it may not darken or perplex 
 the greater issue. 
 
 It is in the character of the author of a book 
 called ' The State in its Relations with the Church,' 
 that I offer these pages to those who may feel a dis- 
 position to examine them. They were written at the 
 date attached to them ; but their publication has 
 been delayed until after the stress of the General 
 Election. 
 
CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY is commonly interesting ; but there 
 can, I suppose, be little doubt that, as a general rule, 
 it should be posthumous. The close of an active 
 career supplies an obvious exception : for this re- 
 sembles the gentle death which, according to ancient 
 fable, was rather imparted than inflicted by the 
 tender arrows of Apollo and of Artemis. I have 
 asked myself many times, during the present year, 
 whether peculiar combinations of circumstance might 
 not also afford a warrant at times for departure from 
 the general rule, so far as some special passage of 
 life is concerned ; and whether I was not myself now 
 placed in one of those special combinations. 
 
 The motives, which incline me to answer these 
 questions in the affirmative, are mainly two. First, 
 that the great and glaring change in my course of 
 action with respect to the Established Church of Ireland 
 is not the mere eccentricity, or even perversion, of 
 an individual mind, but connects itself with silent 
 changes, which are advancing in the very bed and 
 basis of modern society. Secondly, that the progress 
 of a great cause, signal as it has been and is, appears 
 liable nevertheless to suffer in point of credit, if not 
 of energy and rapidity, from the real or supposed 
 
8 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 delinquencies of a person, with whose name for the 
 moment it happens to be specially associated. 
 
 One thing is clear : that if I am warranted in 
 treating my own case as an excepted case, I am 
 bound so to treat it. It is only with a view to the 
 promotion of some general interest, that the public 
 can becomingly be invited to hear more, especially in 
 personal history, about an individual, of whom they 
 already hear too much. But if it be for the gene- 
 ral interest to relieve ' an enterprise of pith and 
 moment ' from the odium of baseness, and from the 
 lighter reproach of precipitancy, I must make the 
 attempt; though the obtrusion of the first person, 
 and of all that it carries in its train, must be irksome 
 alike to the reader and the writer. 
 
 So far, indeed, as my observation has gone, the 
 Liberal party of this country have stood fire un- 
 flinchingly under the heavy vollies which have been 
 fired into its camp with ammunition that had been 
 drawn from depositories full only with matter per- 
 sonal to myself. And, with the confidence they 
 entertain in the justice and wisdom of the policy they 
 recommend, it would have been weak and childish to 
 act otherwise. Still, I should be glad to give them 
 the means of knowing that the case may not after all 
 be so scandalous as they are told. In the year 1827, 
 if I remember right, when Mr. Canning had just 
 become Prime Minister, an effort was made to support 
 him in the town of Liverpool, where the light and 
 music of his eloquence had not yet died away, by an 
 Address to the Crown. The proposal was supported 
 by an able and cultivated Unitarian Minister, Mr. 
 Shepherd, who had been one of Mr. Canning's oppo- 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 9 
 
 nents at former periods in the Liverpool elections. 
 Vindicating the consistency of his course, he said he 
 was ready to support the devil himself, if it had been 
 necessary, in doing good. This was a succinct and 
 rough manner of disposing of the question in the last 
 resort. I hope, however, that those who sustain the 
 Liberal policy respecting the Established Church of 
 Ireland, will not be driven to so dire an extremity. 
 It can hardly be deemed on my part an unnatural 
 desire, that political friends, and candid observers, 
 should on grounds of reason and knowledge, and not 
 merely from friendly prepossession, feel themselves 
 warranted not to believe in the justice of language 
 such as by way of example I subjoin. I must, 
 however, suppose that the author of it is persuaded 
 of its fairness and justice, since he bears Her Majesty's 
 Commission ; and his statement is adopted and pub- 
 lished by a brother-officer, who is himself a candidate 
 for Berwick in the ministerial interest, and therefore 
 (I presume) not particularly squeamish on the sub- 
 ject of political consistency, although I entertain no 
 doubt that both are gallant, upright, and estimable 
 gentlemen. 
 
 " There is obviously no need, on the present occasion at 
 least, to extend this catalogue of the political delinquencies 
 of this would-be demagogue, whom we may accordingly leave 
 gibbeted and swinging in the winds of the fools' paradise ! 
 an object of derision and contempt to those at least who 
 maintain that integrity of purpose and consistency ought not 
 altogether to be discarded from public life." * 
 
 It freezes the blood, in moments of retirement and 
 reflexion, for a man to think that he can have pre- 
 
 * From a placard just published at Berwick. 
 
10 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 sented a picture so hideous to the view of a fellow- 
 creature ! 
 
 One thing I have not done, and shall not do. I 
 shall not attempt to laugh off the question, or to 
 attenuate its importance. In theory at least, and for 
 others, I am myself a purist with respect to what 
 touches the consistency of statesmen. Change of 
 opinion, in those to whose judgment the public looks 
 more or less to assist its own, is an evil to the country, 
 although a much smaller evil than their persistence 
 in a course which they know to be wrong. It is not 
 always to be blamed. But it is always to be watched 
 with vigilance ; always to be challenged, and put 
 upon its trial. The question is one of so much in- 
 terest, that it may justify a few remarks. 
 
 It can hardly escape even cursory observation, that 
 the present century has seen a great increase in the 
 instances of what is called political inconsistency. It 
 is needless, and it would be invidious, to refer to 
 names. Among the living, however, who have occu- 
 pied leading positions, and among the dead of the 
 last twenty years, numerous instances will at once 
 occur to the mind, of men who have been constrained 
 to abandon in middle and mature, or even in advanced 
 life, convictions which they had cherished through 
 long years of conflict and vicissitude : and of men, 
 too, who have not been so fortunate as to close or 
 continue their career in the same political connexion 
 as that in which they commenced it. If we go a 
 little farther back, to the day of Mr. Pitt and Mr. 
 Fox, or even to the day of Mr. Canning, Lord Lon- 
 donderry, or Lord Liverpool, we must be struck with 
 the difference. A great political and social convul- 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 11 
 
 sion, like the French Revolution, of necessity deranged 
 the ranks of party ; yet not even then did any man of 
 great name, or of a high order of mind, permanently 
 change his side. 
 
 If we have witnessed in the last forty years, 
 beginning with the epoch of Roman Catholic Eman- 
 cipation, a great increase in the changes of party, or 
 of opinion, among prominent men, we are not at once 
 to leap to the conclusion that public character, as a 
 rule, has been either less upright, or even less vigor- 
 ous. The explanation is rather to be found in this, 
 that the movement of the public mind has been of a 
 nature entirely transcending former experience ; and 
 that it has likewise been more promptly and more 
 effectively represented, than at any earlier period, in 
 the action of the Government and the Legislature. 
 
 If it is the office of law and of institutions to reflect the 
 wants and wishes of the country, (and its wishes must 
 ever be a considerable element in its wants), then, as 
 the nation passes from a stationary into a progressive 
 period, it will justly require that the changes in its 
 own condition and views should be represented in the 
 professions and actions of its leading men. For they 
 exist for its sake, not it for theirs. It remains indeed 
 their business, now and ever, to take honour and 
 duty for their guides, and not the mere demand or 
 purpose of the passing hour ; but honour and duty 
 themselves require their loyal servant to take account 
 of the state of facts in which he is to work, and, while 
 ever labouring to elevate the standard of opinion and 
 action around him, to remember that his business is 
 not to construct, with self-chosen materials, an Utopia 
 or a Republic of Plato, but to conduct the affairs of 
 
12 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 a living and working community of men, who have 
 self-government recognised as in the last resort the 
 moving spring of their political life, and of the insti- 
 tutions which are its outward vesture. 
 
 The gradual transfer of political power from groups 
 and limited classes to the community, and the con- 
 stant seething of the public mind, in fermentation 
 upon a vast mass of moral and social, as well as 
 merely political, interests, offer conditions of action, 
 in which it is evident that the statesman, in order to 
 preserve the same amount of consistency as his ante- 
 cessors in other times, must be gifted with a far 
 larger range of foresight. But Nature has endowed 
 him with no such superiority. It may be true that 
 Sir Robert Peel shewed this relative deficiency in 
 foresight, with reference to Roman Catholic Emanci- 
 pation, to Reform, and to the Corn Law. It does not 
 follow that many, who have escaped the reproach, 
 could have stood the trial. For them the barometer 
 was less unsteady ; the future less exacting in its 
 demands. But let us suppose that we could secure 
 this enlargement of onward view, this faculty of 
 measuring and ascertaining to-day the wants of a 
 remote hereafter, in our statesmen ; we should not 
 even then be at the end of our difficulties. For the 
 public mind is to a great degree unconscious of its 
 own progression ; and it would resent and repudiate, 
 if offered to its immature judgment, the very policy, 
 which after a while it will gravely consider, and after 
 another while enthusiastically embrace. 
 
 Yet, as it still remains true that the actual opinions 
 and professions of men in office, and men in autho- 
 rity without office, are among the main landmarks 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 13 
 
 on which the public has to rely, it may seem that, in 
 vindicating an apparent liberty of change, we destroy 
 the principal guarantees of integrity which are 
 available for the nation at large, and with these all 
 its confidence in the persons who are to manage its 
 affairs. This would be a consequence so fatal, that it 
 might even drive us back upon the hopeless attempt 
 to stereotype the minds of men, and fasten on their 
 manhood the swaddling clothes of their infancy. But 
 such is not the alternative. We may regulate the 
 changes which we cannot forbid, by subjecting them 
 to the test of public scrutiny, and by directing that 
 scrutiny to the enforcement of the laws of moral 
 obligation. There are abundant signs, by which to 
 distinguish between those changes, which prove 
 nothing worse than the fallibility of the individual 
 mind, and manoeuvres which destroy confidence, and 
 entail merited dishonour. Changes which are sudden 
 and precipitate changes accompanied with a light 
 and contemptuous repudiation of the former self 
 changes which are systematically timed and tuned 
 to the interest of personal advancement changes 
 which are hooded, slurred over, or denied for these 
 changes, and such as these, I have not one word to 
 say ; and if they can be justly charged upon me, I 
 can no longer desire that any portion, however small, 
 of the concerns or interests of my countrymen should 
 be lodged in my hands. 
 
 Let me now endeavour to state the offence of 
 which I am held guilty. Hie ego qui quondam : I, the 
 person who have now accepted a foremost share of 
 the responsibility of endeavouring to put an end 
 to the existence of the Irish Church as an Establish- 
 
14 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ment, am also the person who, of all men in official, 
 perhaps in public life, did, until the year 1841, 
 recommend, upon the highest and most imperious 
 grounds, its resolute maintenance. 
 
 The book entitled 'The State in its Eelations with 
 the Church 5 was printed during the autumn of 1838, 
 while I was making a tour in the South of Europe, 
 which the state of my eyesight had rendered it 
 prudent to undertake. Three editions of it were 
 published without textual change ; and in the year 
 1841 a fourth, greatly enlarged, though in other 
 respects little altered, issued from the press. All 
 interest in it had, however, even at that time, long 
 gone by, and it lived for nearly thirty years only in 
 the vigorous and brilliant, though not (in my opinion) 
 entirely faithful picture, drawn by the accomplished 
 hand of Lord Macaulay. During the present year, 
 as I understand from good authority, it has again 
 been in demand, and in my hearing it has received 
 the emphatic suffrages of many, of whose approval I 
 was never made aware during the earlier and less 
 noisy stages of its existence. 
 
 The distinctive principle of the book was supposed 
 to be, that the State had a conscience. But the con- 
 troversy really lies not in the existence of a conscience 
 in the State, so much as in the extent of its range. 
 Few would deny the obligation of a State to follow 
 the moral law. Every Treaty, for example, proceeds 
 upon it. The true issue was this : whether the State, 
 in its best condition, has such a conscience as can 
 take cognizance of religious truth and error, and in 
 particular whether the State of the United Kingdom, 
 at a period somewhat exceeding thirty years ago, was 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 15 
 
 or was not so far in that condition as to be under an 
 obligation to give an active and an exclusive support 
 to the established religion of the country. 
 
 The work attempted to survey the actual state of the 
 relations between the State and the Church ; to show 
 from History the ground which had been defined 
 for the National Church at the Reformation ; and to 
 inquire and determine whether the existing state of 
 things was worth preserving, and defending against 
 encroachment from whatever quarter. This question 
 it decided emphatically in the affirmative. 
 
 An early copy of the Review containing the 
 powerful essay of Lord Macaulay was sent to me ; 
 and I found that to the main proposition, sufficiently 
 startling, of the work itself, the reviewer had added 
 this assumption, that it contemplated not indeed per- 
 secution, but yet the retrogressive process of disabling 
 and disqualifying from civil office all those who did 
 not adhere to the religion of the State. Before (I 
 think) the number of the c Edinburgh Review ' for 
 April, 1839, could have been in the hands of the 
 public, I had addressed to Lord (then Mr.) Macaulay 
 the following letter, which I shall make no apology for 
 inserting, inasmuch as it will introduce one more 
 morsel of his writing, for which the public justly 
 shows a keen and insatiable appetite. 
 
 DEAR SlR, 6 > Carlton Gardens, April 10th, 1839. 
 
 I have been favoured with a copy of the forthcoming 
 number of the ' Edinburgh Keview,' and I perhaps too 
 much presume upon the bare acquaintance with you of 
 which alone I can boast, in thus unceremoniously assuming 
 you to be the author of the article entitled 'Church and 
 State,' and in offering you my very warm and cordial thanks 
 
16 A CHAPTEK OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 for the manner in which you have treated both the work, and 
 the author, on whom you deigned to bestow your attention. 
 In whatever you write, you can hardly hope for the privilege 
 of most anonymous productions, a real concealment ; but if 
 it had been possible not to recognize you, I should have 
 questioned your authorship in this particular case, because 
 the candour and single-mindedness which it exhibits are, in 
 one who has long been connected in the most distinguished 
 manner with political party, so rare as to be almost 
 incredible. 
 
 I hope to derive material benefit, at some more tranquil 
 season, from a consideration of your argument throughout. 
 I am painfully sensible, whenever I have occasion to re-opsn 
 the book, of its shortcomings, not only of the subject but 
 even of my own conceptions : and I am led to suspect that, 
 under the influence of most kindly feelings, you have 
 omitted to criticize many things besides the argument, which 
 might fairly have come within your animadversion. 
 
 In the mean time I hope you will allow me to apprise you 
 that on one material point especially I am not so far 
 removed from you as you suppose. I am not conscious that 
 I have said either that the Test Act should be repealed, or 
 that it should not have been passed : and though on such 
 subjects language has many bearings which escape the view 
 of the writer at the moment when the pen is in his hand, 
 yet I think that I can hardly have put forth either of these 
 propositions, because I have never entertained the corre- 
 sponding sentiments. Undoubtedly I should speak of the 
 pure abstract idea of Church and State as implying that 
 they are co-extensive: and I should regard the present 
 composition of the State of the United Kingdom as a devia- 
 tion from that pure idea, but only in the same sense as all 
 differences of religious opinion in the Church are a deviation 
 from its pure idea, while I not only allow that they are 
 permitted, but believe that (within limits) they were in- 
 tended to be permitted. There are some of these deflections 
 from abstract theory which appear to me allowable ; and that 
 of the admission of persons not holding the national creed 
 into civil office is one which, in my view, must be determined 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 17 
 
 by times and circumstances. At the same time I do not 
 recede from any protest which I have made against the 
 principle, that religious differences are irrelevant to the 
 question of competency for civil office : but I would take my 
 stand between the opposite extremes, the one that no such 
 differences are to be taken into view, the other that all 
 such differences are to constitute disqualifications. 
 
 I need hardly say the question I raise is not whether you 
 have misrepresented me, for, were I disposed to anything so 
 weak, the whole internal evidence and clear intention of your 
 article would confute me : indeed I feel I ought to apologize 
 for even supposing that you may have been mistaken in the 
 apprehension of my meaning, and I freely admit on the other 
 hand the possibility that, totally without my own knowledge, 
 my language may have led to such an interpretation. 
 
 In these lacerating times one clings to everything of 
 personal kindness in the past, to husband it for the future, 
 and if you will allow me I shall earnestly desire to carry 
 with me such a recollection of your mode of dealing with the 
 subject ; upon which, the attainment of truth, we shall agree, 
 so materially depends upon the temper in which the search 
 for it is instituted and conducted. 
 
 I did not mean to have troubled you at so much length, 
 and I have only to add that 1 am, with much respect, 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 T. B. MACAULAY, ESQ. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, 3, Clarges Street, April llth, 1839. 
 
 I have very seldom been more gratified than by the very 
 kind note which I have just received from you. Your book 
 itself, and everything that I heard about you, though almost 
 all my information came to the honour, I must say, of our 
 troubled times from people very strongly opposed to you 
 in politics, led me to regard you with respect and good will, 
 
 C 
 
18 A CHAPTEK OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 and I am truly glad that I have succeeded in marking those 
 feelings. I was half afraid when I read myself over again 
 in print, that the button, as is too common in controversial 
 fencing even between friends, had once or twice come off 
 the foil. 
 
 I am very glad to find that we do not differ so widely as I 
 had apprehended about the Test Act. I can easily explain 
 the way in which I was misled. Your general principle is 
 that religious non-conformity ought to be a disqualification 
 for civil office. In page 238 you say that the true and 
 authentic mode of ascertaining conformity is the Act of 
 Communion. I thought, therefore, that your theory pointed 
 directly to a renewal of the Test Act. And I do not re- 
 collect that you have ever used any expression importing 
 that your theory ought in practice to be modified by any 
 considerations of civil prudence. All the exceptions that you 
 mention are, as far as I remember, founded on positive 
 contract not one on expediency, even in cases where the 
 expediency is so strong and so obvious that most statesmen 
 would call it necessity. If 1 had understood that you meant 
 your rules to be followed out in practice only so far as might 
 be consistent with the peace and good government of society, 
 I should certainly have expressed myself very differently in 
 several parts of my article. 
 
 Accept my warm thanks for your kindness, and believe me, 
 with every good wish, 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 T. B. MACAULAY. 
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE, ESQ., M.P. 
 
 Faithful to logic, and to its theory, my work did not 
 shrink from applying them to the crucial case of the 
 Irish Church. It did not disguise the difficulties of 
 the case, for I was alive to the paradox it involved. 
 But the one master idea of the system, that the State 
 as it then stood was capable in this age, as it had 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 19 
 
 been in ages long gone by, of assuming beneficially 
 a responsibility for the inculcation of a particular 
 religion, carried me through all. My doctrine was, 
 that the Church, as established by law, was to be 
 maintained for its truth ; that this was the only prin- 
 ciple on which it could be properly and permanently 
 upheld ; that this principle, if good in England, was 
 good also for Ireland ; that truth is of all possessions 
 the most precious to the soul of man; and that to 
 remove, as I then erroneously thought we should 
 remove, this priceless treasure from the view and the 
 reach of the Irish people, would be meanly to pur- 
 chase their momentary favour at the expense of their 
 permanent interests, and would be a high offence 
 against our own sacred obligations. 
 
 These, I think, were the leading propositions of 
 the work. In one important point, however, it was 
 inconsistent with itself; it contained a full admission 
 that a State might, by its nature and circumstances, 
 be incapacitated from upholding and propagating a 
 definite form of religion.* 
 
 " There may be a state of things in the United States 
 of America, perhaps in some British colonies, there does 
 actually exist a state of things, in which religious communions 
 are so equally divided, or so variously subdivided, that the 
 Government is itself similarly chequered in its religious com- 
 plexion, and thus internally incapacitated by disunion from 
 acting in matters of religion ; or, again, there may be a State 
 in which the members of Government may be of one faith or 
 persuasion, the mass of the subjects of another, and hence 
 there may be an external incapacity to act in matters of 
 religion." 
 
 * 'The State in its Relations with the Church,' ch. ii., sect. 71, p. 73. 
 Editions 1-3. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The book goes on to describe that incapacity, how- 
 ever produced, as a social defect and calamity. But 
 the latter part of the work, instead of acknowledging 
 such incapacity as a sufficient and indeed commanding 
 plea for abstention, went beyond the bounds of mode- 
 ration, and treated it as if it must in all cases be a 
 sin ; as though any association of men, in civil 
 government or otherwise, could be responsible for 
 acting beyond the line of the capabilities determined 
 for it by its constitution and composition. My 
 meaning I believe was, to describe only cases in 
 which there might be a deliberate renunciation of 
 such duties as there was the power to fulfil. But the 
 line is left too obscurely drawn between this wilful 
 and wanton rejection of opportunities for good, and 
 the cases in which the state of religious convictions, 
 together with the recognised principles of govern- 
 ment, disable the civil power from including within 
 its work the business of either directly or indirectly 
 inculcating religion, and mark out for it a different 
 line of action. 
 
 I believe that the foregoing passages describe fairly, 
 if succinctly, the main propositions of* The State in its 
 Eelations with the Church ; ' so far as the book bears 
 upon the present controversy. They bound me hand 
 and foot : they hemmed me in on every side. Further 
 on I shall endeavour to indicate more clearly in what 
 I think the book was right, and in what it was 
 wrong. What I have now to show is the manner 
 in which I retreated from an untenable position. To 
 this retreat, and the time and mode of it, I now draw 
 attention, and I will endeavour to apply to them the 
 tests I have already laid down : Was it sudden ? 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 21 
 
 Was it performed with an indecent levity ? Was it 
 made to minister to the interests of political ambi- 
 tion ? Was the gravity of the case denied or under- 
 stated ? Was it daringly pretended that there had 
 been no real change of front ; and that, if the world 
 had understood me otherwise, it had misunderstood 
 me ? My opinion of the Established Church of Ire- 
 land now is the direct opposite of what it was then. 
 I then thought it reconcilable with civil and national 
 justice ; I now think the maintenance of it grossly 
 unjust. I then thought its action was favourable to 
 the interests of the religion which it teaches ; I now 
 believe it to be opposed to them. 
 
 But I must venture to point out that, whatever be 
 the sharpness of this contradiction, it is one from 
 which I could not possibly escape by endeavouring 
 to maintain the Established Church of Ireland on the 
 principles on which it is now maintained. I challenge 
 all my censors to impugn me when I affirm that, if 
 the propositions of my work are in conflict (as they 
 are) with an assault upon the existence of the Irish 
 Establishment, they are at least as much, or even 
 more, hostile to the grounds on which it is now 
 attempted to maintain it. At no time of my life did 
 I propound the maxim simpliciter that we were to 
 maintain the Establishment. I appeal to the few who 
 may have examined my work otherwise than for the 
 purpose of culling from it passages which would tell 
 in a quotation. I appeal to the famous article of 
 Lord Macaulay,* who says with truth 
 
 " Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great 
 fundamental proposition, that the propagation of re- 
 
 * ' Edinburgh Review,' April, 1839, p. 235. 
 
22 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ligious truth is one of the principal ends of govern- 
 ment, as government. If Mr. Gladstone has not 
 proved this proposition, his system vanishes at oncer 
 
 This was entirely just. In the protest I addressed 
 to the distinguished Reviewer on a particular point, I 
 took no exception to it whatever. My work had 
 used (as far as I believe and remember) none of 
 the stock arguments for maintaining the Church of 
 Ireland. I did not say " maintain it, lest you should 
 disturb the settlement of property." I did not say 
 " maintain it, lest you should be driven to repeal the 
 Union." I did not say " maintain it, lest you should 
 offend and exasperate the Protestants." I did not 
 say " maintain it, because the body known as the 
 Irish Church has an indefeasible title to its property." 
 I did not say " maintain it for the spiritual benefit of 
 a small minority." Least of all did I say " maintain 
 it, but establish religious equality, setting up at the 
 public charge other establishments along with it, or 
 by distributing a sop here and a sop there, to coax 
 Roman Catholics and Presbyterians into a sort of 
 acquiescence in its being maintained." These topics 
 I never had made my own. Scarcely ever, in the 
 first efforts of debate, had I referred to one of them. 
 My trumpet, however shrill and feeble, had at least 
 rung out its note clearly. And my ground, right or 
 wrong it matters not for the present purpose, was 
 this : the Church of Ireland must be maintained for 
 the benefit of the whole people of Ireland, and must 
 be maintained as the truth, or it cannot be main- 
 tained at all. 
 
 Accordingly my book contended that the principle 
 of the Grant to Maynooth, unless as a simply cove- 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 23 
 
 nanted obligation,* and that of the Established 
 Church of Ireland, could not stand together. In the 
 House of Commons, on the question relating to the 
 Grant, I am reported as having said in the year 
 1838, f that I objected to the Grant because it was 
 fatal to the main principle on which the Established 
 Church was founded. 
 
 And further. The Liberal Government and party 
 of that day proposed, in 1835 and the following 
 years, the famous "Appropriation Clause." The 
 principle of their measure was, that the surplus funds 
 only of the Irish Church were to be applied to 
 popular education, after adequate provision had been 
 made for the spiritual wants of the Protestants. This 
 principle, that adequate provision is to be made for 
 the spiritual wants of the Protestants, before any 
 other claim on the property of the Irish Church can 
 be admitted, was the basis of the Appropriation 
 Clause ; and is, as I understand the matter, the very 
 principle which is now maintained against the Liberal 
 party of 1868, by the (so-called) defenders of the 
 Irish Established Church. But this principle I de- 
 nounced in 1836 as strongly as I could now do. I 
 extract the following passage from a report in 
 ' Hansard/ which, as I remember, I had myself cor- 
 rected, of a speech on the Irish Tithe Bill with the 
 Appropriation Clause : J 
 
 "A Church Establishment is maintained either for the 
 sake of its members or its doctrines ; for those whom it 
 
 * p. 252. 
 
 f Mirror of Parliament,' Monday, July 30, 1838. The passage, which 
 is full and clear, is more briefly given, but to the same effect, in ' Hansard,' 
 vol. xliv. p. 817. 
 
 J June 1, 1836. ' Hansard,' vol. xxxiii. p. 1317. 
 
24 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 teaches, or for that which it teaches. On the former ground 
 it is not in equity tenable for a moment. 
 
 " Why should any preference be given to me over another 
 fellow-subject, or what claim have I personally to have my 
 religion supported, whilst another is disavowed by the State ? 
 No claim whatever in respect to myself. I concur entirely 
 with gentlemen opposite, hostile to an Establishment, that 
 no personal privilege ought in such a matter to be allowed. 
 
 " But if, on the contrary, I believe, as the great bulk of the 
 British Legislature does believe, that the doctrine and system 
 of the Establishment contain and exhibit truth in its purest 
 and most effective form, and if we also believe truth to be 
 good for the people universally, then we have a distinct and 
 immovable ground for the maintenance of an Establish- 
 ment ; but it follows as a matter of course from the principle, 
 that it must be maintained, not on a scale exactly and strictly 
 adjusted to the present number of its own members, but on 
 such a scale that it may also have the means of offering to 
 others the benefits which it habitually administers to them. 
 
 " Therefore we wish to see the Establishment in Ireland 
 upheld ; not for the sake of the Protestants, but of the people 
 at large, that the ministers may be enabled to use the influ- 
 ences of their station, of kindly offices and neighbourhood, of 
 the various occasions which the daily intercourse and habits 
 of social life present ; aye, and I do not hesitate to add of 
 persuasion itself, applied with a zeal tempered by knowledge 
 and discretion, in the propagation of that which is true, and 
 which, being true, is good as well for those who as yet have 
 it not, as well for those who have it. It is the proposition of 
 the noble Lord which is really open to the charge of bigotry, 
 intolerance, and arbitrary selection ; because, disavowing the 
 maintenance and extension of truth, he continues by way of 
 personal privilege to the Protestants the legal recognition of 
 their Church, which he refuses to the Church of the Eoman 
 Catholic." 
 
 The negative part of this passage I adopt, except the 
 censure it implies upon Earl Eussell and his friends ; 
 who, whether their actual propositions were defensible 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 25 
 
 or not, had the " root of the matter " in their hearts, 
 and were far ahead of rne in their political forethought, 
 and in their desire to hold up at least the banner of 
 a generous and a hopeful policy towards Ireland. 
 
 In this manner I prove that, while I was bound 
 by the propositions of my work, I was not singly but 
 doubly bound. I was bound to defend the Irish 
 Church, as long as it could be defended on the 
 ground of its truth. But when the day arrived on 
 which that ground was definitively abandoned, on 
 which a policy was to be adopted by the Imperial 
 Parliament such as to destroy this plea for the Irish 
 Establishment, I was equally bound in such case to 
 adopt no other : I had shown that justice would fail 
 to warrant the mere support of the Church of the 
 minority ; I was held, therefore, not to construct out 
 of rags and tatters, shreds and patches, a new and 
 different case for maintaining it on the ground of 
 favour, or, as it is termed, justice, to Protestants ; 
 and, if I had done anything of this kind, I should 
 not have escaped the responsibility of inconsistency, 
 but should simply have added a second and (as I 
 think) a less excusable inconsistency to the first. 
 
 The day for the adoption of such a policy as I have 
 described was not far distant. 
 
 Scarcely had my work issued from the press when 
 I became aware that there was no party, no section 
 of a party, no individual person probably in the House 
 of Commons, who was prepared to act upon it. I 
 found myself the last man on the sinking ship. Ex- 
 clusive support to the established religion of the 
 country, with a limited and local exception for Scot- 
 land under the Treaty of Union with that country, 
 
26 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 had been up to that time the actual rule of our policy ; 
 the instances to the contrary being of equivocal con- 
 struction, and of infinitesimal amount. But the attempt 
 to give this rule a vitality other than that of sufferance 
 was an anachronism in time and in place. When I bid 
 it live, it was just about to die. It was really a quick- 
 ened and not a deadened conscience in the country, 
 which insisted on enlarging the circle of State support, 
 even while it tended to restrain the range of political 
 interference in religion. The condition of our poor, 
 of our criminals, of our military and naval services, 
 and the backward state of popular education, forced 
 on us a group of questions, before the moral pressure 
 of which the old rules properly gave way. At and 
 about the same period, new attempts to obtain grants 
 of public money for the building of churches in 
 England and Scotland, I am thankful to say, failed. 
 The powerful Government of 1843 also failed to carry 
 a measure of Factory Education, because of the pre- 
 ference it was thought to give to the Established 
 Church. I believe the very first opinion I ever was 
 called upon to give in Cabinet was an opinion in 
 favour of the withdrawal of that measure. 
 
 In this state of facts and feelings, notwithstanding 
 the strength of anti-Eoman opinion, it was impossible 
 that Ireland should not assert her share, and that a 
 large one, to consideration in these critical matters. 
 The forces, which were now at work, brought speedily 
 to the front and to the top that question of Maynooth 
 College, which I had always (rightly or wrongly) 
 treated as a testing question for the foundations of the 
 Irish Established Church ; as, in point of principle, 
 the Articulus stanlis aut cadentis Ecclesice. 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 27 
 
 In the course of the year 1844, when I was a 
 member of the Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel, he made 
 known to me his opinion that it was desirable to re- 
 inodel and to increase the Grant to Maynooth. I was 
 the youngest member of that Government, entirely 
 bound up with it in policy, and warmly attached, by 
 respect and even affection, to its head and to some of 
 its leading members. Of association with what was 
 termed ultra-Toryism in general politics I had never 
 dreamed. I well knew that the words of Sir R. Peel 
 were not merely tentative, but that, as it was right 
 they should, they indicated a fixed intention. The 
 choice before me, therefore, was, to support his mea- 
 sure, or to retire from his Government into a position 
 of complete isolation, and what was more than this, 
 subject to a grave and general imputation of political 
 eccentricity. My retirement, I knew, could have rio 
 other warrant than this : that it would be a tribute 
 to those laws which, as I have urged, must be upheld 
 for the restraint of changes of opinion and conduct in 
 public men. For I never entertained the idea of 
 opposing the measure of Sir Robert Peel. I can 
 scarcely be guilty of a breach of confidence when I 
 mention that Lord Derby, to whom I had already 
 been indebted for much personal kindness, was one of 
 those colleagues who sought to dissuade me from re- 
 signing my office. He urged upon me that such an 
 act must be followed by resistance to the measure of 
 the Government, and that I should run the risk of 
 being mixed with a fierce religious agitation. I 
 replied that I must adhere to my purpose of retire- 
 ment, but that I did not perceive the necessity of its 
 being followed by resistance to the proposal. Over- 
 
28 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 tures were, not unnaturally, made to me by some of 
 those who resisted it ; but they were at once declined. 
 My whole purpose was to place myself in a position 
 in which I should be free to consider my course 
 without being liable to any just suspicion on the 
 ground of personal interest. It is not profane if I 
 say " with a great price obtained I this freedom." 
 The political association in which I stood was to me 
 at the time the alpha and omega of public life. The 
 Government of Sir Robert Peel was believed to be of 
 immovable strength. My place, as President of the 
 Board of Trade, was at the very kernel of its most 
 interesting operations; for it was in progress from 
 year to year, with continually waxing courage, 
 towards the emancipation of industry, and therein 
 towards the accomplishment of another great and 
 blessed work of public justice. Giving up what I 
 highly prized, aware that 
 
 "male sarta 
 Gratia nequicquam coit, et rescinditur," * 
 
 I felt myself open to the charge of being opinionated, 
 and wanting in deference to really great authorities ; 
 and I could not but know I should be regarded as 
 fastidious and fanciful, fitter for a dreamer, or possibly 
 a schoolman, than for the active purposes of public 
 life in a busy and moving age. In effect so it was. 
 In the month of January, 1845, if not sooner, the 
 resolution of the Cabinet was taken ; and I resigned. 
 The public judgment, as might have been expected, 
 did not favour the act. I remember that the * Daily 
 News,' then as now a journal greatly distinguished for 
 an almost uniform impartiality, as well as for breadth 
 
 * Hor. Ep. ii. 3. 31. 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 29 
 
 of view and high discernment, remarked at the time 
 or afterwards upon the case, as a rare one, in which a 
 public man had injured himself with the public by an 
 act which must in fairness be taken to be an act of 
 self- denial. I hope that reference to this criticism will 
 not be considered boastful. It can hardly be so ; for an 
 infirm judgment, exhibited in a practical indiscretion, 
 is after all the theme of these pages. I do not claim 
 acquittal upon any one of the counts of indictment 
 which I have admitted may be brought against the 
 conduct I pursued. One point only I plead, and plead 
 with confidence. It proved that I was sensible of the 
 gravity of any great change in political conduct or 
 opinion, and desirous beyond all things of giving to 
 the country such guarantees as I could give of my 
 integrity, even at the expense of my judgment and 
 fitness for affairs. If any man doubts this. I ask him 
 to ask himself, what demand political honour could 
 have made with which I failed to comply ? 
 
 In the ensuing debate on the Address (February 4, 
 1845), Lord John Russell, in terms of courtesy and 
 kindness which I had little deserved from him, called 
 for an explanation of the cause of my retirement. In 
 a statement which I corrected for ' Hansard's Debates,' 
 I replied that it had reference to the intentions of the 
 Government with respect to Maynooth ; that those 
 intentions pointed to a measure " at variance with the 
 system which I had maintained," " in a form the most 
 detailed and deliberate," " in a published treatise:" 
 that although I had never set forth any theory of 
 political affairs as " under all circumstances inflexible 
 and immutable," yet I thought those who had borne 
 such solemn testimony to a particular view of a great 
 
30 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 constitutional question, " ought not to be parties 
 responsible for proposals which involved a material 
 departure from it." And the purpose of my retire- 
 ment was to " place myself, so far as in me lay, in a 
 position to form not only an honest, but likewise an 
 independent and an unsuspected judgment," on the 
 plan likely to be submitted by the Government. I 
 also spoke as follows, in more forms than one : 
 
 " I wish again and most distinctly to state, that I am not 
 prepared to take part in any religious warfare against that 
 measure, such as I believe it may be ; or to draw a dis- 
 tinction between the Edman Catholics and other deno- 
 minations of Christians, with reference to the religious 
 opinions which each of them respectively may hold." 
 
 Now I respectfully submit that by this act my 
 freedom was established ; and that it has never since, 
 during a period of nearly five-and-twenty years, been 
 compromised. 
 
 Some may say that it is perfectly consistent to 
 have endowed Maynooth anew, and yet to uphold on 
 principle, as a part of the Constitution, the Established 
 Church of Ireland. It may be consistent, for them ; 
 it was not consistent, as I have distinctly shown, for 
 me. The moment that I admitted the validity of a 
 claim by the Church of Rome for the gift, by the free 
 act of the Imperial Parliament, of new funds for the 
 education of its clergy, the true basis of the Esta- 
 blished Church of Ireland for me was cut away. The 
 one had always been treated by me as exclusive of the 
 other. It is not now the question whether this way 
 of looking at the question was a correct one. There 
 are great authorities against it ; while it seems at the 
 same time to have some considerable hold on what may 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 31 
 
 be termed the moral sense of portions, perhaps large 
 portions, of the people. The present question is one 
 of fact. It is enough for the present purpose, that 
 such was my view. From that day forward, I have 
 never to my knowledge said one word, in public or 
 in private, which could pledge me on principle to the 
 maintenance of the Irish Church. Nay, in a speech, 
 delivered on the second reading of the Maynooth 
 College Bill, I took occasion distinctly to convey, that 
 the application of religious considerations to eccle- 
 siastical questions in Ireland would be entirely altered 
 by the passing of the measure : 
 
 " The boon to which I for one have thus agreed, is a very 
 great boon. I think it important, most of all important with 
 regard to the principles it involves. I am very far, indeed, 
 from saying that it virtually decides upon the payment of 
 the Koman Catholic priests of Ireland by the State : but I do 
 not deny that it disposes of the religious objections to that 
 measure. I mean that we, who assent to this Bill, shall in 
 my judgment no longer be in a condition to plead religious 
 objections to such a project."* 
 
 True, I did not say that I was thenceforward pre- 
 pared at any moment to vote for the removal of the 
 Established Church in Ireland. And this for the best 
 of all reasons : it would not have been true. It is 
 one thing to lift the anchor ; it is another to spread 
 the sails. It may be a duty to be in readiness for 
 departure, when departure itself would be an offence 
 against public prudence and public principle. But 
 I do not go so far even as this. On the contrary, I 
 was willing and desirous f that it should be permitted 
 to continue. If its ground in logic was gone, yet it 
 might have, in fact, like much besides, its day of 
 
 * 'Speech on the Second Reading of the Maynooth College Bill,' 1845, 
 p. 44. f Ibid., p. 33. 
 
32 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 grace. I do not now say that I leapt at once to the 
 conclusion that the Established Church of Ireland 
 must at any definite period " cease to exist as an 
 Establishment." She had my sincere good will ; I 
 was not sorry, I was glad, that while Ireland seemed 
 content to have it so, a longer time should be granted 
 her to unfold her religious energies through the 
 medium of an active and pious clergy, which until 
 this our day she had never possessed. My mind 
 recoiled then, as it recoils now, from the idea of 
 worrying the Irish Church to death. I desired that 
 it should remain even as it was, until the way should 
 be opened, and the means at hand, for bringing about 
 some better state of things. 
 
 Moreover, it was a duty, from my point of view, 
 completely to exhaust every chance on behalf of the 
 Irish Church. I have not been disposed, at any 
 time of life, gratuitously to undertake agitation of the 
 most difficult, and at times apparently the most hope- 
 less questions. At the period of the Appropriation 
 Clause, I represented to myself, and I believe to 
 others, that the true power of the Church as a religious 
 engine had never up to that period been fairly tried. 
 In name a religious institution, her influences, her 
 benefices, her sees, were commonly employed for pur- 
 poses, which we must condemn as secular, even if 
 they had not been utterly anti-national. Only within 
 a few, a very few years, had her clergy even 
 begun to bestir themselves ; and they had forthwith 
 found that, from the unsettled state of the law of 
 tithe, they were in the midst of an agitation, both 
 menacing to public order, and even perilous to 
 life. I was desirous to see what, after person and 
 property should have been rendered secure, and a 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 33 
 
 peaceful atmosphere restored, a generation of pious 
 and zealous men could accomplish in their actual 
 position. I am still of the opinion that thirty-five 
 years ago the religion of the Irish Church had not 
 to her and to our shame be it spoken had fair play. 
 From the days of Elizabeth downwards, with the 
 rarest exceptions, the worldly element had entirely 
 outweighed the religious one (whatever the intention 
 may have been) in the actual working of the eccle- 
 siastical institutions of Ireland. Mr. Burke has 
 immortalised the burning shame and the hideous 
 scandals of those penal laws which, perhaps for the 
 first time in the history of Christendom if not of man, 
 aimed at persecuting men out of one religion, but not 
 at persecuting them into another. I will not be so 
 rash as to enter on the field 
 
 " Per quern magnus equos Auruncas flexit alumnus." 
 
 But the time of awakening had come. The Irish 
 Church had grown conscious that she had a Gospel 
 to declare. Even with my present opinions I might 
 feel a scruple as to the measures now proposed, but 
 for the resistless and accumulated proof of impotence 
 afforded by the experience of my life-time, and due, 
 I believe, to a radically false position. For the Irish 
 Church has, since the tithe war of 1830-2 came to an 
 end, had not only fair play that is such fair play as 
 in Ireland the Establishment allows to the Church 
 but fair play and something more. She has enjoyed 
 an opportunity, extending over a generation of men, 
 with circumstances of favour such as can hardly be 
 expected to recur. What has been her case? She 
 has had ample endowments ; perfect security ; an 
 
 D 
 
34 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 almost unbroken freedom from the internal contro- 
 versies which have chastened (though, in chastening, 
 I believe improved) the Church of England. The 
 knowledge of the Irish language has been extensively 
 attained by her clergy.* She has had all the moral 
 support that could be given her by the people of this 
 country ; for it was the people, and not a mere party, 
 who, in 1835-8, repudiated and repelled the Appro- 
 priation Clause. Her rival, the Church of Kome, 
 has seen its people borne down to the ground by 
 famine ; and then thinned from year to year, in hun- 
 dreds of thousands, by the resistless force of emigra- 
 tion. And, last and most of all, in the midst of that 
 awful visitation of 1847-8, her Protestant Clergy 
 came to the Eoman Catholic people clad in the garb 
 of angels of light; for, besides their own bounty 
 (most liberal, I believe, in proportion to their means), 
 they became the grand almoners of the British nation. 
 When, after all this, we arrive at a new census of 
 religion in 1861, we find that only the faintest im- 
 pression has been made upon the relative numbers 
 of the two bodies ; an impression much slighter, I 
 apprehend, than would have been due to the com- 
 parative immunity of the Established Church from 
 the drain of emigration ; and, if so, representing in 
 reality, not a gain, but a virtual loss of some part 
 of the narrow ground which before was occupied by 
 the favoured religion of the State. 
 
 Like others, I have watched with interest the 
 results of those missionary operations in the West 
 of Ireland which have, perhaps, been construed as of 
 a greater ulterior significance than really belongs to 
 
 * See ' Life of Archbishop Whately.' 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 35 
 
 them. They were, I understand, due not so much to 
 the Established Church, as to religious bodies in this 
 country, which expend large funds in Ireland for the 
 purpose of making converts : an operation in which 
 the Presbyterians and Protestant Dissenters lend their 
 aid. Let them not be undervalued. But I, for one, 
 recollect that this is not the first time when local 
 and occasional inroads have been successfully effected 
 by Protestants upon the serried phalanx of the 
 Roman Church in Ireland, and have been mistaken 
 for signs of permanent or a general conquest. More 
 than forty years ago, Bishop Blomfield no mean 
 authority prophesied or announced, in the House of 
 Lords, that a second Reformation had then begun. 
 And there had indeed taken place in Ireland at that 
 time one, if not more than one, instance of conver- 
 sions on a large scale to the Established Church, 
 such as was well calculated to excite sanguine antici- 
 pations, though they were dispelled by subsequent 
 experience. I think we ought now to perceive that 
 the annexation of the warrant of civil authority to 
 the religious embassy of the Irish Church, discredits 
 in lieu of recommending it in the view of the Irish 
 people. I do not mean that we are to put down the 
 Establishment for the sake of a more effective propa- 
 gandism. We must not for a moment forget that 
 civil justice, an adaptation of the state of things in 
 Ireland to the essential principles of political right, is 
 that one broad and more than sufficient justification 
 of the measure, in which all its advocates agree. But, 
 over and above this, they may also agree in reflecting 
 with satisfaction that the time is about to come when 
 in Ireland, in lieu of a system which insults the re- 
 
 D 2 
 
36 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ligion of the majority and makes that of the minority 
 powerless, creeds will compete upon the level, and 
 will thrive according to their merits. Nor will they 
 be offended with one another when, in the anticipa- 
 tion of such a state of things, each man who has faith 
 in freedom, faith in justice, faith in truth, anticipates 
 a harvest of benefit for his own. 
 
 The emancipation thus effected from the net in 
 which I had been bound was soon after tested. In 
 1846, it was suggested to me that I should oppose a 
 member of the newly-formed Government of Lord 
 John Russell. In my reply, declining the proposal, 
 I wrote thus : " As to the Irish Church, I am not 
 able to go to war with them on the ground that they 
 will not pledge themselves to the maintenance of the 
 existing appropriation of Church property in Ire- 
 land." This, however, was a private proceeding. 
 But, early in 1847, Mr. Estcourt announced his 
 resignation of the seat he had held, amidst universal 
 respect, for the University of Oxford. The partiality 
 of friends proposed me as a candidate. The repre- 
 sentation of that University was, I think, stated by 
 Mr. Canning to be to him the most coveted prize of 
 political life. I am not ashamed to own that I desired 
 it with an almost passionate fondness. For besides all 
 the associations it maintained and revived, it was in 
 those days an honour not only given without solici- 
 tation, but, when once given, not withdrawn.* The 
 contest was conducted with much activity, and some 
 heat. I was, naturally enough, challenged as to my 
 opinions on the Established Church of Ireland. My 
 
 * The case of Sir R. Peel, in 1829, I do not consider an exception to this 
 remark, as he gave back the charge into the hands of the electors. 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 37 
 
 friend Mr. Coleridge, then young, but already dis- 
 tinguished, was one of my most active and able 
 supporters. He has borne spontaneous testimony, 
 within the last few weeks, to the manner in which 
 the challenge was met : 
 
 " Gentlemen, I must be permitted because an attack has 
 been made upon Mr. Gladstone, and it has been suggested 
 that his conversion to his present principles is recent to 
 mention what is within my own knowledge and experience 
 with regard to him. In 1847, when I was just leaving 
 Oxford, I had the great honour of being secretary to his first 
 election committee for that university, and I well recollect 
 how, upon that occasion, some older and more moderate 
 supporters were extremely anxious to draw from him some 
 pledge that he should stand by the Irish Church. He dis- 
 tinctly refused to pledge himself to anything of the kind." * 
 
 The next Parliamentary occasion, after the May- 
 nooth Grant, which brought prominently into view 
 the ecclesiastical arrangements of Ireland, was that 
 of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill in 1851. I felt bound, 
 as one of a very small minority, but in cordial agree- 
 ment with the chief surviving associates of Sir Robert 
 Peel, to offer all the opposition in my power, not 
 only to the clauses by which the party then called 
 Protectionist, and now Tory, Conservative, or Con- 
 stitutionalist, endeavoured to sharpen the sting of the 
 measure, but to the substance of the measure itself. I 
 may be permitted to observe, that for the representa- 
 tive of the University of Oxford thus to set himself 
 against the great bulk of the Liberal as well as the 
 Conservative party, whatever else it may have been, 
 was not a servile or a self-seeking course. But this 
 
 * Mr. Coleridge's speech at Exeter, August, 1868. From the Man- 
 chester Examiner ' of August 22. 
 
38 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 is irrelevant. It is more to the present purpose to 
 observe that, in resisting this measure, I did not 
 attempt to mitigate the offence by any profession of 
 adhesion in principle to the maintenance of the Esta- 
 blished Church of Ireland ; but I spoke as follows : 
 
 " We cannot change the profound and resistless tendencies 
 of the age towards religious liberty. It is our business to 
 guide and control their application. Do this you may. But 
 to endeavour to turn them backwards is the sport of children, 
 done by the hands of men ; and every effort you may make 
 in that direction will recoil upon you in disaster and dis- 
 grace." * 
 
 The years flowed on. From 1846 forwards, the 
 controversy of Free Trade was, as a rule, the com- 
 manding and absorbing controversy, the pole of 
 political affairs. But from time to time motions were 
 made in relation to the Established Church of Ire- 
 land. That question remained as one asleep, but 
 whose sleep is haunted with uneasy dreams. These 
 motions were, as far as I remember them, uniformly 
 of a narrow and partial character. They aimed at 
 what is called getting in the thin end of the wedge. 
 All honour, however, to each one of those who made 
 them. The mover of any such proposal was vox 
 clamantis in deserto. The people of England had, in 
 1835-8, settled the matter for the time. The re- 
 proaches now made against the older leaders and the 
 body of the Liberal party for not having seriously 
 entered the struggle, appear to me to be not only 
 unjust but even preposterous. The Legislature had 
 other great subjects to deal with, besides the Irish 
 Church. Four years of deadly conflict on such a 
 
 * ' Corrected Speech on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill,' 1851, p. 28. 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 39 
 
 matter might well be followed by five times four of 
 repose. But in the mean time individuals, by their 
 partial and occasional efforts, bore witness to a prin- 
 ciple broader than any which they formally an- 
 nounced. That principle the application of a true 
 religious equality to Ireland was biding its time. 
 
 No one, in my opinion, was bound to assert, by 
 speech or vote, any decisive opinion upon so great 
 and formidable a question until he should think, 
 upon a careful survey of the ground and the time, of 
 the assisting and opposing forces, that the season for 
 action had come. The motions actually made were 
 commonly motions for inquiry, or motions aimed 
 generally at a change. I did not enter into the de- 
 bates. When I voted, I voted against them ; and 
 against such motions, if they were made, I should 
 vote again. 
 
 I now arrive at the Government of 1859-65. He 
 who has slept long is likely soon to wake. After the 
 Free Trade struggles of 1860 and 1861 were over, 
 so it was, I thought, with the question of the Irish 
 Church. There was a lull in political affairs. They 
 hung, in a great degree, upon a single life the re- 
 markable life of Lord Palmerston. It was surely right 
 to think a little of the future. The calm was certain 
 to be succeeded by a breeze, if not a gale. It was 
 too plain to me that the inner disposition of Ireland, 
 relatively to this country, was not improving ; and 
 that, in the course of years, more or fewer, the ques- 
 tion of the Irish Church was certain to revive, and, if 
 it should revive, probably to be carried to a final 
 issue. My first thought, under these circumstances, 
 
40 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 was about my constituents. Anxiously occupied in 
 other matters, I did not give my nights and days to 
 the question of the Irish Church. Yet the question 
 continually flitted, as it were, before me ; and I felt 
 that, before that question arose in a practical shape, 
 my relation to the University should be considered, 
 and its Convocation distinctly apprised that at the 
 proper time it would be my duty to support very 
 extensive changes in the Irish Church. My valued 
 friend, Sir E. Palmer, has done me the favour, of his 
 own motion, to state in public that I then apprised 
 him of my state of mind : 
 
 "There had been people who had said, * You would never 
 have heard anything about the Irish Church question from 
 Mr. Gladstone if the Tories had not been in power, and he 
 had not wanted to get their place.' (Hear, hear.) To his 
 certain knowledge that was not true. He could mention 
 what had taken place between Mr. Gladstone and himself, 
 and he did so the rather because it did justice to him, and 
 would show them that his own mind had been particularly 
 addressed to that subject, to which he had paid some degree 
 of attention some years before the present time. In the year 
 1863, at a time when no one was bringing forward this 
 question, or seemed very likely to do so, Mr. Gladstone had 
 told him privately that he had made up his mind on the 
 subject, and that he should not be able to keep himself from 
 giving public expression to his feelings. How far or near 
 that might be practicable, he could not foresee ; but, under 
 the circumstances, he wanted his friends connected with the 
 University of Oxford to consider whether or not they would 
 desire for that reason a change in the representation of the 
 University." * 
 
 * Sir R. Palmer's speech at Richmond, August, 1868. From the * Man- 
 chester Examiner ' of August 24. 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 41 
 
 Partly because I felt that this question might 
 come to the front, and partly because I saw a mani- 
 fest determination in a portion of the Academical 
 constituency to press my friends with incessant con- 
 tests, of which I was unwilling to be the hero, I 
 was not indisposed to retire without compulsion 
 from the seat, if it could have been done without 
 obvious detriment to the principles on which I 
 had been returned. This was judged to be un- 
 certain. Consequently, I remained. But in 1865, 
 on the motion of Mr. Dillwyn, I made a speech, 
 in which I declared that present action .was impos- 
 sible, that at any period immense difficulties would 
 have to be encountered, but that this was " the ques- 
 tion of the future." I stated strongly, though sum- 
 marily, some of the arguments against the Church 
 as it stood. I entirely abstained from advising or 
 glancing at the subject of mere reform, and I did not 
 use one word from which it could be inferred that I 
 desired it to continue in its place as the National or 
 Established Church of the country. 
 
 My speech was immediately denounced by Mr. 
 (now Chief Justice) Whiteside, as one intended to 
 be fatal to the Established Church of Ireland when 
 an opportunity should arise ;* and I am told that my 
 opponents in the University circulated my speech 
 among their portion of the constituency (as I think 
 they were quite justified in doing) to my prejudice. 
 My friends, however, stood by me, and resolved to 
 
 * ' Hansard,' vol. clxxviii. p. 444. " But I do complain of a Minister 
 who, himself the author of a book in defence of Church and State, when 
 one branch of the Christian Church is attacked and in danger, delivers a 
 speech, every word of which is hostile to its existence when the right time 
 comes for attacking it." 
 
42 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 contend for the seat. An application was made to 
 me by a distinguished scholar, divine, and teacher, 
 the Warden of Trinity College, Glenalmond, to give 
 certain explanations for the appeasing of doubts. I 
 did so in the following letter : 
 
 " 11, Carlton House Terrace, S.W., June 8, 1865. 
 
 " DEAR DR. HANNAH, 
 
 "It would be very difficult for me to subscribe to 
 any interpretation of my speech on the Irish Church like 
 that of your correspondent, which contains so many con- 
 ditions and bases of a plan for dealing with a question 
 apparently remote, and at the same time full of difficulties 
 on every side. My reasons are, I think, plain. First, 
 because the question is remote, and apparently out of all 
 bearing on the practical politics of the day, I think it would 
 be for me worse than superfluous to determine upon any 
 scheme or basis of a scheme with respect to it. Secondly, 
 because it is difficult, even if I anticipated any likelihood of 
 being called upon to deal with it, I should think it right to 
 make no decision beforehand on the mode of dealing with the 
 difficulties. But the first reason is that which chiefly weighs. 
 As far as I know, my speech signifies pretty clearly the broad 
 distinction which I take between the abstract and the prac- 
 tical views of the subject. And I think I have stated strongly 
 my sense of the responsibility attaching to the opening of 
 such a question, except in a state of things which gave 
 promise of satisfactorily closing it. For this reason it is that 
 I have been so silent about the matter, and may probably be 
 so again ; but I could not as a Minister, and as member for 
 Oxford, allow it to be debated an indefinite number of times 
 and remain silent. One thing, however, I may add, because 
 I think it a clear landmark. In any measure dealing with 
 the Irish Church, I think (though I scarcely expect ever to 
 be called on to share in such a measure) the Act of Union 
 must be recognised and must have important consequences, 
 especially with reference to the position of the hierarchy. 
 " I am much obliged to you for writing, and I hope you 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 43 
 
 will see and approve my reasons for not wishing to carry 
 my own mind further into a question lying at a distance I 
 cannot measure. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 (Signed) " W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 "Rev. the WARDEN, Trin. Coll., Perth." 
 
 The letter has been the object of much criticism 
 upon these three grounds. First, it contained a 
 statement that the Act of Union ought to entail im- 
 portant consequences in the formation of any measure 
 relating to the Irish Church. Secondly, that the 
 question was hardly within the domain of practical 
 politics. Thirdly, that I felt very uncertain whether 
 it would be dealt with in my time. The explanation 
 of the first is as follows : In contemplating the sub- 
 ject of the Irish Church, I did not see how to give 
 full effect to the principle of religious equality with- 
 out touching the composition of the House of Lords. 
 In this strait, my personal opinion was that it 
 would be best to retain (though in an altered form) 
 the Episcopal element from Ireland in the House of 
 Lords, lest its withdrawal should lead to other 
 changes, of a kind to weaken the constitution of that 
 important branch of the legislature ; and thus far I 
 was disposed to abridge the application of religious 
 equality to Ireland. I had not yet examined the 
 question so closely as to perceive that this mode of 
 proceeding was wholly impracticable, and that the 
 inconvenience of removing the Irish Bishops must be 
 faced. And for my part I have not been so happy, 
 at any time of my life, as to be able sufficiently to 
 adjust the proper conditions of handling any difficult 
 
44 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 question, until the question itself was at the door. 
 This retention of the Bishops in the House of Peers 
 was the important consequence that I thought the 
 Act of Union would draw. 
 
 Among those errors of the day which may be 
 called singular as vulgar errors, is that which sup- 
 poses the fifth Article of the Act of Union with Ire- 
 land to refer to the endowments of the Church. Its 
 terms touch exclusively her " doctrine, worship, 
 discipline, and government." There is no violation of 
 this section of the Act of Union in withdrawing her 
 endowments, were she stripped of every shilling. But 
 it may be said that her " government," as distinguished 
 from her discipline, perhaps involves the position of 
 her exclusive relation to the State. So I thought; 
 and accordingly thus I wrote to Dr. Hannah. 
 
 The second proposition of the letter was not only 
 in harmony with my speech, it was simply the con- 
 densation of the speech into a brief form of words. 
 For, agreeing with Mr. Dillwyn as to -the merits of 
 the case, I held, as I have ever held, that it is not 
 the duty of a Minister to be forward in inscribing on 
 the Journals of Parliament his own abstract views; 
 or to disturb the existence of a great institution like 
 the Church of Ireland, until he conceives the time to 
 be come when he can probably give effect to his 
 opinions. Because the question was not within the 
 range of practical politics, agreeing with his sen- 
 timent, I voted against his motion. 
 
 But, forsooth, it is a matter of wonder that I should 
 have felt doubtful whether the Irish Church would 
 be dealt with in my time. Now, I do not complain 
 of this. It is an example of what is continually hap- 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGEAPHY. 45 
 
 pening in human affairs, of the mythical handling of 
 facts, of the reflection of the ideas, feelings, and circum- 
 stances of one period upon the events of another, and 
 thus dressing the past in the garb of the present. I 
 abide by this, and by every word of the letter. The 
 question of the Irish Church was in my view, in the 
 year 1865, what, be it remembered, the question of 
 Parliamentary Reform seemed to be in the first moiety 
 of the year 1830 namely, a remote question. Had 
 any man said to me, " How soon will it come on ?" 
 I should have replied, " Heaven knows ; perhaps it 
 will be five years, perhaps it will be ten." My duty 
 was to let my constituents know the state of my 
 mind on a matter so important, because the wind was 
 gradually veering to that quarter, even though I 
 might not believe, and did not believe it to be the 
 most probable event, that it would reach the point 
 for action during the life of the Parliament just then 
 about to be elected. But then I referred to my own 
 political lifetime. On that subject I will only say 
 that a man who, in 1865, completed his thirty-third 
 year of a laborious career ;] who had already followed 
 to the grave the remains of almost all the friends 
 abreast of whom he had started from the University 
 in the career of public life ; and who had observed 
 that, excepting two recent cases, it was hard to find 
 in our whole history a single man who had been 
 permitted to reach the fortieth year of a course of 
 labour similar to his own within the walls of the 
 House of Commons ; such a man might surely be 
 excused if he did not venture to reckon for himself 
 on an exemption from the lot of greater and better 
 men, and if he formed a less sanguine estimate of the 
 
46 j A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 fraction of space yet remaining to him, than seems to 
 have been the case with his critics. 
 
 The reasons that, in my judgment, prove the time 
 now to have arrived for dealing decisively with the 
 question of the Irish Church Establishment, must be 
 treated elsewhere than in these pages. 
 
 So far as Ireland, and the immediate controversy, 
 and my personal vindication are concerned, I have 
 done. But there is matter of wider interest, which 
 connects itself with the subject. The change of con- 
 duct, the shifting of the mind of an individual, 
 shrink into insignificance by the side of the question, 
 What has been, since 1838, the direction of the public 
 sentiment, the course of law and administration, the 
 general march of affairs ? 
 
 I have described the erroneous impressions as to 
 the actual and prospective state of things, under 
 which was urged the practical application of that 
 system of thought embodied in my work of 1838. 
 It may be said my error was a gross or even an 
 absurd one. On that question I need not enter. But 
 I will endeavour to bring into view some circum- 
 stances relating to the time, which may help to 
 account for it. And here I feel that I pass beyond 
 the narrower and more personal scope of these pages, 
 if I attempt to recall some of the changes that have 
 taken place during the last thirty or five-and-thirty 
 years, in matters which bear upon the religious 
 character and relations of the State. 
 
 At that time, Jews, and others not adopting the 
 Christian name, were excluded from civil office ; and 
 though Roman Catholics and Nonconformists had 
 effected an entrance into Parliament, there still re- 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 47 
 
 mained an oath for the former, and a declaration for 
 the latter, which, if they did not practically limit 
 freedom, yet denoted, like the mark of chains on the 
 limbs of an emancipated slave, that there had been a 
 time when it did not exist. The Establishment of 
 Scotland was still entire, and animated with the 
 strength principally of the eminent men who after- 
 wards led the Free Church Secession. The attack on 
 the Irish Church, pushed in 1835 with earnestness 
 and vigour by the Liberal party, had speedily proved 
 to be hopeless. The State continued to make to other 
 persuasions certain grants, little more than compas- 
 sionate, and handed down from other times ; but, even 
 in the case of the classes especially in its charge, such 
 as soldiers and sailors, or such again as paupers and 
 criminals, it rarely permitted, and still more rarely 
 provided for them, the means of religious worship 
 according to their own religious convictions. In the 
 great province of popular education in England, 
 nothing was granted except to schools of the Church, 
 or to schools in which, while the Bible was read, no 
 religion other than that of the Church was taught ; 
 and he would have been deemed something more 
 than a daring prophet, who should have foretold that 
 in a few years the utmost ambition of the lay cham- 
 pions, and of the spiritual heads of the Church, 
 would be to obtain the maintenance of a denomina- 
 tional system in popular education, under which all 
 religions alike should receive the indirect, yet not 
 unsubstantial, countenance of the State. 
 
 But the most important of all the changes which 
 have taken place within the interval, has been the 
 
48 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 change in the condition of the Church of England 
 itself. 
 
 Even for those old enough to have an adequate 
 recollection of the facts, it requires no inconsiderable 
 mental effort to travel backwards over the distrac- 
 tions, controversies, perils, and calamities of the last 
 thirty years, to the period immediately before those 
 years ; and to realise not only the state of facts, but 
 especially the promises and prospects which it pre- 
 sented. I am well aware that any description of it 
 which may now be attempted will appear to bear 
 more or less the colour of romance ; but, without 
 taking it into view, no one can either measure the 
 ground over which we have travelled, or perceive 
 how strong was then the temptation to form an over- 
 sanguine estimate of the probable progress of the 
 Church in her warfare with sin and ignorance, and 
 even in persuading seceders of all kinds to re-enter 
 her fold. 
 
 That time was a time such as comes, after sickness, 
 to a man in the flower of life, with an unimpaired 
 and buoyant constitution ; the time in which, though 
 health is as yet incomplete, the sense and the joy of 
 health are keener, as the fresh and living current first 
 flows in, than are conveyed by its even and undis- 
 turbed possession. 
 
 The Church of England had been passing through 
 a long period of deep and chronic religious lethargy. 
 For many years, perhaps for some generations, 
 Christendom might have been challenged to show, 
 either then or from any former age, a clergy (with 
 exceptions) so secular and lax, or congregations 
 so cold, irreverent, and indevout. The process of 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY 49 
 
 awakening had, indeed, begun many years before ; 
 but a very long time is required to stir up effectually 
 a torpid body, whose dimensions overspread a great 
 country. Active piety and zeal among the clergy, 
 and yet more among the laity, had been in a great 
 degree confined within the narrow limits of a party, 
 which, however meritorious in its work, presented 
 in the main phenomena of transition, and laid but 
 little hold on the higher intellect and cultivation of 
 the country. Our churches and our worship bore in 
 general too conclusive testimony to a frozen in- 
 difference. No effort had been made either to over- 
 take the religious destitution of the multitudes at 
 home, or to follow the numerous children of the 
 Church, migrating into distant lands, with any due 
 provision for their spiritual wants. The richer bene- 
 fices were very commonly regarded as a suitable 
 provision for such members of the higher families 
 as were least fit to push their way in any profes- 
 sion requiring thought or labour. The abuses of 
 plurality and non-residence were at a height, which, 
 if not proved by statistical returns, it would now be 
 scarcely possible to believe. In the greatest public 
 school of the country (and I presume it may be taken 
 as a sample of the rest) the actual teaching of Chris- 
 tianity was all but dead, though happily none of its 
 forms had been surrendered. It is a retrospect full 
 of gloom ; and with all our Romanising, and all our 
 Rationalising, what man of sense would wish to go 
 back upon those dreary times : 
 
 " Domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna " ? * 
 
 v. 
 
50 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 But between 1831 and 1840, the transformation, 
 which had previously begun, made a progress alto- 
 gether marvellous. Much was due, without doubt, 
 to the earnest labour of individuals. Such men as 
 Bishop Blomfield on the Bench, and Dr. Hook in 
 the parish (and I name them only as illustrious 
 examples), who had long been toiling with a patient 
 but a dauntless energy, began as it were to get the 
 upper hand. But causes of deep and general opera- 
 tion were also widely at work. As the French 
 Ee volution had done much to renovate Christian 
 belief on the Continent, so the Church of England 
 was less violently, but pretty sharply, roused by the 
 political events which arrived in a rattling succes- 
 sion. In 1828, the repeal of the Test Act. In 1829, 
 the emancipation of the Roman Catholics. In 1831-2, 
 the agony and triumph of Reform. In 1833, the 
 Church Temporalities Act for Ireland. There was 
 now a general uprising of religious energy in the 
 Church throughout the land. It saved the Church. 
 Her condition before 1830 could not possibly have 
 borne the scrutinising eye, which for thirty years 
 past has been turned upon our institutions. Her 
 rank corruptions must have called down the avenging 
 arm. But it was arrested just in time. 
 
 It would be difficult to give a just and full idea 
 of the beneficial changes which were either accom- 
 plished or begun during this notable decade of years. 
 They embraced alike formal, official movements, of a 
 nature to strike the general eye, and those local im- 
 provements in detail, which singly are known only 
 in each neighbourhood, but which unitedly transform 
 the face of a country. Laws were passed to repress 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 51 
 
 gross abuses, and the altering spirit of the clergy 
 seconded and even outstripped the laws. The out- 
 ward face of divine worship began to be renovated, 
 and the shameful condition of the sacred fabrics was 
 rapidly amended, with such a tide of public approval 
 as overflowed all the barriers of party and of sect, 
 and speedily found its manifestations even in the 
 seceding communions. There is no reason to doubt 
 that at that time at least, and before such changes 
 had become too decidedly the fashion, the outward 
 embellishment of churches, and the greater decency 
 and order of services, answered to, and sprang from, 
 a call within, and proved a less unworthy conception 
 of the sublime idea of Christian worship. The mis- 
 sionary arm of the Church began to exhibit a vigour 
 wholly unknown to former years. Noble efforts 
 were made, under the auspices of the chief bishops 
 of the Church, to provide for the unsatisfied spiritual 
 wants of the metropolis. The great scheme of the 
 Colonial Episcopate was founded ; and, in its outset, led 
 to such a development of apostolic zeal and self-denial 
 as could not but assist, by a powerful reaction, the 
 domestic progress. The tone of public schools (on one 
 of which Arnold was now spending his noble energies) 
 and of universities, was steadily yet rapidly raised. 
 The greatest change of all was within the body of 
 the clergy.* A devoted piety and an unworldly life, 
 which had been the rare exceptions, became visibly 
 from year to year more and more the rule. The 
 
 * It was, I think, about the year 1835, that I first met the Rev. Sydney 
 Smith, at the house of Mr. Hallam. In conversation after dinner he said to 
 me, with the double charm of humour and of good-humour, " The improve- 
 ment of the clergy in my time has been astonishing. Whenever you meet 
 a clergyman of my age, you may be quite sure that he is a bad clergyman." 
 
 E 2 
 
52 A CHAFFER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 spectacle, as a whole, was like what we are told of a 
 Eussian spring : when, after long months of rigid 
 cold, almost in a day the snow dissolves, the ice 
 breaks up and is borne away,, and the whole earth is 
 covered with a rush of verdure. These were bright 
 and happy days for the Church of England. She 
 seemed, or seemed to seem, as a Church recalling the 
 descriptions of Holy Writ ; to be " beautiful as the 
 sun which goeth forth in his might," * " and terrible 
 as an army with banners." f 
 
 Of this great renovating movement, a large part 
 centred in Oxford. At the time, indeed, when I 
 resided there, from 1828 to 1831, no sign of it had 
 yet appeared. A steady, clear, but dry Anglican 
 orthodoxy bore sway, and frowned, this way or that, 
 on the first indication of any tendency to diverge 
 from the beaten path. Dr. Pusey was, at that time, 
 revered, indeed, for his piety and charity, no less than 
 admired for his learning and talents, but suspected 
 (I believe) of sympathy with the German theology, 
 in which he was known to be profoundly versed. 
 Dr. Newman was thought to have about him the 
 flavour of what, he has now told the world, were 
 the opinions he had derived in youth from the works 
 of Thomas Scott. Mr. Keble, the "sweet singer of 
 Israel," and a true saint, if this generation has seen 
 one, did not reside in Oxford. J The chief Chair of 
 Theology had been occupied by Bishop Lloyd, the 
 old tutor and the attached and intimate friend of 
 
 * Judges, v. 31. f Canticles, vi. 4. 
 
 J Since these lines were written I have learned, upon authority which 
 cannot be questioned, that Mr. Keble acknowledged the justice of disestab- 
 lishing the Irish Church. 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 53 
 
 Peel : a man of powerful talents, and of a character 
 both winning and decided, who, had his life been 
 spared, might have acted powerfully for good on the 
 fortunes of the Church of England, by guiding the 
 energetic influences which his teaching had done 
 much to form. But he had been hurried away in 1829 
 by an early death : and Dr. Whately, who was also, 
 in his own way, a known power in the University, 
 was in 1830 induced to accept the Archbishopric 
 of Dublin. There was nothing at that time in the 
 theology, or in the religious life, of the University 
 to indicate what was to come. But when, shortly 
 afterwards, the great heart of England began to beat 
 with the quickened pulsations of a more energetic 
 religious life, it was in Oxford that the stroke was 
 most distinct and loud. An extraordinary change 
 appeared to pass upon the spirit of the place. I 
 believe it would be a moderate estimate to say that 
 much beyond one half of the very flower of its youth 
 chose the profession of Holy Orders, while an im- 
 pression scarcely less deep seemed to be stamped 
 upon a large portion of its lay pupils. I doubt 
 whether at any period of its existence, either since 
 the Eeformation, or perhaps before it, the Church of 
 England had reaped from either University, in so 
 short a time, so rich a harvest. At Cambridge a 
 similar lifting up of heart and mind seems to have 
 been goiDg on ; and numbers of persons of my own 
 generation, who at their public schools had been 
 careless and thoughtless like the rest, appeared in 
 their early manhood as soldiers of Christ, and minis- 
 ters to the wants of His people, worthy, I believe, 
 as far as man can be worthy, through their zeal, 
 devotion, powers of mind, and attainments, of their 
 
54 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 high vocation. It was not then foreseen what storms 
 were about to rise. Not only in Oxford, but in 
 England, during the years to which I refer, party 
 spirit within the Church was reduced to a low ebb. 
 Indiscretions there might be, but authority did not 
 take alarm : it smiled rather, on the contrary, on what 
 was thought to be in the main a recurrence both to 
 first principles and to forgotten obligations. Purity, 
 unity, and energy seemed, as three fair sisters hand in 
 hand, to advance together. Such a state of things 
 was eminently suited to act on impressible and 
 sanguine minds. I, for one, formed a completely 
 false estimate of what was about to happen ; and 
 believed that the Church of England, through the 
 medium of a regenerated clergy and an intelligent 
 and attached laity, would not only hold her ground, 
 but would even in great part probably revive the 
 love and the allegiance both of the masses who were 
 wholly falling away from religious observances, and 
 of those large and powerful nonconforming bodies, 
 the existence of which was supposed to have no 
 other cause than the neglect of its duties by the 
 National Church, which had long left the people as 
 sheep without a shepherd. 
 
 And surely it would have required either a deeply 
 saturnine or a marvellously prophetic mind to foretell 
 that, in ten or twelve more years, that powerful and 
 distinguished generation of clergy would be broken 
 up : that at least a moiety of the most gifted sons, 
 whom Oxford had reared for the service of the 
 Church of England, would be hurling at her head 
 the hottest bolts of the Yatican : that, with their 
 deviation on the one side, there would arise a not less 
 convulsive rationalistic movement on the other ; and 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 55 
 
 that the natural consequences would be developed in 
 endless contention and estrangement, and in sus- 
 picions worse than either, because even less accessible, 
 and even more intractable. Since that time, the 
 Church of England may be said to have bled at 
 every pore ; and at this hour it seems occasionally 
 to quiver to its very base. And yet, all the while, 
 the religious life throbs more and more powerfully 
 within her. .Shorn of what may be called the 
 romance and poetry of her revival, she abates nothing 
 of her toil ; and in the midst of every sort of partial 
 indiscretion and extravagance, her great office in the 
 care of souls is, from year to year, less and less 
 imperfectly discharged. But the idea of asserting 
 on her part those exclusive claims, which become 
 positively unjust in a divided country governed on 
 popular principles, has been abandoned by all parties 
 in the State. 
 
 There was an error not less serious in my estimate 
 of English Nonconformity. I remember the astonish- 
 ment with which at some period, I think in 1851-2, 
 after ascertaining the vast addition which had 
 been made to the number of churches in the country, 
 I discovered that the multiplication of chapels, among 
 those not belonging to the Church of England, had 
 been more rapid still. But besides the immense 
 extension of its material and pastoral organisation, 
 English Nonconformity (in general) appears now to 
 have founded itself on a principle of its own, which 
 forbids the alliance of the civil power with religion 
 in any particular form or forms. I do not embrace 
 that principle. But I must observe, in passing, that 
 it is not less unjust than it is common to stigmatise 
 those who hold it as " political Dissenters," a phrase 
 
56 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 implying that they do not dissent on religious grounds. 
 But if they, because they object to the union of 
 Church and State, are political Dissenters, it follows 
 that all who uphold it are political Churchmen. 
 
 The entire miscalculation which I have now endea- 
 voured to describe of the religious state and prospects 
 of the country, was combined with a view of the 
 relative position of governors and governed, since 
 greatly modified ; and the two lay at the root of 
 my error. These two causes led me into the ex- 
 cess of recommending the continued maintenance of 
 a theory which was impracticable, and which, if it 
 could have been enforced, would have been, under the 
 circumstances of the country, less than just. For I 
 never held that a National Church should be per- 
 manently maintained except for the nation, I mean 
 either for the whole of it or, at least, for the greater 
 part, with some kind of real concurrence or general 
 acquiescence from the remainder. 
 
 Against the proposals of my book, Lord Macaulay 
 had set up a theory of his own.* 
 
 "That we may give Mr. Gladstone his revenge, we will 
 state concisely our own views respecting the alliance of 
 Church and State. . . . .* 
 
 " We consider the primary end of Government as a purely 
 temporal end, the protection of the persons and property 
 of men. 
 
 " We think that Government, like every other contrivance 
 of human wisdom, from the highest to the lowest, is likely to 
 answer its main end best, when it is constructed with a single 
 view to that end 
 
 "Government is not an institution for the propagation of 
 religion, any more than St. George's Hospital is an institution 
 for the propagation of religion. And the most absurd and 
 
 * ' Ed. Rev.', April, 1839, p. 273-6. 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 57 
 
 pernicious consequences would follow if Government should 
 pursue as its primary end, that which can never be more 
 than its secondary end : though intrinsically more important 
 than its primary end. But a Government which considers 
 the religious instruction of the people as a secondary end, 
 and follows out that principle faithfully, will we think be 
 likely to do much good and little harm." 
 
 These sentences, I think, give a fair view of Lord 
 Macaulay's philosophy of Church Establishments. It 
 has all the clearness and precision that might be 
 expected from him. But I own myself unable to 
 accept it as it stands. I presume to think that per- 
 haps Lord Macaulay, like myself, made, from a limited 
 induction, a hasty generalisation. The difference 
 was, that his theory was right for the practical pur- 
 pose of the time, while mine was wrong. Considered, 
 however, in the abstract, that theory appears to me 
 to claim kindred with the ethical code of another 
 writer, not less upright, and not less limpid, so to 
 speak, than Lord Macaulay himself, I mean Dr. Paley. 
 And the upshot of it may be comprised in three words : 
 Government is police. All other functions, except 
 those of police proper, are the accidents of its exist- 
 ence. As if a man should say to his friend when in 
 the country, " I am going up to town ; can I take 
 anything for you ? " So the State, while busy about 
 protecting life and property, will allow its officer of 
 police to perform any useful office for the community, 
 to instruct a wayfarer as to his road, or tell the passer 
 by what o'clock it is, provided it does not interfere 
 with his watching the pickpocket, or laying the 
 strong hand upon the assassin. I doubt if it is pos- 
 sible to cut out, as it were, with a pair of scissors, 
 
58 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 patterns of policy, which shall solve for all time and 
 place the great historic problem of the relation of the 
 civil power to religion. 
 
 It seems to me that in every function of life, and 
 in every combination with his fellow-creatures, for 
 whatever purpose, the duties of man are limited 
 only by his powers. It is easy to separate, in the 
 case of a Gas Company or a Chess Club, the primary 
 end for which it exists, from everything extraneous 
 to that end. It is not so easy in the case of the State 
 or of the family. If the primary end of the State 
 is to protect life and property, so the primary end 
 of the family is to propagate the race. But around 
 these ends there cluster, in both cases, a group of 
 moral purposes, variable indeed with varying circum- 
 stances, but yet inhering in the relation, and not 
 external or merely incidental to it. The action of 
 man in the State is moral, as truly as it is in the 
 individual sphere ; although it be limited by the fact 
 that, as he is combined with others whose views and 
 wills may differ from his own, the sphere of the 
 common operations must be limited, first, to the 
 things in which all are agreed ; secondly, to the things 
 in which, though they may not be agreed, yet equity 
 points out, and the public sense acknowledges, that 
 the whole should be bound by the sense of the 
 majority. 
 
 I can hardly believe that even those, including as 
 they do so many men both upright and able, who 
 now contend on principle for the separation of the 
 Church from the State, are so determined to exalt 
 their theorem to the place of an universal truth, that 
 they ask us to condemn the whole of that process, by 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 59 
 
 which, as the Gospel spread itself through the civi- 
 lised world, Christianity became incorporated with the 
 action of civil authority, and with the framework of 
 public law. In the course of human history, indeed, 
 we perceive little of unmixed evil, and far less of 
 universal good. It is not difficult to discern that (in 
 the language of Bishop Heber) as the world became 
 Christian, Christianity became worldly ; that the 
 average tone of a system, which embraces in its 
 wide-spreading arms the entire community, is almost 
 of necessity lower than that of a society which, if 
 large, is still private, and into which no man enters 
 except by his own deliberate choice, very possibly even 
 at the cost of much personal and temporal detriment. 
 But Christ died for the race : and those who notice 
 the limited progress of conversion in the world until 
 alliance with the civil authority gave to His religion 
 a wider access to the attention of mankind, may be 
 inclined to doubt whether, without that alliance, its 
 immeasurable and inestimable social results would 
 ever have been attained. Allowing for all that may 
 be justly urged against the danger of mixing secular 
 motives with religious administration, and above all 
 against the intrusion of force into the domain of 
 thought ; I for one cannot desire that Constantine in 
 the government of the empire, that Justinian in the 
 formation of its code of laws, or that Charlemagne in 
 refounding society, or that Elizabeth in the crisis of 
 the English Eeformation, should have acted on the 
 principle that the State and the Church in themselves 
 are separate or alien powers, incapable of coalition. 
 
 But there are two causes, the combined operation 
 of which, upon reaching a certain point of develop- 
 
60 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ment, relaxes or dissolves their union by a process 
 as normal (if it be less beneficial) as that by which 
 the union was originally brought about. One of 
 these is the establishment of the principle of popular 
 self-government as the basis of political constitutions. 
 The other is the disintegration of Christendom from 
 one into many communions. As long as the Church 
 at large, or the Church within the limits of the nation, 
 is substantially one, I do not see why the religious 
 care of the subject, through a body properly consti- 
 tuted for the purpose, should cease to be a function 
 of the State, with the whole action and life of which 
 it has, throughout Europe, been so long and so closely 
 associated. As long as the State holds, by descent, 
 by the intellectual superiority of the governing 
 classes, and by the good will of the people, a position 
 of original and underived authority, there is no abso- 
 lute impropriety, but the reverse, in its commending 
 to the nation the greatest of all boons. But when, 
 either by some Eevolution of institutions from their 
 summit to their base, or by a silent and surer process, 
 analogous to that which incessantly removes and 
 replaces the constituent parts of the human body, 
 the State has come to be the organ of the deliberate 
 and ascertained will of the community, expressed 
 through legal channels then the inculcation of a 
 religion can no longer rest, in full or permanent 
 force, upon its authority. When, in addition to this, 
 the community itself is split and severed into opinions 
 and communions, which, whatever their concurrence 
 in the basis of Christian belief, are hostile in regard 
 to the point at issue, so that what was meant for the 
 nation dwindles into the private estate as it were of 
 
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 61 
 
 a comparative handful the attempt to maintain an 
 Established Church becomes an error fatal to the 
 peace, dangerous perhaps even to the life, of civil 
 society. Such a Church then becomes (to use a 
 figure I think of John Foster's), no longer the temple, 
 but the mere cemetery, of a great idea. Such a 
 policy is then not simply an attempt to treat what is 
 superannuated and imbecile as if it were full of life 
 and vigour, but to thwart the regular and normal 
 action of the ruling social forces, to force them from 
 their proper channels, and to turn them by artificial 
 contrivance, as Apollo turned the rivers of Troas 
 from their beds, to a purpose of our own. This is to 
 set caprice against nature ; and the end must be that, 
 with more or less of delay, more or less of struggle 
 or convulsion, nature will get the better of caprice. 
 
 But does it follow from all this, that the tone of 
 moral action in the State should be lowered ? Such 
 a fear is what perplexes serious and sober men, who 
 are laudably unwilling to surrender, in a world where 
 falsehood has so wide a range, any portion of this 
 vantage-ground of truth and right. I, who may 
 have helped to mislead them by an over-hasty gene- 
 ralisation, would now submit what seems to me calcu- 
 lated to re-assure the mind. I make an appeal to the 
 history of the last thirty years. During those years, 
 what may be called the dogmatic allegiance of the 
 State to religion has been greatly relaxed ; but its 
 consciousness of moral duty has been not less notably 
 quickened and enhanced. I do not say this in de- 
 preciation of Christian dogma. But we are still a 
 Christian people. Christianity has wrought itself 
 into the public life of fifteen hundred years. Precious 
 
62 A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 truths, and laws of relative right and the brotherhood 
 of man, such as the wisdom of heathenism scarcely 
 dreamed of and could never firmly grasp, the Gospel has 
 made to be part of our common inheritance, common as 
 the sunlight that warms us, and as the air we breathe. 
 Sharp though our divisions in belief may be, they 
 have not cut so deep as to prevent, or as perceptibly 
 to impair, the recognition of these great guides and 
 fences of moral action. It is far better for us to trust 
 to the operation of these our common principles and 
 feelings, and to serve our Maker together in that 
 wherein we are at one, rather than in aiming at a 
 standard theoretically higher, to set out with a breach 
 of the great commandment, which forms the ground- 
 work of all relative duties, and to refuse to do as we 
 would be done by. 
 
 It is, then, by a practical rather than a theoretic 
 test that our Establishments of religion should be 
 tried. In applying this practical test, we must be 
 careful to do it with those allowances, which are as 
 necessary for the reasoner in moral subjects, as it is 
 for the reasoner in mechanics to allow for friction or 
 for the resistance of the air. An Establishment that 
 does its work in much, and has the hope and likeli- 
 hood of doing it in more : an Establishment that has 
 a broad and living way open to it, into the hearts of 
 the people : an Establishment that can commend the 
 services of the present by the recollections and tra- 
 ditions of a far-reaching past : an Establishment able 
 to appeal to the active zeal of the greater portion of 
 the people, and to the respect or scruples of almost 
 the whole, whose children dwell chiefly on her actual 
 living work and service, and whose adversaries, if she 
 
A CHAPTER OP AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 63 
 
 has them, are in the main content to believe that 
 there will be a future for them and their opinions : 
 such an Establishment should surely be maintained. 
 But an Establishment that neither does, nor has her 
 hope of doing, work, except for a few, and those few 
 the portion of the community whose claim to public 
 aid is the smallest of all : an Establishment severed 
 from the mass of the people by an impassable gulph, 
 and by a wall of brass : an Establishment whose good 
 offices, could she offer them, would be intercepted by 
 a long unbroken chain of painful and shameful recol- 
 lections : an Establishment leaning for support upon 
 the extraneous aid of a State, which becomes dis- 
 credited with the people by the very act of lending 
 it : such an Establishment will do well for its own' 
 sake, and for the sake of its creed, to divest itself, as 
 soon as may be, of gauds and trappings, and to com- 
 mence a new career, in which, renouncing at once the 
 credit and the discredit of the civil sanction, it shall 
 seek its strength from within, and put a fearless 
 trust in the message that it bears. 
 
 September 22, 1868. 
 
 LONDON: PRINTED BY w. CLOWES AND SONS, DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STRKF.T, 
 
 AND CHAKING CROSS. 
 
[Authentic Report .] 
 
 AD D EE S S 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 LIVERPOOL COLLEGE, 
 
 DEC R - 21, 1872. 
 
 BY THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, 
 
 FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 1873. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRIHTED BT WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, 
 AND CHASING 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1 
 
 ADDRESS EELIGIOUS BASIS OF THE COLLEGE . . . . . . 5 
 
 NATURE OF THE "HIGHER EDUCATION" .. .. .. 10 
 
 ENGLISH UNIVERSITY AND PUBLIC-SCHOOL TRAINING .. .. 12 
 
 SPIRIT IN WHICH EDUCATION is PURSUED IN ENGLAND .. 14 
 
 EXAMINATIONS, HONOURS, AND PRIZES .. .. .. ..16 
 
 GROWTH OF LIVERPOOL .. .. .. .. .. ..17 
 
 UNION OF COMMERCE AND CULTURE .. .. .. ..19 
 
 EECENT MANIFESTATIONS OF UNBELIEF .. .. .. 22 
 
 THE LATEST WORK OF DR. STRAUSS .. .. .. ..23 
 
 SUGGESTIONS ON "FREE THOUGHT" .. .. .. ..26 
 
 ON " THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE AGE " . . . . ib. 
 
 ON THE DIVISIONS AMONG CHRISTIANS .. .. .. 27 
 
 ON RESPONSIBILITY FOR BELIEF .. .. .. ..28 
 
 SPEECH ON VOTE OF THANKS .. .. .. .. ..29 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES 33 
 
 A 2 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IN taking so grave a step as to animadvert strongly on the 
 published opinions of men of eminence and character, I 
 think it my duty to show, by a few citations of their own 
 words, where the original is English, and in the case of 
 Dr. Strauss, by a few translated extracts, that I do not deal 
 in merely vague accusations, and that I have not overstated 
 the gravity of the case. 
 
 And by way of commencement, in order to show the 
 change in the tone of the public, or the speculative mind 
 during the last forty years, and to supply a measure of the 
 distance over or down which we have travelled within that 
 period, I will quote a passage from a competent and well- 
 informed writer. In the ' Christian Advocate's ' publication 
 for 1829, Mr. Hugh James Kose, who then held the office at 
 Cambridge, when giving his reason for a partial deviation 
 from the usual course in the choice of his subject, observes 
 as follows : 
 
 " As far as I have been able to collect, no persons have 
 stood forward, very recently, as the avowed opponents of 
 Christianity, whose characters or whose works give them any 
 claim to consideration or reply." * 
 
 Dr. Whe well's Bridg water Treatise on Astronomy and 
 Physics was published in 1834 ; and the whole of that series, 
 given to the world about the same date, seemed to be a public 
 proclamation of the established harmony between Science 
 and Eeligion. 
 
 * Advertisement to Rose's 'Christianity Always Progressive' (London 
 1829). 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Neither of the Universities had, as far as I know, been 
 disturbed for a great length of time by any controversy 
 affecting the foundations of belief. Dean Milman's * History 
 of the Jews/ which appeared about 1830, was attacked with 
 severity, perhaps almost ferocity, by Dr. Faussett, then the 
 Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford. The same work was 
 republished, with a preface fully maintaining its propositions, 
 in 1863. Those, who read it now, will find some assistance 
 towards estimating the change in our position, from observing 
 the slightness of the cause which then sufficed to produce 
 an excitement not inconsiderable. 
 
 I must add that for twenty years, or thereabouts, from 
 that time, according to my observation, belief was every- 
 where, to all appearance, progressively extended and con- 
 firmed. Perhaps the first note of the coming assault was 
 the publication of the work entitled * Vestiges of Creation.' 
 It obtained a wide circulation ; but in general society it was 
 almost universally condemned. I here purposely confine 
 my references to the works of men anonymous or dead. The 
 difference of times became observable, when the fatalistic 
 book of Mr. Buckle, notwithstanding its ungainly form and 
 the portentous width of its plan, became a favourite even 
 in drawing-rooms and in boudoirs. But the spirit of class 
 with us enters into these matters among others ; and while 
 unbelief well printed, well bound, and well ushered into the 
 world in a word, unbelief in broadcloth seems to be held 
 perfectly " respectable," unbelief in fustian is still almost 
 savagely condemned. 
 
 I wish to add that the aim of my Address is not to 
 preach pessimism, but to point to a specific evil for a specific 
 purpose. And that purpose is to warn, I will not say 
 to prepare for that is a much larger matter the minds of 
 those who heard it, against that which they cannot fail to 
 meet with, warned or unwarned. I named accordingly one 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 or two of the seductive (I am almost tempted to call them 
 cant) phrases of the day, and some of the thoroughly un- 
 sound intellectual habits which, it is strange to say, are more 
 or less tolerated among those sometimes described as the 
 thinkers of the age, sometimes by other favourite and not less 
 imposing titles. I am aware that many objections may be 
 taken to my having touched the subject. One of those I 
 should feel the most lies against the necessarily crabbed 
 and partial nature of my reference to such parts of it as I 
 have named. Besides, there are other heads which I should 
 have wished to touch, and among them the strange assump- 
 tion that, because God is infinite, the finite mind of man can 
 have no points of true contact with Him ; and the grossly 
 fallacious character (as I believe) of the assumption that not 
 only for individuals but for generations, and in the long-run 
 of human history, Christian morality, or the morality which 
 has hitherto been considered Christian, can be separated 
 from Christian dogma, and can permanently survive its 
 abandonment. 
 
 I wish to place on record my conviction that belief cannot 
 now be defended by reticence, any more than by railing, or 
 by any privileges and assumptions. Nor, again, can it be 
 defended exclusively by its " standing army " by priests and 
 ministers of religion. To them, 1 do not doubt, will fall the 
 chief share of the burden, and of the honour, and of the 
 victory. But we commit a fatal error if we allow this to 
 become a merely professional question. It is the affair 
 of all. 
 
 It is very difficult in handling such controversies to avoid 
 the tone of assumption and denunciation. I desire, there- 
 fore, once for all, to abjure all imputations against motives 
 or characters. Equal credit for the love of truth should 
 be allowed by all to all, and the endeavour made, or at 
 least intended, to unite plain speaking with personal respect. 
 
8 1NTBODUCTION. 
 
 Yet this, though an obvious is not an easy duty ; for it is 
 impossible to view certain states of mind as other than the 
 results of strong, though honest, self-delusion. 
 
 This duty of personal respect is especially due at a time, 
 when the writers against Christian belief stand in a moral 
 position so different from that of its principal French assailants 
 during the last century. The combat is not now with the 
 authors of the 'Pucelle' and the ' Confessions ;' but with men 
 who, though they believe less than Voltaire and Kousseau, 
 yet either revere or sympathise more ; who for the most 
 part seek to avoid hard language ; who commonly confess 
 not only that Christianity has done good, but even that it 
 may still confer at least some relative benefit before the day 
 of perfect preparedness for its removal shall arrive, and even 
 the most " advanced " of whom, like the author of the 
 ' Martyrdom of Man/ appears to be touched by a lingering 
 sentiment of tenderness, while he blows his trumpet for a 
 final assault at once upon the " Syrian superstition," and on 
 the poor, pale, and semi-animate substitutes for it, which 
 Deism has devised. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 [Two passages enclosed within brackets were omitted in the delivery 
 on account of time.~\ 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, AND MY YOUNGER 
 FRIENDS ; 
 
 Thirty years have passed away since, in consequence 
 of the accidental disability of a worthier person, I was called 
 upon to deliver the Inaugural Address at the opening of 
 this Institution. In other words, the College has now lived 
 through one generation of men. 
 
 At the close of such a term, we may suitably look back, to 
 ascertain how far it has fulfilled or disappointed the ex- 
 pectations of its founders. And first I will refer to the hope 
 they entertained, that they would be able to secure for the 
 government of the Institution the services of a series of 
 learned, able, and earnest men. This expectation, I venture 
 to say, has been amply realised in the persons of Mr. 
 Conybeare, of your old friend now present, Dean Howson, 
 and of Mr. Butler. 
 
 Further, it was to be an institution having religion for 
 its centre and its base ; and that religion was to be the 
 religion of the Church of England. That the national 
 Church is not in less esteem now than it was then with 
 the nation, the immense increase, alike of her fabrics 
 and her ministrations, may sufficiently show. That those 
 who guide the fortunes of this College do not desire to 
 change the ground they have occupied from the first, can 
 
10 ADDRESS. 
 
 need no proof on an occasion, when I know from the Prin- 
 cipal how much it is desired by them to erect a Chapel 
 within the precincts, in order to the more solemn and 
 effectual celebration of the offices of religion. 
 
 But it was also a part of the design, that with religious 
 teaching should be combined the practice of religious 
 liberty; that no compulsory lessons or observances should 
 be imposed, to hinder the enjoyment by the entire youth 
 of Liverpool of the general advantages of the College. 
 How has this portion of the scheme been found to fare? 
 The kindness of your old, respected, and indefatigable Secre- 
 tary enables me to answer the question. From him I learn 
 that no religious difficulty has impeded the working of the 
 plan ; that among the pupils of the College, comprehensive 
 with respect to nationality as well as to communion, there 
 were found a short time back, upon inquiries, Unitarians, 
 Wesley ans, Baptists, Koman Catholics, members of the Greek 
 Church, Presbyterians, and Jews ; and that, of the whole 
 number of pupils in the three schools of the College, not 
 less than one-fourth were of religious professions distinct 
 from our own. 
 
 Nor have the promoters of the College been disappointed 
 in their hope to furnish the people of Liverpool with easy 
 access to the higher forms of education at their own doors, 
 and to strengthen and enlarge their connection with the 
 old Universities of the land. The seven hundred pupils 
 on its books afford ample proof of the favour of the com- 
 munity; and the number of able men whom it has sent 
 to those Universities indicates the wish of Liverpool to 
 secure for its sons the advantages of what has been com- 
 monly termed the higher education. 
 
 [There is, however, some difference among us as to the 
 question, what really is the higher education? There 
 are those who think not only that our old methods of 
 
ADDRESS. 11 
 
 training the young were too exclusive, but that they were 
 fundamentally bad ; who would supplant entirely, or expel 
 from the first place in education, the study of man in its 
 various branches, and would substitute for it the study of 
 Nature as it exists otherwise than in man : and again who, 
 in so much as they would admit of the human studies into 
 the course of education, would put aside the ancient for 
 the modern, whether in philosophy, history, or language. 
 The great faults, as I believe, of the ancient educational 
 studies of this country were first, that they were too 
 narrow ; and secondly, that they were too uniform, and did 
 not take heed enough of varieties both of condition and 
 of mind. The consequence was, in the very best men, fre- 
 quent ignorance of what every cultivated person ought to 
 know ; and in all who were unequal to the favoured studies, 
 or whose turn lay in another direction, a great waste of 
 time with little fruit, if not even a confirmed habit of idle- 
 ness. Therefore it is to be admitted that much wrong was 
 done to the natural sciences. But that wrong is not to be 
 redressed by giving them prospectively more than their due. 
 Such notwithstanding appears to be the desire of some of 
 their professors ; and it has been indicated by a practice 
 of claiming for them, in a pre-eminent or even an exclusive 
 sense, the name of science. So that a man who observes 
 and reasons upon plants or animals, the constituent parts of 
 the globe, or of the celestial system, is a man of science ; 
 but to observe and reason upon history, upon philosophy 
 in its older sense, or upon theology, establishes no such 
 title, though the very same process of collecting and digest- 
 ing facts, and of drawing inferences from them, is pursued 
 in the one case and in the other ; and though it seems suffi- 
 ciently absurd to hold that there is a science of the human 
 body, but that there can be no science of the mind or soul. 
 This can surely be no better than a mere fashion of the 
 
12 ADDRESS. 
 
 hour, and with the hour it must pass away. It is the in- 
 cidental excess of a reforming movement, and we may 
 hope that while the excess will disappear the reform will 
 remain. Were it, from a mere caprice, to harden into an 
 accepted doctrine, I see not in what it could end, except in 
 a pure materialism.] 
 
 But, gentlemen, while freely admitting that what may be 
 termed utilitarian studies were in my early days too much 
 overlooked, that the knowledge of the material universe was 
 sadly neglected, that to many minds only such food was 
 offered as they were wholly unable to digest, and that the 
 upshot was a lamentable waste of power, I claim for the old 
 method of our public schools and colleges that it had merits 
 and advantages, for the loss of which no parade of univer- 
 sality, no increase of mere information, could possibly com- 
 pensate. It taught with that rigid accuracy, which is the 
 foundation of all really solid learning. It held thoroughness 
 in a few things to be better than show in many. It en- 
 throned in the seat of honour the most masculine studies. 
 I have now passed forty years of life upon an arena of com- 
 petition as sharp as is to be found anywhere in the world, 
 I have seen all forms of training, practical as well as other, 
 pretty fairly matched with one another; and all descrip- 
 tions of men, with every variety of natural gifts, bringing up 
 as it were the results of their various modes of education 
 to be tested. The best mode has to struggle with the 
 defects of nature, and the worst will not wholly neutralise 
 her bounties. Here and there, again, you may find a man 
 whose self-training power can dispense with all appliances 
 from without. But these are rare instances indeed. 
 
 "Pauci, . . . 
 Dis geniti, potuere." * 
 
 * Virg. ^n. vi. 120. 
 
ADDRESS. 13 
 
 I speak, however, not of the one but of the million ; and, 
 as among the million, I affirm that there is no training for 
 the conflicts and the toils of life, so far as I have seen, which 
 does greater justice to the receiver of it than the old train- 
 ing of the English public schools and universities. I speak 
 of my own experience and observation, in the sphere in which 
 I have lived \ but probably there are few spheres, though 
 I will not say there are none, in which the whole making 
 of a man is more severely tried. And that my testimony, 
 which is of course limited, may at least be definite, I will 
 add that I speak of such training as it was at Oxford, more, 
 I am sorry to say, than forty years ago. 
 
 All this must be a paradox and a stumbling-block to 
 such as think, that the sole or main purpose of education 
 is to stock the mind with knowledge as a shop is stocked 
 with goods, and that the wants of life are to be met like 
 the wants of customers. And doubtless one of the purposes 
 of education is thus to furnish materials for future employ- 
 ment; but this is its lower, not its higher purpose. The 
 shop takes no benefit, though it may take damage, from 
 the wares which it receives ; but the greatest and best use 
 of the information, which is imported into the mind, is to 
 improve the mind itself. A more instructive comparison 
 may be drawn between education and food. As the main 
 purpose of food is to make the body strong and active, so the 
 main purpose of education is to make the mind solid, elastic, 
 and capable of enduring wear and tear. The studies which 
 are most useful, so far as utility is external to the mind, 
 though they are on that account the most popular, and 
 though they are indispensable, such, I mean, as reading, 
 writing, arithmetic, modern languages, or geography, are 
 those which do, not most but least, for our intellectual and 
 moral training. The studies which have it for their main 
 object to act on the composition and capacity of the man, 
 
14 ADDRESS. 
 
 will, to snch as follow them with their whole heart, be found 
 to yield a richer harvest, though the seed may be longer in 
 the ground. Yet I fully admit that the test of a good 
 education is neither abstract nor inflexible. Such an educa- 
 tion must take account both of the capacity of the pupil and 
 of the possibilities of his future calling. All I would plead 
 for is, that where there is a choice, the highest shall be 
 preferred. In the words of our most famous living poet 
 
 " It was our duty to have loved the highest ; " * 
 
 And our duty it must ever remain. 
 
 In this institution I trust the prerogatives of " the highest " 
 will always be admitted ; and around it there will be mar- 
 shalled, each in its due order and degree, the numerous and 
 ever multiplying studies, of which every one has an un- 
 doubted title to honour in its tendency to embellish or 
 improve the life of man. 
 
 But indeed there is much to be said and done about 
 education, besides determining the relative claims, or, as it 
 would now be called, the due co-ordination, of the different 
 kinds of knowledge. Quite apart from these claims, much, 
 my younger friends, and more than you can as yet perhaps 
 fully understand, depends upon the spirit in which those 
 kinds of knowledge are pursued. And this again depends, 
 not upon the incidental advantages of birth or wealth, but 
 upon ourselves. The favours of fortune have both their 
 value and their charm ; but there is in a man himself, if 
 he will but open out and cultivate his manhood, that which 
 will be found amply sufficient to supply their place. 
 
 Now, as to this important subject, the spirit in which we 
 pursue education, the degree in which we turn our advantages 
 to account, I must say of us here in England that we do not 
 
 * Tennyson's 'Guinevere.' 
 
ADDRESS. 15 
 
 stand well. Our old Universities, and the schools above the 
 rank of primary, have as a class the most magnificent endow- 
 ments in the world. I am well aware that this institution is 
 far indeed from being open to such a reproach. It may, 
 however, be doubted whether the amount of these endow- 
 ments, in England alone, is not equal to their amount on 
 the whole continent of Europe taken together. Matters 
 have mended, and are, I hope, mending. We have good and 
 thorough workers, but not enough of them. The results 
 may be good as far as they go ; but they do not go far. But 
 in truth this " beggarly return," not of empty but of ill-filled 
 boxes, is but one among many indications of a wide-spread 
 vice ; a scepticism in the public mind, of old as well as young, 
 respecting the value of learning and of culture, and a conse- 
 quent slackness in seeking their attainment. We seem to 
 be spoiled by the very facility and abundance of the oppor- 
 tunities around us. We do not in this matter stand well, 
 as compared with the men of the middle ages, on whom we 
 are too ready to look down. For then, when scholarships 
 and exhibitions, and fellowships and headships, were few, 
 and even before they were known, and long centuries before 
 triposes and classes had been invented, the beauty and the 
 power of Knowledge filled the hearts of men with love, and 
 they went in quest of her, even from distant lands, with 
 ardent devotion, like pilgrims to a favoured shrine. 
 
 Again, we do not stand well as compared with Scotland, 
 where, at least, the advantages of education are well under- 
 stood, and though its honours and rewards are much fewer, 
 yet self-denying labour, and unsparing energy in pursuit 
 of knowledge, are far more common than with us. And 
 once more, we do not stand well as compared with Germany ; 
 where, with means so much more slender as to be quite out 
 of comparison with ours, the results are so much more 
 abundant, that, in the ulterior prosecution of almost every 
 
16 ADDRESS. 
 
 branch of inquiry, it is to Germany, and the works of the 
 Germans, that the British student must look for assistance. 
 Yet I doubt if it can be said with truth that the German is 
 superior to the Englishman in natural gifts ; or that he has 
 greater or even equal perseverance, provided only the English- 
 man had his heart in the matter. But Germany has two 
 marked advantages : a far greater number of her educated 
 class are really in earnest about their education ; and they 
 have not yet learned, as we, I fear, have learned, to under- 
 value, or even in a great measure to despise, simplicity of 
 life. 
 
 Our honours, and our prizes, and our competitive exami- 
 nations, what for the most part are they, but palliatives 
 applied to neutralise a degenerate indifference, to the 
 existence of which they have been the most conclusive wit- 
 ness ? Far be it from me to decry them, or to seek to do 
 away with them. In my own sphere, I have laboured to ex- 
 tend them. They are, however, the medicines of our infirmity, 
 not the ornaments of our health. They supply from without 
 inducements to seek knowledge, which ought to be its own 
 reward. They do something to expel the corroding pest of 
 idleness, that special temptation to a wealthy country, that 
 deadly enemy in all countries to the body and the soul of 
 man. They get us over the first and most difficult stages 
 in the formation of habits, which, in a proportion of cases at 
 least, we may hope will endure, and become in course of time 
 self-acting. 
 
 One other claim I must make on behalf of examinations. 
 It is easy to point out their inherent imperfections. Plenty 
 of critics are ready to do this ; for in the case of first employ- 
 ments under the State, they are the only tolerably efficient 
 safeguard against gross abuses, and such abuses are never with- 
 out friends. But from really searching and strong examina- 
 tions, such as the best of those in our Universities and schools, 
 
ADDRESS. 17 
 
 there arises at least one great mental benefit, difficult of 
 attainment by any other means. In early youth, while the 
 mind is still naturally supple and elastic, they teach the 
 practice, and they give the power, of concentrating all its 
 force, all its resources, at a given time, upon a given point. 
 What a pitched battle is to the commander of an army, a 
 strong examination is to an earnest student. All his faculties, 
 all his attainments must be on the alert, and wait the word 
 of command ; method is tested at the same time with strength ; 
 and over the whole movement presence of mind must preside. 
 If, in the course of his after life, he chances to be called to 
 great and concentrated efforts, he will look back with grati- 
 tude to those examinations, which more perhaps than any 
 other instrument may have taught him how to make them. 
 
 General remissness, gentlemen, is not the besetting sin of 
 our great town communities ; least among them all of Liver- 
 pool. Nowhere is the pedestrian's pace more rapid than in 
 her streets; nowhere is his countenance more charged with 
 purpose. We live, gentlemen, in a wealth-making age. It 
 may surprise you to hear, but I believe it to be unquestionably 
 true, that more wealth has, in this little island of ours, been 
 accumulated since the commencement of the present century 
 that is, within the lifetime of many who are still among us 
 than in all the preceding ages from the time, say, of Julius 
 Caesar ; or any other more remote date you please. And, 
 again, at least as much of this wealth has been stored within 
 the last twenty years, as in the preceding fifty. Liverpool 
 has had even more than her share in this great, this almost 
 portentous activity. Since I knew her, she has scooped four 
 miles of solitary shore into teeming docks ; and I am now 
 told she is about to add other miles to these. Fed by the 
 mere overflow of her wealth and energy, the little hamlets 
 that faced her in Cheshire have grown into great and vigorous 
 town districts, larger, I believe, in population than she her- 
 
 B 
 
18 ADDRESS. 
 
 self was at the commencement of the century. Her opulence, 
 I think, has grown in still greater proportion than her 
 numbers. If we ask, Where is this to end ? when will this 
 marvellous process be arrested ? when will this great flood- 
 tide begin to ebb ? I, for one, know not ; I am by no means 
 sure that we are as yet even near high-water. But with the 
 impetuosity of this galloping career, with the wonderful 
 development of such arts of life as bear directly upon enjoy- 
 ment, there grows up continually a correlative amount of 
 dangers and temptations. 
 
 " The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers." * 
 
 So it is. The world, in truth, becomes more worldly. 
 It ties us down to earth by more and stronger cords, and to 
 break them requires bolder and more assiduous effort. If 
 we wish to secure our freedom against the perils that environ 
 it, this is not to be done by renouncing business, or by abating 
 energy in its pursuit ; it is by balancing that activity with 
 other activities. Yes, it may be replied, we ought to live in 
 the world unseen, as well as in the world we see. And that 
 is doubtless true ; and for many, whose opportunities are 
 small, it is sufficient ; but for this great community, whose 
 opportunities are large, though true, it is not the whole 
 truth. The entire nature of man is the garden, which is 
 given him to cultivate. We cannot, as a nation or as indi- 
 viduals, be well if we do not provide for the soul as well 
 as the body. But neither can we be well if we do not, 
 according to our means, provide for the mind as well as the 
 soul. That is the principle enshrined and represented in 
 this institution, as it is in every ancient university and 
 college, and as it must be in every institution which aspires 
 
 * Wordsworth's Miscellaneous Sonnets,' No. 33. 
 
ADDRESS. 19 
 
 to superintend anything that deserves the name of the 
 higher education. 
 
 And why should not Liverpool, why should not commerce, 
 afford a field favourable to art, literature, and science, as 
 much as to philanthropy and religion ? Half a century ago, 
 the name of this town stood high with respect to mental 
 cultivation. There is nothing in the pursuit of the merchant 
 that ought to preclude the pursuit of mental refinement. 
 The day's work is not so long, nor the anxiety so constant, 
 as to wear out the whole stock of energy that a vigorous 
 English nature can command. In Greece, the State which 
 took its place at the head of literature and philosophy and 
 art was noted for its encouragement of trade. " The best 
 products of Sicily and Italy, of Cyprus and Egypt, of Lydia 
 and Pontus, and every other country, flowed," says Xeno- 
 phon,* " into the markets of Athens, which ruled the sea." 
 " Hither," says Thucydides,| " come a the products of all the 
 earth ; " and Pericles and Alcibiades J were not ashamed of 
 superintending extensive manufactories which they owned. 
 
 In Florence, the true Athens of modern times, many of 
 the nobles were among the most conspicuous merchants. 
 And when Holland took the place of Italy at the head of the 
 commerce of Europe, Art and Science walked in the noble 
 train of Liberty, and the University of Leyden, founded in 
 memory of the heroic efforts of the citizens, took its place, 
 even in that little country, among the very foremost of the 
 universities of Christendom. || We now speak with deserved 
 respect and gratitude of the learned labours of Germany : 
 but those who observe the German names, and the German 
 
 * Xenophon, ' De Eep. Ath.' ii. 7. f Thuc. ii. 38. 
 
 $ Boeckh, * Public Economy of Athens,' ii. 63 (Trans. London, 1828). 
 See also St. John, ' Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece,' iii. 276. 
 Hallam's ' Middle Ages ' (8th edit.), vol. i. p. 285. 
 || Motley's c United Netherlands,' vol. iv. ch. liii. p. 526, ed. 1869. 
 
 B 2 
 
20 ADDRESS. 
 
 firms, which have established themselves in the commercial 
 communities of England, will readily understand that no 
 country is making advances more marked than theirs in the 
 paths of enterprise. 
 
 If then, as I am persuaded, there are among you, my 
 younger friends, those who, though destined to the pursuits 
 which have made this great emporium famous, have in 
 tasting of the cup of knowledge acquired the desire for 
 longer and for deeper draughts ; if any of you can say with 
 Virgil of his Muses, 
 
 " Quarum sacra fero ingenti perculsus amore," * 
 
 there is no reason why he should be discouraged ; no reason 
 why he should regard the beginning of business as the end 
 of culture; but let him rather resolve that, though it be 
 but in fragments of his time, he will woo his studies with a 
 lifelong love. 
 
 And now forgive me if, using the melancholy privilege of 
 age, and addressing a few words especially to you who are 
 still so young, I seem to assume that in youth you may learn 
 more readily from others some lessons, which you would 
 acquire at greater cost and more slowly for yourselves. To 
 each and all I would say, that God has sent no one of you 
 into the world without a work ready for him to do, and facili- 
 ties wherewith to do it. What this work .is, reflection, or 
 parental guidance, or a kind of instinct, may have told you. 
 If it has not yet been discovered, you have only to follow 
 this one rule: Do your best; try to make the most of all 
 your faculties ; " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do," says 
 the wise man,| and in like manner, whatsoever thy mind 
 findeth to do, "do it with thy might." You would with 
 justice think meanly of a boy who did not at cricket, or 
 football, or any other sport, try with all his heart to win, or 
 
 * Virg. ' Georgics,' ii. 476. f Eccles. ix. 10. 
 
ADDRESS. 21 
 
 do his part towards winning. Is there not something wrong, 
 I would almost say something base, in our standard of action, 
 of which bone and muscle are thus developed, and most 
 properly developed, to the uttermost, if the mind is allowed 
 to wither and to dwindle for want of manly exercise ? 
 
 You, who have successfully shown your disposition to excel, 
 I congratulate you on your success. But that success would 
 be a misfortune and a snare to you, if you rested in it ; if, 
 to use a homely expression, you went to sleep upon it. It 
 is like the meal which the traveller enjoys upon his way, but 
 the purpose of which is to strengthen him for his further 
 journey. The prize is good, but the efforts which are made 
 to gain the prize are far better. What is most valuable in 
 these competitions, then, the defeated share with the con- 
 querors, nay further yet, one defeated after a hard and 
 bracing struggle gains more in the true work of education, 
 the strengthening of his mind, than some easy winner who 
 canters in without serious exertion. And such defeat, in a 
 mind of true British temper, only strengthens the resolution, 
 which never in the long-run fails, to try yet more manfully 
 next time. 
 
 For, do what you will, your life, because it is a human 
 life, will be, and that in many ways, a trial. 
 
 " So it is willed above, where will is power." * 
 
 And this world-old truth seems, as the world grows older, 
 to grow more vividly and pointedly true, with the ever- 
 growing strain and noise, and haste and waste, of life; a 
 trial which cannot be escaped by flying from it, but which 
 may be conquered by facing it. 
 
 On an occasion like this, I should not have desired, even 
 before those of you, my younger friends, who are on the very 
 threshold of active and responsible manhood, to dwell in a 
 
 * From Dante, ' Inferno,' iii. 95. 
 
22 ADDRESS. 
 
 marked manner on the particular trials you will have to 
 encounter. But the incidents of the time are no common 
 incidents; and there is one among them so obtrusive, that 
 youth cannot long enjoy its natural privilege of unacquaint- 
 ance with the mischief, and so formidable, that it really 
 requires to be forewarned against the danger. I refer to the 
 extraordinary and boastful manifestation, in this age of ours, 
 and especially perhaps in the year which is about to close, 
 of the extremest forms of unbelief. 
 
 I am not about to touch upon the differences which dis- 
 tinguish, and partially sever, the Church of England from 
 those communions by which it is surrounded ; whether they 
 be of Protestant Nonconformists, or of those who have 
 recently incorporated into the Christian faith what we must 
 suppose they think a bulwark and not a danger to religion, 
 the doctrine of Papal infallibility. For handling contro- 
 versies of such a class this is not the time, I am not the 
 person, and my office is not the proper office. It is not now 
 only the Christian Church, or only the Holy Scripture, or 
 only Christianity, which is attacked. The disposition is 
 boldly proclaimed to deal alike with root and branch, and to 
 snap utterly the ties which, under the still venerable name 
 of Eeligion, unite man with the unseen world, and lighten the 
 struggles and the woes of life by the hope of a better land. 
 
 [These things are done as the professed results, and the 
 newest triumphs, of Modern Thought and Modern Science ; 
 but I believe that neither Science nor Thought is responsible, 
 any more than Liberty is responsible, for the misdeeds com- 
 mitted in their names. Upon the ground of what is termed 
 evolution, God is relieved of the labour of creation ; in the 
 name of unchangeable laws, He is discharged from governing 
 the world ; and His function of judgment is also dispensed 
 with, as justice and benevolence are held to forbid that men 
 should hereafter be called to strict account for actions, 
 
ADDRESS. 23 
 
 which under these unchangeable laws they may have com- 
 mitted. But these are only the initial stages of the process. 
 Next, we are introduced to the doctrine of the Absolute and 
 the Unconditioned ; and, under the authority of these phrases 
 (to which, and many other phrases, in their proper places, 
 I have no objection) we are instructed that we can know 
 nothing about God, and therefore can have no practical rela- 
 tions with Him. One writer, or, as it is now termed thinker, 
 announces with pleasure that he has found the means of 
 reconciling Eeligion and Science. The mode is in principle 
 most equitable. He divides the field of thought between 
 them. To Science he awards all that of which we know, or 
 may know, something; to Religion he leaves a far wider 
 domain, that of which we know, and can know, nothing.* 
 This sounds like jest, but it is melancholy earnest ; and I 
 doubt whether any such noxious crop has been gathered in 
 such rank abundance from the press of England in any former 
 year of our literary history as in this present year of our 
 redemption, eighteen hundred and seventy-two.] 
 
 I will not, on this occasion, pain and weary you with a 
 multitude of details. I will only refer by name to one who 
 is not a British writer to the learned German, Dr. Strauss. 
 He is a man of far wider fame than any British writer who 
 marches under the same banner ; and I mention him with 
 the respect which is justly due, not only to his ability, but 
 to the straightforward earnestness, and to the fairness and 
 mildness towards antagonists in argument, with which, so far 
 as I have had the opportunity of judging him from his 
 present or former works, he pursues his ill-starred and hope- 
 less enterprise. 
 
 He has published, during the present year, a volume 
 entitled The Old Belief and the New.' t In his Intro- 
 
 * See Illustrative Passages, A. 
 
 f * Der alte und der neue Glaube : ein Bekenntniss.' Yon David Friedrich 
 Strauss. 2te Auflage. Leipzig, 1872. 
 
24 ADDRESS. 
 
 duction, he frankly raises the question whether, considering 
 the progress which culture has now made, there is any 
 longer occasion to maintain religious worship * in any form 
 whatever. Why, he asks, on behalf of a party in Germany, 
 for which he speaks, and for which he claims that it answers 
 most fully to the state of Modern Thought, should there be 
 a separate religious society at all, when we have already 
 provision made for all men in the State, the School, Science, 
 and Fine Art ? In his First Chapter he puts the question, 
 " Are we still Christians ? " t and, after a detailed examina- 
 tion, he concludes, always speaking on behalf of Modern 
 Thought, that if we wish our yea to be yea and our nay 
 nay, if we are to think and speak our thoughts as honour- 
 able upright men, we must reply that we are Christians no 
 longer.! This question and answer, however, he observes 
 are insufficient. The essential and fundamental inquiry is, 
 whether we are or are not still to have a Keligion ? 
 
 To this inquiry he devotes his Second Chapter. In this 
 Second Chapter, he finds that there is no personal God ; || 
 there is no future state : the dead live in the recollection 
 of survivors : this is enough for them.^l After this he has 
 little difficulty in answering the question he has put. All 
 religious worship ought to be abolished.** The very name 
 of " Divine Service " is an indignity to man. Therefore, in 
 the sense in which religion has been heretofore understood, 
 his answer is that we ought to have no religion any more. 
 But proceeding, as he always does, with commendable frank- 
 ness, he admits that he ought to fill with something the void 
 which he has made. This he accordingly proceeds to do. 
 Instead of God, he offers to us the All, or Universum.tt This 
 All or Universum possesses, he tells us, neither consciousness 
 
 * P. 7. f P. 12 and chap. i. J P. 94. 
 
 Chap. ii. p. 95. f| See Illustrative Passages, B. 
 
 f P. 372. ** P. 144. ft P. 146, 
 
ADDRESS. 25 
 
 nor reason. But it presents to us order and law. He thinks it 
 fitted, therefore, to be the object of a new and true piety, which 
 he claims for his Universurn, as the devout of the old style 
 did for their God. If any one repudiates this doctrine, to 
 Dr. Strauss's reason, the repudiation is absurdity, and to his 
 feelings blasphemy.* 
 
 These are not the ravings of a maniac ; nor are they the 
 mere dreams of an imaginative high-wrought enthusiast 
 such as Comtef appears to have been ; they are the grave 
 conclusions, after elaborate reasoning, of a learned, a calm, 
 and, so far as form is concerned, a sober-minded man, who 
 in this very year has been commended to us, in England, 
 by another Apostle of Modern Thought as one of the men to 
 whose guidance we ought, if we are wise, to submit ourselves 
 in matter of religious belief.^ 
 
 I would not, gentlemen, even if I had the capacity 
 and the time, make an attempt from this place to confute 
 these astonishing assertions; for I have no fear that by 
 their exhibition they will beguile or attract you. Neither 
 do I search for the hard names of controversy to describe 
 them; for they best describe themselves. Neither can I 
 profess to feel an unmixed regret at their being forced, 
 thus eagerly and thus early, into notice ; because it is to 
 be hoped that they will cause a shock and a reaction, and 
 will compel many, who may have too lightly valued the 
 inheritance so dearly bought for them, and may have 
 entered upon dangerous paths, to consider, while there is 
 yet time, whither those paths will lead them. In no part of 
 his writings, perhaps, has Strauss been so effective, as where 
 he assails the inconsistency of those who adopt his premises, 
 but decline to follow him to their conclusions. Suffice it 
 
 * P. 146. t Illustrative Passages, C. 
 
 J Willis's ' Life of Spinoza,' p. 26, note. See Illustrative Passages, D. 
 
26 ADDRESS. 
 
 to say, these opinions are by no means a merely German 
 brood ; * there are many writers of kindred sympathies in 
 England, and some of as outspoken courage. But, in pre- 
 paring yourselves for the combat of life, I beg you to take 
 this also into your account, that the spirit of denial is abroad, 
 and that it has challenged all Keligion, but especially the 
 Keligion we profess, to the combat of life and death. 
 
 But I venture to offer you a few suggestions, in the hope 
 that they may not be wholly without their use. 
 
 You will hear in your after-life much of the duty and 
 delight of following free thought ; and in truth the man, 
 who does not value the freedom of his thoughts, deserves 
 to be described as Homer describes the slave; he is but 
 half a man.f Saint Paul, I suppose, was a teacher of free 
 thought, when he bade his converts to prove all things ; J 
 but it seems he went terribly astray when he proceeded to 
 bid them " hold fast that which is good ; " for he evidently 
 assumed that there was something by which they could 
 hold fast. And so he bade Timothy keep that which was 
 committed to his charge ; and another Apostle has in- 
 structed us to " earnestly contend for the faith which was 
 once delivered unto the saints." || But the free thought, 
 of which we now hear so much, seems too often to mean 
 thought roving and vagrant more than free; like Delos, 
 in the ancient legend, drifting on the seas of Greece, without 
 a root, a direction, or a home. 
 
 Again, you will hear incessantly of the advancement of 
 the present age, and of the backwardness of those which 
 have gone before it. And truly it has been a wonderful 
 age ; but let us not exaggerate. It has been, and it is, an 
 age of immense mental, as well as material activity ; it 
 
 See Illustrative Passages, E. f Odyss. x. 322. J 1 Thess. v. 21. 
 1 Tim. vi. 20. || Jude 3. 
 
ADDRESS. 27 
 
 is by no means an age abounding in minds of the first 
 order, in those whom time establishes as the great immortal 
 guides and teachers of mankind. It has tapped, as it were, 
 and made disposable for man, vast natural forces ; but the 
 mental power employed is not to be measured by the 
 mere size of the results. To perfect that wonder of travel, 
 the locomotive, has perhaps not required the expenditure 
 of more mental strength and application, than to perfect that 
 wonder of music, the violin. In the material sphere, the 
 achievements of the age are splendid and unmixed. In the 
 social sphere, they are great and noble ; but seem ever to be 
 confronted by a succession of new problems, which almost 
 defy solution. In the sphere of pure intellect, I doubt 
 whether posterity will rate us as highly as we rate our- 
 selves. But that which I most wish to observe is this, that 
 it is an insufferable arrogance in the men of any age to 
 assume what I may call airs of unmeasured superiority over 
 former ages. God, who cares for us, cared for them also. 
 In the goods of this world we may advance by strides ; but 
 it is by steps only and not strides, and by slow and not 
 always steady steps, that all durable improvement of man, 
 in the higher ranges of his being, is alone to be effected. 
 
 Again, my friends, you will hear much to the effect that 
 the divisions among Christians render it impossible to say 
 what Christianity is, and so destroy all certainty as to what 
 is the true religion. But if the divisions among Christians 
 are remarkable, not less so is their unity in the greatest doc- 
 trines that they hold. Well-nigh fifteen hundred years 
 years of a more sustained activity than the world had ever 
 before seen have passed away, since the great controversies 
 concerning the Deity and the Person of the Eedeemer 
 were, after a long agony, determined. As before that time 
 in a manner less defined, but adequate for their day, so ever 
 since that time, amid all chance and change, more, aye 
 
28 ADDRESS. 
 
 many more, than ninety-nine in every hundred Christians 
 have with one voice confessed the Deity and Incarnation 
 of our Lord as the cardinal and central truths of our 
 Keligion. Surely there is some comfort here, some sense 
 of brotherhood ; some glory due to the past, some hope for 
 the times that are to come. 
 
 On one, and only one, more of the favourite fallacies of 
 the day I will yet presume to touch. It is the opinion and 
 the boast of some that man is not responsible for his 
 belief. Lord Brougham was at one time stated to have 
 given utterance to this opinion. Whether truly, I do not 
 remember; but this I know, it was my privilege to hear 
 from his own lips the needful and due limitation of that 
 proposition. " Man," he said, " is not responsible to man for 
 his belief." But as before God, one and the same law 
 applies to opinions and to acts ; or rather to inward and 
 to outward acts; for opinions are inward acts. Many a 
 wrong opinion may be guiltless because formed in ignorance, 
 and because that ignorance may not be our fault. But who 
 shall presume to say that there is no mercy for wrong 
 actions also, when they, too, have been due to ignorance, 
 and that ignorance has not been guilty ? The question is 
 not whether judgments and actions are in the same degree 
 influenced by the condition of the moral motives.* It is a 
 question of the principle, on which judgment is to be based. 
 
 If it is undeniable that self-love and passion have an in- 
 fluence upon both, then, so far as that influence goes, for 
 both we must be prepared to answer. Should we, in common 
 life, ask a body of swindlers for an opinion upon swindling ? 
 or of gamblers for an opinion upon gambling ? or of misers 
 upon bounty ? And if, in matters of religion, we allow pride 
 and perverseness to raise a cloud between us and the truth 
 
 * See Illustrative Passages, F. 
 
ADDRESS. 29 
 
 so that we see it not, the false opinion that we form is but 
 the index of that perverseness and that pride, and both for 
 them, and for it as their offspring, we shall be justly held 
 responsible. Who may be the persons, upon whom this 
 responsibility will fall, it is not ours to judge. These laws 
 are given to us, not to apply presumptuously to others; 
 it is enough if we enforce them honestly against ourselves. 
 
 Next to a Christian life, my friends, you will find your 
 best defence against reckless novelty of speculation in 
 sobriety of temper, and in sound intellectual habits. Be 
 slow to stir inquiries, which you do not mean patiently 
 to pursue to their proper end. Be not afraid oftentimes to 
 suspend your judgment ; or to feel and admit to yourselves 
 how narrow are the bounds of knowledge. Do not too 
 readily assume that to us have been opened royal roads to 
 truth, which were heretofore hidden from the whole family of 
 man ; for the opening of such roads would not be so much in 
 favour, as caprice. If it is bad to yield a blind submission 
 to authority, it is not less an error to deny to it its 
 reasonable weight. Eschewing a servile adherence to the 
 past, regard it with reverence and gratitude; and accept 
 its accumulations, alike in the inward and in the outward 
 spheres, as the patrimony, which it is your part in life both 
 to preserve and to improve. 
 
 A vote of thanks to Mr. Gladstone for the Address having 
 been carried, 
 
 Mr. GLADSTONE, in reply, said : Mr. Chairman, Ladies and 
 Gentlemen, and my Friends of the College, I acknowledge 
 with sincere gratitude the thanks you have been good enough 
 to offer in a manner so pleasing to me ; and I feel that they 
 derive an additional value, not only from the kind remarks 
 of the chairman, and his reference to former times, but also 
 from the circumstance that the proposal was seconded by one 
 
30 ADDRESS. 
 
 whose name stands so high upon the roll of the benefactors 
 of this institution as our respected friend the Dean of 
 Chester. I can truly declare, gentlemen, that when the 
 Principal was good enough to propose to me that I should 
 undertake this office, I did not look upon it as a matter of 
 mere compliment or ceremony, but as one of very serious 
 duty ; and in that light it is that I have approached it, and 
 have endeavoured to perform it. Further, I must say that 
 it is always a source of pleasure to me to be called upon to 
 perform, or to feel myself able to perform which is not 
 always the case some act of public duty in Liverpool. I 
 find cause for gratification in everything which refreshes my 
 memory of the place, and strengthens my connection with it. 
 It is not unnatural that I should feel a strong interest in 
 Liverpool, where I have continually before me the recollec- 
 tion of my father, and where I also rejoice to know the 
 presence of my Brother ; nor is there any portion of the pro- 
 ceedings of this day which is more gratifying to my feelings 
 than the manner in which reference has been made to my 
 Brother, and the warmth of feeling with which that re- 
 ference has been received. I trust that the connection 
 between Liverpool and our family will long continue. Liver- 
 pool is, after all, but a very young place, when considered as 
 the seat of a great community ; but I see here some whose 
 names have been well known in its history almost ever since 
 it began to have one ; and I hope that, as time goes on, 
 Liverpool will have its old families like other places, famous 
 for commerce in other times and countries, and like other 
 districts of this country now. I know not why commerce in 
 England should not have its old families, rejoicing to be 
 connected with commerce from generation to generation. 
 It has been so in other countries : I trust it will be so in 
 this country. I think it a subject of sorrow, and almost a 
 scandal, when those families, which have either acquired or 
 
ADDRESS. 31 
 
 recovered station and opulence through commerce turn their 
 backs upon it, and seem to be ashamed of it. It certainly is 
 not so with my Brother or with me. His sons are treading 
 in his steps, and one of my sons, I rejoice to say, is treading 
 in the steps of my Father and my Brother. I hope, there- 
 fore, gentlemen, you will see that we are not unfaithful to 
 the cause, and to the place with which we have been so long 
 familiar. In the task I have discharged to-day, I have not 
 studied the arts of flattery. I have endeavoured to practise 
 that plain speaking which I know is dear to Englishmen, and 
 I trust it will be given to many of you whom I see now 
 before me upon the threshold of their life, to become an 
 ornament and an honour to this place, and to give a good 
 practical demonstration to the world that the pursuit of 
 commerce and the interests of human cultivation are not 
 alien from one another, but are, on the contrary, har- 
 moniously allied. (Loud applause.) 
 
ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES. 
 
 A. p. 23. 
 KELIGION AND SCIENCE. 
 
 My reference is to Mr. Herbert Spencer. See his ' First 
 Principles/ and especially the chapter on the " Keconciliation 
 of Science and Beligion." It is needless to cite particular 
 passages. It would be difficult to mistake its meaning ; 
 for it is written with great ability and clearness, as well as 
 with every indication of sincerity. Still it vividly recalls 
 to mind an old story of the man who, wishing to be rid 
 of one who was in his house, said, " Sir, there are two sides 
 to my house, and we will divide them ; you shall take the 
 outside." 
 
 I believe Mr. Spencer has been described in one of our 
 daily journals as the first thinker of the age. 
 
 B. p. 24. 
 
 THE KECENT WORK OF DR. STRAUSS. 
 
 These passages are given as specimens of the work of Dr. 
 Strauss, rather than as supplying the body of proof of the 
 propositions set forth in the text of the Address ; and I would 
 remind the reader that Dr. Strauss may protest against being 
 bound by a rendering into another language for which he is 
 not responsible, although I do not think any defects in the 
 translation will be found to affect the substance. 
 
 The " We " of Dr. Strauss in this work is not according to 
 the common editorial use of the pronoun, but is meant, as I 
 understand it, to mark the work throughout as the manifesto 
 of a party. 
 
 c 
 
34 ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES. 
 
 I. 
 THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 " Seldom has an incredible occurrence been worse testified ; 
 never has one ill testified been intrinsically more incredible. 
 I have, in my l Life of Jesus/ appropriated to this subject a 
 searching scrutiny, which I will not here repeat. The upshot 
 of it alone I hold it to be my duty, as well as my right, to 
 declare without any sort of reserve. Viewed historically, that 
 is to say, when the prodigious results of this belief are taken 
 together with its total want of foundation, the narrative of 
 the Kesurrection of Jesus can only be described as a world- 
 wide humbug (welthistorischer Humbug)." p. 79. 
 
 n. 
 
 RELIGIOUS WORSHIP. 
 
 " Why is it, then, that we ought to have no worship in 
 future ? Because we have broken loose from the other con- 
 stituent part of Religion, which is also the untrue and, in re- 
 lation to the sentiment of independence, the more ignoble part 
 of it namely, the desire and the idea that, through our 
 worship, we may be enabled to extract something from our 
 God. We need only take the expression * Divine Service/ 
 and acquire a perception of the grovelling anthropopathism 
 it involves, in order to perceive how and for what reason any- 
 thing of that kind is no longer admissible from our point of 
 view." p. 144. 
 
 in. 
 
 PIETY TOWARDS THE UNIVERSUM. 
 
 " We have been seeking to determine, whether our point 
 of view, from which the law-governed All, full of life and 
 intelligence, is the summit of thought (die hochste Idee), can 
 still be called a religious point of view : and we have anim- 
 adverted upon Schopenhauer, who loses no opportunity of 
 
ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES. 35" 
 
 flying in the face of this which is our Idea. As I have said, 
 such outbreaks impress our understanding as absurdities ; to 
 our feelings, they are blasphemies. It appears to us rash and 
 reckless, on the part of a mere human individual, so boldly 
 to set himself up against the All, out of which he grows, and 
 from which he has the morsel of intelligence that he 
 misuses. We see in this an abnegation of that feeling of 
 dependence, which we admit to belong to all men. We 
 demand the same Piety towards our Universum, as the 
 devout man of the old fashion did for his God." p. 146. 
 
 IV. 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 " Men think they understand the Bible, because they are 
 habituated to not understanding it. Moreover, the modern 
 reader brings to it as much edifying force as he derives from 
 it. Not even to mention books like the Kevelation of John, 
 and most of the Prophets of the Old Testament, surely it is 
 not meant to say that Lessing's ' Nathan,' or Goethe's 
 ' Hermann und Dorothea/ is harder to understand, or con- 
 tains fewer " saving truths," fewer golden sayings, than an 
 Epistle of Paul, or a discourse of Christ according to John." 
 -p. 299. 
 
 v. 
 
 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 *' As regards the substitute, which our view of things offers 
 for the Church's belief in immortality, the reader may perhaps 
 expect from me a very lengthened explanation, but will 
 have to content himself with a very short one. He who in 
 this point cannot practise self-help, is not yet ready for our 
 standing-point. He for whom, on the one hand, it is not 
 enough to be allowed to vitalise within himself the ever- 
 lasting ideas of the Universum, and of the course of develop- 
 ment (Entwicldungsgang), and the destiny, appointed for 
 
36 ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES. 
 
 humanity ; he who knows not how to create within himself, 
 for the dead whom he loves and honours, a continuation of 
 life and action in its finest form (das schonste Fortleben und 
 Fortwirken) ; he in whom, together with exertion for his 
 family, with labour in his calling, with contribution to the 
 welfare of his nation, as well as to the good of his fellow- 
 men at large, and with enjoyment of the Beautiful in Nature 
 and Art he, I say, in whom, with all this there does not on 
 the other hand arise the consciousness, that he himself can only 
 be called to be a temporary partner in it all ; he who cannot 
 prevail upon himself, finally, to bid his adieu to life with 
 thankfulness for having been permitted for a time to act, to 
 enjoy, and also to suffer in unison with all this, and at the 
 same time with a devout sense of liberation from wha f , in the 
 long-run is, after all, but exhausting day-labour; such a 
 man, I say, we must remit to Moses and the Prophets ; who, 
 to boot, knew nothing of an immortal life, yet Moses and 
 the Prophets still they were." p. 372. 
 
 (I have not ventured to tamper with the syntax of this 
 passage.) 
 
 C. p. 25. 
 
 THE SYSTEM OF COMTE. 
 
 Having given Comte credit for imagination, I must confess 
 that, I did not suppose him to be of " imagination all com- 
 pact," * but rather of imagination all diffuse. I had in view 
 his width of sympathies and disposition to sympathise, his 
 avowed regard for Veneration, his priesthood, his incorpora- 
 tion of the priestly vocation with the function of the poet, 
 his calendar, and his woman-worship, as he has developed 
 them in his ' Catechism of Positivism ' [I refer to the English 
 translation by Mr. Congreve], which he put forth as a sum- 
 
 Midsummer Night's Dream,' v. 1. 
 
ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES. 37 
 
 mary of his previously published volumes, and an anticipation 
 of those which were to follow. (Preface, pp. 12, 37.) Strauss 
 appears to me to be indebted, in a certain degree, to Comte, 
 but to be rather shy of owning the acquaintance. 
 
 D. p. 25. 
 OUR KELIGIOUS GUIDES. 
 
 I quote this passage from Willis's ' Life of Spinoza/ p. 26, 
 note : 
 
 " An entirely truthful and authoritative interpretation of 
 the Hebrew Scriptures is an imperative'want of the age in 
 which we live, and has now become the first condition re- 
 quired to enable the world to escape from the slough of 
 superstition on the one hand, and irreligiousness on the other, 
 in which it is helplessly sunk, and is sinking more and more 
 deeply every day, despite the well-meant efforts of the pious 
 laity and zealous ministry of all denominations. We have 
 set authoritative beside truthful in the sentence above, for we 
 are possessed of even more than one perfectly truthful and 
 exhaustive, but of no authoritative interpretation of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures and Greek Testament ; neither can the 
 world at large have any such, until the hierarchies of the 
 Christian Churches agree to associate themselves with 
 Spinoza, Semler, Lessing, De Wette, E \vald, Strauss, Baur, 
 Kuenen, Keim, Eenan, and Colenso critics and scholars 
 all, men of noble lives, clear heads, and pious souls, who, 
 from the fulness of their hearts and depths of their under- 
 standings, have spoken to their fellow-men in terms which 
 all might understand, but which ignorance, superstition, and 
 false direction prevent them from apprehending in their in- 
 appreciable worth and importance. Authority would indeed 
 seem indispensable to the mass of mankind ; but no holy 
 reunion of cultivated men for such a purpose is possible, 
 unless it be based on acknowledgment of the common father- 
 
38 ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES. 
 
 hood of God, and recognise the revelation He makes of His 
 being and attributes for all time, in no mere spoken words 
 or written records, but in the mind of man, the order of the 
 universe, and the great laws that, by His fiat, rule it neces- 
 sarily, changelessly, and everlastingly." 
 
 E. p. 2(3. 
 
 I have made a statement that these ideas are not a mere 
 German brood ; though I fear that we owe much- of their 
 seed to Germany, as France owed to England the seed of 
 her great Voltairian movement, so far as it was a movement 
 grounded in the region of thought. This statement, as it is 
 given in the text, I will support only by extracts from a 
 single writer, Mr. Winwood Keade. They are taken from 
 his ' Martyrdom of Man.' The three first bear upon creed. 
 I quote the fourth, with reference to the last of the three 
 inventions he desires and anticipates, as an instance of what 
 seems to me a want of sobriety of mind, exhibited in a 
 region where it will be better appreciated than if it bore 
 directly upon matters of religion. 
 
 It would have been easy to quote from other writers. 
 Perhaps, in sparing myself that task, I make the reference 
 to Mr. Reade more invidious. But my purpose is informa- 
 tion, not reproach. Happily we are not now as in the days 
 of Edward VI., when Philpot, who had himself taken what 
 were deemed considerable liberties with the established 
 religion, spat in the face of an Arian, and defending himself 
 in print, said : " I would I had a quantity of spittle to spattle 
 on them." 
 
 I must add that Mr. Eeade writes with an ability amply 
 sufficient to defend him from wrong. 
 
 I. 
 
 " When the faith in a personal God is extinguished ; when 
 prayer and praise are no longer to be heard ; when the 
 
ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES. 39 
 
 belief is universal that with the body dies the soul ; then 
 the false morals of theology will no longer lead the human 
 mind astray." * The Martyrdom of Man/ p. 535. 
 
 IT. 
 
 u We teach that the soul is immortal ; we teach that 
 there is a future life ; we teach that there is a Heaven in 
 the ages far away; but not for us single corpuscles, not 
 for us dots of animated jelly, but for the One of whom we 
 are the elements, and who though we perish never dies." 
 p. 537. 
 
 in. 
 
 " God is so great that He does not deign to have personal 
 relations with us human atoms that are called men. Those 
 who desire to worship their Creator must worship Him 
 through mankind. Such, it is plain, is the scheme of 
 Nature." p. 537. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Three inventions, which perhaps may long be delayed, 
 but which possibly are near at hand, will give to this over- 
 crowded island the prosperous conditions of the United 
 States. The first is the discovery of a motive force which 
 will take the place of steam, with its cumbrous fuel of oil 
 and coal ; secondly, the invention of aerial locomotion, which 
 will transport labour at a trifling cost of money and of time, 
 to any part of the planet, and which, by annihilating dis- 
 tance, will speedily extinguish national distinctions; and 
 thirdly, the manufacture of flesh and flour from the 
 elements, by a chemical process in the laboratory similar 
 to that which is now performed within the bodies of the 
 animals and plants." p. 513. 
 
40 ILLUSTRATIVE PASSAGES. 
 
 F. p. 28. 
 AUTHORITY IN ITS RELATION TO REASON. 
 
 The general subject of Authority, and its place not as an 
 antagonist of Keason, but as an instrument of Eeason for the 
 attainment of Truth, is very ably handled in the opening 
 chapters of the work of Sir George C. Lewis, ' On the In- 
 fluence of Authority in Matters of Opinion.' 
 
 Though I am not able to follow him in every one" of his 
 applications of the principle, I could wish his reasonings 
 were better known to the world than, unfortunately, they 
 can now be, from the extreme scarcity of the work. 
 
 He remarks, in p. 35, "It is commonly said that the belief 
 is independent of the will," and that no man can change it 
 " by merely wishing it to be otherwise." But " the operation 
 of a personal interest may cause a man insensibly to adopt 
 prejudices or partial and unexamined opinions." In p. 38 
 he adds, " Napoleon affords a striking instance of the cor- 
 ruption of the judgment in consequence of the misdirection 
 of the moral sentiments." 
 
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