MR. GLADSTONE.

(From the Daily liaisa, Fibruarv 13.) The speeches of Mr Gladstone are worthy of study under whatever circumstances they are delivered. Whether proposing the budget in the House of Common?, replying to an address from the Glasgow Parliamentary Reform Union, or acknowledging the presentation of the Freedom of the City, there is an appropriateness in his language, to the occasion, place, and the persons to whom he is speaking. He seems to shed a new light upon the various topics of the day, and places them in varied and interesting combinations. That policy which, with an ordinary man, would.be treated as isolated from all other departments of human interests, is shown by Mr Gladstone to be only a branch of a social sytem, every portion of which is interwoven with and affected by all the rest. It is thus taat under his treatment, subjects the most hackneyed, assume a freshness which revives interest in the discussion of the:n. Dealing with the material affairs of state, he shows their bearing upon the mental and spiritual conditions of man, and how' commerce and industry become civilizers of the human family. At the City Hall in Glasgow, on the 31st October, he was presented with the Freedom of the City, in ackowledging which he briefly reviewed some of the events and the changes of the policy of Great Britain during the past twenty years, and their effects. Alluding to the death of Lord Palmerston, he drew attention to the great number of illustrious men who have died withiu the last five years. After a few words of regret that the late Prince Consort was so early snatched away, he passed on to Richard Cobden, and spoke of him as a " character " so simple, so true, so brave, and co far- " seemg — a man who knew how to asso- " ciate himself at their very root with the " deep interests of the community in which " he lived, and to whom it was given to " achieve, through the moral force of " reason and persuasion, the numerous " triumphs that have made his name im- " mortal." Mr Cobden never would accept office; but of those who held important offices in the State, Mr Gladstone staUd, that no less than seventeen had died withiu five years. Their loss had invested his position with a feeling of " solitariness" ; but yet a free country is never without fit citizens to conduct the ailairs of State, and although many are dead, Earl Russell is left, and Mr Ulad-

stone cannot believe that " a man who has " fought on a hundred fields" for the improvement of the laws and institutions of his country, will, in his seventieth year, unlearn the lesson of a whole life, and change the direction of his career.

Turing from commenting upon men to the consideration of measures, he pointed out the improvement in the character of recent legislation, and showed how every portion of the community ha* been benefited by the reforms that have taken place, by the more general diffusion of education, the sweeping away religious disabilities and the revision of the system of taxation . " Party," he eaid, " has its uses " ; but " parties and nations now work more than " ever in aid of the common good ;" and of all the changes tending to universal advantage, " the most fertile result probably "is that described in the well-known, " familiar, and beloved words — the pro- " motion of free-trade." On this topic, Mr Gladstone was eloquent. He shewed its bearing upon the happiness of mankind as a whole, pointed out the selfish origin of wars, and shewed that it is the tendency of a selfish policy to originate war. As an example, he pointed to the old Colonial system. "This," he eaid, was in his opinion, 41 one of the most dangerous and plausible " of all human errors — it wa^ cne to which " a great portion of the wars of the la9t " century were due, For what was th a " dominant idea that governed that " policy ? It was this — that colonising " was a great function of European nations- " but the purpose of that colonisation " was to reap the profits of exclusive " trade with the Colonies which were " founded." This Mr Gladstone shewed was not an error confined to one European nation onl}', but was common to all. "It '• was the error of Spain in Mexico— it '• was the error of Portugal in Brazil — it " was the error of France in Canada and " Louifiana — it was the error of England " in her colonies in the West Indie?, and '* her possessions in the East, and the " whole idea of colonisation." This error, he argued, led to war between nations in order to obtain possession of each other's colonies. "In fact 1 ' . . " such " was the perversity of the misguided " ingenuity of man, that during th" period " refered to, he made commerce itself, " which ought to be the bond and link of v the human race, the cruse of wars and " bloodshed, and wars were justified when " they were begun, and glorified in when " they had ended, upon the grounds that " their object and effect had been to ob- " tain from some other nation a colony " which had previously been theirs." But while thus speaking in condemnation of the system now so happily exploded, Mr Gladstone does not suppose perfection has been reached. He imagines that notwithstanding the improvements effected, "our sons may detect errors un- " known to us, as we have detected tho^e " of our forefathers, which were unknown "to them." There is therefore no room for boasting of having adopted free trade principles, and of the moral good which flows v from a policy which at first sight " seems only to touch material interests."

But there are ethics in commerce. Systems that appear to deal with the material world alone, produce moral effects in accordance with the truth or error of the principles on which they are conducted. Accepting this as true, Mr Gladstone says: — "That which may be in its first " and in its ou'er aspect a merely secular " work, is, in fact, a work full of moral " purpose ; and those who have given them- " selves to it, either in time 3 before those " principles were accepted as they now " are, could easily afford to bear the re- " proach that they were promoting the " worship of Mammon, or that they were " conversant only with the exterior and " inferior interests of man. Iv all cases. " it is the quiet, unassuming prosecution " of daily duty, by which we best fulfil " the purpose to which the Almighty has " appointed us ; and the humble task, as " it may appear, of industry and commerce, " contemplating, in the first instance, little " more than the supply of our necessities, " and the augmentation of our comforts, " has in it nothing that prevents its being " pursued in a spirit of devotion to higher " interests ; and if it be honestly and well " pursued, I believe that it tends — with a " power quiet and silent, indeed, like the " power of your vast machines, but at the " same time manifold and resistless— to " the mitigation of the woes and sorrows " that afflict humanity, and to the ac- " celeration of better times for the children " of our race."