GLADSTONE ON BEACONSFIELD.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3136, 16 July 1881, Page 4

GLADSTONE ON BEACONSFIELD.

The following is the speech that the Premier delivered on May 11 in proposing to the House of Commons a vote for tho erection of a national monument to the late Lord Beaconsfield :—•

Considering the notice that appeai-3 in conjunction with my own upon the paper, I should, perhaps, he to sanguine wero I to express a hope that this motion migh'- receive the unanimous assent of the Committee. But while I do not venture to press that hopo I do entertain the very earnest hope—l would even say I offer the most earnest entreaty—that it may not be made a subject of lengthened or contentious debate.— (Hear, hear.) I say that, sir, in the position of one especially bottnd to consider what is for the dignity of the House, but I say it also in the character of an old and keen opponent of Lord Beaconsfield, and nothing would he so painful to me, except, indeed, the rejection of the motion, ■which I think impossible, as that its grace should he entirely marred by its being made the subject of angry disputation.—(Hear, hear.) It has not been unnatural that on a subject of this kind, exciting so much and such continued public interest, criticism should have been busy. But, with regard to that criticism, both with respect to what has been done and with respect to what has not been done, I will simply say that my object has been the fulfilment of my duty, and that the fulfilment of my duty has appeared to me to lie in a careful consider ition of the rules and precedents applicable to the case. I think that those precedent ought to be liberally interpreted ; but for my own part, in all these monumental and complimentary matters I have a great jealousy of additions. There'is a temptation, under the influence of feeling, to make such additions, and every addition made on a particular occasion becomes an embarrassment on the next occasion. I will simply say, not that I have interpreted precedent aright—l do not assume that—but I have endeavored strictly and carefully to make it my ground. Everyone will feel that this is not the occasion to attempt an historical portraiture of Lord Beaconsfield. Neither is it the occasion to attempt—especially from this side of the House—but from no'side of the House, I will venture to say, is it the occasion to attempt a political eulogy of Lord Beaconsfield. It would be mistaking the purpose for which we are met to-day. I will go a little further and say that the position of the House is in some respects and in part peculiar. I don't know that it has ever happened that a Parliament in sharp antagonism to. the policy of a particular Minister has been called upon to accept n proposal- of this kind with respect to the Minister whose policy it opposed. At the same time, though there is no case exactly analogous to this, there are cases which make a material approximation to it. When Lord John Russell, proposed, in 1850. in a speech of great taste, a monument to the memory of Sir Eobert Peel, he very naturally looked back, not merely to the crisis of the anti-corn law movement, which had brought them together, but to the long struggles of thirty years ago ; and Lord John Uussell said, in very becoming language, " I will not enter into any measures with which his name is associated ;" and again, " This is not the time to consider particular opinions or particular measures." But he also quoted an earlier case, in which it happened that Colonel Barre proposed a public monument to Lord Chatham, to whom he had been notvery long before in the sharpest opposition. So that although the features of this case are marked features, yet we are not without guidance from the proceedings of those who have gone before us. This I will venture to say, that it is a case with regard to which we, who may be said to form the majority in this House, ought to he on our guard against giving away to our own narrower political sympathies.—(Cheers.) It would be better that propositions of this kind should be altogether abandoned and forgotten than that they should degenerate into occasions for using the manifestoes of political alliances of ordinary partisanship.— (Cheers.) If lam asked why, endeavoring to look without fear or favor at ihis case upon its merits and upon nothing else, and desirous to speak the truth without constraint and without exaggeration, I venture to recommend this proposition to the House, and why I think that the same reasons which have led the House to give in the case of other Prime Ministers of this country a testimony such as I now invite to the memory of Lord Beaconsfield should actuate us now, I say that in my judgment we have to look at two questions, and to two questions only, and they are whether the tribute that it is proposed to pay is proposed to he paid to one who in the first place has sustained a great historic part and done great deeds written on the page of Parliamentary and national history, and, next, whether those deeds have been done with the full authority of the constituted organs of the nation and of the nation itself : and I think that an impartial survey of what has happened will satisfy the House that upon neither of those points is there the smallest room for doubt.—(Hear, hear.) It may seem to he a sharp mental transition for us to make when we pass from the balance of political opinion now preyailing in this House to the balance of opinion that existed here two or three or four years ago. But it is right, it is just, it is necessary that we should recollect that what was done by the late Parliament and what was done by the late Ministry, and above all by Lord Beaconsfield as the official head and as the guiding spirit of the late Ministry, was done under precisely the same constitutional title, and with exactly the same charter and authority as that under which we now claim to act.— (Cheers.) I cast behind me for a moment the question what I approve and what I disprove—what I rejoice in and what I regret. We are here to act on the part of the nation, and to maintain the description of action which is suitable to, and which is requir d by, the nations continuous policy. The career of Lord Beaconsfield is in many respects the most remarkable in our Parliamentary history. For my own part, I know but one that can fairly he compared to it in regard to the emotional surprise—the emotion of wonder which, when viewed as a whole, it is calculated to excite, and that is the career, the early career, of Mr Pitt. Lord Beaconsfield's name is associated at least with one great constitutional change, in regard to which I think it will ever be admitted—at least, I never can scruple to admit it—that its arrival was accelerated by his personal act. I will not dwell upon that, but upon the close association of his name with the important change in tho principle of the Parliamentary franchise. It is also associated with great European transactions, great European arrangements. I put myself in the position, not necessarily of a friend and admirer who looks with sympathy at the character and action of Lord Beoconsfleld, but in the position of one who looks at the magnitude of the part which he played on behalf of this country ; and I say that one who was his political friend might fairly have said of him— Aspice, ut insignis spoliis Marcellus epimis Ingreditur,victorque viros supereminet omnes

My duty is to look at these .things in tho magnitude of their national and historical character, and it is when so looking at them that I havo not a doubt that the man who for seven years sustained the office of Prime Minister, the man who for nearly thirty years led either in one House or in both a great party in this country, is a man for whom the House may well do what I now call upon it to do. I have said that, in my opinion, the magnitude of the part played by Lord Beaconsfield and the authority with which it was played are the only matters to which we ought to look ; and I press this point specially as ono that many of us might perhaps forget —namely, that he acted with the same authority that we claim ourselves ; that the same Constitution, the same popular liberties, the same principle of reverance for authority, placed him in a position, first in this House and then in the House of Lords, to give effect to the policy that he

believed to he for the good of his country.— (Cheers.) This somewhat dry portion of my d'lly, which has led me to direct the attention of the House to these points, is now, I think, concluded, and as I have said, I will Hot attempt any thins; like an historical retrospect. It would not be fair, and it would not be ju3t, even if it were appropriate, that I, who have been separated from Lord Beaconsfield by longer and larger differences than, perhaps, ever separated tvo persons, should endeavor to draw a picture which must be too faintly coloured if executed by my hand. But yet I will allow myself some satisfaction ir. dwelling upon topics that .ire both pleasant to myself and useful to us all. Thn deceased statesman had certain great qualities on which it would be idle for me to enlarge ; his extraordinary intellectual powers, for instance, were as well known to others as to me. But other qualities there were in him, not merely intellectual or immediately connected with the conduct of affairs, but with regard to which I should wish, were I younger, to stamp the recollection of them on my mind for my own future guidance, and which I strongly recommend to those who are younger for notice and imitation.— (Hear.) These characteristics were not only written in a marked mpnner on his career, but were possessed by him in a degree undoubtedly extraordinary. I speak, for example, of his strength of will, !iis long-sighted persistency of purpose, reaching from his first entrance on the avenue of life to its very close, his remarkable power of 3elf government, and last, not least, his great Parliamentary courage, which I, who have been associated in the course of my life with some scores of }T ; nisfei*s, have never seen surpassed— (Hear, hear). There were other points in his character on which I cannot refrain from saying a word or two. I wish to express my admiration for those strong sympathies of race for the sake of which he was always ready to risk popularity and influence.-— (Hear, hear.) A like sentiment I feel towards the strength of his sympathies with that brotherhood to which he thought, and justly thought himself entitled to belong — the brotherhood of men of letters. It is only within the last few days that I have read in a very interesting hook — the " Autobiography of Thomas Cooper" —how in the year 1844, when his influence with his party was not yet established, Mr Cooper came to him in the character of a struggling literary man, who was also a Chartist, and the then Mr Disraeli met him with the most active and cordial kindness— so ready was his sympathy for genius. There was also another feeling which may now be referred to without indelicacy ; I mean his profound, devoted, tender, and -grateful affection for his wife —(hear, hear), —which, if it deprived him of the honor of public obsequies —I know not whether it did so —has nevertheless left him a more permanent title as one who knew, amid the calls and temptations of political life, what was due to the sanctity and strength of the domestic affections, and made him in that respect an example to the country. — (Cheers.) In expressing a hope that this debate may not be unduly lengthened, I wish that my contribution to it may be confined within the limits of necessity, and [ have now set before the House all that is necessary, perhaps all that is warrantable, for me to say: but there is one slighter matter to which I wish to have the satisfaction of referring. There is much misapprehension abroad as to the personal sentiments between public men who are divided in policy. Their words may necessarily from time to time be sharp ; their judgments may necessarily be severe ; but the general idea of persons less informed than those within the Parliamentary circle is that they are actuated by sentiments of intense antipathy or hatred for one another. I wish to take this occasion, if with the permission of the House I may for a moment degenerate into egotism, of recording my firm conviction that in all the judgments ever delivered by Lord Beaconsfield upon myself he never was actuated by sentiments of personal antipathy. — (Cheers.) it is a pleasure to me to make that acknowledgment, The feeling on my part is not a new one, but the acknowledgment of it could hardly have been made with propriety on an earlier occasion, and hon. members must excuse me for having thus obtruded it upon them—(Here, here.) I have now called attention to the fact that that to which we have to look is the greatness of the man himself, and of the transactions with which he was associated, and the full, undisputed, constitutional authority that he possessed to sanction his policy. Those are the essential considerations that ought to guide us, and I fell convinced that, unless it is my grievous fault, I have said enough to show that the Committee will do well and wisely to accept, and to accept in a kindly spirit—(cheers)— the motion I have the honor to submit for a public monument to Lord Beaconsfield.