Mr Gladstone on Scotch Disestablishment.

Evening Star, Issue 8399, 27 December 1890, Page 4

Mr Gladstone on Scotch Disestablishment.

At Dalkeith, Mr Gladstone was the sub jaot of an ovation, the demonstration being renewed when a quarter of an hour later Mr Gladstone rose to commence his speech. Onoe more it seemed as if the oheering would never end. Probably Mr Gladstone, m he stood there waiting for opportunity to speak, observed with added pleasure the prolongation of the applause. He was, to tell the truth, in a onrious dilemma. He had left behind the notes of his Bpeeoh ; and the. discovery had not been made till he was well on his way to Dalkeith. Mr Marjoribanks bad gone baok for the precious documents, and in the meantime the speech must be oommenoed. Mr Gladstone commenced his task with evident confidence—either in Mr Marjoribanks' arrival with the notes or In the belief that his own perfect command of the topics would enable him to make his speech without them. The former expectation was realised even whilst the latter gift was being displayed. Mr Gladstone had got well embarked on his speech when Mr Marjoribanks came in with the misplaced treasure, and the speeoh went forward without the slightest indication to the watohing audience of the chasm that had for awhile gaped before the orator. Like the autiienoe, the speech proved the most striking and interesting of the scries. Mr Gladstone was in splendid voice, whilst the energy displayed throughout the hour and twenty minutes he was on his feet recalled the comparatively youDg days of the first Midlothian campaign. According to his custom during this visit, he stood at the table Btiok in hand, and during the opening passage of his speech leaned upon it. But as he warmed with his work the stick became an embarrassing adjunot to his gestures. Onoe, having occasion to refer to the recaptured notes, he deposited the stick in a corner, and there for the rest of the speeoh it was left unregarded, Mr Gladstone standing erect and with unfettered hands, hammering home his argument. The most perfectly spoken passage of the long address was that with which it conoluded. Pausing for a moment to look baok to the day of defeat, he recalled the fact that even at that dark time the Liberal party felt that right would prevail. " Now," he said, *' when from every side cheering signs of the prosperity of a good cause press in upon us, it is an easy matter to ratify in our day of prosperity what we determined in the day of defeat and disaster, and to say that with the help of the Almighty we will persevere till we settle this great Imperial question upon a footing which we know to be that ef contentment and satisfaction, of peace and happiness ; above all"—and here Mr Gladstone took a step forward, and uplifted his right hand, as if he were taking afresh the oath of fealty—" above all of union and of strength to the great and glorious Empire of the Queen." After a touching reference to the condition of affairs at Dalmeny "where the prospect had suddenly darkened rather than brightened," he went forward with his speech, in the forefront of which stood the question of Home Rule for Scotland. This, he was careful to Bay, is not to be spoken of as a question defined and matured in the same manner and degree as is the kindred question of Home Rule for Ireland. Still he felt that there was something in the nature of a practical and pressing grievance that would be settled in due time, for whenever Scotland having deliberately considered the matter makes upon the Parliament of Westminster demands consistent with the principles of Imperial unity, Scotland would find a free, and even a willing acquiescence. In the meanwhile Mr Gladstone, by quotation from some of the statistics Mr Marjoribanks had rescued from Rothesay terrace, was able to bring home to dissentient Liberals sitting for Scottish constituencies the responsibility of assisting in setting at naught Scottish opinion. Majorities of from forty to forty-eight of Scottish members voting one way in committee on the Scottish Looal Government Bill were met by minorities of from eighteen down to ten who joined with the Tories to snub Scotland. Touching on the crofter question, Mr Gladatone, amid loud cheers, denounced as the least desirable mode of meeting the grievance the removal of the people from the soil on which they were born, and to which they were attached. He threw out the practical suggestion that there should be careful inquiry as to what quantity of land there may be in the crofter districts which had in a previous time been cultivated, but had since been allowed to lapse into a wild condition. This brought him to the church question, at the mention of which the audience pricked up itß ears and settled itself to closer attention. He had, he said, heard something on coming to Scotland of what is called church defence. He had not had time fully to investigate the term, but if he were asked what it meant south of the Tweed he cocld tell them in the twinkling of an eye. "It means," he added, " Toryism—sheer, unmitigated, resolute, effective, inveterate Toryism." At home he was supposed to be a sort of churchman, but he never had been asked to join a church defence society. Amid prolonged cheering he proposed that for the honor of Scotland, of the Presbyterian religion, of Protestantism, and for the cause of religious belief at large, the three Presbyterian churches of Scotland should be made one. Pending that complete and happy change, he humbly adhered to the proposition of Lord Hartington—that when the people of Scotland declared for disestablishment the church ought to be disestablished. Listening to the voice of Scotch parliamentary representatives, he believed that Scotland had now made that declaration. He had been asked whether he would coosent to making disestablishment a separate issue. That mast necessarily mean the submission of Scotch disestablishment as the main question at a general election. Looking at the interests of this vast Empire, the continued oropping-up of questions of vast importanoe, the immense arrears of questions clamoring for settlement, he emphatically denounced this as an impossibility. 2» or would he undertake to answer questions put to him by Liberal Home Rulers friendly <io the Establishment. " What were they to do in the case of the two issues of Home Rule and disestablishment being laissd at the next election ?" That, Mr Gladstone ju,id, was not a question for him to decide.