The Evening Star FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1910.

Evening Star, Issue 14307, 4 March 1910, Page 4

The Evening Star FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 1910.

Many people will fed that there is somei thing anomalous —a hint The Gladstone ot fate's proverbial Peerage. irony—in tho acceptance of a, peerage by the most distinguished living member of the Gladstone family at a time when tho Liberal Government and party are engaged in a keen struggle against tho legislative dominance, if not the legislative existence, of the hereditary order. For the name and authority of the new Viscount's illustrious father have been freely used by democratic controversialists in support of their posij tion during these last weeks—not invari- ' ably, it is true, with unassailable accuracy j of historical reference. It would, however, j bo a mistake to assume hastily that the recently-appointed Governor - General of South Africa has deserted an essential Gladstonian principle or tradition in taking a peerage. .Mr Gladstone (there is only one ''Mr*' Gladstone) remained a commoner to the end of his prolonged life; but in declining Queen Victoria's repeated offers of titular elevation he seems to have been guided by political and personal circumstances rather than by any rooted objection to the idea of belonging to the upper branch of the Legislature. The first offer came in 1873, towards the close of his first Premiership, and when it was renewed in the following year, on the fall of the Government, he wrote to his brother, I Sir Thomas Gladstone (who, by the way, I had inherited the father's baronetcy):

"I may be wrong in my view of the matter "generally; but I can only judge for the "best. I do not seo that I am wanted "or .should be of use in the House of "Lords, and there would be more diserep"aney between rank and fortune, which is "a thing, on the whole, Tathcr to bo "deprecated." This consideration of insufficient fortune appears frequently in the correspondence. As far back as 1815 (even then longing for release from " the barren,, "exhausting strife of merely political con"tention"—with fifty years of public life before him!) lie writes to his wife on the subject of ambition: "If it has a valuable "reward upon earth, over and above a "good name, it is when a man is enabled "to bequeath to his childron a high placo "in the social system of his country. That "cannot be our case. . . . To leave to

"Willy [his eldest son] a titlo with its "burdens and restraints and disqualifications, but without the material substratum of wealth, and the duties and 'means of good, as well as the general "power attending it, would not, I think, "be acting for him in a wise and loving "spirit." Tho passage is interesting as a sign of Mr (iladstone'scarnest belief in the doctrine of '•noblesse oblige," though no doubt his view of the advantages attending "a high place in the social system" was modified to some extent as time went on. In 1885, at the closo of the second Premiership, tho Queen again asked Mr Gladstone to accept an earldom—accompanying the oiler with a letter which Lord Morley publishes in tho 'Life,' and which the retiring Minister himself describes as "a pearl of great price." On that occasion lie wrote to Lord (iranville : I send you herewith a letter from the Queen which moves and almost upsets me. It must have cost her much to write, and it is really u pearl of great price. Such a letter makes the subject, of it secondary—but though it would take me long to set out my reasons, I remain firm in tho intention to accept nothing for myself.

The remark, '"lt must have cost her much to write,'' probably alludes to Queen Victoria's growing and scarcely-disguised disapproval of the trend of Gladstonian policy at that time. Nine years later, when the wearied statesman at last sought repose, the long day's task done, the final letter, from Windsor closed with the words—"The Queen would gladly have conferred "a peerage, on Mr Gladstone, but she "knows he would not accept it." By that (inic, no doubt, the old warrior's feeling against the hereditary Chamber had gathered something of a personal and more distinctly hostile element, though even then he would have discriminated between the legislative Chamber and the titular order. The general impression left upon the mind by Mr Gladstone's references to the subject is that he very fully realised the superiority'of position which membership of the House of Commons and the plain appellation of "Mr" gave him as Leader of the party of Progress and Ilefovm : but also that there was no inherent disinclination for elevated rank; and further, perhaps, that the Queer's offer would actually have been accepted at some time or other if ho had been a richer man. The youngest son (whose political career has been respectable and useful rather than brilliant) now assumes a slightly lower degreo of the rank which the illustrious father so often refused. We should say that Mr Herbert Gladstone enjoyed his highest fame or popularity during tho very first hours of his political career, just thirty years ago, when, after a bold but unsuccessful onslaught upon a Conservative stronghold in Middlesex, he was elected, in his father's place, for Leeds (the Liberal Leader having been returned for Leeds as well as Midlothian, and deciding to sit for the Scottish constituency). The new Viscount's career as representative of the King in tho South African Federation will be watched with sympathetic interest and reasonable confidence.