TORY VIEW OF MR GLADSTONE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 8028, 16 April 1888, Page 3

TORY VIEW OF MR GLADSTONE.

The Gladstones word a family of Liverpool slavcowneis who had enriched themselves by working up old Africans on the Vreedeii Hoop plantation in Denierari", where they drove to the candields over 500 African negroes. Uy the active cultivation of sugar under thexo conditions, one John Gladstone acquired a large fortune, which in ISHi bore the fruit of a baronetcy ; an. l his fourth son, William Ewart, had only been a year in Parliament when ho was able to distinguish himself by claiming and obtaining from the country compensation for such of his father's old Africans as had not been used up, <«n the ground that if full compensation were not given to slaveowners when slavery was abolished, it would be "a signal for the downfall of the

empire. William Ewart was horn eight-and-soventy years ago, went to Eton and to Oxford, and, being taken under the protection of the Duke of Newcastle, was by the latter seated in Parliament for his nomination borough of Newark, as h. zealous high Tory and an ardent Protectionist. ]sut William soon saw that the times were changing; and niter having written a treatise to prove that all men not belonging to the State Church .should be excluded from State employment, and having, assisted to howl down Mr CharlesYiHiern' 1 Freetiade proposals, he swallowed his treatise, joined the Freetraders, and helped to form that ring ol deserters from the Tory parly who became known as Peelites. Upon the corner stone of this desertion a Liberal party was built, which iv time became reconciled to the. Radicals, took William for its leader, and secured for him that Premiership the enjoyment of which bad become the one object of his life. Ho has written of himsolf that he is a " purist with respect to what touches the consistency of a statesman;" whejefore, from 1532 to IS4I lie was a Conservative; from 1542 to 1807 a Liberal Conservative, fiom ISoT to 18S5 a Liberal ; and from ISSS l>c has been a Home Kuler — the consistency through all being that which consistently seeks the largest number of supporters in the struggle to obtain or to keep the Queen's seals and the country's \iny. His tenure of power ha-s been distinguished by the .successive burning of all the gods he had ever all'ectcd to adore. In ISC'.I he

disestablished the Irish Church ; in 1870 he passed an Irish Land Act ; in 1871 he capitulated to America on the Alabama claims ; in 1572 he passed the liallot Act; in 1575 tie solemnly resigned the leadership of the Liberal party ; in ISSO he as solemnly resumed it; in 18S1 he passed anothe" Irish Land Act ; in 18S2 lie made a piratical expedition into Egypt; in 18S-1 he sent out Gordon, and left him to be killed at Khartoum ; and

in the same year he passed a Reform Act which gave household suffrage to the counties and redistributed the consti-

tuencies ; in ISS."), having raised the expenditure of the country to a hundred millions, he resigned ofiice, and ha\ing failed in the general elections of November in that year to obtain v sufficiently large majority to dispense with the Irish Parnellites, he, to the astonishment of the world, began to give signs of adopting the Parnellites. as his masters, and of declaring for Home Kule. This was

his end. lie was In ought into power once more in January, liSSti, on a tluee acres and a cow resolution ; disclosed his

Homo Kule scheme ; and being abandoned by one-third of the members and all the honesty and ability of his own party, was defeated upon it. Then be challenged in June, 18815, another general election, which gave the Tories and the Liberal seceders, now joined together as the Unionists, n majority, and foiced him once more to re-ign ollice. Since:

his last resignation he has become the leader of those advocates of the separation of Ireland whom he had denounced as

plunderers, the ringleader of the. associates of avowed a*=a.-sins whom be had im-

prisoned as traitors, (lie fnoiul of his country's foes, and the foe of her fiicnds ; t-o a liansfonnatiou that- even the foolish Whign, who so lon^ followed him nnd abetted him in the mischief* he- li;us wrought, now repudiate him with loalhinfji and are de'.ei mined that, whatever happens, they will stand l>y the Tories in preventing for ever tlic Ciilainity of his return to power in Kn^huid. Theru is indeed not n ciusc ever taken up by Mr (Jladstone that, he lias not ruined, not a principle ever advocated by him that he has not deserted. His acces-s-ion to any cause has invariably been followed by disaster and succeeded l>y betrayal. The Tories whom be joined in 1532, the slaveowners whom he defended in 1533, the Irish Chinch which he championed in ISU."), the Protectionists whom lie assisted in IS 10, the Union with Ire-

land which hii lauded in IS7I, have, a!

experienced tho disasteis which never fail to accompany his alliance, ami from the betrayal which always ends it ; and for those seekers of Yankee dollars who have adopted tho hade mark of " Home Rule" it was as fatal a day when he joined their ranks as it has ever been for all those who have experienced the misfortune of his advocacy. Nor will they fail to experience the common lot of his allies. Time, and his own inconquerable defections have driven from him such whilom fast friends as Lord Hattington, Mr Bright, and Mi- Chamberlain ; and the day will come when Messrs I l'arnell and Dillon will, -"like them, denounce the man they now regard as their leader. Mr Gladstone is indeed the most $ueeo.=sful of political liypoorites, for he succeeds in deceiving himself ; and the marvel of (lie future will be that, any numbers of a plain people like the English should ever have taken seriously the insincere sincerities, the plausible sophistries, and the canting platitudes with which lie has again and again paved his way to power and salary. He is the longest -winded speaker and tho greatest master of parenthesis and qualification now living ; and, in spite of the mischiefs he ha-s \vi ought, it will be remembered to his credit that ho has all his life been, and .still icniains, poor. Moreover, he is a man of the greatest mental and bodily vigor, of marvellous energy, a:id of the. largest .sympathies. He studies Creek, he collects china, ho admires beauty, he fells trees, he reads the lessons in church on Sundays, and it is on public record thai, when < 'hanrellor of the .Exchequer in 1803, he even found time to walk the Haymaiketand Lcicester-s.quaie at iniitnight, and to accompany an unfortunate, female to her home for the solo purpose of converting ami reclaiming her.

Mr Gladstone lias not won llattenng opinions from the great men who have best known him. ' Lord Russell, the Liberal .statesman, inhi.i "Recollections," declared that Mr Gladstone had "tarnished the national honor, injured the national interests, and lowered the national character." Mr Carlyel, the philosopher, in 1573 stigmatised him as a "poor Phantasm . .' . the representative of the nmltitHdiuouH cants of the age, religious, moral, political, literary ; differing in this point from other leading mcii, that the cant seems actually (rue to him . . . one of those fatal figures created by En*" 1 mi.l's evil genius, to work irreparable mischief." Lord Macaulay, the Liberal historian, declared him " to be

most plaussible when most n error . . . whatever he sees is refracted and distorted by a false medium of passions and prejudices, and the doctrines which he puts forth appear to us, after a full and calm consideration, to bo false, to bo in the highest decree pernicious, and to be such as, if followed out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would inevitably produce the dissolution of society." Mr Ruekin, the artist, says, of him, " There is one political opinion I do entertain, and that is that Mr (iladstouc is an old windbag."' Mr John Morley, M.P., the Homo I'uiler, declared that "his mind is a mint of logical counterfeits." Mr Parnell, Mr T. P. O'Connor, Mr J. .U'CartUy, Mr Sexton, Mr Healy, Mr Redmond, and Mr Riggar, the Home Rulers, declaied him, in November, 3SSS, to be the leader of a party " perfidious, treacherous, mid incompetent." Mr John Dillon, the Home Itnlcr, said of him in October, ISSI, "Mr Gladstone's reputation for honesty in politics is a false reputation, and based upon the power of skilfully misrepresenting facts. . . . I have watched him most closely, and know him to he a dishonest, politician."'

Finally, Sir Parnell denounced him in October, ISBI as •' the greatest Coerciouist, the greatest and most unrivalled slanderer of Hie Irish nation that ever undertook the task."

All tbe.-e Homo Rulers, with this opinion of him, have now hecomo his friends and allies. Home still believe both them anil him to honest and sane.— "Jehu Junior," iti Vanity Fair.