PROFESSOR TYNDALL AND MR. GLADSTONE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIV, Issue 113, 14 May 1890, Page 3

PROFESSOR TYNDALL AND MR. GLADSTONE.

The following letter has been sent to Mr Gladstone by Professor Tyndall :— Sir, — jon have done me the honour of ad« dressing to me the following letter : — " 10, Sfc. James' square, Jan. 29, 1890. «' My dear Sir,— lf you are correctly reported to have Baid at an Ulster meeting where Lord Londonderry appears to have been the chief speaker, that I have called Mr Pitt a blackguard, I have to request that you will at your earliest convenience supply me with your authority for that statement. " I remain, faithfully yours, " W. E. Gladstone.

«' Professor Tyndall, ko." lam su-re you will agree with me when I Bay that neither you nor I should, on the present occasion, deviate by a hair's brea ; th from perfect exactitude. I did not say that you had " called Mr Pitt a blackguard." My exact words, as reported iv every newspaper to which I bave had access, were these : — "He waited uatil he was -76 years old to discover that Pitt waa a blackguard and the Union a crime." These are the words which it is my duty to defend. ' j For your opinion of Mr Pitt and his work, expressed when your intellectual power was at its maxihum, I quote a statement made by you in September, 1856 : — '■ Ifc ia hard to say what might not have been anticipated from his (Mr Pitt's) vigour and wisdom, combined with a continuance of peace. But the hurricane of the Frenchßevolution swept over the face of Europe, and drewhimintoa war whioh again postponed for a quarter of a century all attempts afc legislative progress, with the splendid but isolated exceptions of the Union with Ireland and the abolition of the slave trade." Consider, I pray you, the worda that I have italicised. In the heyday of your manhood — when your vision was clearer and your temptations fewer than they are now — you bore emphatic witness to Pitt's vigour and wisdom, and pointed out the splendour of his achievement in passing the Act of Union.

You were no rash or immature youth when you delivered this opinion of Mr Pitt's work. You entered Parliament in 1832 ; the foregoing words were therefore uttered after you had had four-and-twenty years' experience of public life. Changing your lines in other matters, you held on to this •view of Pitt for 29 years longer— s3 years in all. These years embraced the entire period of the Repeal agitation, during which you never gave the slightest intimation of any ohange of opinion regarding the Union. Thia brings ua to the close of 1885. Refused by the country in the general election of that year the majority you demanded to render you independent of Mr Parnell, you underwent what a person accustomed to the freaks of magnetism might describe as a eudden reversal of polarity — positive became negative, north became south, white became black. The country was startled by an absolutely "new birth," a totally transformed Mr Gladstone. Describing the Act of Union at Liverpool on the 28th of June, 1886 you abandoned yourself to the following 'language :— " I fctoow °f «° blacker or fouler transaction in the history of man than tlie making of the Union." The words, ai I write them down, breathe exaggeration. Admitting the -massacre of St. Bartholomew to have been more •'cruel,' you denied that it was more "base and "vile" than the means by which the Union was effected, Prior to 1886 you had never used language Jft-iukina, Indeed, up to the end of 1885

your political teaching had always been diametrically opposed to this. At that time the lightning stroke of defeat— or what you regarded and resented as defeat — deranged your steering compass, and forthwith the ship of State was directed on to the reefs of Parnollism. They know little of human nature who cannot see the part played by wounded pride iv this monstrous pirouette. But leaving motives aside, I submit vro have it here reduced to what Kant calls apodictic

certainty— certainty admitting of no contra diction— that you, being born in 1809, waited until you were slightly over 76 years old to discover "that the Union was a crime." One clause ef my statement is thus disposed of. But you may cay, " Not so fast, Mr Tyndal', you know nothing of the state of my mind regarding the Union antecedent to 1886. " 1 This statement would be true. In physical soieuce, however, we infer the nature of a force from its effects ; and in human intercourse, we oan only know the character and oonviotioEß of a man by what he says and does. I have heard ■ a rumour, late in the day, that Home Rule had found a friendly lodgment in your brain long prior lo 1886. This, indeed, has been adduoed as a proof of your prescience. But supposing you had, in extenuation of your sudden ohange of front, nrged such a plea in the presence of, say, Lord Melbourne or the Duke of Wellington, would he not have bluntly told you that it was a pieoe of " damned byj oorisy " on your part to privately foßter this notion, while pretending to yeur colleagues, and to all the world besides, that you repudiated it ? I now torn from the " orime " of the Union

to the •' blackguardism" ot Pitt which could of oourse, only be manifested by Pitt's aotion The tree is known by its fruit ; and if, morally speaking, the (ruit be " blackguardism, " the man who produces it is a blackguard. You may not call him suoh in so many words, but if you find, and pub ish, that his ao s were blackguardly and b3ee ; if, moreover, you are the first man of your party who has found this out and proclaimed it ; then you are clearly entitled to raDk as t!»3 discoverer •' tbat Pit:, wks a biaokgnarii." Tbat your claim tn tbis hor our iB indisputable may be proved in a moment-.. A lett. r cf yours published in The Times of July 17, 1836, find addre sd to Mr George Lsveson Gower, the Liberal Wbip, runs thus :— " My dear (.• orge — lams diy aud a rely grieved at yonr ddefer,a r , whioh you suffer in a noble oause. Ib will le soms oonsolation to you to observe how, even at the moment, the whola civilised world is with u\ You by, I hop--, veiy long year* before you ; and I do no 1 ; rhi k many of thera, though ptobibly Borne, will bave passed before y.)u raouhe your v'adioatioo. I adviffl yoa to take resolutely to the study of Irish iii^tory. I have don* in thai w-*y the Utile that I oould, and I ara amazed vt tho deadne?a of vulgar op'nion to tbe blackguardism and baseness— no worda are s'ro-g enough — wh o*l befoul tho whoL> Hstoiy of the Unkn." Ti-e discovery asoribed to you in -bat) ■*• Uls'er meeting " is he-e eimnchted by your--e f , You wore Prime Miuis <r of the United Kingdom when you wrote that le: tr r, and I 89k yoa, in pas^i-'ir. whether thi' lirad* of blackguardism, baseness, and befouling, appli tl 'to work which in col-r mom nte you had oharact rizei as " splendid," i* tho pa'<er-> of dig i y and pobrie-y of language whiob you wishtid to off jc o the inoipient ptate— mans'io of yonr country. Mr Leveson Gower has, no doubt, asked himself why you, his ohief and mentor, did not in earlier years pursue the oonrse whioh you here so freely recommend ? A portion of the time and genius devoted to the •*"* Gods of Greece " or 10 periodical literature might, one would think, have b=en spared for the wrongs of Ireland. But up to 1886 you remained a Bharer of the " vulgar opinion "— an abettor of the " blao kguardiam " which you here so passionately denounce. An - nonest change of conviction is, of course, to he respected, but this bears all the marks and tokens of a dishonest ohange of conduct. Through slow and painful searchings, in matters deeper and more precious than poli tics, many of us have been compelled to change ; but these changes bave not been .; the veerioge of a weathercook, blown 180 degrees round by the gust of a general eieotion. Exouse a man unversed in politics, but it seems to me that this running after the opinion of the " oivilized world " is not the noblest line for a statesman to pursue. The opinion of civi'ised England, of cultured England, of patriotic England, is more likely to be correct as regards the conduct of the needs of England than this ill-informed, and frequently envious, " civilized world, " whioh .your subserviency to outward influences has made' a dominant factor of your politioal life.

Were this letter to your more youthful friend a eingle ' outburst of Bympathetio anger. I should never have taunted you wi:h writing it. But the offence against consistency and good taste is repeated. It is no part of my present duty to whiten Mr Pitt, but in view of the opinion quoted at the outset, it is hai diy becoming in you to 'malign and blacken him. Writing to another disciple on June 29, 1886, you express yourself thus : — " Against the sense ■"of Ireland and her Parliament (a loyalist Protestant Parliament, by the way ; utterly different from that proposed by you) every engine of force, fraud, bribery, and intimidation within doors, arbitrary government and reckless promises in the couatry at large, were profusely . employed ; and by those shameful means and no others, Ireland was partly entrapped and partly coerced into the the Union. . . . Can you \vonder that a cry, long and loud, was heard from Ireland against the Union so foully brought about"? I again pres3 upon you the question why, if the cry of Ireland was •' long and loud," did you not give heed to it ? Why did you wait until you had felt fche sting of defeat on this very question before publishing facts which the thunder tongue of a nation had for more than half a century been dinning into your ears ? Do you need further "authority" regard ing your altered attitude towards Mr Pitt and his work? You have it in the denunciatory Liverpool speech already quoted, whioh was one of the earliest poured forth after your transfiguration. You will also find ifc in the following excerpts from a speech of yours at Birmingham reported in The Times of November 8." 1888 :— "The Union was resolutely carried by means . which I will nofc stop to describe ; but whioh I think were the foulest and wickedest that ever were put in action as far as I know. Certainly they were unsurpassed in foulness and wiehedness in. all the' records of the crimes of governments." With this malediction of the work of Pitt before your eyes, it is odd that you should .demand an authority for my gentle words at Be fast. You continue the s jft impeachment thus :— " Are all the generations of mankind to be the servants and the slaves of that partioular generation whioh, under the guidanoe of Mr Pitt and Lord Castlereagh, partly cheated and partly tyrranized the Irish nation into the Union ?' Comparing this language at the age of 79 with your - eulogy of Mr Pitt at the age of 47, is it not fair to say that a statesman who oan thus, with^ out contrition and without shame, label his previous life a delusion, has lost all claim to the confidence of his country ? At Plymouth, the other day, you are reported to have expressed yourself thus:— " Gentlemen, I am most thankful for it, because, although I have always said I was not personally prepared to advooate or to undertake the repeal ot the Act of Union, yet I am bound to say this, that the Act of Union was a pretended oompaot, to which the Irish oation never gave its assent. I won't enter now into ail the proceedings in connection with the passing of tbat Act— into all the fraud, all the bribery, all the corruption, all the violence, all the torture, all the slaughter, all the scandalous and incredible acts, which attlie time stained the character, both of the the British Government, and of those who . represented it in Ireland." Ifc is difficult for a Unionist to copy out these epithets without seeking to repel them by others equally unchaste. May nofc this fiery vituperation, which savours far more of the demagogue than of the statesman, be fairly confronted by the statement that nothing more •' scandalous and incredible is to be -.found in political history than the fact of your having, for more than half a century, liv ed -side by side with this monstrous viola tion of right and justice- accepting it, : abetting it, praising it — without once allow-

ing your voice to be heard in protest agains'

it. You work for the hour, and may gain '- the victory of the hour, but history will • pass judgment on your conduct and your - motives, when you and I have passed away. The fact remains that your defeat in 1885 v first loosed your tongue and gave birth to ••• those frenzied harangues which you throw like fire among the inflammable Irish, and address, not to the sober sense, but to the .: passion of your own countrymen. These points were earnestly dwelt upon iv my Belfast speech, but you have ignored them, and raised, instead of them, a point of infinitesimal importance. Throughout your '•' long life, I argued, you had beea continually immersed in politics. You had witnessed the

'overthrow of Ministries upon Irish questions,

You had heard the voice of Daniel O'Connor V demaiidiog Repeal in the presence of a hundred thousand Irishmen on Tara-h ill. You were appealed to, I would add, by the r ; splendid eloquence of the Young Irelanders — a body of high_uindedmen, very different from the rabble that now supports you. You

• listened to the voice of your great leader, Sir Robert Peel, affirming that Ireland was ; the chief difficulty of 'the English statesman : ;And yet shutting your ey«s to this problem ' . of problems, which ought to have beon iv the 'forefront of your politioal education, you V, waited until you were 76 years old to enter ; '" upon .thp study of this Irish question. Sud* ' .denly igiiited by your newly-acquired know* "" ledg6, : you blaze forth as a übiquitous blast* furnace of sedition. Is Buch a chief, I asked,

to be trusted with the power whioh he wishes =• us, blindly and without a word of explanto howhe would employ it, to place in his hands 1 The great meeting whioh I had the. honour of adddreasing answered with one voice" "No." . . ' ; " sl 1 B»re sabmit to you tto dflibwate news of

a man who has left his yonth far behind him ; who knows the Irish people well, nnd who would probably be more ready than you to make sacrifices "for the sake of Ireland. They are the views of a man who is absolutely without ;*» personal aim or obligation, who has never been indebted for tho smallest, favour to any politioal party. I feel, I oonj. f ess, a certain pride in the reflection tha s the independence I enjoy, and which enable me to address you as a free man, has been won, nob by political interest, but through the sweat of my own brow and brain. This, moreover, is my warrant and justification in I telling working men what I think of the leader whom so maDy of them uuthinkingly follow.

One citation more and I bave done. In the Nineteenth Century for Augnst, 1889, Lord Brabourne, a peer oreated, I believe, by yourself, speaks thus of you: -"Mr Glad-* stone is not satified with the general condemnation of all tha proceedings of the British Government; ha describes England as having habitually played the part of the pander, the jobber, and tho swindler towards Ireland, of having infused a mass of corruption into her political life, and of having established against her an anti human system. He has, moreover, aotually declared it proved that Ireland was simply forced into disloyalty hy the deliberate agency and fixed policy rf the Government, and that there was a plot of tlie Government againßt Ireland to make her position intolerable, as the only possible means of contriving the surrender of her nationality. " I will take leave of you by saying that in sterner and more patriotic times the statesman found guilty of thia unmeasured impeachment of his country, this wholesale delivery of her interests and character into the hands of her enemies, would assuredly have received the reward considered righteous by Carlyle, and lo3t his " traitorous head."

Exouse the tardiness 'of my reply. Situated as I am, in the country, at a distance from the file 3 of newspapers and other authorities and references, the delay was unavoidable.

I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,

Johk Tyndall,

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, &c. P.S. — Inasmuch as the foregoing deals with matters of public concern, assuming that yon would see nothing objectionable in my doing so, I propose sending it to the Press.

To the above letter Mr Gladstone has 6enfc tha following reply : —

March 8, 1890.

My dear Sir, — I thank you for reoalling to my memory the exact; words whioh were used by you at Belfast respecting Mr Pitt, and whioh implied that I had connected the word blackguard with his name. But I re* grefc that after the labours of six weeks have allowed you fco satisfy yourself that I had not so employed it you have not been able to prevail upon yourself to confess your error. In lieu of this you have Bpent your time in the study of some among my many political delinquencies aad have proved that 33 yeara ago, when my oontaot with Irish questions was limited fco those of religion and finance, I shared the general ignorance and gave utterance to the then classical opinion of Englishmen about the Union. I sincerely thank yon for setting out at so much length the language in which, ever since making the Union a subject of special study, I have endeavoured to set forth its true character.

And I contentedly leave you to revel in the wealth of that vocabulary which you have almost exhausted in your effort to anticipate the condemnation that history is to pronounce upon me and my doings. It seems to give you pleasure and it causes mo no pain. My only desiro is to meet you on the terms on which long ago wo stood when under my roof you gallantly offered to take me up the Matterhorn and guaranteed my safe return. I remain, my dear Sir, faithfully yours, W. E. Gladstone. To Professor Tyndall,