MR GLADSTONE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1156, 27 April 1894, Page 30

MR GLADSTONE.

A DENUNCIATION OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS. HIS LAST SPEECH. (From our Special Correspondent J London, March 2. If Mr Gladstone's resignation is, a 3 announced, in the hands cf tho Queen, and will be publicly announced on Monday, he made his final great speech last night. Tho Chronicle views tho oration in this light, and Mr Massingham describes it in a sumptuous and overcomo with-emotion style worthy almost of "Tay-Pay": " In all my cxperionca of parliamentary lifo I never recall such tumultuous and conflicting waves of emotion as flowed over tho House of Commons in its brief sitting last night. Everything was electric. Thero were the conflict between tho Uo Houses, tho deepening certainty that Mr Gladstone was going, the immense buzz of intrigue and speculation as to his successor, tho knowledge that the fortunes of a party, tho life of the greatest of living Englishman, tho whole social and political prospect—wero woven together in almost one hour of crowded and thrilling life. Never may thero bo such a meeting of the House of Commons agiin. Generations may pass before Englishmen may look upon a political figure so great as that which now, in a mellow blaze of g'ory, is fading from oui oye3. Thero is no uso disguising tho fact that wo may have listened to Mr Gladstone's last speech in the H0r.30 of Com mons ; as we have certainly listened to his last speech as Prime Minister. On Saturday ho lendora hia resignation to the Queen, on Monday I imagine that the aorld will be made officially cognisant of that momentous fact. Sixty years' service are ended. Tho great man step 3 down" and modern England enters on a new phase of her life. " And tho thing has como, not as men began to fear, mournfully, unhoroically, in a gentle swan-song to melancholy music, but amid tho blaro of trumpets, and the din of battle. The Grand Old Man has gone fighting. His last will and testament is a call, not to take one's caso in Lotus land, but to the greatest constitutional conflict of the century. In other words, Mr Gladstono leaving, has made his declaration of war on the Lords. To that uttoranco his party is fixed, and of i ! his successor will both by choice and necessity be the interpreter. And what a man we aro losing ! I have ofton thought that the least of Mr Gladstone's multifarious gifts is his intellect. But his character, his strength, his personalty, his courage, his uraco ! As ono watched him sitting quiet and pensive on the Treasury bench one thought of some world-thoatro, with thunders of applause coming from long dim rows of distant auditors.

" Tho speech itself may be briefly doscribed. Most of its hearers agreed that Mr Gladstone had made many greater, bub none more exquisitely attuned in langur.ge, in expression, in that perfection of manner, at unco great and simple, of vihich the Old Man is the one living exponent. Ho slipped in very quietly, and deftly took hU usual seat between Mr John Morley and Sir William Harcourfc. Thou he shrank in;o himself, his arms folded, his rice dropping a little on his breast and showing that exquisite lino which it takes on when i » repo e. The beautiful dues of the mouth fall, and the t>reab forehead overshadows tho rest of the face, and then your eyo travels down the Berero proportions of tho slight figure. Quest ions took little time, ad before four o'clock the Old Man was on his feet. He bad, of course, a royal reception, a great wave of gratitude, affection, onihu&iasm, and respect wont out to him, and ho in his turn met it. His speech, as I have said, must have mommtous efftcfc on the issues of English politics. Below on the floor was tho outgoing Premier—gathering himself together with those curious taut little gestures familiar to him. Above was the man, still young, his head held tightly between his hands, who will in all probability be his successor. Beside Lord llosoberry was the Duke of Devonshire, around him was a crowd of peers. Below not a seat that was vacant, not a face that was not strained and drawn. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the old man's speech was its singular directness of phrase —no intricate involutions, no sentences winding in and out through sinuous turns of phrase. Tho speech might have been John Bright's for its simplicity and absence of qualification. The voice was most beautiful. It was a pure organ-pipe, breathed out in slow, full modulations with a deep and powerful emphasis on the heart of each note. Everyone knows this delightful attribute of Mr Gladstone's delivery, and the hundred comments on the speech were that it had never been more charmingly displayed. Tho reception was tremendous. Men did not content themselves with cheering, they waved their , hats, they could hardly keep their seats.

The speech, in fact, fit ruck the deepest unto of accord which has been sounded durw« the whole Gladstone Government. It did not last half an hour, and it progrossed from one triumph to another. Chetr on cheer was broken by intervals of rapt silence. It was a mest emotional —a most dramatic hour.

The thread of the speech was, I have said, extremely simple. Mr Gladscone seemed to compromise for the moment in order to make ultimate terms with the Lords the more impossible. With a contemptuous sweep he accepted all the amendments the Lords had sent down. Wo e*<-not, he said, havo this sending and re-sending backwards and forwards, it has lastud (long enough. It has approached tho point of ridicule. It must cease, and wo must adopt a decisive course. Then came a rapid roview of the actual amendments. They embodied mischiefs which ho hinted might have to bo remedied in futuro Bills. But the Government had decid- d not to wreck tho whole work of fc> o session. This wan their immediate decision ; bub it was accompanied, as the Old Man intimated, by a widr view. Tho action of tho House of Lords with regard to the work of the Session had raised a grave question. The whole constitutional relations of the two Houses, ho wont on, opened up a wider ono. Then oamo one of thoso swiffc light bits of historical retrospect which remind tho world to what long vistas of tho past the Prime Minister's life goes back. There was a passing reference to the book called lt Fifty Years of Liberal Legislation"—fifty years, as evory ono rememborol, of Mr Gladstone's own existence. What had been the record of tho Lords ? It had been gravely unsatisfactory. It had gone, not to the modification, but the annihilation of the work of tho House of Commons. The Government accepted tho Lords' amendments, though they accepted them with tho declaration that the diilerenco between tho two Houses could not continue -(a tremendous outburst of chooring and waving of hats) —but must go forward to i!s issue. (Another storm.) In tho old days there had been pome reserve and circumspection. Those days seeme*! to havo passed away, and now we are having an incessant battle between the representatives of the people and thoso who filled nominated chairs. Tho Government took sides fully, frankly, and finally with the House (f Commons and through them with tho nation. The Bill, as it must bo accepted, was a damaged and mutilated measure. As such it would go to tho country and with it (came the final intimation) the great question of the abolition of the Poors.

"It was a great thing for Mr Balfour to follow adequately such a speech, and it must be frankly said of him that he lived up to the hour. He J brew back Mr Gladstone's p-ssion with a note that if it did not vibrato so deeply, struck out some - strenuous chords, which came back to him in excited cheers. He was extremely clever in dealing with tho sub stance of tho Lords' amendments. * Why,' ho said, 4 the views of the House of Lords wore your views till a certain hour on November 17, and tho Lords simply hold out f«>r what you declared it was a matter of honour and political wisdom for you to adopt.' Then he passed on from detail to principle, the real point of his speech being the complete way in which he look up the gauntlet on tho House of Lords question. Mr Gadstone's speech was c a declaration of war against the ancient Constitution of these realms'—a good sontenee, hailed with a ratting shout of applause fioui the crowded Toiy benches. What was going to be the ground of the quarrel with the Lords? The only important piece of anti-legislation they had done wa3 to throw out tho Home Rule Bill. Were yo-.i going to the country on that pica ? Ai.d thou he went on to declare strongly for the principle of Second Chambers, suggesting with fluent uvacity that the whole civilised world was in favour of them. Mr Labouchere playfully dissented, but Mr Balfour promptly ruled him out of tho civilised world. But as he flowed on with great energy of voice and ge ture, and great power of ready, heated declamation, ho slipped into a really terrible blunder—a blunder not unnatural for so young a man, but which gave away the irreconcileable Toryism of his temperament The English and Scotch people, he said, had come to the conclusion that their inteiests were not safe in tho hands of a parly majority unles3 that majority were controlhd by an assembly like the House of Lords. The cat was out of the bag. You could not have a clearer declaration of what the Tories really meant, a more triumphant vindication of Mr Gladstone's attitude. An ironical shout went up from the Ministerial benches. * Control, control!' they shouted ironically. As a matter of fact the unlucky slip at once spoiled and ended a very brilliant bit of fighting rhetoric. After Mr Balfour there rose, by an unlucky whim, Lord Randolph Churchill. He did not make a good speech, and the House did not stay to hear it. It trooped out as one man to take up the hot, passionate, circling talk of the hour. In a few more minutes the end cime. Mr Storey declined to acquiesce in the formal, though not, of course, actual, compromise involved in the acceptance of tho Lords' amendments, He hinted that the Prime Minister might, after all, not be meaning business, and, with a view of ensuring the matter, divided the House. He got thirty-seven;

votes—tho majority of Toricß and Liberals counting 273. Air Gladstone walked through the lobbies for the last time as Prime Minister with a mixed land of his friends and foes—a singularly pathetic end."