The Taranaki Herald.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 9951, 12 March 1894, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald.

•PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, MARCH 12 1894. • _ — The long and illustrious public career of the Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone has just been brought to a close. During a period of sixty-two years, not the least eventful in English History, he has been before the public, beginning his political career, as was fitting he should, with the first Reformed Parliament of 1832. In that and succeeding Parliaments, Mr Gladstone sat continuously for more than two generations of eminent orators and statesmen nearly all passed away. Born a little more than eighty-four years ago at Liverpool, when that city, at this day with a population larger than that of New Zealand, and with a commerce exceeding that of london itself, was not very much larger than Auckland, Mr Gladstone was the fourth son of a wealthy Wes*, Indian fnerchaut, Sir John Gladstone, Baronet, settled there from Scotland. He received his education at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford. Here, amongst his contemporaries were Arnold of Rugby, Dr Whately, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Hampden Keble, the elder Froude, and Cardinal Newman, Bishop WilberJorce, Bishop Selwyn and Cardinal Manning, all vanished from among the living. Mr Gladstone first entered the House of Commons as member for Newark-on-Trent, m 1832. In 1835, at the age of twenty-six, he received his first inisterial appointment in the Govern mont of Sir Robert Peel, as Under- ! •Secretary for the Colonies. The influence of that distinguished man remained among the most powerful motives of Gladstone's life daring its subsequent eightand fiftyyears. In 1838 was published the earliest of a long series of multifarious compositions, "Church and State." Of this work, Dr Arnold, writing to his pupil and future biographer, the late Dean Stanley, letnarked that to himself it was an interesting symptom of a stir in the Church ; a stir, he might have added, destined to be maintained by the same energetic and untiring hand during the ensuing half century, uot alone in Church but in State. In the year 1811, and again in 1843, Gladstone joined the Peel Administration, as Vice-President and President respectively of the Board of Trade. Among his colleagues were those eminent rnbn, Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, tho Solicitor-Uenera), Sir William Follett, the Earl of Ellenborough, and the Duke of Wellington. Among the legislative measures ouactcd up to 1846, in which Mr Gladstone took a morn or less prominent part, were fchogo financial relonus with which bib iaoje is inseparably connected ; the

Maynooth grant, which he steadfastly opposed ; the factory legislation of Lord Shaftesbury, and the spread of national education, neither of which found in him a very ardent champion. During the political struggle headed by Bright and Cobdei), against the protective policy of the Tories, under theii admired chieftain, Sir Robert J?eel, Gladstone was found for a considerable length of time in the ranks of the Conservative paity. At length when, in the session of 1846, convinced by the powerful reasoning of the Corn Law reformers and the yet more powerful logic of the Irish famine, Sir Eobert Peel brought forward the Abolition of the Uorn Laws, in the teeth of the bitter opposition of his own party, he received no more efficient aid than from his eloquent young disciple, Gladstone. With this great inaugural measure of that Freetrade which, as some of us venture to think, has done so much to promote the extraordinary rise of a prosperity without a parallel in history, must always remain joined with the great names of Peel, iiright, and Cobden, the still greater name of Gladstone. In 1847, having lost his seat for Newark, Gladstone was returned member for bis own University of Oxford, a constituency lie represented during the following eighteen years. In 1852, Gladstone was appointed by the Earl of Aberdeen, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Ministry truly, if scornfully, termed by D'lsraeli the Ministry of All the Talents, comprising as it did men like Lord Palmerston, Lord Russell, the Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of Argyle, and Sidney Herbert. In April, 1853, was brought in that memorable first Budget of Mr Gladstone's, wherein, in a speech of unequalled lucidity and persuasive argument, ho substituted an increased income tax in lieu of increased customs to meet increased expenditure, and simultaneously relieved the indu3trlus of the country of not less than between five and six millions of taxation. Space does not allow of iwelliug, as tie subject deserves, upon the many other momentous incidents in which Gladstone ever held up before himself as his constant aim, alike in his private and public capacity, the advocacy of impartial justice among all classes, tho championship of the weak and the down trodden, the promotion, with all the strength of his unrivalled genius, of that kingdom of eternal righteousness wherein he so profoundly believed. We can afford but a bare mention of his letters from Italy, called forth by tho sight of Poerio, and his fellow patriots' sufferings in Neapolitan dungeons ; letters which aroused the conscience or Europe, and did not a little service in promoting the emancipation of that people who years after received Gladstone both at Naples and Florence, with a welcome so enthusiastic. His exposure, again, of Bulgatiau atrocities, which saved Eugland from a disastrous and disgraceful war on behalf of Turkey ; his ardent championship, after the example of his fore runner Canning, of Greek independence ; at home, his opposition to class and sectarian domination, evidenced in his refusing to join, in legislating now against Born&n Catholics, now against athoists ; his persistent efforts to set free industry and commerce ; to substitute arbitration for war wherever possible ; to secure parliamentary reform and the extension of the suffrage ; to remove restrictions on the promotion of learning' ; to throw opeu the doors of the ancient Universities to men of every creed ; to encourage habits of thrift auong (the working classes by such means as tho establishment of Post Office " Savings Banks, choap postage, r id methods of taxation calculated to throw the burden on the classes best able to meet it. In the year 1865, alarmed by the rapid progress in liberalism, verging on dangerous radicalism, of her favourite child, Oxford University rejected Glad stone as her Parliamentary representative. The very next day, if we mistake not, to the astonishment of the citizens, he appeared as a candidate for South Lancashire, in the Manchester Freo Trade Hall, a building vast as it is, crammed to its utmost capacity within a quarter of an hour afler his coming w.is announced. Who that was then present, six and twenty yenrs ago, and still li;es to remember that wonderful scene, does not yet hear, in memory's distant echoes, the trumpet tones of that silver voice ? Does not call up that majestic impge, that lofty stature, that flash, like an eagle's ylance, of those Itstronseyes which seemed literally to blaze beneath that broad brow shaded by dark grey hair ? In the year 1868, Mi Gladstone introduced and, in the following year, after a hard conflict, ultimately carried, the firsu of his many measures of justice to Ireland, the disestablishment and disendowment of English Church in that country. In the course of the debate, both Mr Gladstone and Mr Bright delivered themselves of more than one speech within the House of Commons and in the country outside, which may alike for exalted tone and sublime eloquence be' pronounced equal to any, even the grandest, specimens either of ancient or modern oratory. In the year 1870 was passed Air Gladstone's Irish Land Bill, and. under his . auspices Mr Foster's Education Bill. We are compelled, however, to pass hastily over the remaining incidents in this long and eventful public career : the disastrous rout, of the Gladstone (j overmuch t in 1874 ; the rally and decisive victory of the Liberal party in 1880 ; its second defeat by the Con9er\atives und^r Lord Salisbury in 1885 ; the unhappy but uot wholly uunatur.il split in the Liberal army on the voxid question of i-ome Rule in Ireland ; the i'lrnell epinoie ; together with magnificent tpeocli after speech delivered both in Parliament aud to his Midlothian and other supporters by the Ltight Honorable gentleman. Nor have we room to enter here upon his tuiTits or demerits as an author of wide notoriety both in Literature, History, and not least the pojmlar prosoutation of Homeric, Hellenic, He! raic, or Anglo-Catholic theology. Irrespective of politics and religion, Mr Gladstone must tie acknowledged by his enemies as well as his friends to be a very great man. He was educated for a diplomatist : statemanship was his profession, and from his youth upwards he associated himself with the highest diplomatists of the age ; and he has been acknowledged to be one of the ablest financiers of this or any other period. His retirement froni the Britfslj Cabinet will be a great loss to his party, although there seems to be every prospect of Lord Rosebery's Ministry becoming very popular.