MR GLADSTONE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3722, 6 September 1886, Page 3

MR GLADSTONE.

The following is from the last number of the Edinburgh Review, just to hand : — A humour caricaturist m a serious mood (Tenniel m Punch) has parodied tho situatiou of Mr Gladstone and his colleaguos m a re-production of Meissonier's celebruted picture of tho melancholy retreat of 1814. It may sejm eccentric to compare Mr &., under any circumstances with Napoleon Bonaparte. He has not won great battles ; he has not crushed a revolution ; he has not founded though he might have lost an empire. Since he has been at the head of affuirs Mr G. has not been a fortunate or a successful minister. ll is best services were rendered to the State a'tan carlicretageof his caroer, m a subordinate position, and under a different flag. The painful events which marked his last administration (tho Soudan massacres, Ac.) would nuflico to dim the brightest gifts of intellect and eloquence ; and although they appear to have faded from the memory of contemporaries they will be recorded by tho pitiless hand of history. But Mr G. has some of the characteristic defects of Napoleon. The samo unbounded reliance on his own will, which he takes for judgment. Tho same . unquenchable lovo of power, moro prized when it is conferred by the inarticulate cries of a multitude than when it is sanctioned by the deliberate judgment of a Senate. The same ecorn and even resentment of the opinions of other men, when the ideas they represent are not his own. The same contempt for the educated classes of society, becauoo ho cannot subdue tbem. The samo belief m popular enthusiasm as the chief ' force of government. The same hallucination which leads him to regard the creation., of his own ambition as accomplished realities, and to spurn those fixed principles of political science and experience which are the only secure bases of free government. These were the fatal errors which caused the melancholy retreat from Leipsic and from many a lost battlefield m France. Übey may compel the Prime Minister of England to ride m the same direction. Tho trusted colleagues of his better years have been compelled, not without great personal suffering, to withdraw from his councils, m which their voice was not heard ; and ho finds himself m the last great conflict of his life with a Moriey, a Mundella, and a Stansfiold m his Cabinet, leaning on the support of Mr Parnell, Mr Schnadhorst, and Mr Labouchere.