His Last Speech.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4933, 24 April 1894, Page 2

His Last Speech.

[FROM OUE LONDON CORRESPONDENT.] London, March 2. Mr Gladstone made his final great speech last night. The Chronicle viewß the oration in this light, and Mr Massingham desciibaa ifc in a sumptuous and overcome - with - emotion .style worthy almost of "Tay Pay":— ln all my experience of parliamentary life I never recall such tumultuous and conflicting waveß of emotion as flowed over the House of Commons in its brief pitting last .night. Everything was electric. There wore the conflict between the Honses, the deepening certainty that Mr Gladstone was going; the immense buzz of intrigue and speculation as to his 6ucces3or, the knowledge that the fortunes of a party, the life of the greatest of living Englishmen, the whole social and political prospect— were woven together in alm<*t one hour of crowded and thrilling life. Never may there be.such a meeting of the House of Commons again. Generations may pass before Englishmen may look upon a political figure co great as that which now, in the mellow blaze of glory, is fad lug from our eyes. There is no use dieguisint? the fact that we may have listened to ■ Mr Gladstone's last speech in the House of Commons j as we have certainly listened to his last speech as Prime Minister. Sixty yeare' service are ended. The great man steps dowD, and modern Eogland enters en a new phase of her life. And the thing haß come, not as men j began to fear, mournfully, unheroically, in a gentle swan-song to melancholy music but amid the blare of trumpets, and the din of battle. The Grand Old Man has j gone fighting. His last will and testament is a call, not to tike one's ease in Lotus- ! land, but to the greatest constitutional conflict of the century. In other words, Mr Gladstone, leaving, has made his declaration of war on the Lords. To that utterance bis party is fixed, and of it his successor will both by choice and necessity be the interpreter. And what a man we are losing ! I have often thought that the least of Mr Gladstone's multifarious gifts is his intellects But his character, his strength, his personality, his courage, ivio grace! The speech itself may ibo briefly described. Most of its hearers agresd that Ilr Gladstone ; had made many greater, but nono more exquisitely attuned in language, in expression, in that perfection of manner at once great and simple, of which t' Old Man is the one living exponent. ' < slipped in very quietly, and deftly to' £ c ' usual seat between Mr John Mori . Pr Sir William Harcourt. Then V J * hl | into himself, his arms fol^ .-« % an £ dropping ali tie on his h- - t «f> 4 tjßrank that exquisite line h af? p *. h * 8 f ? ce in renoap rp " -. lfflicii ifc »' .nd showing m^iepoae. Beautiful Acs on when -tftASQ folii and the great lines of the : shadow^ the rest of thp , forehead over- j year eye travels down ' , face, and then ; tioris of the slight fig' fae severe proporlittle time, and befor Questiona took man was on his feet a f our o'clock the old royal reception, a , He had, of jcourse, a affection, enthup' grea t wa ve of gratitude, to him, and V ,iasm, and respect went out speech, as I b i6 in ti B turn met it. His tous effect o Aye B& \$ t mus t have momenBelcm, on , fl the issues o£ English politics. Premier- tbe floorj waß t ue ouc-goiDg those c -gathering himself together with t0 h ' arioua taut little gestures familiar your ,m Above was the man, still j" c ig , hia head held tightly between b , hands, who will, in all probability «T his successor. Eeeide Lord Ecsebery was the Duke of Devonshire, around him was a crowd of peers. Below a/ am »JJ a seat that was vacant, not a face that was not strained and drawn Perhap a the most remarkable feature of the old man * speech was its singular diwctn«B of nhra^e—no intricate involutioue, no senbfot^r^Ms aXeTaßdpowc^lemphasisonthebe^ of each note. Everyone kn6ws this dethtful attribute of Mr Gladstone's doliverv, and the hundred comments on the speech were that it had never been I more charmingly displayed. Hie reoep-

tion was tretoondcus. Men did sot content themselves with cheering, they waved their hats; they could hardly keen their seats. The Bpeech, in fact, struck the deepest note of accord which has been sounded during the whole GladstoneGovernment. It did not last fcalf an hour, *indit progressed from one triumph to another. Cheer on cheer was broken by interval.-: «-f rapt silence. It wa3 a most emotion»l — a most dramatic hour. The thread of the speech waa, I have eaid, extremely pimple. Mr Gladstone seem«)d to compromise for the moment in order to make ultimate terms with the Inrds the nioro impossible. With a contemptuous BWfep he accepted all the amendments the Lords had s?nt down. We cannot, he ertid, have this Bending and re-sending backwards and forwards. It has lasted long enough. It has appro.tch^d the point of ridicule. It mnst cease, and vro must adopt a decisive course. Then came a rapid review of the 1 actual amendounfcs. They embodied mis-; chuf > which he hinted might have to be remedied in . future Bills. But the Government had decided not to wreck the whole work of a session. This wag their immediate decision ; hut it was accompanied, a 9 the old man intimated, by a wider view. The action of the House o£ Lords wi'h regard to the work of the session had raised a grave question* The whole constitutional relations o£ the two Houses, he went on, opened up a wider one. Then case one o£ ' those swift, li;;ht bits of historical retrospect which remind the world to what long vistas of the past the Prime Minister's life goes back. There wan a passing ? e?ereno>» to the book called "Fifoy Yeaig of Lib ral Legislation"— fifty jears,' as everyone remembered, o£ Mr Gladstone's own existence. WLat had been he record of the LoidsP It had been grav^ y unsatisfactory. It had gone, 1 not to tlr- modification, but the annihilation, of the work of the Honse of Com* mons. The Government accepted the Lords' amendments, though they accepted them with the declaration that the difference between th? two Houses could not " continue —(a tremendous . outburst o£ • che>r ngand waviog of lats)— but must go t'oiw r.l to its issue. (Another storm.) In the <>ll days there had been some reperve and circumspection. Those daya ' e:o= ; ed to have pa^eed away, and now we wr;r<; hiving an inctesant battle between ' Ite :ep eeent^tueßOf the people and thoae. ; who filled nominated chairs. Tbe Orovetn--i ment took Bides fully, frankly and finally 1 .with the House of Commons, and through | them with the nation. The' Bill, aa it ' must be accepted, was a damaged and mutilai ed measure. As Buch it would go to the country and with it (tame the final intimation) the great question of the. abolition of the Peertf. It was ft great thing for Mr Balfour ta follow adequately such a epeeob/and it must be frankly said of him that he lived 1 up to the hour. He threw back Mr Gladstone's passion with a note that if it did? not vibrate ao 'deeply, struck out some" strenuous chords, whioh came baok to him in excited cheers. He waa extremely clever in ceiling with the substance o£ the Lords' Amendments. " Why," he said ft "the views of the House of Lords were, your views till a certain hour on Nov. 17,, and the Lords simply hold out for what, you declared it was a matter of honour and political wiidom for you to adopt." Then he paused on from detail to principle, the real point of hiß speech being the complete way in which he took up the gauntlet on tbe House of Lords question. Mr Gladstone's speech was ''a declaration of war againat the ancient constitution of these realms"— a good sentence, haileci with a rattling shout of applause from the crowded J"ory bencbe?. What was going to be the ground of the. quarrel with the Lords? The only important piece of atti-legislation they had done was to throw out the Home Rule Bill. Were you going to the country on. that plea? And then he went on to declare strongly for the principal of Seoond Chambers, suggesting with fluent vivacity that the whole civilised world was in. favour of them. Mr Labouchere playfully dissented, but Mr Balfour promptly ruled? him. ou.t q£ the civilised world, 8.0,t RB. he i flowed oii with great energy of voice and I gesture, and great power of ready, heated declamation, ho slipped into a really i terrible blunder— a blunder not unnatural ! for so young a mau, but which gave aw&# } the irreconcileable Toryism of hiß feem- { peiament. The English and Scotch paogle, : h» said, had c*me to the conclusion that j their interests were not cafe ra the j hands of a pai 1 by majority üb&bb that majority were controlled by an aaseni'bljf ! like the Home of Lords. The cat waa I our, of the bag. You could not have a* ( clearer declaration of what the Tories realljf j meant, a more triumphant vindication! jof Mr Gladstone's attitude. An ironical i shout went up from the Minister]^ ) benches. " Coutrol, control]" they" gtouttd } ironically. Aa a matter of fact the ; unlucky clip at once spoiled and ended a .very brilliant bit of fighting rhetoric. j After Mr Balfour there rose, by an unlucky j whim, Lord Randolph Churchill. He did : not make a good speech, and the House did not stay to hear it. In a few more minutes the end came. Mr Storey declined to acquiesce in the formal, though not, of course, actual, compromise involved in tha acceptance of the Lords' amendments. He hiuted that the Prime Minister might after all, not be meaning busineaß, and, with a view of ensuring the matter, divided the House. He got thirty-seven votes-the majority of Tories and Liberals counting 273. Mr Glad 3 tone walked through the lobbies for the last time aa rrime Minister with a mixed band of his friends and foes—a singularly pathetic