SINGULARITY OF BRITAIN'S GREATNESS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 405, 4 March 1880, Page 2

SINGULARITY OF BRITAIN'S GREATNESS.

, W. E. Gladstone's Speech at Edinburgh, 24th November, 1879. Depend upon it, you will find to your 1 cost before you are five years older—you will know it better than you do to -day-; that this empire is fan empire the daily calls of whose immense responsibilities [ task and overtask the energies of the ablest of her statesmen. is not a country in the history of the wrirld that has under: taken what W9 have'undertaken; and when I say what we have undertaken, I . do not mean what the present Government have undertaken—that I will come to by-and-by—but what England in its traditional established policy and position. i has undertaken, There is no precedent , in human history for a formation like the British Government. A small island at ' one extremity of the globe peoples the : whole earth with its Colonies, but it is not ( satisfied with that, It goes among the ancient races of Asia and it subjects 1 240,000,000 to its rule there. Along with [ all this it disseminates over the world a r commerce such as no imagination ever conceived in former times and such as no ' boet over painted. (Cheers,) And all , this it has to do with a strength that lies within the narrow limits of those shoreis'; not a strength that I disparage; on the contrary, I wish to dissipate if lean the; idle dreams of those who are always tell: 1 ing you that the strength of England depends—sometimes, they say J upon its extending its empire and upon what it possesses beyond.these shores.; Rely uponit, the strength of Great Britain and Ireland is within 'the United Kingdom. (Loud cheers.) Whatever is to be done in defending and governing these vast colonies, with their teeming millions, in protecting that unmeasured commerce, in relation to the enormous responsibilities of India—whatever is to be done must be done by the force derived from you and from your children; derived from you and the citizens and people of this country. (Cheers.) And where are they ? They are come three-and-thirty. • millions of persons : they are a copulation less than the population of Prance, less than the population of Austria, less than the population of Germany, less than the population of Russia. But the population of Prance, Austria, Germany, and Russia find it quite hard enough to settle their own matters within their own limits, We have undertaken to settle the affairs of a fourth, or nearly a fourth, of the entire human race scattered over the world and is not that enough for the ambition of Lord Beaconsfield 1 (Laughter and Cheers,) It satisfied Mr Pitt and Mr Canning, it satisfied Lord Grey and Sir Robert Peel, it satisfied Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell and the late Lord Derby, and why cannot it satisfy—l do not want to make any invidious distinction between Lord Beaconsfield and his colleagues, for it seems to me they are now very much of one mind, and they move with harmony among themselves—why does not this satisfy the ambition of the members of the present Government? I affirm, on the contrary, strive and labour as you will— I speak after the experience of a lifetime, of which a fair portion has been spent in office—strive and labour as you will, in Parliment and in office, human strength and human thought are not equal to the discharge of the duties appertaining to Government in this great, wonderful, and world-wide Empire. (Cheers.)