THE GLADSTONE MINISTRY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 8, 12 June 1885, Page 15

THE GLADSTONE MINISTRY.

•HE Gladstone Ministry has fallen. It has been defeated on the Budget by a majority of twelve, and Mr. Gladstone has placed his resignation and that of bis colleagues in the hands of Her Majesty. No news has yet arrived here as to his successor, nor is it easy to forecast whether or not the opposition will be able to form a Ministry. In the present state of the House of Commons a Conservative Government would be in a minority, and it is doubtful whether the Conservative leaders would consent to hold office even till the general election in the face of a hostile House. Until the final solution of this question great anxiety will;be felt everywhere. Gladstone has been a great Prime

Minister, and a liberal statesman. No man living has done more for popular freedom, and we regret his defeat. True, his Irish policy has not been an unbroken success, but the Conservatives, had they been in power, would not have done better— not even as well as he. No English Ministry, no British Government can ever govern Ireland successfully. In the nature of things, such success is not possible, and until England makes up her mind to do to Ireland as she has done to her colonies — that is, concede to the sister island unfettered local Government, no English Minister can even hope to be a great success. It is said that the Nationalist members swelled the majority against the Gladstone Ministry. We do not yet know. It may be so, and probably is. Nor is this surprising, considering all the just grounds of complaint which they have had against his Irish government. Still it must not be forgotten that he disestablished the State Church, and gave the Land Act, together with some other useful measures. His faults have been such as were inseparable from an attempt made by England to legislate for and govern Ireland. It is not possible for such an attempt to succeed. As well might England attempt to legislate for and govern France from London. As well might she attempt to legislate for and govern her colonies from the same centre. Ireland is a distinct nation, and not an English county ; and the great mistake is to regard her as an English county, which for some time has been and is still the mistake of so many English statesman. It is this mistake that lies at the bottom of all the blunders that the English Parliament has made during the Gladstone administration . We regret Mr. Gladstone's fall and sympathise with him, because we regard his faults rather as misfortunes than crimes. It is probably owing to his Russian policy that this fall is in a great measure due. We do not share in the indignation caused by his peace policy. On the contrary, his desire to avoid war so long as war can be avoided with honour and consistently with the interests of the Empire, is his strongest recommendation to us. The readiness of the Tory party to run amuck against everything not in accordance with its own prejudices is with us the strongest reason for not desiring their return to power. Nor are the English people likely to forget how the Conservative party accumulated a national debt of more than four hundred millions sterling in endeavouring to stay the progress of the French Revolution, and to no purpose, for which debt they are still paying an enormous amount of interest annually. For the most part the wars waged in the past by this party have been quite useless. A statesman, therefore, who, like Mr. Gladstone, is slow to proclaim war, is a wise one, one who ought to be dear to the Empire, and his fall from power in the present state of our relations with Russia cannot but be deplored as a great calamity. All the talk in the newspapers about his trifling with the honour and interests of the Empire is mere rubbish. If necessary, and when necessary, Mr. Gladstone, it cannot be doubted, would fight to the last extremity to maintain both ; and we feel quite confident that his wisdom and judgment could be as safely trusted as the wisdom and judgment of any other British statesman.