Read Ebook: Imperialism and Mr. Gladstone (1876-1887) by Gretton R H Richard Henry Compiler Bell Kenneth Kenneth Norman Editor Winbolt S E Samuel Edward Editor

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PAGE INTRODUCTION v

IMPERIALISM AND MR. GLADSTONE

PURCHASE OF THE SUEZ CANAL SHARES .

MR. DISRAELI: ... When we acceded to office two years ago an International Commission had only just ceased its labours at Constantinople upon the dues of the Suez Canal, and upon the means of ascertaining and maintaining a limit of them, and it had arrived at reasons entirely protested against by the proprietary. What was the state of affairs there? Lord Derby had to deal with them. The proprietary of the canal threatened, and not only threatened, but proceeded, to stop the canal. They refused pilots; they threatened to change the signals; they took steps which would have interrupted that mode of intercourse with India.... From that moment it became a matter of interest to those responsible for the government of this country to see what could be done to remedy those relations with the Suez Canal.... But it suddenly comes to our knowledge that the Khedive, on whose influence we mainly depended, is going to part with his shares. We received a telegram from Cairo informing us that the Khedive was anxious to raise a considerable sum of money upon his shares in the Suez Canal, and offered them to England. We considered the question immediately, and it appeared to us to be a complicated transaction--one to which there were several objections; and we sent back to say that we were favourably disposed to assist the Khedive, but that at the same time we were only prepared to purchase the shares outright. What was the answer? The answer was that the Khedive was resolved, if he possibly could, to keep his shares, and that he could only therefore avail himself of a loan. There matters seemed to end. Then suddenly there came news to the Government of this country that a French society--Soci?t? G?n?rale--was prepared to offer the Khedive a large sum of money--very little inferior to the four millions--but on very onerous conditions. The Khedive communicated with us, and said that the conditions were so severe that he would sooner sell the shares outright, and--which I had forgotten to mention--that, in deference to his promise that England should always have the refusal of the shares if he decided to sell them, he offered them to the English Government. It was absolutely necessary to decide at that moment what course we should take. It was not a thing on which we could hesitate.... To pretend that Lord Derby has treated this business as a mere commercial speculation is idle. If he did not act in accordance with the principles of high policy, I should like to know what high policy is, and how a man can pursue it.

Apart from looking upon this as an investment, if the shares had been offered, and if there had been no arrangement of paying interest for nineteen years, so far as I am concerned, I should have been in favour of the purchase of the shares. I should have agreed with Lord Derby in thinking that England would never be satisfied if all the shares of the Suez Canal were possessed by a foreign company. Then it is said, if any obstacles had been put in your way by the French proprietors of the canal, you know very well that ultimately it must come to force, and you will then obtain at once the satisfaction of your desire. Well, if the government of the world was a mere alternation between abstract right and overwhelming force, I agree there is a good deal in that observation; but that is not the way in which the world is governed. The world is governed by conciliation, compromise, influence, varied interests, the recognition of the rights of others, coupled with the assertion of one's own; and, in addition, a general conviction, resulting from explanation and good understanding, that it is for the interests of all parties that matters should be conducted in a satisfactory and peaceful manner.... I cannot doubt that the moral influence of England possessing two-fifths of the shares in this great undertaking must have made itself felt, must have a considerable influence upon the conduct of those who manage the company.... England is a Mediterranean Power; a great Mediterranean Power. This is shown by the fact that in time of war always, and frequently in time of peace, she has the greatest force upon those waters. Furthermore, she has strongholds upon those waters which she will never relinquish. The policy of England, however, is not one of aggression. It is not provinces she wants. She will not interest herself in the redistribution of territory on the shores of the Mediterranean, as long as the redistribution does not imperil the freedom of the seas and the dominion which she legitimately exercises. And therefore I look upon this, that in the great chain of fortresses which we possess, almost from the Metropolis to India, that the Suez Canal is a means of securing the free intercourse of the waters, is a great addition to that security, and one we should prize.

ENGLAND, RUSSIA, AND AFGHANISTAN .

THE QUEEN AS EMPRESS OF INDIA .

MR. GLADSTONE: ... In my opinion this is a matter of the greatest importance. We have had some declarations in this House with respect to India. The hon. member for West Cumberland , on the night when the right hon. gentleman first made his proposal, said that an Imperial title would be the one most suitable, because it would signify that Her Majesty governed India without the restraints of law or constitution.

MR. PERCY WYNDHAM: I said that the Government of India was a despotic Government, not in the hands of one person, and not, as in this country, a constitutional Government in the hands of the Queen and the Houses of Lords and Commons. The Government of India is essentially a despotic Government as administered by us, although it includes more than one individual.

BULGARIAN ATROCITIES .

... I have the fullest confidence in the honour and in the intelligence of Mr. Baring, who has been inquiring on behalf of England. But he was not sent to examine the matter until the 19th of July, three months after the rising, and nearly one month after the first inquiries in Parliament. He had been but two days at Philippopolis, when he sent home, with all the despatch he could use, some few rudiments of a future report. Among them was his estimate of the murders, necessarily far from final, at the figure of twelve thousand.

We know that we had a well-manned Embassy at Constantinople, and a network of Consulates and Vice-Consulates, really discharging diplomatic duties, all over the provinces of European Turkey. That villages could be burned down by scores, and men, women, and children murdered, or worse than murdered, by thousands, in a Turkish province lying between the capital and the scene of the recent excitements, and that our Embassy and Consulates could know nothing of it? The thing was impossible. It could not be. So silence was obtained, and relief; and the well-oiled machinery of our luxurious, indifferent life worked smoothly on....

What we have to guard against is imposture--that Proteus with a thousand forms. A few months ago the new Sultan served the turn, and very well. Men affirmed that he must have time. And now another new Sultan is in the offing. I suppose it will be argued that he must have time too. Then there will be, perhaps, new constitutions; firmans of reforms; proclamations to commanders of Turkish armies, enjoining extra humanity. All these should be quietly set down as simply zero. At this moment we hear of the adoption by the Turks of the last and most enlightened rule of warfare--namely, the Geneva Convention. They might just as well adopt the Vatican Council or the British Constitution. All these things are not even the oysters before the dinner. Still worse is any plea founded upon any reports made by Turkish authority upon the Bulgarian outrages.... I return to, and I end with, that which is the Omega as well as the Alpha of this great and most mournful case. An old servant of the Crown and State, I entreat my countrymen, upon whom far more than perhaps any other people of Europe it depends, to require, and to insist, that our Government, which has been working in one direction, shall work in the other, and shall apply all its vigour to concur with the other States of Europe in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner--namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbachis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to the memory of those heaps on heaps of dead; to the violated purity alike of matron, of maiden, and of child; to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God, or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large. There is not a criminal in a European gaol, there is not a cannibal in the South Sea Islands, whose indignation would not rise and overboil at the recital of that which has been done, which has left behind all the foul and all the fierce passions that produced it, and which may again spring up, in another murderous harvest, from the soil soaked and reeking with blood, and in the air tainted with every imaginable deed of crime and shame.

SIR THEOPHILUS SHEPSTONE'S COMMISSION .

Whereas grievous disturbances have broken out in the territories adjacent to Our colonies in South Africa, with war between the white inhabitants and the native races, to the great peril of the peace and safety of Our said colonies; and whereas, having regard to the safety of Our said colonies, it greatly concerns Us that full inquiry should be made into the origin, nature, and circumstances of the said disturbances, and with respect to the measures to be adopted for preventing the recurrence of the like disturbances in the future; and whereas it may become requisite to this end that the said territories, or portions of them, should be administered in Our name and in Our behalf.

Now know you that We, having especial trust and confidence in the loyalty and fidelity of you, the said Sir Theophilus Shepstone, have appointed you to be Our special Commissioner for the purpose of making such inquiry as aforesaid ... and if the emergency seem to you to be such as to render it necessary, in order to secure the peace and safety of Our said colonies, and of Our subjects elsewhere, that the said territories, or any portion or portions of the same, should be provisionally, and pending the announcement of Our pleasure, be administered in Our name and on Our behalf, then, and in such case only, We do further authorize you, the said Sir Theophilus Shepstone, by proclamation under your hand, to declare that from and after a day to be therein named, so much of any such territories aforesaid as to you, after due consideration, shall seem fit, shall be annexed and form part of Our dominions.

And We do hereby constitute and appoint you to be thereupon Administrator of the same provisionally and until Our pleasure is more fully known.

Provided, first, that no such proclamation shall be issued by you with respect to any district, territory, or state, unless you shall be satisfied that the inhabitants thereof, or a sufficient number of them, or the Legislature thereof, desire to become Our subjects; nor if any conditions unduly limiting Our power and authority therein are sought to be imposed....

RUSSIA DECLARES WAR ON TURKEY .

We have not a word to say in defence of the Porte. We admit that it was guilty, as Lord Salisbury has confessed, of infatuation when it defied the Conference, and that it would have accepted even the Protocol, if it had possessed a tithe of the sagacity which was once a better protection of its weakness than ironclads are to-day. We may even admit that the Protocol was, what Prince Gortchakoff styles it, the last expression of the united will of Europe. But his story is fatally incomplete. It would have been desirable to know whether Russia has done her best to make it easy for Turkey to accept the undisguised tutelage of the European Powers. That question calls to mind how much the fanaticism of the Turks was inflamed by the covert aid which Russia gave to Servia. The Czar refers to the famous words which he spoke in the Kremlin. They were indeed the real declaration of war, for they prevented Russia from accepting anything less than the complete submission of Turkey. Russia might plead, no doubt, that as war was certain to be found an absolute necessity in the end, it mattered little how rudely she ruffled the Osmanli pride. But in that case the negotiations of the past two years have been a series of hypocrisies. As it is, the general judgment is expressed by what Lord Derby said last night. While he found it hopeless to bend the will of Turkey towards submission, he equally found on the part of her Government "a deeply seated conviction that, do what they would, sooner or later war would be forced upon them." He believed that he and his colleagues have throughout been "engaged in the solution of a hopeless problem." Such, we fear, is the prosaic truth, and, whatever be the measure of Turkish obstinacy, Russia cannot escape condemnation. She has sometimes acted as if she wished to cut off a way of retreat both from herself and her foe.... Russia has hastened to stop all further negotiations, and to act as if she and she alone had an interest in the tranquillity of the Turkish Empire. Thus she has forfeited any right to speak in the name of Europe. Nor has she given the Powers assurances which they had a right to expect. Nothing is said in the same strain as the declarations at Livadia, that Russia had no objects of territorial ambition.... The Czar has committed a grave error by neglecting to proclaim that in no event would he seize Turkish territory.

IRISH OBSTRUCTION IN ITS EARLY DAYS .

Mr. Parnell and his special friends greatly distinguished themselves in the House of Commons last night by the multiplicity of the motions in committee on the South Africa Bill. The Government adopted special means to wear out the tenacity of the members who thus consume hour after hour, for it had arranged that the House should sit until the work should be done, even if the discussion should last till breakfast time. But it does injustice to Mr. Parnell. He is the most misunderstood and most ill-used man in the House of Commons. Such is the burden of the long letter from him which we printed on Monday. He has been accused of trying to stop public business by floods of irrelevant speech. He has been charged with something like open disrespect for the authority of Mr. Speaker. He has been suspected of a wish to make Irish members intolerable, in the hope that weary Englishmen and Scotchmen would bid them begone to enjoy the beatitudes of Home Rule. He has made the Leader of the House, although the mildest of men, propose to banish him to the penal settlement of silence, and the House has done him the honour of framing two new rules to impede the flow of his speech during the rest of the Session.... The incorrectness of that accusation, he replies, is proved by the comparatively small use he has made of almost boundless opportunities. If his enemies speak of what he has done, he appeals to what he might have done. Has he obstructed every clause of every Bill? Has he even obstructed every Bill? Has he exhausted all the forms of the House even yet? These questions oppress us with a sense of his moderation. If he has done so much, he might have done so much more! As most Bills have at least ten clauses, as most clauses contain at least a hundred words, and as at least one amendment might be moved after each word, Mr. Parnell could have opposed each Bill with at least a thousand amendments, and he himself, Mr. Biggar, and Mr. O'Donnell could each have delivered at least a thousand speeches.

PLEVNA AFTER THE SIEGE .

As I rode up the slope of the hill east of Plevna towards the redoubt defending the road between the town and the village of Radicheve, a ghastly scene was presented. Hundreds of Russian skeletons lay glistening on the hillsides, where they had fallen during the assault of September. The bones were generally completely bare. Those nearest to the earthwork had been covered with a few inches of earth, which had been washed off by the first shower, and now they lay as naked as the others. The Moslem outpost pits were among these skeletons, many of them not being more than a yard distant. Singular as it may seem, many of these skeletons had distinct expressions, both in the attitude in which they had fallen and in the position of the fleshless jaws. I could distinguish those who had fallen without suffering from those who had died in agony, and the effect was such as I shall never forget. The Russian soldiers who marched into Plevna in the rear of Osman's sallying force passed among these remains of their unburied comrades.... On entering the town I was surprised to find it so little injured by the cannonading....

STRAINED RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA .

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Mr. Speaker, the Government have received a telegram to-day from Mr. Layard, containing a summary of the articles of the armistice.... The telegram ends by saying that the Turks have begun to remove their guns from the Constantinople lines. Now it is quite evident that, whatever may have been the arrangements with regard to the neighbourhood of Constantinople, a neutral zone has been declared, which includes the lines of Tchekmedje, which protect Constantinople; and according to the terms of the armistice the Turks are bound not to retain those fortresses, and accordingly are bound to remove--and are quietly beginning to remove--their guns and armaments from the fortifications by lines and to specified places.... The consequence is that, although the Russians do not occupy those lines themselves, they occupy an outpost close to them, while the lines themselves are being thoroughly disarmed. They have the power, therefore, at any moment, subject to the necessity of giving three days' notice of the termination of the armistice, of advancing on Constantinople without hindrance.... I may perhaps venture to call the attention of the House to one of the papers which we laid upon the table yesterday. That contains a copy of a Memorandum which was communicated to the Russian Ambassador by Her Majesty's Government on the 28th of July last, in which they say they "look with much anxiety at the state of things in Constantinople, and the prospect of the disorder and bloodshed, and even anarchy, which may occur as the Russian forces draw near to the capital. The crisis which may at any time arrive in Constantinople may be such as Her Majesty's Government could not overlook, while they had the means of mitigating its horrors. Her Majesty's Government are fully determined not to depart from the line of neutrality which they have declared their intention to observe; but they do not consider that they would be departing from this neutrality, and they think that Russia will not consider they are doing so, if they should find themselves compelled to direct their fleet to proceed to Constantinople, and thus afford protection to the European population against internal disturbance." The Government, I may add, feel that the state of affairs disclosed by the armistice has given rise to the danger which they thus apprehended, and they have, in the circumstances, thought it right to order a portion of the fleet to proceed at once to Constantinople for the purpose of protecting the lives and property of British subjects.

Cols. 1622-1623 .

The uncertainty which has prevailed during the last few days respecting the course which our Government would pursue, in view of the difference respecting the Congress which had arisen between ourselves and Russia, has received a startling and momentous solution. When the House of Lords met yesterday, Lord Derby no longer occupied his seat on the Ministerial Bench, and he at once announced that he had resigned the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.... The explanations given yesterday remove all doubt respecting the relative positions assumed by our Government and Russia in regard to the Congress. Sir Stafford Northcote stated in the House of Commons the import of the communications which have passed between ourselves and Russia.... Russia's reply amounted to a clear intimation that she claims to withhold from the cognizance of the Powers any articles of the preliminary Treaty she may choose. Such a reserve as she asserts is tantamount to a definite claim to alter an existing Treaty by force of arms without consulting the other Powers who signed it, and towards whom she is under honourable obligations. There being this imminent danger that the Congress may not meet--it being, as Lord Beaconsfield said, "the belief" of the Government "that the Congress would not meet," it became necessary for the Government to consider what further course they would take.... We do not know what course Lord Derby would have advised, and it is possible he would not immediately have taken any fresh steps. But the rest of the Government decided that in the interests of peace, and for the due protection of the rights of the Empire, it was their duty "to advise Her Majesty to avail herself of those powers which she has for calling for the services of her Reserved Forces." As subsequently explained by Mr. Hardy in the House of Commons, this step is one which is rendered necessary by the new organization of the Army.... Its result will be to raise our regular forces to their utmost efficiency. In other words, it will place the land forces which actually exist in readiness for prompt action; and it is thus a plain declaration--a declaration rendered emphatic by Lord Derby's resignation--that we are prepared to act promptly if the course on which Russia has entered directly injures our honour or our interests. Such a declaration of our being determined to adhere to the claims we have put forward is perhaps the most momentous step which has yet been taken by this country.

PEACE WITH HONOUR .

The Premier alighted at his official residence in Downing Street, and was met on the threshold by General Ponsonby, bearing a bouquet of rare flowers, sent to him by the gracious forethought of Her Majesty the Queen.... The ground was well kept by the police, till the Prime Minister appeared at a window and began to speak. Then a rush swept the police away. Three cheers for Lord Beaconsfield were given. For the second time in the day the Prime Minister was visibly affected. He had to wait long for silence, but when an approach to quiet had been obtained Lord Beaconsfield said: "I can assure you that no recognition of neighbours could be more gratifying to my feelings than these expressions of the sentiments of those among whom I see many of my oldest and most cherished friends. Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace, but a peace, I hope, with honour, which may satisfy our Sovereign, and tend to the welfare of the country."

THE SECRET AGREEMENTS IN BEACONSFIELD'S POCKETS .

GLADSTONE INDIGNANT AGAIN .

MR. GLADSTONE : I want to ask you, and I think after these two years it is about time, who are the true friends of Russia? Is it we, gentlemen, who met two years and a half ago on Blackheath, and said it was most mischievous to leave to any single country the settlement of the Eastern question?... Who brought Russia back to the Danube? Those very men who are continually denouncing us as the friends of Russia. We had in 1856 by the fortune of war driven Russia back from the Danube; the present Government have brought Russia back to the Danube. They made a secret memorandum with Count Schouvaloff by which they engaged--unless they could convert him by their arguments--to vote in the Congress for bringing Russia back to the Danube.... Who gave Russia the fortress of Kars? The present Government. These people say they want to keep down the power of Russia. Want to keep down the power of Russia! Why, they have left it in her power to make herself the liberator of Bulgaria, and secure for herself the influence which always follows upon gratitude.

RUSSIAN INTRIGUE AT CABUL .

Further confirmation received of presence of Russian mission at Cabul headed by General Abramoff, Governor of Samarkand, who is mentioned by name. We desire to point out that present situation requires immediate correction. It will soon be known throughout India that Russian officers and troops have been received with honour, and are staying at Cabul within short distance of our frontier and our largest military garrison, while our officers have been denied admission there. We have further reports of Russian officers having visited and been well received at Maimena. To remain inactive now will, we respectfully submit, be to allow Afghanistan to fall as certainly and as completely under Russian power and influence as the Khanates. We believe we could correct situation if allowed to treat it as question between us and the Ameer, and probably could do so without recourse to force. But we must speak plainly and decidedly, and be sure of your support. We propose, therefore, in the first place, to insist on reception of suitable British mission at Cabul. To this we do not anticipate serious resistance; indeed, we think it probable that Ameer, adhering to his policy of playing Russia and ourselves off against each other, will really welcome such mission, while outwardly only yielding to pressure....

Assuming the certainty of Russian officers at Cabul, your proposals to insist on reception of British envoy approved. In case of refusal you will telegraph again as to the steps you desire to take for compelling the Ameer to receive your mission.

Chamberlain reports from Peshawur that it is quite evident Ameer is bent on utmost procrastination, and determined on making acceptance of our mission dependent on his pleasure and choice of time.... To await at Peshawur Ameer's pleasure would be to abandon whole policy and accept easy repulse at outset.... Consequently mission moved this morning to Jamrud; thence Cavagnari advances to Ali Musjid with small escort to demand passage....

General Sir Neville Chamberlain.

Following telegram received last night from Sir Neville Chamberlain. Message begins: Cavagnari reports that we have received a decisive answer from Faiz Mahomed, after personal interview, that he will not allow mission to proceed. He crowned the heights commanding the way with his levies, and though many times warned by Cavagnari that his reply would be regarded as reply of the Ameer, said he would not let mission pass....

Text of letter, as approved, to be sent to the Ameer.... In consequence of this hostile action on your part, I have assembled Her Majesty's forces on your frontier, but I desire to give you a last opportunity of averting the calamities of war. For this it is necessary that a full and suitable apology be offered by you in writing, and tendered on British territory by an officer of sufficient rank. Furthermore, as it has been found impossible to maintain satisfactory relations between the two States unless the British Government is adequately represented in Afghanistan, it will be necessary that you should consent to receive a permanent British Mission within your territory.... Unless these conditions are accepted, fully and plainly, by you, and your acceptance received by me not later than the 20th November, I shall be compelled to consider your intentions as hostile, and to treat you as a declared enemy of the British Government.

SHERE ALI .

We have unfortunately managed Shere Ali badly. Perhaps it might not have been possible, with our scruples and his want of them, to have managed him advantageously; but it must be admitted that we have not given him the reasons to unite himself with us that he naturally expected. First, we stood aloof in his struggles for life and empire, ready to acknowledge whoever might prove the master of Afghanistan. Then, when Shere Ali had subdued his enemies, he came forward to meet us with an alliance, but we were willing to form only an imperfect alliance with him. He was willing to trust us, provided that we would trust him; but we felt that we could not bind ourselves to unreserved support of a power whose ideas of right and wrong were so different from ours. We therefore proposed to bind him, leaving ourselves free, and he recoiled from this bargain. His friendly feelings, however, were not entirely alienated by that experience of us; he abstained from any action towards Seistan at our desire, and he believed that the mediation which we pressed upon him would have ended by the restoration of the portion of Seistan that Persia had occupied in his days of trouble. And not only Shere Ali, but the whole Afghan people, believed that we should restore to them what they had lost. When they found that we had allowed Persia to obstruct and ill-treat our arbitrator, and to retain much of her encroachments, they looked upon us as a weak and treacherous people, who, under the guise of friendship, had spoiled them in favour of Persia. This I believe to be the root of Shere Ali's discontent with us.

DEATH OF SHERE ALI .

... I now write a second time in accordance with former friendship to inform you that to-day a letter was received by post from Turkestan announcing that my worthy and exalted father had, upon 29th Safar , obeyed the call of the summoner, and, throwing off the dress of existence, hastened to the region of the divine mercy.

THE GANDAMAK TREATY .

Done at Gandamak this 26th day of May, 1879.

THE CABUL MASSACRE .

At about 9 a.m., while the fighting was going on, I myself saw the four European officers charge out at the head of some twenty-five of the garrison; they drove away a party that were holding some broken ground. About a quarter of an hour after this another sally was made by a party with three officers at their head--Cavagnari was not with them this time--with the same result. A third sally was made with two British officers leading; a fourth sally was made with a Sikh Jemadar bravely leading. No more sallies were made after this. They all appeared to go to the upper part of the house, and fired from above. At about half-past eleven o'clock part of the building, in which the Embassy was, was noticed to be on fire. I do not know who fired it. I think it probable that the defenders, finding themselves so few, fired part, so as to have a less space to defend. The firing went on continuously all day; perhaps it was hottest from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., after which it slackened, and the last shots were fired at about 8.30 p.m. or 9 p.m., after which all was quiet, and everyone dispersed. The next morning I heard shots being fired. I asked an old woman, to whose house I had been sent for safety by Sirdar Wali Muhammad Khan, what this was: she sent out her son to find out. He said: "They are shooting the people found still alive in the Residency."

THE MIDLOTHIAN CAMPAIGN .

The personal enthusiasm with which Mr. Gladstone is regarded by the mass of his followers has been largely stimulated by his appearance in Scotland and by his fervid harangues. The only local topic on which he has cared to dwell is the alleged creation of fagot votes by his opponents. There can be no doubt that the purchase of little freeholds for the sole purpose of obtaining votes is an abuse and a grievance, though it is said that Mr. Gladstone once held a fagot vote. For two or three years of his life Mr. Cobden concentrated all his efforts on a gigantic scheme of fagot votes, by which the manufacturing towns were to obtain control of the counties; but the total failure of the project caused it to be tacitly abandoned. If Mr. Gladstone is after all defeated in Midlothian, the moral effect of a Conservative victory will be greatly impaired by the process of tampering with the representation. To Mr. Gladstone's excited mind an attempt to pack a constituency probably assumes extravagant dimensions. Before he arrived at Edinburgh he began his public protest against fagot votes in Midlothian, as well as against the crimes of a Government which he has persuaded himself to regard as the worst and most dangerous that has held power in England. He has denounced his opponents so loudly and so often that even his overflowing eloquence could include nothing new, but the crowded assemblies which he addressed, though they had read his orations, and perhaps his pamphlets, had not heard him speak. It is not surprising that eager and unanimous multitudes should welcome with admiration and delight the detailed exposition, by the most eloquent of politicians, of the opinions which they had already been taught to hold. Few cold-blooded or dispassionate sceptics would ask themselves whether it was credible that a Ministry and a great and steady majority of the House of Commons should never, even by accident, have deviated into prudence, justice, or patriotic foresight. In private discussion and in Parliamentary debate it is found expedient, according to the old legal phrase, to give colour, or, in other words, to admit that the theory, which is impugned, though unsound, is at least credible or intelligible. Mr. Gladstone follows the bent of his own genius when he encourages the popular tendency to deal with difficult controversies as if they were wholly one-sided.

His Liberal colleagues, perhaps, regard his present enterprise with mixed feelings. Their confidence in their former leader is qualified by doubts of his judgment, and by uncertainty as to the present range of his ambition. They cannot but perceive that he assumes the character of representative of the party, although he probably intends no disloyalty to its official or nominal chiefs. It is true that if, in appealing to the multitude, he pushes his successors aside, they have little right to complain. Almost all of them have of late addressed vehement language to public meetings, though none of them can compete with Mr. Gladstone in the power of stirring political passion. Official subordination is set aside when policy is regulated, not by Parliament, but by the voice of the general population. Senators and Consulars must stand aside in the presence of a Dictator. Although it has long been customary for statesmen to make occasional speeches to public meetings, the extent to which the practice has lately been carried is altogether unprecedented. The result is that the Constitution is gradually weakened by the substitution of numerical majorities for the representatives of the people in Parliament. The approach of a General Election furnishes no sufficient justification for an innovation which accelerates the prevalence of democracy, and aggravates its evil tendencies. Mr. Gladstone himself perhaps understands and approves the organic change which promotes the supremacy of popular eloquence in the State. It is his habit to depreciate the honesty and judgment of the educated classes.

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