12 JUNE 1909, Page 18

GLADSTONE AND HOME-RULE.

[TO TUB EDITOR Or TUB ErSCTATOft."J should be very sorry to think that I had done any injustice to a memory so illustrious as that of Gladstone (see Spectator, May 1st). I have imputed nothing beyond sub- mission to the exigencies, which seem to me evil, of the party system of government. That there was not a marked change in Mr. Gladstone'a attitude towards Home-rule between his arrest of its leaders, whom he threatened with "the tin- exhausted resources of civilisation," and his adoption of the policy, I think it would be difficult to convince any one who remembers the events of that day. A change seemed to come over his general view of Irish history and questions. He took to traducing the Union. I hardly think that any one who knew Mr. Gladstone will hold that I calumniate him in saying that in representing to himself the history of his own con- victions Ile was capable of a little innocent self-delusion.—