MR. GLADSTONE AND IRISH CABINET PflINISTERSI [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTAT311."] Sin,—Your correspondent, Mr. Edward Stanley Robertson, doubts that Mr. Gladstone sat in the Cabinet with the Duke of Wellington. It is not probable that even Mr. Gladstone would forget having sat in his first Cabinet with the great Duke. The Duke's name appears as in the Cabinet without office in all the Lists of the day.
The absurdity of Mr. Gladstone's omissions is best shown in Sir C. Gavan Duffy's letter in the Spectator of February 25th.. If Mr. Gladstone had pointed out that no Irish Roman Catholic had sat in the Cabinet since the Emancipation, there would have been some sense in it. But that is not what he said. He not only spoke of Irishmen, but defined what he meant by Irishmen by naming the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh. If these two men were Irishmen, so were the two Canninge. Thus, we have :—one Lord Chancellor of England (Earl Cairns), three Prime Ministers (Mr. Canning., the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Palmerston), five Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord Wellesley, Lord Castle- reagh, Mr. Canning. Lord Palmerston, and the Duke of Wel- lington), one Chancellor of the Exchequer (Lord Monteagle), one Chief Commissioner of Works who died Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Lord Bessborough), one President of the Board of Control (Lord Fitzgerald and Veeey), two Lord Presidents of the Council (Lord Lansdowne and Lord Carlingford, the former of whom might have been Premier), one Chancellor of the Duchy (Lord Dufferin), one Lord Chancellor of Ireland (Lord Ashbourne), two Postmasters-General (Lords Clanri- carde and Canning), two Chief Secretaries for Ireland (Lords Naas and Carlingford), in the Cabinet. Outside the Cabinet we find:— five Governor-Generals of India (Lords Mornington, Canning, Mayo, Lawrence, and Dafferin), and a sixth, who, though better known as Marquess of Hastings, had the Irish title of Earl of Moira. Mr. M. H. Parnell, Mr. Henry Her- bert, Lord Lisgar, the Honourable Somerville, Lord Monck, Mr. Thomas Shiel, and Mr. More O'Ferrall, all had high places outside the Cabinet, and would come into Mr. Glad- stone's category of Irishtnen.
With regard to the Cannings, I perceive you do not concur in the insertion of their names. The Canning family went to. Ireland in Queen Elizabeth's time. Members of it fought at the siege of Derry. I have always understood that their social position was substantially the same as that of Lord. Castlereagh. The present head of the family still hails from, Garvagh House, Londonderry.—I am, Sir, Ste.,
15 St. James's Place, February 27th. H. R. GRENFELL.
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