It is worth while to quote Mr. Gladstone's exact words
with regard to Mr. Forster,—generous words enough, but not in our estimation at all too strong to mark the place of a states- man whose calmness, gallantry, and fortitude have been less adequately appreciated even in England than we have ever known qualities such as his appreciated by an English public before :—" We were determined to proceed in the exercise- simply of the powers granted to us by the law, and in enforcing that law, every day of the life of my right honourable friend has been marked, not only by so many other efforts, but by this effort above all, that the law should be enforced, with every measure to make it efficacious, but with every precaution to prevent blood-- shed. And, Sir, among the titles which he has earned and estab- lished to the gratitude of his country—which may not now be fully acknowledged, but which will in future days be known and recognised from one end of the land to the other—there will be this, pre-eminent perhaps above all, that when he was a Minister and in office he did not forget the philanthropy of his early life (laughter from Home-rule Members, and Ministerial cheers), but as he had striven in the field and in the hovel as a private individual forty years ago to save the lives of the people of Ireland from famine, so now, in the days of the bewilder- ment and error. of the many, under the influence of false and mischievous guides, he has striven hard, and has secured this great consummation, that the enforcement of the law should be, in almost every single instance, without the shedding of a drop• of the blood of the people." That is no light eulogium. Any statesman of whom it could be truly said, might fairly feel not wholly discontented with his work in life, even though his aims had been the highest which ever statesman set before himself.. And it is literally true of Mr. Forster.
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