LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
MR. GLA.DSTONE AND IRISH CABINET MINISTER&
[TO THE EDITOR OF ms " SPROTATOIL."]
SIR,—Is it correct to say that Mr. Gladstone ever sat in a Cabinet as colleague to the Duke of Wellington P Referring to Acland. and Ransome's "Handbook of English Politics," I find that in 1834-35 the Duke was Foreign Secretary in Sir Robert Peel's Cabinet, and Mr. Gladstone Under-Secretary for the Colonies. That is, the Duke was, and Mr. Gladstone- was not, a Cabinet Minister, though Mr. Gladstone was a subordinate Member of the Administration. In Sir Robert Peel's second Cabinet (1841-46), Adana and Ransome's list gives Mr. Gladstone as succeeding the Earl of Ripon as Presi- dent of the Board of Trade, and mentions the Duke of Wel- lington as "Leader of the House of Lords." On the other- hand, Thont's Directory mentions Mr. Gladstone as having- succeeded Lord Stanley at the Colonial Office, and makes no. mention of the Duke at all The Leadership of the Lords in hardly a Cabinet office, though the Duke may have had the right to attend Cabinet Councils as what the French call "Minister without portfolio." Certainly, the Duke held no. 'recognised Cabinet office after 1835. I cannot help suspecting that Mr. Gladstone's memory played him false in what he asserted, as well as in what he denied. He was wrong in affirming that he had been the colleague of one illus- trious Irishman, the Duke ; and he was wrong in denying that he had been the colleague of other Irishmen, some of them almost as illustrious. No doubt, he had been in the habit of thinking of Lord Palmerston as an English- man, and there was some excuse for his doing so. But he had no right to forget the nationality of Lord Dufferin and Lord Carlingford, both of whom—Lord Dufferin especially— have asserted their Irish nationality much more vigorously than the Duke of Wellington ever did.
The oddest part of the whole thing, I think, was the im- plied conclusion from the mistaken premises. The door is too narrow to admit Irish statesmen to the Cabinet, therefore shut it and lock it with Home-rule ! The door is not too narrow, as you have conclusively shown; and if it is, the shutting and locking process seems to be the most inappropriate of all Temedies.—I am, Sir, &C.,
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