TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MR. GLADSTONE.
THE serious attempt made in some of our contemporaries to convince the world that Mr. Gladstone's speeches in the North are nothing but an evidence of irrepressible verbosity,
will not impose on any sensible politician. The truth is that these speeches show such wonderful general power in the man, such overflowing elasticity, such breadth and accuracy of knowledge, such a variety of aspects under which he views the whole world of our political life, such depth of interest in our legislative and adminis- trative history, such vividness in his capacity of so ex- pounding these matters as to make them interesting to the people, such largeness of popular sympathy, and such sagacity in his convictions, as we will not merely say that no other living English statesman could have shown, but no group of statesmen could have displayed amongst them. It is perfectly idle to talk of verbosity when, among the speeches of the week, there is not one which you could retrench by a tenth part without leaving out something calculated either to instruct or to impress those who hear and read it. Nor can any- body say that this result has been accomplished by any display of bitter feeling. One or two of the Conser- vative .papers tried to represent the first speech as violent,— which certainly it was not,—but even they have been obliged to confess that the later speeches have been at once calm, and yet brimful of interest. There is no disguising the fact that Mr. Gladstone's political mind is so much fuller, brighter, and more efficient than that of any other living Englishman, as to make the proposal deliberately to keep him in cotton- wool, while second-rate men are put in the front of the battle, almost childish. Lord Granville is shrewd and subtle ; Lord Hartington has a very solid judgment ; Mr. Forster is full of strength and popular sympathy ; Sir William Harcourt is a great wit ; Mr. Bright is a fine orator ; Mr. Lowe is a trenchant anta- gonist; Mr. Childers is a thoughtful and wise financier. But, take them altogether, and they could not do half as much to- wards marking out a true policy, and then recommending it to the people, as Mr. Gladstone can do unassisted, and with plenty of power to spare. You cannot very well elect to read by moonlight, when the sun is still up. And that, as it seems to us, is what those do elect, who want to persuade us that it is possible for Mr. Gladstone to remain an outside supporter of a Liberal Government, while a Government which he might take up in his hand, as Gulliver could take up the Court of Lilliput, was transacting in his presence—whether with or without his approval—the affairs of the nation. If the Tories are beaten in the next campaign, it will be Mr. Gladstone who has beaten them. And the Liberals will be foolish indeed if they take from his hand the gift of power, without securing him to administer it. Only conceive the position of a Liberal Government liable to be discountenanced by Mr. Gladstone 1 One or two great speeches from him would be like the out- break of a volcano underneath the feet of the Liberal party. You might as well try to govern the United Kingdom without taking into account, as the first great factor, the judgment and will of the English people, as try to govern through the Liberal party without taking into ac- count, as the first great factor, the judgment and will of Mr. Gladstone.
As we write, Mr. Gladstone has delivered three great politi- cal speeches,—not yet half the number he has carved out for himself,—and every one of them has been full of points which no one else had brought out with any-
thing like the same force, as well as penetrated by large and harmonious political convictions which raise them all above the level of argumentative criticism and party apology. Who has pointed out, with anything like Mr. Gladstone's force and eloquence, how great the burdens of British responsibility were, before the present Government took upon itself rashly to increase them,—how absolutely that increase has been an increase of strain, without even any infinitesimal increase of power to meet that strain ;—how totally without analogy is anything that Ger- many has done, or Russia has done to the new responsibilities undertaken by our Government ; how the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine, however unwise and unjust those annexa- tions were, at least added to the power of the annexing State, while Afghanistan and Cyprus, so far from adding to our power, Only add vastly to those burdens which the Anglo-Turkish Convention has made simply intolerable. No one has elaborated like Mr. Gladstone the leading principles of a true foreign policy ; the principle that for the purposes of foreign policy, you must treat all States, powerful and weak, on a basis of moral equality ; the principle that you must aim at concerted action amongst all the States, rather than at the over-reaching of one by another ; the principle that when you have to choose between rivals, you should choose so as to foster free self- government. No one has illustrated like Mr. Gladstone even. the comparatively simple theme of the madness of those who. are now leading us back to the doctrines of Reciprocity and: Protection, or pointed out as he has done that formidable a rival as the United States are while crippled by their foolish system of Protective duties, they would be a rival fifty times more formidable if they were to buy all their implements of agriculture and manufacture in the cheapest and best market, and were therefore able to compete with us on equal terms. No one has shown so effectively as Mr. Gladstone that the agricultural depression which has affected England so gravely, so far from being due to the economical policy of of England, has affected far more seriously the Eastern States, of America, and has affected them far more seriously precisely because they are fighting their competitors under the losing flag of Protection. Finally, no one has protested with any- thing like Mr. Gladstone's force and eloquence against the revival, even in the feeble and spurious form native to Lord Beaconsfield's imagination, of the Roman doctrine of Im- perium et Libertas, that is, the doctrine of keeping liberty- for yourselves, and exercising rule over others. The sug- gestion that Lord Beaconsfield is attempting a bad imi- tation of the Louis Quatorze policy, and failing in the attempt, will do more, we believe, to make it ridicu- lous than any criticism which has yet been made upon it. " L'Htat, c'est real," was the great dictum of Louis XIV. : " L'Etat, c'est moi," has been the great principle of Lord Beaconsfield.
The campaign in Midlothian, whether or not it wins Mid- lothian to the Liberal cause, will at least reveal to the country that we have no leader who can compare with Mr. Gladstone, and that if we are to put our strongest man in the front of our battle, he must be the man. The truth is that his resignation of the leadership in 1874 was a mistake ; and that for him to persist in that resignation in 1880 would be a great misfor- tune. If the 'centre of gravity of the next Liberal Government is not to be where the centre of attraction certainly will be,. we shall have the most curious instance of a disturbed orbit which has been heard of since the planet Jupiter broke Endre'''. comet (was it not ?) in two, and carried off half with it.
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