The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-01-03 00:00:00

MR. GLADSTONE'S SEVENTIETH

- BIRTHDAY.
The 70th birthday of Mr. Gladstone was celebrated
at Hawarden Castle on Monday. The whole of the
members of his family were present, including Mrs.
Gladstone, Mr. W. H. Gladstone, M.P., for Whitby,
and the Hon. Mrs. Gladstone, the Rev. S. E. Glad.
stone, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, Miss Gladstone, Miss
Helen Gladstene, the Hon. and Rev. A. V.
Lyttleton, Mr. W. Johnson and Mrs. Johnson, of
Broughton-hall. The tenantry of the Hawarden estate
and the residents in the neighbourhood had an
opportunity during the morning of seeing all the pre-
sents Mr. Gladstone received during his progress
through Scotland andreeveral of his birthday presents;
these latter included an oil painting, "Summer in
December, 29-12-79," from the Liberals of Wrexham.
There were also a number of complimentary addresses
to Mr. Gladstone from various Liberal associations in
the country.
The principal event of the day was the presentation
of a magnificent silver casket from the Liberals of
Liverpool, who were represented by Mr. R. D. Holt,
president of the Liverpool Liberal Association. The
present was accompanied by an address, congratu-
lating the right hon. gentleman on attaining his
seventioth birthday with unimpaired health and
energy. Mr. Gladstone, in reply, spoke at consider-
able length. In the course of his speech he said :

This is for me, I need not tell you, even apart from
the visit you have paid us, a great and solemn day.
To arrive at the number of years which is marked as
the ordinary term of human life, and which only a very
small minority of human beings attain, is of itself a great
event, an event which gives much occasion for reflec-
tion, and which ought to give rise to many feelings, all
of them very keen and lively and very mixed in their
character—feelings which are hardly suitable for ex-
pression in this place. One sentiment, perhaps, I may
give utterance to without impropriety, and that is that I
am well aware that, of all human beings upon earth, there
is, perhaps, hardly any one who ought to be more disposed
than myself to overflowing thankfulness, or who ought
more than myself to derive from the recollection of what
has happened to him strong incentives for a grateful per-
formance of his duty to the utmost limits of his power. A
day so serious in itself, gentlemen, has been rendered to me
even more memorable by the step that you have taken on
the occasion by the manner in which every incident of
your proceedings has arrived. I am alike sensible of the
warmth and zeal which induced you to invite ine to visit
you at Liverpool for the pnrDore of something in the
natnee of n putlic ceremonial, and of the great considera-
tion and kindness with which you have allowed that keen
desire of your own to be intercepted and to be laid aside.
You have to-day presented tomes mamorho that bu
.tt.ta.ct ft conaitton os great beauty, and which promises
much to surpass even the beauty it has now attained when It
seal' finally depart from the hands of the skilful artists em-
ployed upon it. fam aware of nq reason why I should not
gratefully aceept that memorial, which has a great value in
itself, and which derives its highest value from its being
the symbol of the sentiments that are connected with this
presentation. I need not say, for its very nature tells
the fact of itself, that it will remain in my possession,
and in that of my tensity after me, recalling the past andf
suggesting the future. . . • You have by the language o
your address and by the language which is orally directed
to me made it impossible for me entirely to avqld'rolczence
te those putilic principles by whicL you are bound together.
I was truly anxious, gentiemen, six years ago, to have with-
drawn myself from the sphere of party contention. Whether
rightly or wrongly, I conceived that more than 40 years of
service to my country in a public station made it rational, be-
coming, and in every way appropriate for me to ask for my dis-
missal. The party who are now in power had little to do with
the ejectment of the late Government from offlee. It war much
more °win& to divisione Luz ong ourselTes—owtng,l may maim°
;row, witimnt any Question, to fault of our own—of my
own—in administration. At any rate, it was much more
owing to causes and results within the precincts of our own
party than it was of anything ontaide that party that we
were dismissed from power. Under those circumstances,
certainly had no disposision to sigoalize myself in leading
an opposition to the present Government; and for the
first three Sessions of the existence of the present Govern-
ment, or at least nntil one of the very last days of the
tigrd 4ession-_-namely, the 81st of July, 1876—although I
had occasionally objected to their measures, yet the
occasions had been very few, and I had been glad to re-
main in the shade. It was the peculiar nature of the
Eastern Question which first made me feel it an im-
perative duty to modify the resolution I had ar-
rived at—not so far as regarded my position in thp
Liberal party, but so far as regarded the amount of
my pergola! nct4ity. And when I first stirred in the
Eastern Question it was not to oppose, it was to support,
her Majesty's Government. It was to encourage thtm
—if I may say so without presumption—in the course
which I fondly hoped they were about to take when, at
the beginning of 1876, they united themselves with the
other Powers of all Europe in the month of January. 1876,
or December, 187. in vreseptiug a note to the Turkish
Government call;x1 the Andrauy Note, with a view to pro-
curing an amelioration of the deplorable circumstances of
that Empire—that was my first step In the Esstern Ques-
tion. (Hear, hear.) Nor was it until six months after,
at the end of July, 1876, that my second step was t.kau.
During that interval much had been done to which I enter-
tained a strong objection in the way both of ombsiou and
commission. But, however, gentlemen, having thus begun,
and having waited patiently before assulnlng anything in
tho nature of a hostile attitude, I need not say that if the
cause in question was a grave cause it was not a cause
which ought to have been supported by sue, or could have
been becomingly supported by me, with half measurer. It
was necessary to maintain it with a perseverance and perti-
nacity, I Will venture to say, proportioned in some degree
to the vastness of the interests involved, and both in this
room, gentlemen, and everywhere, the deepest desire that I
entertain at this moment is to assist in bringing to the mind
of the people of England more and m3re thoroughly and
profoundly the gravity of the nature of the controversies
which are now reached. lam thankful to say that I know
no analogy in the whole of my recollection.

The right hon. gentleman then proceeded to criticise the
foreign policy of the Government, and concluded by
sit)in :—I thank you gentlemen, I thank you again, bottt
yourselves personally for the trouble you have taken and
those on whose behalf you are acting. I thank you warmly
and heartily for the kindness you have shown, and for per-
mitting me to explain to you the sense and spirit in which
I receive your beautiful gilt; and I assure you, in conchi.ion,
of my hearty good wishes for the welfe,re et ti%; .town of
Liverpool, which I admit, whilo they eiabrace in the widest
I.OIiMO, tha vu.allawsk nit tha town in every possible P.,-
ticular, have at this time a special tafernnen tn its political
prospects, and are intended to include on my part the vivid
hope and expectation that Liverpool will be represented as
she ought to be represented In the coming Parliament.
(Applawie.)

Mr. Gladstone alzo Lira Weil presented with a
birthday address of congratulation by the Liberal
Association at Greenwich, thanking him for his long
and eminent public services, and expressing a hope
that the result of the elections would show the ma.
jority of the people to be on the side of right and
truth.

The nines in a leadcw noticing Mr. Gladstone
birthday, remarks :

"Yesterday was a memorable day in Mr. Gladstone's life.
It was his seventieth birthday, and it was natural that it
should be celebrated with cordiality among his friends and
supporters. On such an occasion he caanct but command
the general sympathy and goodwill of the whole public,
without reference to political opinions. Ile is a man of
whom the country must for many reasons always be proud.
Hie powers, alike of mind and of body, and his brilliant
achievements in the varied spheres of political, social, and
literary life must be regarded as among the marvels of
human nature. Whether men agree with him or not, they
must all recognise in him one of the greatest forces that have
ever appeared in the world of politics; his performances as a
scholar must at least be allowed to transcend those of the
great majority of professed scholars and he is capable of
taking excursions into almost any field of mental culture and
distancing all bat its choicest representatives. On the
whole, few men who have done so much , work have
reached the age of three-score and ten, and still fewer can
congratulate themselves on having rendered such real
services to their country, Mr. Gladstone's career up to
the time he became rrime Minister, and an important
part of his career in that capacity, conferred great and
perminent benefits upon the nation, and the gratitude
felt towards him on this account affords him a lasting source
of strength and influence. He has just proved, by the most
extraordinary oratorical vigour ever displayed, that
all this intense and sustained labour has not per-
ceptibly broken his physical powers ; and his
keenest opponents could not refuse a tribute of ad-
miration to so brilliant a feat of energy and endurance.
Eaglishmen have always a ready sympathy for manly quali-
ties, and this admiration Mr. Gladstone has fairly extorted
from them. In short, at such a grave moment in the life
of so great a public man, the people at large could not
but desire to forget for the moment all the differences
which have separated them, and to join in cordial con-
gratulations and In the best wisbos for the happiness of
What must needs be Mr. Gladstone's declining years." • .