The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-19 00:00:00

MR, GLADSTONE'S ELECTION ADDRESSES.

Mr. Gladstone has now really commenced his election
tour. On Friday he attended (unexpectedly, it seems) a
meeting in the district of Old Swan, near Liverpool. A
vote approving the joint candidature of Messrs. Gladstone
and Grenfell having been passed, the right hon. gentle-
man responded in a long speech. It was an attack
on that party which had called itself in
turns Protectionist, Tory, Conservative, and Con-
stitutional. Mr. Disraeli, he said, had stated that he
had worked twenty years with Lord Derby. But there
was nothing special in 1848 to lead to political friend-
ship. It was twenty-two years and a half ago that the
ill-omened compact was struck between Lord Derby and
the Premier. In the month of January 1846 Sir Robert
Peel proposed the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the com-
pact, the basis upon which the Conservative party n3w
stand, was to oppose that repeal. It was the restriction
of industry ; it was the imposition of fetters upon the
enterprise of this country; it was the shutting out of the
abundant supplies of food from other lands, to make up our
deficiencies with respect to our population, that was the basis
of the compact which was made twenty-two and a half years
ago. But the establishment of free trade—the abolition of
Protection, had proved to be beneficial to the country. It
has raised tho wages of the labouring classes ; employers
have become rich, and confidence in the authorities has
sprung up amongst the people." And now (continued the
right hon. gentleman) if you were to go to any friend of
that party and say, " You are a Protectionist— I know you.,
and want the mask off," he would say, " You are entirely
mistaken. lam as good a freetrader as you are." And
no doubt he would be perfectly sincere, but I remem.
ber what happened 22i years ago Your
friend, who now says he is a freetrader, in those
days indignantly disclaimed being anything but
protectionist, and so the whole welfare of old
England depended on Protection. You know that so
long as a trade is good you would stick to it, but when it
gets bad, if you are sensible men, you would get out of it
as soon as you could. Now, the trade of Protection, fog
several years after 1846, was a roaring trade in all the
agricultural districts of the country, and there were
plenty of people to 'follow it. But free trade
came into operation, and the landlord found that
what he had said would destroy his rents and
prevent him from paying the interest on his mortgages
did nothing of the sort, but every time he had a
farm vacant he had an increased number of bidders more
and more eager to secure it." " What relieved us of Pro
tection was this, that in 1852 the Protectionists came intc
offices As long as you are in Opposition, you can pain
upon the people—but I am aware this can be said d
us at the present moment you may offer tc
them whatever you please ; and my belief is that i
the Protectionist party had never been put into office
it would have been the Protectionist party to this day,
because to this day the farming interest throughout thr
country would not have been undeceived ; they would not
have seen the total hollowness and the total untruthfulness
of the professions made to them as to what would be done
for them as soon as their friends came into office. But in
1852 their friends did come into office, and though I was not
one of them, I was very glad they were going into office,
because I felt convinced that the day they came into office
would sound the death-knell of protection. From the first
day it became perfectly plain that all the recollections,
pledges, promises, and professions which had returned
hundreds upon hundreds of members of Parliament would
burst like a bubble, and that protection was to
be remembered only as a dream. So much
for protection. A great English poet has said
The boy was father to the man,' and youth of a party
will enable you to judge what it is likely to be in its matu-
rity and old age. This party was born in monopoly and
restriction ; it was born for the purpose of maintaining it,
and it abandoned it only when it was found that the
responsibilities and power of office could not be held
without that abandonment. From that experience
—from what former years have shewn us—you
may judge what is likely to happen in the future."
Passing from this, Mr. Gladstone took up the subject of
the paper duty. Mr. Cross, their opponent, had stated
that he voted for the repeal of the paper duty as well as
Mr. Gladstone. But whom did Mr. Cross find as his com-
panions ? His friends ? There were scarcely three Con-
servatives who went into the same lobby with him. What,
then, was the use of Mr. Cross saying that he voted for a
Liberal measure when he goes to Parliament to support those
who resist Liberal measures. " There are a number of ern
opponents," exclaimed the right hon. gentleman, " going
about the country and disclaiming the character of parts
men. I read in this newspaper to which I have alluded
that at St. Helens the other night they said too much
was made about mere party, and that there was too
much mere personal discussion. What does it
signify, they ask, whether Mr. A or Mr. B is Minister
in this country? What we want is a good measure.
Gentlemen, this is the last invention that has come out,
in order, if possible, to entrap your understand-
frog. Is there any possibility of your getting measures
except through the instrumentality of men? Measures de
not come down from the moon, and I do assure you that
they get through a great many stages in Parliament
by dint of a great deal of effort, and if you are engaged
in the war you might just as well say I den't care about
men, I care about measures; I don't want the army, I want
to see the country and the enemy subdued. That would
be Just as rational as to say you don't care about Prime
Ministers and about parties, that all you want is that the
conntry shall have good measures. Gentlemen, it is a
very strong expression to use, but it is a kind ol
utterance which the Scotch call `deliverance,' but it is in
fact neither more nor less than rank nonsense. You
cannot ba*ve measures without men, and combination of
men. The House of Commons is not a heap of grains of
sand, all tumbled together in a bag; it has always been
made up of men whose good sense and intelligence teaches
them where they will find sympathy, and where they will
not, and that in common council and common action is the
best security for the attainment of the end they have in
view. That is the basis, sound in philosophy and practice,
of party action." Passing to the subject of Reform, the
right hon. gentleman related again the history of the
struggles over the various measures. In the course of hie
remarks he attributed the passage of the Reform Bill to
the fall of the Hyde Park railings. He also commented
upon and condemned the circular which had been issued
to the employers of labour at Blackburn, asking them to
use their " influence " for the Conservatives. As to the
Irish Church he said little. There was just a slight
allusion to it in the concluding passage, which we
subjoin : " We are in favour of trade, freedom of know-
ledge, freedom of the franchise in its possession, and free-
dom in its exercise. We are also to have freedom in
religion. I am very far from telling you, for I do not
myself think that freedom of religion is necessarily
interfered with by a national Church, if that national
Church has a very large portion of the nation for
its adherents, and if it is greatly respected by the
generality of those who do not belong to its communion.
But if the national Church is associated in the mind and
the memory of the people with every scandal and every
horror that has marked the misgovernment of former
times, our duty may be considered either as citizens or as
Christians. As citizens, I say, we are bound to listen
to the voice of civil justice, and no longer to
permit the continuance of a system of monopoly so con-
ceived and so organised ; but I go further, and say that as
Christians and members. And if it is attempted to be made
a reproach against us that there are persons of the Roman
Catholic religion favourable to the proposals that we have
made, I say we must be cowards indeed if we shrink
from such an allegation, as if it were a reproach.
It is no reproach for Protestants of different
denominations and for Catholics and non-Christians
to join together in the pursuits of objects
which are commended by the principles of national
and civil justice. We are all citizens of one common
country. Whatever be our particular convictions in reli-
gion, it is our duty to study the public goood ; it is our
duty to combine together for purposes which are
honourable. It is for the promotion of honour and justice
that we ask your suffrages on the occasion of the coming
election, and it is in the interests of honour and justice
that I feel convinced you will give them."
The next clay (Saturday last) Mr. Gladstone addressed
a meeting at Newton. His subject was the Irish Church.
He took that topic because he had been charged with
trying to shirk it. It bad been stated that the
property of the Irish Church consisted simply of
tithes and glebe land. • But they would find by
a reference to the report of the royal commission,
that the Church of Ireland, besides glebe land, charitable
and glebe land, parsonages and incumbencies, possessed
bishop land and chapter land to an enormous extent,
believed to be of far greater value than the
annual income they yielded, and they were stated
to yield an income annually of between £l-10,030 and
£150,000. That error having been dispelled, the
sight hon. gentleman proceeded to criticise the report of
the royal commission. lie prefaced his criticism by
stating that there were just three policies before the
as to the Irish Church. They might stand still—
rhuatntserras impossible ; they might disestablish, which he
proposed to do ; they might level up. But the Govern-
ment '
had proposed no policy • had as yet set forth no
course.
The only plan which
they could examine, there-
fore, was the plan proposed by the Irish Church Commis-
sion. First the commission proposed to bury four bislior' s
r er
—he did not mean the bishops themselves,
but th • offices;
they propcs ‘d to suppress four " corporations. ITo that be objected. Then they wanted to
pay P°rtalitokse ng.
bishops who
sat in the House of Lords. This
wasr the old
in
p7lt, forward, the payment of members—one of ptrhecifislee
volts of the charter—and put forward, too, by a' royal.
Commis ion. That would not help them at all.