The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-06 00:00:00

'W. GLADSTONE AND HIS CONSTITVENTS.

Mr. Gladstone and Mr. H. R. Grenfeil, the two Liberal
candidates for the South-Western Division of Lancashire,
attended a meeting of the elect rs i theD Voluntee
ornby, r Hallf
,a St. Helens yesterday. Mr. . . H o
Liverpool, presided, and about 1,500 persons were present.
Mrs. and the Misses Gladstone occupied seats in a balcony
reserved for ladies, and received an ovation when their
presence was announced.
Mr. GLADSTONE, who was received with enthusiastic
cneering, said : I have the honour and satisfaction of
Appearing before you for the first time in the character of
a candidate for the representation of the county in the
ensuing Parliament. The contest is before us. The
future and the past being inseparably mixed up together,
I think it becomes me to endeavour to give you some
account of the discharge of the stewardship which
three years ago, under remarkable circumstances, you
and the constituency of South Lancashire were pleased to
entrust to me. The Parliament about to expire, although
its life has been short, has not been inactive. From the
first moment when its session began, it was called upon
by the Government of the clay to address itself to the
great question of Parliamentary Reform, and from that day
until the close of the session that has just now expired there
never has been a moment when the mind and time of that
Parliament have not ibeen charged, and I might say over-
charged, with subjects of the highest importance to your
interests. With reference to the coming election, I should
have been glad to dwell upon many particulars con-
nected with the history of the question of Reform. I will
now only say that I think the country may be sincerely
congratulated upon the adoption of a measure, with
a very general and extended consent of different parties,
which has undoubtedly placed the liberties of the
people upon a wider, and I trust upon a firmer, basis than
that which they ever before enjoyed. Ido not wish to
enter into invidious comment upon the detail of that mea-
sure, but I cannot refrain from stating my deep regret
that in some important particulars—l am sorry to say in
many particulars—the concessions that have been made
have been attended with restrictions and exceptions so
vexatious that this work, great as it is, cannot be regarded
as a finished work. It will probably be necessary before we
are many years older that the Parliament to be chosen,
or some other Parliament, should endeavour to give
a more consistent application to the principles embodied in
the recent measure of Reform, removing those anomalies
with which it is unhappily defaced. There is another sub-
ject to which I cannot refer with even a qualified satisfac-
tion. I refer to the vital question of taxation and finance,
and it is with very deep regret that I have to record the
fact that since the change of Government which took
place about two years ago—with no sufficient justification
that I am aware of—her Majesty's present advisers have
thought it their duty to adopt measures and make proposals
by which a sum of little less than three millions a year
have been added to the permanent expenditure of the
country—l say the permanent expenditure, in order that
I may not be supposed to refer to that necessary, and I
must say that honourable, expenditure, which has been
connected with the momentary exigency of the Abys-
sinian expedition. Few among us are disposed to grudge
that expenditure, but I do regret that under the sway of
the present Government the scale both of the military and
the civil estimates of the country in its regular service has
been so extended as to entail upon you an additional charge,
to be supplied by taxation, amounting to not less than
about three millions of money. I turn now to the
question which is of paramount importance at this
juncture, namely, the question connected with the
state of Ireland. Shortly after you did me the honour to
choose me as one of your representatives, as a member
of the Cabinet of Lord Russell, I, along with
my colleagues, felt that we had no choice, if we were
to fulfil the primary duty of securing the lives and
properties of the peaceful subjects of her Majesty in that
country, except to ask for the suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act. I am responsible, gentlemen, along with
others, strictly responsible for that act, and I do not come
here to apologise for it. It was our duty—a duty which
I hope every Government will at all times be ready to
fufil. At that time there were abroad in Ireland num-
bers of persons who had come from a foreign shore,
who were known to have come with the desire of lighting,
if they could, the flame of civil war in Ireland, and whom
it was absolutely necessary to deprive, by imprisonment,
of the means of disturbing the public peace. We began
by asking :or the suspension for a period of six months.
Before the six months had elapsed the Government had
changed, and our successors found it to be one of their
first duties to ask for the further suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act ; and from time to time the precaution
has been renewed. This is a most grave and
serious state of facts ; and I am at a loss how
to understand a report which I read in the newspapers
last week, and the authenticity of which has not been
questioned—a report according to which the First Minister
of the Crown, appearing before an assembly of his party
at the hospitable board of the Lord Mayor of the City of
London, thought fit to state that there was matter for great
congratulation in the present state of Ireland. If these
words were used deliberately I cannot describe my sense
of the infatuation which they betoken. I cannot find
words adequate to convey my sense of the mental in-
fatuation of any man, much less of the First Minister of
the Queen, who can find in such a state of things in
Ireland a matter upon which to congratulate himself and
the country. lam justified in Baying that the prolonged
suspension of personal liberty indicates a state of things
only a degree removed from civil war. 'We have thought
it our duty to look in the face this ' dark fact of
Irish discontent. It is a dark and menacing fact,
and it does not rest on our own assertions. The
Government did not scruple to tell us that in many of
the considerable towns of Ireland there was a feeling
friendly to that which is known as Fenianism, and that if
the opportunity arose there was no saying how far that
population would participate in the conspiracy. We have
asked ourselves whether in this state of things we stand
clear in the face of Ireland and of the civilised world.
Whether the laws and institutions in Ireland are such as
ought to prevail. Whether they are such as in the face
of national danger we should be bold enough to main
tarn. If so, then by all means mantain them.
although civil or foreign war should blaze through the
land ; but if not, do not wait for the moment of civil wa
or of foreign war. Nay, we do not want to continue
from year to year the painful, the ignominious, I would
almost say the loathsome process of suspending personal
liberty in order to keep a large portion of the people o
Ireland down by force. I know that there is a great party
in this country, known as the Liberal party, who al!,
united almost as one man in the determination to look
this question boldly in the face ; but even were there not
such a party, I tell you that such is the condition of
things, that were you as hostile as you are favourable
to the policy I recommend, I would still bear testi-
mony to its great public necessity, for the welfare,
aye, I would almost say for the security of this great
empire. The Irish question has many branches. The
two principal questions that will arise for the considera-
tion of the coming Parliament are—the one connected
with the tenure of land, the other that which is connectee'
with the religious institutions of the country. As respects
the tenure of land, that question is in the rear, whilst the
other occupies the front. The land question is one which
comes home to every Irish landlord who is seriously
desirous to give to the Irish cultivator the security
for the effort and result of his industry which h'
does not adequately enjoy. I hope we may enable the
Irishman to pursue his career in the land of his birth,
instead of looking for a home across the Atlantic. And.
gentlemen, I must add, it is my firm conviction that thi•
may be done with fullest regard to the rights of property,
and without any derogation of those civil claims which
`the different classes of the community may make tc
be protected in the enjoyment of the privileges which
• they hold under the sanction of the law. And with these
'few remarks I pass to the other question—the Irish
Church. I will read you a few words from the writings of
a very distinguished and eminent man, the present Lord
Lytton. His words are : "We talk of Irish bulls, but the
words ' Irish Church' are the greatest bulls in the lan-
. guage. It is called the Irish Church because it is a
Church not for the Irish." I cannot deny that propositior
of Lord Lytton's. I wish I could. A member of the
Church of England myself, I should be very glad indeed ii
my Irish fellow-countrymen were disposed to take the same
view of matters with me ; but then they do not ; I cannot
restrain them, and I must consider, while I would exact a
jealous regard for our rights as members of the Church of
England or of any other religious body, whether we have pale'
the same regard to the rights of the mass of the Irish people.
Now all parties are agreed that the Irish Church casino'
rest as it is. The only question to determine is how and
in what manner we should endeavour to deal with it. My
attention lately has been a good deal directed to reading
the addresses of those who are candidates in different dis-
tricts of the country for the suffrages of the people, wit}
the view to the coming Parliament, and I have read perbap
even with a peculiar interest the addresses of my eppo,
nents. Upon reading these addresses I make this remark,
that they are of a character singularly negative. I con-
tinually see written, and I almost think I can see the dis
tinguished writer of the address, whoever he may he, witl
a flourish of his hand, saying, " I am strongly opposed to
Mr. Gladstone's motion for the disestablishment and dis
endowment of the Irish Church." So far so good ; but we
want something more than that ; we want to know not
merely what they object to, but what they mean to do.
It is their business to find a policy for the country. It ii
our business to challenge their plans. At present thf
whole matter is inverted. Those who are in the Govern-
ment seem to have no plan for the management of Ireland
and they content themselves with criticising our p'aris. 1
4 thiaUla4AtiatactQry, way a 2 iiittr