The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LOND ON, TIT URSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 15, 1868.

MR. GLADSIONE'S POLICY.

(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)

Mn. GLADSTONE has opened the campaign with
spirit. Even his bitterest opponents cannot accuse
him of want of courage or indefiniteness of purpose.
As soon as he has formed a resolution he announces
it with distinctness, and pursues it with unfaltering
energy. In his speech at Warrington on Monday
night he declared battle against the Ministry on
two points—their expenditure and their Irish
policy. Having first pledged himself to remove
at the earliest opportunity the ratepaying
clause from the Reform Bill, and thus to establish
household suffrage pure and simple, he went on to
maintain and to prove that statement of his which
has caused so much disquietude and controversy—
that the Conservative party have added £3,000,000
to the public expenditure during the two years they
have been in office. At the same time he answered
the counter-charge which had been brought against
him of excessive expenditure eight years ago.
In 1860 Mr. GLADSTONE found that he had to
provide for an excess of Conservative expendi-
ture over the estimates, and had also to defray
the cost of a war in China which was the result of
Lord DERBY'S foreign policy—the policy of sending
Lord ELGIN to the Peiho to sign a treaty of peace,
with a large fleet to guide his pen. Moreover, great
as was the expenditure in 1860 and 1861—lamentably
great, as Mr. GLADSTONE admits—it was only by
" the utmost efforts and the most desperate struggles"
that the expenditure was not still further increased
through the constant and persevering efforts of the
Opposition leaders (many of them now Cabinet
Ministers) to augment the expenditure. Now it was
post-office clerks, now naval captains, whom they
wished to enrich at the expense of the nation ; now
it was harbours of refuge, now packet contracts, into
which they wished to force the Government at the
cost of the taxpayers. The very fortifications which
the Conservatives are now bringing up against
Lord PALMERSTON, that " Radical, forsooth !"
as a proof of Radical extravagance, were
forced upon the Government of that day
partly by the impatience of the people, partly
by the perseverance of the Conservatives. The last
would, indeed, have compelled the Government to
provide the money for the works in such a way that
it should not be subject to the control of Parliament.
Since they have been in office they have been pur-
suing the same policy. This policy consists in yield-
ing to the suggestions of those "knots and groups
and classes who have a constant and unsleeping
interest in feeding themselves on the produce of the
public industry." What these public enemies are
like we may see in the recent report of Mr.
SEELY'S Admiralty Accounts Committee. They
are met with in all departments, and they
never sleep, though Governments do. Thus there is
a constant tendency to increase the expenditure
which it requires the hearty will of a powerful
Ministry to repress. The present Ministry is at least
not powerful. No Conservative Administration for
twenty-five years has been powerful. Hence Con-
servative candidates are appealing to the electors
of the Government dockyard towns with a promise
that ships shall be built in those yards instead of in
private yards ; although Mr. SEELY'S report has
shewn that we have in seven years spent two
millions more upon Government-yard-built ships
than we ought to have spent. The present Govern-
ment cannot help itself. It is in a minority. It has
to convert itself into a majority, and one of its means
for doing this is imperial bribery.
Passing to the Irish Church, Mr. GLADSTONE said
a good deal that was true, but nothing that was very
new. He completely exonerated himself from the
charge of rashly raising this question, by chewing, as
indeed we have done times without number, that it
was raised by the Conservative party. They pro-
posed to endow all the chief religious bodies in
Ireland. It was necessary to accept that
proposal, or to make another—that none should
be endowed. Mr. GLADSTONE thought the latter
preferable, and we shall be much mistaken if the
country does not agree with him. A good deal was
said about waiting for the report of the commission.
But as that report was to shew how the Irish Esta-
blishment was to be managed if it continued an
establishment, and as he wished it should not con-
tinue an establishment, he did not see the good of
troubling the commissioners at all. And now that
they have produced a huge folio of figures, who
regards it ? The PRIME MINISTER simply ignores it.
It has fallen dead at its birth. As for Mr.
GLADSTONE, let Churchmen mark this, especially
the descendants of the Tractarian party of 1834. He
says, " I do not want to extinguish a single Irish
bishop." He simply desires to free the Church from
a burden which cripples her strength and renders
her an object of aversion and hatred to the great
bulk of the people for whom she was established.