The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-19 00:00:00

MR. GLADSTONE ON THE ELACTIONS

Mr. briaastone referred significantly to the elections in
'Us speech at Preston on Wednesday afternoon. He said :
' This great controversy is now far advanced towards its
,ssue. In the multitude of words, it is somewhere said,
;here is vexation of spirit. I have often myself, gentlemen,
suffered vexation of spirit from the multitude of words,
Ind I am afraid, if the truth be told, I have oftener still
inflicted it. You need not be afraid as to this election.
rwo days of the election have already passed. You already
know that it was an idle hope on the part of our oppo-
nents to reduce our majority of 60, a number by which
this year will be ever memorable. What progress have
they made by way of diminishing that majority? It is
true that they have had their local victories, but wo do
not look so much to this or that victory as to comparing
the sum total. Assuming the rest of the elections to be
as they have hitherto been, that majority of CO, instead of
being reduced, is increased to very nearly a majority
of 100. The Liberal party has arrested the
Conservatives, from time to time, in a career of policy
that would have been the ruin of the country, and all
that they now say, when challenged on that policy, is
that the Conservatives of the present day are not the
same as the old Conservatives of former times. Well,
gentlemen, that is a very miserable excuse for them now
to make, turning round from those who have preceded
them in their path of politics, and endeavouring to
persuade you that the Ethiopian has changed his skin
and the leopard his spots in order to induce you to return
them to Parliament. We acknowledge that our opponents
have achieved some local victories, but they have
achieved a good many of these local victories through
Liberal disunion. These things are a scandal, and are
exposing us to the great reproach of our enemies, but at the
same time it is only fair to recollect that what they indicate
fundamentally is this—the exuberance of Liberal strength;
and some, I am afraid, of the victories of the Conservative
party are gained by the use of means that have been rather
too publicly, indicated. I will not speak of Preston,
because I have not the knowledge, but as to the shameful
Blackburn circular—on which I, for one, have done and
will do my best to stamp immortality of disgrace—l yet
live in hopes that it may attract a notice from the new
Parliament more effectual than convenient to those who
have been its authors." Mr. Gladstone, passing to the
Irish Church, spoke very strongly against ministers using
their position in the pulpit for party purposes. " I
am told that ` yesterday,' that being the sth of November,
` an orange flag was flying from the spire of the parish
church, and that Tory tunes were 'rung on the bells.'
Those bells, gentlemen, which one of the greatest poets of
modern times—Schiller, an ornament to German literature
—has chanted in an immortal lay, known, I have no doubt,
to many of you,wherein he describes the sweet function of
the bell, that its music floated on the air to call together
the people of God to the House of God, and there to forget
their strifes and quarrels, and kneel together before
the altar of peace ; those bells arc profaned under
the influence of Orange faction to be the organs of the
passions of mankind, and to proclaim now in 1868 that the
strife of 200 years ago should never be forgotten, that its
embers and ashes should be stirred up from time to time,
that discord between the various ranks of her Majesty's
subjects may be made eternal : and then, forsooth, we are
to be told that the effect of this Irish Church Establishment
is to mitigate the asperities of religious controversy."

MR. DISRAELI'S FIRST SPEECH IN
PARLIAMENT.

-0--

Diearly thirty-one years ago, namely, on Thursday,
December 7, 1837, Mr. Disraeli made his first speech in
the House of Commons. The debate was on the "Spottis-
woode Subscription." This subscription had just been
denounced by Mr. O'Connell as " a struggle by which
the English Protestant nation was called upon to put out
the representatives of the Irish Roman Catholics." Mr.
O'Connell having concluded amid " loud and long-
continued cheering," the report proceeds :
" Mr. BENJAMIN DISRAELI rose and delivered himself of
a maiden speech, in which the laughter of the House was
continually excited by its extravagances of thought,
phrase, and gesture. After rambling over every variety
of topic, Mr. Disraeli remarked : 'Every member could,
with perfect justice, use t epithet employed
in the original manifesto of Mr. Spottiswoode.
(` Oh,' and laughter.) I shall not, (said the hon.
gentleman), trouble the House at any length. (Hear, heat,
and laughter.) Ido not affect to be insensible
.to the
difficulty of my position. (Renewed laughter.) lam
sure I shall receive the indulgence of honourable gentle-
rnen—(continued laughter, and cries of 'Question')—but I
can assure them that if they do not wish to hear me, I
without a murmur will sit down. (Cheers and laughter.)
I must confess I wish to bring the subject of debate back
to a proper point.' (Renewed laughter.) Mr. Disraeli
next remarked on the characters of the subscribers to the
Spottiswoode Fund, in a way which provoked continual
laughter, and the remainder of his speech was such a per-
fect model of the ridiculous, that we venture on
behalf of the curious reader, to sacrifice an undue
portion of space to. it. ' I have but one
-observation snore to make. • I am, I confess,
anxious to make that observation, for it is
the first time I have been able to make one in vindication
of her Majesty's . Government. (Hear, hear, and much
confusion.) I wish I really cou'd induce the House to
give roe five minutes more. (Roars of laughter.) I stand
here to-night, sir—(here the noise in the House became
so great that the hon. gentleman could not proceed for
some time. When the confusion bad subsided he said)—
I stand here to-night, sir, not formally but in some degree
virtually, the representative of a considerable number of
members of Parliament. (Bursts of laughter). Now why
smile ? (continued laughter)—why envy me? (Here the
laughter became long and general.) Why should not I
have a tale to unfold to-night? (Roars of laughter.) Do
you forget that band of 158 members—those ingenuous and
inexperienced youths, to whose unsophisticated minds
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in those tones of win-
ning pathos—(Laughter, and cries of 'Question.') Now,
a considerable misconception exists in the minds of many
members on this side of the House as to the conduct of
her Majesty's Government with respect to these elections,
and I wish to remove it. I will not twit the noble lord
oyposite with opinions which are not ascribable to him or
to his more immediate supporters, but which were expressed
by the more popular section of his party some few months
hack. (` Question, question.') About that time, sir,
when the bell of our cathedral announced the death of
the monarch—(' Oh, eh,' and much laughter)—
we all read then, sir—(groans, and cries of
Oh')—we all then read-- (laughter and great interrup-
- tion)—l know nothing• which to me is more
delightful than to shew courtesy to a new member, par-
ticularly if he happens to appeal to me from the party
opposed to myself. (Hear, hear.) At that time, we read,
it was the death-knell of Toryism, that the doom of that
party was sealed, and their funeral obsequies were about
to be consummated. (Laughter.) We are told that with
a dissolution of that much-vilified Parliament which the
right hon, baronet bad called together the hopes and
prospects of the Tories would be thrown for ever to the
winds—(laughter)—and that affairs were again brought to
exactly what they were at the period when the hurried
Mr. Hudson rushed into the Vatican. (Laughter.)
I •do not impute these sanguine views to the
noble lord himself particularly, because I remem-
ber that shortly afterwards the noble lord, as if to
check the new and sanguine expectations of his followers,
came forward with a manifesto informing them that the
Tories could not expire in a moment, but the Ministry in
a reformed Parliament might depend upon having a work-
ing majority of, 100, which was to be extended on great
occasions to 125 and 130. Now, sir—(' Question, ques-
tion.') This is the question, and lam going to ask the
noble lord for our instruction. (` Oh, oh,' and great inter-
ruption.) We wish to know this simple fact, whether the
great occasion on which the working majority was to
increase from 100 to 125 or 130 is upon the
question of an election ballot—(cheers and groans) ;
and whether the Grenville Act has not been
held up to the odium of the country ; and whether it has
not been given forth to the people that it is impossible
an impartial tribunal can' be obtained in this House.
(` Oh, oh ! " Question, question.') If hon. members think
it fair thus to interrupt me, I will submit. (Great
laughter.) I would not act so towards any one ; that is all
I can say. (Laughter, and cries of Go on.') But I beg
simply to ask—(' Oh ! ' and loud laughter.) Nothing is so
easy as to laugh. (Roars of laughter.) I really wish to
place before the House what is our position.
`'hen we remember all this—when we remember that
in spite of the support of the hon. and learned member
for Dublin and his well-disciplined phalanx of patriots,
and in spite of all this we remember the amatory eclogue—
,roars of laughter)—the old loves and the new loves, that
took place between the noble lord the Tityrus of the
Treasury Bench and the learned Daphne of Liskeard—
, (loud laughter and cries of Question ') —wh'e'l .11,l' red
as a fresh instance of the (own. in redintegratio—i.xees"sive
laughter) ; when we remember at the same time ‘thqt•W'th
niancii;ated Irela lid and enslaved Eug,land ;on the O 41: d
et triumphant nation, on the other a gloaming people ; aml, '
notwithstanding the noble lord, secure On the
pedestal of
power, many hold in one hand the keys of Peter,
and --(here the lam. member was interrupted with
such lord and incessant bursts of laughter that it was
impossible to know whether he closed his sentence or not.)
The lion. member concluded in these wi,rds Al;
,Speaker, we see the philosophical prejudices of Now,
(Laughter and cheers.) respect cheers, even
when they come from the lips of political opponents.
(Renewed laughter.) I think, sir—(hear, hear, and
repeated cries of Question, question ')
—I am not at all
surprised, sir, at the reception which I have received. (Con-
tinued laughter.) I have begun several times several
things—(laughter)—and I have often succeeded at
last. (Fresh cries of Question-') Ay, sir, and
though I sit down now, the time will come
when you will hear me. The honourable member
• ielivered the last sentence in a very loud tone, and resmeed
ais seat amidst cheers from the Opposition and much
lanliter fr ,m the Ministerial benclics. _

"Lord STANLEY (now Earl Derby) spoke
Saturday Journal. of December 16th. 1R::7