New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-12-12
ENGLAND and America.
Mr., GIadstons's Great speech at the FieI
Dinner.

Dinner.
Mr.. Gladstone's speech at the dinner gwen
nv Mr.. Cyrus w. Field in London on Thanks
giving Eight was worth great deal more
than the scanty abstract the Associated Press
doled out to the newspapers. The British
Premier spoke in full as follows:
Mr.. Gladstone-Mr. Field and gentlemen. T
don't know, sir, whether you have been for
tunate in this choice of the individual whom
you have honored by requesting him to re-
spond to this toast, but feel quite certain
that Won have been fortunate in the occasion
on which it is given.. 1t is given on a day
when, in full consonance with the Christian
feelings Of your country, you render thanks
to the Giver of all good for the bounty which
He has poured out, and it is given on a dav
when there is gathered around this hospitAble
table-board body of gentlemen united with
Yourself in great work which constitutes at
once one of the most signal triumphs of
modern science and of the few guarantees for
the peace and unity Of the world. [Cheers. I
therefore feel sure that this is an occasion
eminently suited for the expression of the
sentiments which you have embodied in the
words of the toast, "Greet Britain and the
United States of America, two countries des-
tined to be united in friendship as closely as
they are in kinship." 1 hope, sir, that that
is the case, and 1 firmly believe that your
toast speaks no more than the truth. i am
afraid, Mr.. Field, it often happens that when
special friendship between two countries ia
boosted of, that it does not so much mean
the appreciation they entertain of one an
other as an antipathy toward somebody else.
The meetings of the representatives of coun-
tries are not unfrequently considered to be
the token Of something that is formidable to
fheir neighbors-but if there be, as think
there is, a special relation of friendship be-
tween England and America, it is friend
ship which implies nothing injurious and moth
ING disparaging to any other country in the
world. lCheers.] 1t is not founded on any
views Of aggression that we entertain in COM
mon. II is hardly conceivable that there
ever should be any object which was desired
only by England and America, unless it were
an object beneficial to every other country in
the world. 1t is a speciality of friendship.
founded upon the close relationship Of our
race, upon united language, upon sympathy
at least if not identity Of institutions, on love
Of freedom and rational order-self.govern-
ment which alike distinguishes these two
great countries, tcheers j and if we found the
speciality OF our friendship upon considera-
tons such as these, We found it upon a basis
which we desire not to be peculiar to our
selves, but which we shall be glad to see &C.
cupied in common with ourselves by every
other people on the face of the globe.
[Cheers.] 1t is quite true, sir, that the rela-
tons of England and America have been
marked by features which are, believe.
without parallel in history. It is not often
that history has given US an example of a
colony like the United States, colony. or a
combination, of companies so vigorous, so
full OF promise and Of power, so different
from any Of those colonies that have been
founded by other European countries. When
the day Of separation came it came attended
by circumstances of pain and evaporation,
but it now affords happiness for both sides of
the water when we can look back to it with.
out either pain or evaporation, and on your
part arm quite sure you are ready to feel and
to make allowance for gallant people, who
believe, though enormously, that they were
Struggling for national life, and that upon the
unity of the Empire depended the happiness
OF the country. We, on our part, are now
able to see that with motives honorable, we
we're in error; that we were struggling against
nature; struggling, / may venture to saw,
even against Providence, and Americans
themselves do not more honor the day of
their emancipation and their independence
than we Englishmen, who give them the full
tribute of our sympathy, and who would not.
II We could, undo or reverse the course of
things. [Cheers.1
MIR. Field, the relations of the two coun-
tries, close as they had been, and severed as
they were by SO severe a process, were dis
hnguished in another most important par
tcllar from every other case of the kind that
has been known in the history of the world.
Wewcre severedpolitically from one another,
but the severance was not what, to use a
homely expression, may be termed clean
severance. 1t was not, for example, as in
the case OF the two countries of the Peninsu-
Ia, which, when they were severed from their
colony and possessions in South America,
had no longer any special relations or any
special controversies subsisting between
them. After the independence of the United
States was established, Great Britain con-
tlnued to be an American power.
From that circumstance, and from many
other circumstances, it has happened that,
while On the one hand there has never beer
a mother and daughter country that had such
strong reasons for friendship and affection,
neither has there ever been a mother and a
daughter country which in time of independ-
ence were menaced with so many possible
subjects Of controversy, and of possible diff
terence and discord, and consequently there
mas been all along this singular contrast in
Inc feeling OF the people Of the two coun-
tries toward one another that while we have
been powerfully attracted by all those cases
TO which have referred, while we have felt
how the seal of brotherhood has been stamped
upon US by the hand Of the Almighty Him.
sell, and that the noble motive that tended
to promote true union of feeling was further
quickened by the vast and extraordinary
community of interest between us yet, on
the other hand, at almost every point of the
wide circumference, there were questions Of
controversy which, from time to time, divided
us, which it was a work Of time and difficulty
to settle. Until this present day it would
hardly have been practicable to point to the
moment at which there has not been some
one or other subject of correspondence, and
even of dispute, remaining unsettled between
England and the United States.
But, Mr.. Field, there is this happy differ
ence to be observed. have said that we
have had the most powerful impulses to union
and concord. have said we have had many
occasions of difference and Of controversy
but the occasions Of difference and Of contro.
versy were in their nature temporary, and
capable of being settled by intelligent gooo
sense and friendly temper. The time of that
settlement has now happily arrived, when we
can speak Of it as thing to be hoped, not
thing to be desired, but as consummatloI
which has ha lu 1,oov, accommodated Lone