The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-02-21
GOod.bye to Gladstone.

Mr.. Gladstone will become, if the Queen
creates him peer, as is proposed, no more
like Gladstone the Liberal leader and cham
pion OF popular rights, than Napoleon done
in bronze and placed at the summit of the
column in the Place Vendome is like the
highly vitalized and intense little Corsican
who left trail of blood and fire from Ma
drid to Moscow. The power to give title
is one of the most potent instrumentatIes
in the hands of the English aristocracy for
perpetuating itself and for REFRESHING the
general upward tendency of the lower social
strata. If an individual not of the priv
LEGGED class distinguish himself, they make
him one of their own class, leaving his
pleban compatriots deserted and disconso-
late in their former condition. The honor
is conferred on the individual ostensibly as
reward for distinguished public services and
as stimulus to other men of the people or
Of the untitled aristocracy to deserve well of
the State. But practically the effect is to
draw the teeth and claws of the popular
statesman and to create in him new sympa-
thies alien to those which have hitherto in
spired his best efforts. Writes like Macau-
ly and Dickens, as well as statesmen of the
Gladstone and Disraeli type, are thought Of
sufficient Importance to be coaxed into 81
fame and glory, with the ruling classes by
the inappropriate compliment of title.
Authors, like Dickens and Tennyson, some
times have the courage and the selt-respect
to repel this attempt of men who are only
nom!nally great to patronize those who take
their patent of nobility from higher source.
Even Disraeli let the coveted circlet, which
he, as the lifelong eulogist of the British
peerage. could not well affect to despise,
grace the forehead of his devoted wife in
stead of his own.
1t would be idle, of course. to class Mr..
Gladstone as thoroughly progressive. By de-
standardization and training he belongs rather
to the aristocracy than to the people. Mel
Their is he one of those personages, quite COM
mon in history, whose radical philosophy has
wholly corrected the conservative influences Of
his birth and surroundings. No man in the
British Empire, not excepting Disraeli him
self, is farther from anything like Democrat
&c bias or Republican tendencies than the late
P.emier. He is so far under the influence Of
his guild that he is counted among the most
outspoken opponents of the revolutionary
doctrines Of modern scientific investigators.
Not one of the gilded lords of the upper
house" would be more aghast at the promul-
CATION OF agrarian or communistic theories
than the retiring statesman. 1t is not, then,
a Democrat aud radical that is about to be-
come extinct in surrendering himself to the
heavy responsibility of the British peerage.
The loss is much more serious than that. 1t
Is OF one who, bound by social and political
Ties to the aristocratic minority, has brayely
and persistentiy made use of his influence
and station to promote the we'll being and the
gradual political emancipation of the masses
he who has broken down, after fashion.
the iniqnitous Irish land tenure, freed the
Catholics OF Ireland from the burden of paw
ing tithes for the support of an alien and obi
Gus church, abolished the purchase system in
the army, removed some of the narrower re-
strlctlons on the elective franchise and initial
ed compulsory education, belongs to higher
order OF nobility than any in which Queen
can enroll him. If he accept the proffered
honor it cannot be for his own sake. but for
the sake OF his successors who very likely may
be better fitted than he to dawde and stag
nate in that utterly superfuous department
OF the English government-the House of
Lords.