New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-09-02
WILLIAM f. FORSTER.
HIS APPROACHING VISIT TO THE UNITED
STATES

LIBERALS OF ENGLAND.
ipRoM THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRTBUNE.l
LONDON, Aug. 1s.-Mr. w. f. Forster sails for the
United States via Canada, Sept TO- in the Crcasslan
This is in fulfment of a planscherished for some
time, but finally resolved within the last few
DAYS. For his sake and for ours am heartily glao
that he has decided to CO. For his sake because the
means of information about the United States gene
rally resorted to in England are but scanty, ana
often delusive, and an English statesman IN MI
Forsters position ought to have the means of judg-
ing for himself For our sake, because L am sure
that his visit will strengthen the friendship Mr..
Forster has SO long felt for the Union-a
friendship which on many occasions has been help
fnl TO lis and on one or two has contributed power
fully to save the two countries from the greatest OF
calamities. What he has done in public we know,
and are not likely to forget. What he has done In
private by counsel and influence we do rot know,
aud it cannot yet be stated freely, or without great
reserve Much of it makes part of that secret his
tory which seldom gets written III the lifetime OF
the personages who are the leading actors in it.
am certain that know far less than the whole TRUTH
but what know and have long known, regard as
cause for sincere gratitude part to Mr. Forster
Mr. Bright excepted, there is no living Englishman
whose political services in preserving peace between
England and America can be compared with MIR.
Forsters. Yet be was never Foreign Minister.
once beard an American say in London he would
not visit a certain Englishman with whom he had
once been rather intimate because he had taken the
side of the North during the Rebellion. This Amer-
can was not Southernor but NewYorker. He
did not know that knew that there was another
very different reason for his not renewing his former
acquaintance but the speech was the less base
If there bel hope there not-other Northerners
with relics of that old Copperhead feeling in them,
they alone among Americans may feel that they owe
nothing TO Mr., Forster TO all others of all sections
he must be taken to have been friend. And there is
something more than that. He was not merely
the foremost. but almost the only eminent
Englishman whose good will to us stood the
shock of the Indirect Claims. When everybody else
lost his head, Mr.. Forsters good survived He
made the only moderate speech uttered here In
those angry days. He was the only Englishman
who seemed to try to understand us, or to be willing
TO believe that Mr. Summers statement expressed the
belief of the immense majority of thoughtful Ameri
cans. He declined to be misled by the half-dozen
political dissenters in America whose patriotism
took the peculiar form of persuading Englishmen
that the great mass of American opinion on that
subject was neither instructed nor sincere. Those
men led us to the brink of hopeless division. That
ali England did not hurry to the same disastrous
point was due largely to Mr. Forster No situation
during the actual war-scareely the Trent business
was more critical.
All this is / am sure, so familiar to Americans
that l need not do more than refer to 1t. But all
Americans may not understand so clearly the sources
and extent of that reputation of Mr.. Forster at |
home which made it possible for him to WELD such |
an influence His career has been an unusual one III
some respects. He started with no advantage of
rank or position. but with ali the disadvantage |
which here weighs on every man not born into the
rulinQ class. He had against that of
century which every young aristOcrat with an
ounce of brains gains by the mere fact of his |
birth His family was a leading one II !
the SQety of Friends, but not leading |
one in other society or in politics |
lie vent into business, often means of political
success but not often of early political success
rapid advancement. Yet he fast enough in for
tune and in the esteem of men to contest Leeds in
1859, when but Al. Leeds rejected him, but the
mere fact of his attempting to win seat in Parlia
ment proved how far he had got Two years
later he tried again for Bradford the town in which
his business as large worsted manufacturer was
carried on, aud this time he elected, and he has
sat for Bradford since. His practical ability
made itself felt in the House spite of some defects
of manner which postponed the general recognition
of his singular ability in debate. Probably at that
time this ability yet undevelOped. Nobody
knows the House of Commons all at once. nor does
natural talent for speaking make good deba;er.
Mr.. Forster's earlier reputation that of man
Of business with a clear head and unusual admin
istrative talent, and this be has never lost. HIS
capacity for dealing with figures marked him as a
suitable for the Treasury, and that is probably
why he made in November 1866, Under Secre-
taIy for the Colonies in Lord Russenis government
an office which he held only six or seven months,
for Lord Russel's Ministry came to grief in July,
DurinO ne NEXT two years his Parliamentary
reputation increased, and his position as leader of
the more radical section of the Liberal party, in
which the Wbig element stin predominated, was
acknowledged. AS such he entered Mr.. Gladstones
Government (but not the Cabinet in 1863 taking
the Office of VIce-President of the Committee of
Council on Education. He became, of course at the
same time Privy Councillor with the title of Right
Honorable. This was a compromise of the sort 50
frequent In English politics, and like most compro
misses, satisfied nobody. The urgency of the Radi-
Gals and the rapidly growing influence of Mr.
Forster in the House Of Commons made it impossi-
BILE to exclude him much longer from the Cabinet.
He had hardly entered it before he was recognized
a. one of it's principal forces. By the time he had
carried the Education act of 1870 through the
House, he had established fame not thencefor-
ward 10 be diminished as a consummate master of
Parliamentary business.
The Ballot bill of 1871 followed and the success of
that measure was due mainly to Mr.. Forsters ju-
dcous conduct of it, 10 his knowledge of not merely
the forms but the temper of the House, and to his
adroit methods of dealing with it. Some of his old
friends began to accuse him of too great readiness
70 compromise and of making concessions fatal to
the measure he might have in hand for the sake of
ominal success. But in the end it used to be found
that Mr. Forster while seeming to yield to objections
and avoiding divisions, had good deal of his own