New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-12-13

| election address was written in October. III
nomination was made or December IL, 1902
| and two DAVIS afterward he was elected MemDe
for Newark, taking his seat ut tho opening y
| Parliament OH January 20, 1888.
Tho election address which this Oxford grad
nate in the flush of his youth-he was barely
twenty -three-made to his constituents mus
have satisfied the oldest Tory in Newark IA
| ternal influence and example, the association!
Of his youth in one of the most conservative o.
English cities. and the religious reaction
headed by DR.. Pusey and DR.. Newman, which
had already set in at Oxford, had made HIM
Jealous. almost fanatical Tory. UnmoVed py
the storm of popular agitation which had sweep
over England and created CONSERVATION among
the privileged classes, this young Tory WITH
zeal and enthusiasm allied himself with those
who had been demoralized by defeat I'VE
must watch and resist" said he IN his election
address, 1T that uninquiring and undiscrlmnat-
@ing desire for change among US, which threat
sens to produce, along with partial good, mel
aancholy preponderance of mischief, which am
persuaded would aggravate beyond computa-
alton the deep-seated evils of our social state.
Strange words are these, spoken at the opening
scene in the career of statesman who has
done more than any other Englishman to pro-
mote a desire for change in religious, political
and social order, ar0usins thereby the malevo-
lent hostility of privileged classes and succeed
ing in the course of fifty years in making Adj
yanced Liberalism not only reputable and ex-
pedent, but positively necessary. a stranger
passage still, III the light of the Dlsestabllsl-
ment of the Irish Church, is his od-time de-
fence of the incorporation OF Religion with the
State and stlangest words OF all IN this address
are those in which he opposes the emancipation
of slavery. His father being the proprietor of
large sugar plantations in the West Indies, was
a slave-owner, and the young Commoner natu-
rally condemned the demands of the Emancipa-
tionists. The statesman who was destined to
appeal most powerfully to the sympathes OF
Englshmen in behalf of Greeks, Bulgarians
and the enslaved Christians of the Ottoman
Empire began his career by dcprecating the
immediate emancipation of negroes, whether
with or without compensation, as involving a
relapse into deeper debasement, and by justify
ing the abstract lawfulness of slavery through
Scriptural texts and logical subtletes.
Fifty years AFFORD a perspective in which
lines of divergence merge into the contin-
uity of laboriOus and conscientious service.
When the semi-ccatennial anniversary OF the
passage OF the Reform Act occurred last June.
there was only one member OF the Commons
who had occupied his seat continuously during
that period. That member was Mr. Talbot,
who had represented GlamOrganshire since
1880. With this exception Mr.. Gladstone is
Lo Al, If fba fret Rpfnrmn1 Dorlia-
ment, elected in 1882, who has remained in
the Commons continuously to this day. For
fourteen years he represented Newark, and then,
having giving offence to the Duke of Newcastle,
was elected from the University of Oxford after
second term of eighteen years he was de-
feated by the present Lord Cranbrook and
forced to fall back upon South Lancashire; in
three years he was again Out-voted, and after
representing Greenwich for twelve years he
appealed, as by birth and intellectual traits he
had right to do, to the Scotch constituency of
Midlothian. In this way he has completed half
a century of active service in the Commons, the
only break being the session of 1916, when he
was Secretary for the Colonies, but took no
part in the debates on the repeal of the Corn
Laws. 1t is happy augury for the democratic
tendencies of modern society that he has re-
NAMED during this prolonged career of distn
euished service plain, untitled Mr.. Gladstone.
Eduvocal as the first election address sounds
after the lapse of years, when Mr.. Gladstone,
once described 10y Macaulay as the rising hope
of the stern, unbending Tories has triumphrd
over their political successors and made Lib
eralism dominant, progressive force in English
politics. there has been no lack of continuity in
his career The Whigeism and the Toryism Of
that day had so little in common with the Con-
servatism and the Liberalism of to-day, that the
divergence in Mr.. Gadstone's views would
have been equally startling if he had begun
by being a Wing and ended by being what he
now is. Indeed there are old time Wings like
Lord Grey, who are to-day more conservative
than the new time Tories. Mr.. GladstOnes
changes OF front OH public questions have never
been capriciOus, seldom even abrupt There
has been an orderly, logical development OF his
DO itical convictions. The dominant ideas of
the time have changed decade alter decade and
he has kept pace with them, always allowing
his convictions to carry him whittier they
woulS and never alarmed by bis departures
from earlier positions, nor put to confusion by
tlunts Of inconsistency. His career is record
of continuous progress from conscientious but
narrow Toryism to an equally conscientious
but enlightened and comprehensive Liberalism.
Yet even at the close of his public lite one of
his strongest characteristics is that very con-
servatism which was so conspicuous in his first
election address.
NOT READY.
The desire of many members of Congress to
o,,n;d nntinn ON tl,n Tnrin hill nr nm, ntlnr LII