Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1885-06-19
THE FALL OF THE GLADSTONE
CABINET,

THE FALL OF THE GLADSTONE
CABINET.
Mr.. Gladstone and his Liberal Cabinet
have. in response to the adverse vote in
In the House of Commons on the budget,
resigned, and the Queen has entrusted the
selection of their successors to the Marquis
of Salisbury. But this reverse of Liberal
ism will not be permanent. The tone of
the British mind is too strongly impreg-
mated with democracy to permit back
ward step. Progress has only stumbled,
not turned back. If Gladstone had but
one public benefit on which to base his re-
turn to power, his extension of the fran
chise bill would ensure it. The two mill
lion new made voters will be restless until
the party which gave them the ballot is
once more at the head of affairs. And
when it comes IN again, Ireland will make
another step toward home rule. 1t strikes
the American who observes British poll
tics and sympathizes with the Irish aspira-
tions to home rule, as the acme of folly
that the Parnell members should have
Joined in the overthrow of Gladstone; but
he will find consolation in the reflection
that that supreme desire to enfrancnise
all men which seems to pervade the Lib
eral party, will not be retarded in its execu-
ton by the mistakes of men who, what
ever their follies, are largely animated by
the same feeling. That their feeling IS
more local in its intensity is because the
evidence of its necessity is more local.
Whatever exceptions may be taken, and
justly taken, to the Crimes Act and other
severe legislation for Ireland, the sequence
of bloody tragedies in that oppressed land.
the general drift of the Liberal legislation
has been to its home rule in the future by
its people. The whole tone of the general
literature in Great Britain, that literature
which is always the best milestone to mark
the progress in popular thought. has
changed more for the better in the four
years of Gladstone's cabinet than in the
whole of the last twenty years. 1t has
been more clearly recognized in that time
by Englishmen that there was more than
one side to Irish "outrages", than we re-
member to have seen it before. The Lib
eral party has, by its legislation of the last
four years, more quickened the English
mind to the rights and made it more SEN
sitive to the wrongs, of man as Man, than
any that preceded it. 1t may be replied
that instead of this it was only marching
with popular mind already qulckened;
but if this is conceded, still it must be
credited with more true craftsmanship
than the Conservative party which has
thrust the House of Lords across the path
of Progress until the cries of surging
popular meetings forced it to concession.
The successor of Mr.. Gladstone is the
Marquis of Salisbury the pupil, protege,
and lieutenant of Disraeli He goes into
power with his party in an actual minor
ity-a minority which on single question
only, that of raising the tax on spirituous
and malt liquors, became majority and
overthrow the Liberal cabinet. He has,
too, an awkward legacy left him in the
shape of the Soudan question and the not
wholly settled Russian matter; but with
all this he is more welcome to the Queen
than Gladstone was. 1t was an unpleasant
draft that the Queen had to take when
Gladstone replaced Dlsraeli, and she did
not conceal it. The latter represented the
idea of selection, power, empire. and had
made her Empress as we'll as Queen; the
former merely represented the People.
One was Capitalization, the other, distribu-
ton of power. The fight between these two
ideas will still progress in Great Britain
under whatever patching party names they
are concealed. Indeed, the Soudan, even
Russian war, are but incidents on the
way to the final solution of the problem of
what the future status of that nation shall
be. Great Britain will always be great;
the question now in solution is whether it
shall Oe the greatness of monarchy or of
democracy. The wisest heads there differ,
but those who look at it from afar cannot
fail to mark that each swell of the
democratic wave on the shores of the mo-
narc1V goes just little further inland
than its predecessor. 1t may be that those
who are now living may witness the scene
of. not turbulent, tossing revolution
the English are too wise for that-but a
peaceful, silent, swallowing up of the
land, and, idly floating on the democratic
surface the crowns and other toys of
monarchy and privileged orders which
have been washed from their foundation
by the advancing food.