National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1886-04-22
Gladstone and Bright.

From recent dispatches we learn that
home rule measure and the land proposals
OF Mr.. Gladstone. This is a favorable OPP
portunlty for investigating and comparing
sSs s ;ctS .; aaHtdtrInndes Of both great e9
that Gladstone should bring forward such
measures, and why Bright--once SO fervent
radical-should think 1t his duty to OPP
pose them. The fact of the matter is that
John Bright is not Of the material from
which radical or progressive statesmen are
made. He is eloquent, clear-slgh GIFTED, pug
nacious, and perseyering, but he is narrow,
far too conscious OF his own rectitude, un-
educated-in the larger sense-and obsti-
nate, not to say bull-headed. When, nearly
forty years ago, his first wife died, he
abandoned himself to an almost hopeless
sorrow. The story is well known of Cob
denis visit to the house Of mourning, and
of the arguments by which he persuaded
Mr.. Bright to join him In repeating the
corn laws and procuring cheap bread for
the English poor. The eloquent Quaker
threw himself into the agitation with Won
derful enthusiasm, and, from that time
until the passage Of his Irish land act In
1872, he was among the outposts of English
liberalism. But just at this point an
amusing incident occurs which clearly
marks Mr.. Bright's limitations. In an
after-dinner speech (he drank nothing but
water) delivered to number OF his friends
and supporters in Dublin, Immediately
after the passage Of his land act, he said
something to the effect that "the work Of
liberalism was now accomplished
Nothing more remained to be done except
TO carry out the programme which Mr..
Bright and his friends had drawn
up. When this happened the English
people might expect the deluge and
consider themselves fit for the kingdom Of
heavenl Another English statesman had
long before made similar blunder. After
the great reform bill Lord John Russell said
in parliament, Snow, indeed, we may
rest this is final /" His lordship was
christened "Finality Johnny" and the
name stuck closer than any of his brothers.
In the same spirit John Bright thought
that when the three or four great measures
in which he was interested had passed into
the statute book he might rest and be
thankful because he had solved the riddle
Of the universe.
There were many reasons why this should
be so. Mr.. Bright, before entering the
house OF commons, had had little knowl-
edge of men, and less knowledge of books.
He was a Quaker, who looked after his
fathers mills, and read Milton and the
family Bible. Such things are good in their
way. Excellent We certainly have no
fault TO find with them, but they do not
contain the whole duty of man in this nine
teenth century, Mr.. Ruskln says his own
literary style was formed on the Old Testa-
ment, and, no doubt, that interesting vol
ume had been translated by men who knew
and loved the English tongue. But when
Mr.. Ruskin drops into political economy,
after the manner Of silas Wegg into poetry,
his familiarity with the sacred stories Just
enables him TO ''get left" Mr.. Bright has
had the same experience. He COM
menced as a radical, went on building
better than he knew, and ends
In what the French would call
constitutionalism. There are whole tracts
nay continents-of human thought and
knowledge open TO Thomas Jefferson lnIthis
country, and to Edmund Burke aud Mr..
Gladstone in England, Of whose existence
men like Mr.. Bright have never dreamed.
Let us now take glance at the career of
Mr.. Gladstone. More than fifty years ago
he left oxford with the highest honors the
university could afford. No great English
statesman except Sir Robert Peel-Glad-
stones immediate predecessor, aud, for
many years, preceptor--has ever had SO dis.
tInquished college course as the present
premier, lie was the rival and class-fellow
of Cardinal Manning, and, at oxford, it
was often foretold that Gladstone was TO be
the archbishop and Manning the statesman
Gladstone entered parliament as the pro-