New-York tribune., 1886-04-25
MIR. FORSTER.


| IiRoM THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE IRIBVSt@
| LONDON. April @.
tits eight months since Mr.. Forster was attacked
by the illness which ended fatally yesterday after
noon at a quarter to /. His maady has been more
or less obscure but to have been either caused
| or developed by malaria at Baden last August
symptoms of blood poisoning showed themselves.
lie came home, went to Torquay, was more than
once thought dying, rallied, returned to London a
| few weeks ago, and seemed likely to regain some
degree of health Then came a sudden relapse on
| Saturday, and from that time to the end he re-
maned unconscious. Te would have been sixty
| eight next July.
| Mr.. Forster has been a considerable figure
in English public life for more than
thirty years; since 1870 he has been
a great one; since 1880 one or tho
very greatest. You may roughly estimate the place
he held by the space he occupied this morning IN
| The Times which devotes six columns to his bog
raphy and leading article to the consideration or
| his life. In what have to say of him. shall as
sumo that the leading facts Of his career are known
and shall touch only on certain passages. and on
the moro marked traits of his character. There
have been SIX great questions in which Mr. Forster
took deep interest aud great part The rela-
tions of England to the United States during the
| Civil War the Colonies Reform: Education the
Ballot ireland. The two with which his name, at
least of late years, has been most closely identified
| are education and Ireland And it is by
a crnel irony of fate that his death
| should have occurred In the very week
when the Irish question is once more to be brought
forward in the House of Commons in Its very
broadest form, by the newest and greatest convert
| to Home Rule.
Hardly a word can be necessary to an American
audience on Mr. Forstcrs services to the American
| cause from 1861 10 1865. We all knew then and
| we shall never forget that of the small band who
| pleaded in England the cause of Freedom and the
| Union, Mr. Forster was one of the foremost. We
had no better friend Mr.. Bright excepted, we had
not one who wrought for steadily so ably
with so much success. He spoke in the House. he
spoke from many platform TO many great popu-
lar audience his abor5 in public and private were
ncessant. We owe to him not little of that
ardent sympathy with the Republic and
| that loyal friendship of race which kept
! so much of Lancashire and the North of England
on our side. Into no cause did Mr.. Forster throw
himself with heart and soul than into that in
which, as he believed, and has ever believed, the
interests of England and the interests of America
were alike involved.
| This was at the very outset of his Parliamentary
career. which, beginning with his election for Brad
ford in 1861, continued to the last. He was
|
of a century. Within four years of his entrance
into the House of Commons he became Under
Secretary for the Colonies, a post which probably
gave to his mind that strong bent toward great
Imperial questions which ever after dstln guished
| him. He never swerved from his advocacy
| of close union, in spirit il not in form
| between the mother country and the colonies.
lie extended this doctrine till it embraced English
speaking countries the world over. lie had clear
vision of Anglo-Saxon supremacy and perfect be-
| lief that England and America, united in common
policy, could not only control the commerce but
keep the peace OF the world. He was for Imperial
Federation. the phrase now rms, and meetings
to advance that cause among the last at which
he was present. The Colonists well know what
a friend they had in Mr. Forster and his name was
| household word on the banks of the ST. Lawrence
| and by the wooded shores of Sydney harbor.
His contributions to the cause of Reform and ex-
tension of the Franchise began with the struggle of
1866 which produced the Reform bill of 1867.
They continued down to the passage of the last
Reform Act of 1884. OF every measure for
enlarging the share of the people in the govern
meut of the country he an advocate. The one
measure of which he had entire charge personally
was the Ballot Act, which he carried through the
Commons in 1871. and over the heads of the Lords
in the year following.
was the chief constructive work of Mr. Forster's
| life; his greatest achievement in legislation, the
greatest legislative achievement of this generation
| in England. Mr.. Fosters belief in the people was
| reasoned belief He was Radical, not a fanatic.
| He perfectly understood that the triumph of dem
ocracy Ill America was triumph of enlightenment,
of popular knowledge, of educated good sense. He
foresaw that tho day when the still
unenfranchised masses Of English people
would have the vote He sought
to provide for it's arrival. AS Minister of
| Education lander the cumbrous official title of
Vice-President of the Committee of Council on
Education), he brought i'll and carried the great
measure of 1870. 1t was bill which for the first
time recognized and undertook to enforce the re-
| sponslbilty of the State for the schools. The
principle that underlay its complicated provisions
was simple and efficient. The State was not to
create schools; it to accept those which
existed see that a local authority should establish
others where needed and assume the duty of
| guaranteeing proper standard of teaching by a
system of inspection. This bill created the School
| Board in word and the School Boards of England
have been and the best agents of instruction for
! her youth, which gives the best promise for her
| political future.
| He had to carry his bill IN the teeth
of the most strenuous and bitter opposition from two
sets of foes. The Church attacked it because it
| threatened Church authority over education. The
Dssenters attacked it because it yielded too much
to the claims of the Church. The parsons de-
nounced measure and au hor infde The Nom
cOuformist ministers assailed both as mere tools of
existing ecclesiastical ascendency. Time has VIM
dicaed Mr. Forster and proved the sOundness of his
scheme Nobody now dreams of repeating his act.
Nay, the man who then poured out him the
most unneasured wrath, and who fourteen years
| later had not forgiven him-I mean Mr.. Chamber
laln-s himself the author of the description of the
| Education Act of 1870 as the greatest legislative
act of this generation.
| 1t was on the formation of Mr.. Gladstone's Minis
try in 1880 that Mr.. Forster became Chief Secre-
;ary for Ireland. Earl Cowper Viceroy, but
| Mr. Forster governed the country. How he gov