The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1890-02-01
GLADsTONE's CAREER.
A Man who Has Rapidly Changed
HIS Position

GLADSTONE'S CAREER.
A Man Who Has Rapidly Changed
HIS Position.
Gladstone, the leader of English liberal
ism, has been 80 years human being and
81 years an officeholder. In that time he
has been for establishment and dIsestab-
lishmert. He has been protectionist and
he has been free trader. He has favored
government grants to sectarian enter
Drises and he has been an opponent of
all those grants. He has been tor the
English shareholders in Jamaica and he
favored the measures which ended Lu.
man chattlehood wherever flies the Eng.
lish flag. He has opposed the extension
of the ballot to the common people and
he has in turn enlarged the bounds of
suffrage SO as to make them well nigh
universal. He has condemned the inter
ference OF England in Oriental affairs and
carried on, behind a mask of protest
against Jingoism, the most rapacious
campaign of conquest in Egypt and
Afghanistan that England ever waged.
lie upheld the rights of the Beers to
| their freedom, and he then overwhelmed
them with conquering troops. He long
maintained the Episcopal church In Ire
| and, and then he overthrow it with hos
| tile legislation. He went to almost Crom
| welllan extent into the coercion of Ire
land, there supprcssing free printing, free
speech, the right of petition and of popu-
lar assemblies; there throwing the lead
ers Of the nation into jail for the crime OF
desiring human rights, and toward the
same country he bas favored home rule, a
home parliament and measure of polit-
ical autonomy which, in all but name,
would make that country free and indie
pendent. He began, In the language of
Macauley. as "The rising young hope of
the tories" and he has come TO be the
specter of Imperialism in that country
which his brother prophesied "he would
Iuin, just before he himself died in mad
house."
He is the most considerable figure in
England, where be has belonged to every
party and attached himself to all sides OF
every issue. He is the most considered
of foreign statesman in the United States,
whose destruction he plotted when he
sought to secure the recognition and the
armed establishment of the confederate
experiment, to the end that England
might maintain relations with govern
ment of aristocracy in the south confront
ing government of democracy in the
north. IT changeability Is inconsistency,
Mr.. Gladstone has been the most incon-
sistent man that ever lived. If a repudi-
alton OF old principles and constant
courting of new ones Is to be- called pro.
gressive, Mt. Gladstone has been the most
progressive human being the world has
ever seen.
He was first elected to parliament in
1888 from the borough of Newark. In
that body he urged the right of Jamaica
slave owners to compensate and put him
self on record as an lmplacable church
and university man. In 1884, under Peel
as premier, be became junior lord of the
treasury, but the cabinet went out of of.
flee on the question of voting subsidies to
the Episcopal church in Ireland, Mr..
Gladstone supporting the grants. He re-
NAMED a minority member until the re-
turn of Peel to power in 1S4l, when he
became vice president of the board of
trade and master of the mint. 1t was
then that Gladstone faced the rising tide |
for the repeal of the corn laws with bill |
for sliding scale Of corn duties which |
the great Golden denounced as ian In
suit TO suffering people,
In the same session Mr.. Gladstone |
forced to passage measure of his own 10 |
which out Of 400 duty. paying articles u
total abolition or a considerable reduc- |
ton was made in 750. At this tune his
unsurpassed mastery of detail was shown,
''his ability to make statistics eloquent"
In 1S43 he abolished the restrictions on
the expectation of machinery. The next
year he carried the measure to broaden |
railway service for the people. On the
top of these popular measures he voted
for the "Maynooth improvement bill,"
yet admitted thst exclusive support 10 /
the established church was being more
and more abandoned every day"
In 1916 perhaps the noOlest service OF |
repeal of the corn laws, in which be stood
only less conspicuous than Peel, Golden
and Bright. When the great Sir Robert
resigned Office at the close of that psrlia-
ment, it was a singular fact that be went
out on the minister's defeat in an en-
deavor to pass an almost lnhuman Irish
coercion bill. The homes OF Englishmen
had been made brighter by untaxed
bread. The homes of Ireland were to be
darkened by the shadow of despotism.
Mr.. Gladstone supported coercion as
he favored free food. Small wonder is
that Peel wished to ascribe his defea: not
to coercion but to the resentment of pro-
lection.
From that time onward Mr.. Gladstone's |
career coincided with the present genera
tion, and has been made familiar to it.
Surviving Russell and Palmerston, he be-
came the undisputed leader of English
liberals. Surviving Disraeli, no foemsn
worth his steel appeared until Salisbury
appeared with the integrity OF the empire
as sn issue 10 the interest and prejudice
of the nation. The progress of Mr..
Gladstone to the extreme OF every propo-
sition which at the first he has tentatively
handled is part of the history of the
English speaking race.
There is little that he has not been.
In his time he has played many parts.
He has been theologian, politician,
an agitator and demseoguc,
q pamhleteer, an author, translator, a
critic, an art connoisseur, farmer, a
woodman and an amateur scientist. He
is further off from the principals with
which he started than any other man of
this generation. He has grown as visibly
out of one set of opinions into another as
a babe out of infancy into youth. as a
youth out of youthfulness into manhood.
With less leisure than any other states
man, he has translated Homer, vitalized
Dante. unnamed Goethe. Balancing an
empire or party on his shoulders, he has
in the reviews the most exalted
problems of the antique world or of the
present time.
He is an equal authority on pottery and
dogma. His are the weaknesses winch
hang on the neck OF strength. Great is
bis vanity, he is greater in his versatility.
Colossal in his impa'ience, be is superb
in his fortitude. Unequaled In his arro-
gance, he is transcendent in his capacity.
in his self consciousness,
be is unrivaled in his ability to lose 1t.
Prone to detail, he can yet generalize as
wisely as Bacon or as subtly as Boiling
broke. Incredible in his misconccption
Of the opinion of other countries, his
of the springs of English
action is absolute. He is the most
and prodiglous human mir
.cle of the nineteenth century.
He is utterly UNCONSCIOUS of the rapid
~ with which he has changed his posi-
ION, for he is totally destitute of humor.
In 30 LID frou, raal;,;nD J..foaf | !