The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-07-17

stone. Whether in his life; whether q n
der his name home rule will be victorious
cannot be with certainly predicted, for
Gladstone is So. but ii is safe to say that
it is only victory briefly deferred. not lost,
and when il comes Giadstone's name will
be hoisted TO the naintop as that of the
real agitator, organizer, and architect of
the emancipation of Ireland. His glory is
as safe and as sure today as if home rule
had been granted yesterday. because he
has incarnated with his eloquence and es-
tablished by his extraordinary intellectual
and moral influence an immortal principle
Of reform. He began with.his battle for the
disestablshment Of the Irish church in
1S68; be has never been a backslider. and
never has been beaten in the final battle.
He has accomplished more admin istrative
reforms Of public abuses than any English
statesman since Cromwell. He has dis
established the Irish church. recast the
Irish land system, introduced the ballot
into England, abolished purchase in the
army: enlarged the privileges of popular
education; added two millions of voters TO
English politics by his last extension OF
the suffrage; referred the settlement Of the
Alabama claims to arbitration in the face
of intense popular odium. When the
House of Lords resisted the abolition of
purchase in the army he forced the queen
to abolish It by royal warrant, and when
the lords resisted the extension of the suf-
frage, they yielded because they knew
that Gladstone was ready TO create new
peers enough TO enact the will of the COM
mons.
The aristocracy and all the Tories Of the
middle class, together with the time SER
vers and tide walters of these classes hate
Gladstone. but two-thirds of the English
people admire and love the great political
genius that has dared and done SO much
for popular rights and privileges. Mr..
Gladstone knows why the upper classes OF
England hate him; for in his recent great
speech at Edinburgh he said:
The men OF leisure and high station are
against home rule, but this condition OF senti-
ment in the classes mentioned has been pain
fully reflected in almost all, ii not all, great po-
ltical Controversies during the last fifty years,
whether these controversies effected the fran
chise or commerce or religion, or the wicked
and sbominable institutions OF slavery. The
classes of leisure, the titled and wealthy classes
have always Deen in the wrong.
The English mugwump Liberals killed
Gladstone's first home rule bill, but they
did not destroy his popular leadership nor
defeat the ultimate triumph of the prin.
ciple of his policy.
The Mugwumps of Republican antece-
dents elected Cleveland president in 1884,
but they did not dIssipate the Republican
party nor make dead figures of its leaders
any more than the passage of the Ne
braska bill disorganized the anti-slavery
party or made dead ducks of Seward,
Chase and Greeley.
There is a moral grandeur in Mr.. Glad
stones patient. enduring faith sin the
broad, manly sense of the nation" that is
entirely absent from the performance Of
any American statesman since Lincoln.
Here is a passage from his great Edin-
burgh speech that recalls the solemn
faith in the providence of God expressed
by Lincoln in his second inaugural:
Let us go forward in the good work COM
menced Let US put our trust not in titles, not
in sQuires, or ia peers, or in acres-I will go
further aud say, not in man as such--but in Al
mighty God, who 10 the God of Justice, who
has ordained the principles OF right and equity
aud freedom, to be guides and masters Of our
lives.