New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-08-21
THE GLADSTONE MYTH,
WITH SOME INSTANCES OF ITS EFrECu
UPON MEMS MINDS IN ENGLAND
AND IN AMERICA. .st.

or merit it ought to be welcomed because II \ 4
revolt. The ascendency Of Mr.. Gladstone h.
come to be complete, at least on one questloa
and for immediate Parliamentary purposes, that
the Independence Of the individual member haa
we'll nigh disappeared There Is no political
wbolesomeness in such state of things In
Liberals who valued independence quilted him n
1886 There We're two three exceptions. M
John Morley was one. No doubt he wakes indie.
pendencc and has it. But he had no reason for
abandoning q leader who had abandoned his own
principles in order to adopt Mr.. Morey's. Lord
Rosebery was another Common report has AZ
WAYS credited him with possessing sound scep-
ticism in regard to Home Rule. He has how
ever been supposed to consider that the snrest
way of putting that political phantom to rest
once for all was by experiments. Try it, or try
10 pass it under circumstances so favorable that
they cannot be expected to recur Thus only
can the average intelligence he convinced OF il
imrractcability. Besides, Lord Roscbery csres
for other things: pre-cmnently, l should say.
for social reform, though not in the socialistio
sense: for municipal reform. and Of course for
Foreign Affairs most Of all. Holding these
views he was abe to keep company with Mr..
Gladstone vet sacrifice no principle and no part
Of his pcrsonal independence lie is Mr.. Glad.
IL is possible TO be Mr. Gladstone's sincere friend
without believing him to be either infallible or
supernatural.
To name a third might be difficult. There
arc men of high political rank whose conversion
to Hem. Rule synchroniIed very curiously with
Mr. Gladstone's Perhaps the new doctrine was
in the air. But as Political Meteorology had
cot then been invented. II is more likely that
the inventor of it invented also what he wished
TO discover That is not n reprOach or even 0
criticism. It is an attempt TO account for the
facts and the theory is one which might II
developed, led to interesting results, But /
return TO the personal element, and i keep to 1t
for the present, because it seems to me to b.
one OF the two real Of such interest there
is in America on the we-worn subject Of Home
Rub.
You care for the present scheme not on account
Of it's merits but because it Is Mr.. GadstoneA
You have set up new political religion. OK
which Mr. Parnes greatest convert il at once
both the Deity and the prophet. / know-few
men have better reason to knOw-how widespread
this worship u.s. and how bitterly any criticism
on the object of it is resented Yet. on tho
whole. 7 should be- sorIy to say word to lessen
the enthusiasm. There il TO finer trait in the
American people than their magnanimity. II
II,
the South and especially tow. Il Jefferson Davis
1t is now shown toward the great English par
tsan of the Confedcracy and the eulogst OF
jefferson Davis The world does not admire
is quite so much on this the former
occasion Generosity to Il beaten foe Is one thlng'
Adulation o. his sympath2inG friend j. another.
That we should forgive Nf. Gladstone his I'M
rassioned G. Championship Of the Con.ederacy Is pus
Christian. That we should plOstrate ourselves
and our judgment before the man who dld all
that in him lay to destroy the American Union
is neither Christin nor manly.
Mr. Gladstone owned his mistalse-he could nos
do otherwise. His acknow ledement Of error
perhaps entitled him TO forgiveness but hardy
10 alteration Why is it that we have never neen
Just to Lord Beaconsiicd who was the stahch
and useful friend of the United States at INC
crisis Of her fate? lie prevented the recognition
Of the Southern Confederacy by France ana Eng
land at moment when recognition by FRANCS
and England might we'll have turned the scaie
once for all against ns when to say the very least,
il would have made the success or the Union
vastly more difficult if not desperate. We have
never ftly acknowledged our debt to him. while
We have morr than fifty expressed our homage
and continue to express it. TO the man who de-
carrd. and ferven,ly hoped and believed, that
jefferson Davis had made a nation.
The only answer ever heard T. these considera-
tons is the plea that Lord Beaconsfeld was
Tory AMI Mr. Gladstone a Liberal. The word
Tory | observe is still used opprobrlCusly IN
America Revolutionary memories attach to II.
We hate the Tory of to-day in England because
the American Loyalists OF l176 were called Torres.
Is il a reason j. there a better reason Inc
Tory as Won understand him, has ceased u exist.
individuals may survive: the party which once
bore the name has no longer much IN common with
the Tory of the last century or the Tory OF 1859
who stood out against Reform. The very man AZ
whom You fling the epithet was the cher asene
of the transformation of his party INTO con'
servatves. lou do not like Conservatives either'
they have come into the inheritance OF all 'ho~
lisacrreable a1jectives which used TO be thousht
descriptive of the Tory, AMI TO some extent were
You do not know because y0u will not lnqulr' UT
YOU do not admit because it does not suit your
purposes that the English Conservative Is much
hotter American than ever the English Liberal
was. and immeasurably nearer to you in principle
and in political beliefs than the Gladstonians.
read the other day in an American paper thas
Mr.. Gladstone had all his life long been the cham'
zion of progress and of the people The remark.
which is ridicuousy inaccurate, is good example
of the enthusiasm which would be dispelled by
knowledge of the facts II need not he supposed
that most or many of his American admirers are
50 ignorant as that. Many of them must know
that he started ont in life Tory of the Tories;
and that his great quarrel with the Tories was on
account of their fidelity to the American policy OK
Protection lie followed Peel. but Peel was never
a champion of popular rights as we understand
Them He was colleague of Palinerstor, ono
OF our greatest enemies. Ii was not Gladstone but
Disraeli who passed the Reform Bill Of 1868 !"
was not Gladstone but Sir George Trevelyan VINO
was the true author of the far greater REFORM
ELL OF 1883, though it was enacted into law py
Mr.. Gladstone after dozen other real Liberals
had for years preached the enfranchisement oil the
agricultural laborer. Ii was not Gladstone pus
Forster who was the author of the Education Act
81 1870 which laid the foundations OF popular