The morning call., 1894-02-02
GLADsTONE'S RETIREMENT.

Mr.. Algernon Vests denial of Mr.. Glad
stones alleged intention to retire really
confirms the original story. The purpose
TO withdraw from public life could hardly
be stated in palmer words than these:
For many months past Mr.. Gladstone's
age and the condition of his sight and
hearing-which are in their nature per-
manent-have. in his judgment. made re-
lief from public affairs desirable" After
such a statement as that his actual resig-
nation of Office is a mere question of
short time.
Mr.. Gladstone Is two years older than
Lord Palmerston was when he died; he is
six years older than Bismarck; he is three
years older than Talleyrand when he re-
tired from public life. And, with the ex-
ception of the latter. he has been longer in
public life than any man of the century.
He first took his seat in Parliament sixty
TWO years ago, and three years afterward
he became member of an administration.
From that time TO the present, with brief
intervals, he has always cut conspicuous
figure in the Government of Great Britain.
Four times he has held the Office of Prime
Minister; for nearly a quarter of Gen.
tury, with some intervals, he ofleiated as
Chancellor of the ExcheQuer. There has
not been an important measure of British
legislation in the last fifty years with which
his name is not connected.
Yet it will be said of him by the future
historian that he was not a man of COM
mandiDg or original intellect He pos
Sessed common-seDse, but the qualities to
| which he owed his long career Of success
were his honesty and his willingness to
change his opinions when he found he was
wrong. This last is one of the rarest gifts
enjoyed By public men. Most men form
their opinions in early or middle life and
ever change them. Their stolidity some
times springs from mental inertia; they
do not want to take the trouble of chang
ing their mind when it Is once made up !;
but more frequently the defect is due to an
incapacity to learn, proceeding from q
thickening and induration of the mental
tissues. Many men are afraid of being
accused of incOu usistency, forgetting that
people who are consistent through life in
their opinions have made no progress since
they were young, and ignoring the great
truth that in the moral as in tie physical
| world the lawsof change is universal.
Mr.. Gladstone has always been ready to
were true views. 1t may almost be said
that there is not one of his early opinions
which he entertains to-day. He began life
as Tory; he ends it as Liberal. He
made his debut as a defender of the corn
laws; he lived to draft the tariff of 1912.
In his early speeches he opposed univer-
si:y reform and defended Jewish disabili-
ties; he reformed Oxford and sat with a
Jew as his collea que for Greenwich. He
was once a conspicuous opponent of Par
liamentary reform, yet be introduced the
most comprehensive measure of reform
| that Parliament ever passed. He once
believed that JEFF Davis had made nation
but he carried the Alabama claims bill
through Parliament. For a quarter of a
century he justified English misrule in
Ireland; his last Parliamentary effort was
| to try to carry home rule. His mind has
never ceased to grow and widen, aud in
| the process it has chanced that he has had
to recant almost every opinion to which
| he had in earlier years committed himself.
That is record of which few statesmen
can boast. 1t is record of constant men,
tai Improvement and DEVELOPMENT OF
moral and intellectual growth never re-
tarded by obstinacy or prejudice or con-
ceit.
1t is doubtless. more than anything else,
the key to the hold which he has so long
held on the British heart. People trusted
him because they saw that he was not a
| doctrinaire who stuck to this or that
set of views because he had professed
them in earlier days; that he was all the
time ripening and pitching his old notions
| ont nf the window when their unsound
ness was demonstrated. Such a man is
sure to be honest and brave, and the
possession of those qualities is the direct
road TO public confidence. 1t will be hard
to find among the able men who surround
him one who can claim equal right to
national support.