The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-05-19

leaders to present their case to the people
1t was a canvass of unparalleled feeling,
even in Great Britain. Mr.. Gladstone en-
vigor. From the first the contest was
close one with the chances seemingly in
favor of the Conservatives. The story or
Celebrated cJe ladder Bulletins. . showing
Gladstone one or two rounds higher one
day and Salisbury a round ahead the next
day, is still remembered. The result Of the
contest was a Gladstone majority of A.
which was made up of 271 Liberals, Y anti
Parnellites, Parnellites and representa-
against 314 Liberal Unionists or Conserva-
tives: 1t. was the Irish contingent that
ssyed vs he Dictated dsg BY Enga votes T6e
Salisbury ministry resigned and Gladstone
was called TO the familiar task of forming
a new one. The House of Commons met
Aug A. 1892 and shortly took a recess. Upon
its reassembling the following February,
Mr. Gladstone presented his home rule bill;
and thereupon began the most bitter ana ana
tory of Great Britain. Despite his advanced
age Mr.. Gladstone led the government
forces with great skill and an audacity I'M
paralleled even in his previous parliament
tary battles. Cloture was adopted and one
Of the incidents of the debate was general
vote was reached Sept. /, and the home
rule bill, somewhat modified passed the
House OF Commons by vote of 30l to 267,
nine less than his party majority. When it
is recalled that all the social and financial
influence of a titled aristocracy and the
strong British prejudice in favor of nation
aiism were arrayed against Mr. Gladstone,
this feat of holding together his heterogen-
ious majority becomes little less than mar
Vicious. There never was the slightest
chance of this great measure passing the
House of Lords, but when the lords de-
feated it a howl went up from the masses
of the British people that shook this ancient
institution to its foundation, and it was a
matter of general comment that two or
three such Pyrrhic victories would put an
This was Gadstone's last parliamentary
struggle, and it was generally supposed that
he would in no wise appear before the pub
lie again after he resigned in 1894 and gave
over the reins of Liberal leadership. to
Lord Rosebery Since then he has lived
forth but once Then it was to arouse the
British nation with one of his old-time
polemics on the subject of the Turkish
atrocities in Armenia.
GLADSTONE IN LITERATURE.
Such was Mr.. Gladstones career in poll
tics. but it was not his only career. He as
pired to as many careers as there are fields
of human activity. His wonderful univer-
salty has been a source of establishment to
the world. and yet 1t may be doubted that it
has added much, if anything, to the fame
posterity will confer upon him. Moncure d.
Conway wrote with considerable truth in
the North American Review in 1885, when
Mr.. Gladstone was at the zenith of his pow
err:
IF a critical German or English special
list in Greek scholarship were asked who
knows least about Homer. he would prob
ably reply. Gladstone If an ethnologist
or continental politician were asked who
knows least about the Greeks of to-day. he
would probably make a similar reply. The
ancient and contemporary Greece of Mr..
Gladstone is strictly conventional. his Ho-
meric ideas Anticipated, his enthusiasm for
Hellenism Byronic. But this conventional
ism he has made a political fact, and a
stone has never looked beyond what has
come to pass, and never halts before a spec
trated upon the. surfaces before him.
Others may look beneath the facts; he
will make the. most of them just as they
appear. OF politics Mr.. Gladstone takes the
same conventional view that he does of
Homer and Greece, but with the same for
midable power to make it out the, right
be religion. church, literature, philosophy,
or smaller things like Trojan reliques and
many parts-he brings to the treatment of
each question an unquestioning meth
3D. a moral earnestness and a SOL
ernn ingenuity, which carry weight
of authority equally to things about
which he does know and things about which
he does. not know. To the artist the
philosopher, the scientist. to every progress
sive Investigator in nonpolitical subjects,
Mr.. Gladstone is a chief of the Philistines.
An advocate without wig, clergyman
without gown. and with a character that
still more disarms suspicion, this most I'M
conscious of casuistS has consecrated more
commonplaces with the rhetoric of liberal
ism than any ,Englishman living. Emerson,
speaking of eloquence, said there is
ceptable statement possible for every man
of that proposition he is most unwilling to
believe; but there is an eloquence which
can invest with the dignity of high
philosophy that which every man is most
anxious to believe. Whatever influence
this superficial universally of Mr.. Glad
stone may exert on the higher culture of
his country, there can be no doubt that it
is characteristic of his profound organic
relation to the people he represents. He is
the president of England, and nothing Eng
lish is foreign to him. He is not Fictitious
president-no king in frock coat whose
greatness is put on at one election and
taken off at another He is a president, not
by popular election, but by long national
evolution; his only halo is the luster of his
services; his authority is the precise weight
of his character and ability. l had nearly
written genius, and. taking Carlyle's defini-
ton of genius as an infinite capacity for
taking pains, one can hardly deny it to Mr..
Gladstone. Although it must be denied him.
and it must be admitted that his capacity
is for work rather than taking pains, he is
all the more the phenomenal political fig
ure of Europe