The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-11-13
In ERROR
w as Rev. Geo.
w. Kent.
THE TRUE REASON
For Action Of Dublin City
Council.

In his speech on the British jubilee
memorial petition, before the joint con-
vention of the city council last Monday
evening, Rev. George w. Kent referred
to the alleged refusal of the city of
Dublin to erect a monument to Mr..
Gladstone as follows:
Some of you saw the richly Hibern-
ian explanation in one of our evening
papers, that the reason Dublin refused
to accept monument to Mr.. Gladstone,
who had sacrificed so much to secure
Ireland the freedom, she desired, was
because Dublin had not yet done its
duty toward Ireland's own and most
cherished son, Parnell, and as long as
II neglected to do it's grateful duty. no.
oody else should do theirs, where If
could hinder"
In making this reference, the rever-
END gentleman, while correct as to the
main facts, was not wholly without err
ror in his recital of them. Dublin
through its city council did not refuse
10 cooperate in a movement for a
statue TO the late statesman The
council simply voted to take no action
IN the matter, and the communication
from the London memorial COMMITTEES
was simply allowed to remain on the
taple. 1t is quite true that this mega
i've attitude of the council was Actual
ed by the feeling that while there is as
yet no monument to ParnelI in the civ
where his body lies at rest. 1t would
pe premature to erect one to his Illus
tf1ous co-leader in the home rule move
ment, and it would be as well to leave
the question of Gladstone statue wait
until the Irish people had first honor
ed the memory of him to whom thew
owe SO much. and whose memory has
SO strong and deep a hold on their af-
tectlons. Strange and "Hibernian" as
this may appear to the mind of Rev
MI Kent, there are numbers of peo-
pie thousands of perfectly sane men
ana women who see In this stand of the
Dublin council much that savors of
plain common sense, and nothing at all
that is suggestive of ingratitude to Mr..
GLADSTONE, or an unwillingness to do
honor to his memory.
Irelands capital CITY. whose streets
are already so richly studded with ar
tistlc memorials of the honored dead
VIII assuredly add to the historic com
pany, hitting memorial to the great
Engllshman whose closing years were SO
nobly devoted to the cause of Justice IN
ireland, and whose great gifts OF mind
ana heart were so unselflshly dedicated
TO the sublime task Of bringing togeth-
er Two peoples so long and SO bitterly
estranged, and joining them in LASTING
bonds of amity and peace. But the
time for such a. monument has not ar
rived. 1t Will come in Gods good time:
when wounds that are now omen and
sore will be closed and healed. let rs
nope, FOR ever, and when all traces of
the sad events of the last seven years
in Ireland shall be smoothed over by
the never failing hand of the great
healer-Time.
People should remember, before crit
icising in the way Mr.. Kent does. that
the Irish race, devotedly Catholic as it
is, loved its brave young Protestant
leader with love that far transcribed
It's Feelings of gratitude and regard for
MI Gladstone. And for the stand
that Gladstone took against ParneiI
when the unholy spectre of divorce
gave him the opportunity, a very large
proportion of the Irish people have not
yet forgiven him. There are many
who will never forgive him till their
dying day. The pity of it is, no one
can say they have no reason.
1t admits of little doubt now that it
was the course taken by Mr. Gladstone
directly after the result of the divoAe
trouble that caused Parnells political
ruin and his untimely death That di-
vorce verdict had been discounted years
before it was formally uttered by the
mouthpiece of justice, and the mere
announcement was hailed with relief
by every friend of Parnell, English as
well as Irish, feeling and hoping as
they did, that it would prove the finale
of a painful epoch in the otherwise
erNO OLE lxr
reer of the nationalist leader.
But suddenly Mr.. Gladstone steps in
and makes bad situation not only
worse, but utterly hopeless, by his ia
nous letter to Mr.. Justin Mccarthy
in which he declared that the divorce
court proceedings made it impossible
for him to cooperate any longer with
Mr. Parnell as head of the Irish party
That letter re-entangled the whole
problem. The Irish bishops took a
stand similar to Mr.. Gladstones, and
from that hour onward, magnificent
though his struggle was against such
terrific odds, Parnell's doom was
sealed, and he went to it more quickly
than even his bitterest enemy hoped for
or expected.
There is the chief reason why, just
now, a movement for a memorial to Mr.
Gladstone in Ireland could not COM
mand unanimous approval and sup
port.
The city council of Dublin had an
other reason, though to be sure, it was
a very much smaller one. for taking the
action it did on the occasion referred
to. The communication recommending
the memorial was issued by a London
committee, whose chairman was his
grace the Duke of Westminster. The
Duke of Westminster is, with perhaps
the exception of the Duke of Norfolk
and the Duke of Portland, the richest
member of the British peerage. His
rent-roll is enormous. Some years ago,
Mr. Stead figured out in the Pail Mall
Gazette that the income from the West
Minister estate was fully a guinea a
minute for every hour of every day of
the year. His grace (whose plain fam
lily name is Grosvenor) owes his title
and his peerage to Mr.. Gladstone, who
placed him in the house of lords and
made him and his descendants noble"
for all futurity. Moreover, Mr.. Glad
stone and his grace of Westminster
were neighbors, Haddon Hall and Ha-
warden Castle being but a few miles
asunder in the northern part of Wales.
So much for the relations of Mr..
Gladstone and the duke.
There came a time. however, when
the ennobled Mr. Grosvenor forgot all
about his obligations to Mr.. Gladstone.
forgot all about their years of intimate
friendship, and was guilty of the COM
mission of an act which, when it be-
came known to the country through the
press, aroused a storm of indignation
among all classes and brought down on
the head of the titled migrate the com