The Irish standard., 1901-11-23
Of particular era, disclosing the en-
istence of material. for forming public


istence of material for forming public
opinion, and directing public opinion
to given point; and l will undertake
to say that everyone of his great
achievements-aye, and even his last
great attempt at an achievement-that
in everyone of those great causes he
formed, or endeavored to form and
create the great public opinion upon
which he knew he depended. l will
take 4 case which ought to interest
you, citizens of Manchester. He began
the greater stage Of his career by the
budget OF 1858, which revealed to the
country that it possessed Il man With
a great comprehension of the substall-
tial interests and the growing concerns
of trade and commerce. Did he run
about. feeling the pulse of popular
opinion? No. He grappled with the
facts with infinite genius and labor;
and recollect, with Mr.. Gladstone ge-
MUS was labor (;tpplauscy. He built
up a vast plan. lie carried that plan
to the cabinet. The cabinet We're
against him almost to Il man. They
warned him that the House of Com
mons would be against him. The otli-
Gals Of the trcasurey told him the
bank would be against him; that Il
great press of interests would be
against him; but, like i'm intrepid and
sinewy athlete that he always was he
stood 10 his guns. He converted the
cabinet; he persuaded the House of
Commons; he vanquished the bank and
the hostile interests; and, in the words
OF one of his SUCCESSORS, whom Sir
William Houldsworth and well knew
and likel-Sir Stafford Northcote-he
did all those things and turned for
many years to come the current of
public opinion with that force which
WAS too powerful for amy minister to
resist. Don't let it be said, then, that
Mir. Gladstone was Il man who always
followed the flowing tide (hear, hear)
If l may take another case, l only
mention tit is Interesting to me for
various reasonS-it is the case of the
Irish land legislation; and don't think
say it because | chance, from acct
dent Of office, to know more about it
than OF some other things. This was,
in my Judgment, the most gigantic, the
most complex. the most leep-rcaching
OF his legislative achievements. The
transformation OF land tcnurcs, always
the most difficult of all processes in all
countries, and the adaptation of law
and institution to social fact and social
need-this revolution which he effected
in ule relations between the man who
titled the soil and the man who drew
the rent, this compulsory valuation of
land as preliminary to that purchase
which we are all agreed to be the ulti-
mate solution-this was effected, not
with the flowing tide; it was effected
against the Ignorance of this country,
against the pre- udicc of this country,
against the standing prejudice of both
STEPPED in the deepest doctrine of con-
tract. You remember the events in the
seventies. l will for Il moment tres
pass on controversial ground. You will
remember there was Il great discus
sion, and for good reason, as to what
was the policy Of this country in re-
spect to the Christian races on the Bal
kan peninsula. Some of you may re-
member Il very fine figure of Mr. Glad
stones Oh that point He said these
Christian races, standing between Tur-
key and Europe, We're like a shelving
beach which restrained the waves. a
beach, 1t is true, is beaten by the
waves; it is laid desolate; it produces
nothing; it became nothing but Il mass
of single and rock, and almost USE
less senweed; but it is a place behind
which cultivated earth can spread and
escape the incoming tide; and such, he
said, was the resistance to the Turk
of the Bulgarians, Servians, and
Greeks. Well, in the great enterprise
of his life, in the seventies llc made an
opinion which eventually guided the
policy of the country, and which had
such great effect for the good Of the
world (applause). One more point l
will refer to. He misread the Civil
war In America, which saved the Am
eri IAN Union and prevented the horri1
curse Of the great slave power from
growing upon American soil. He mis-
read it III common with nearly all the
leading statesmen of the timc-7llOt i'm |
Lancashire (cheers). We'll, but then, il
upon that one occasion he fell into er-
Tor, do let us remember that 10 man
was more ready to admit how grlcvous
the error had been; and will say this,
that he made the noblest rcparatlon
that amy statesman has ever made for
a rash word by healing deed when
he made the Geneva arbitration. Then.
with regard to the Alabama dispute
arbitration, it Qucnched the fires of
luminosity between the same races on
two sides of the Atlantic. and il i'll
augurated the first substantial and
great precedent for the substitution Of
reason for force, and something else
for the deadly but not Altogether avoid
able arbitrament of the sword Qoui
cheers. l said that if Mr.. Gladstone
had dnn, pOt,linr also en- tho lnp,r ,,n.