The Savannah morning news., 1903-10-10

throplSts, political party men and the
men who think England Inundated If
she ever let's slip an excuse for draw
ing her sword, drove the cabinet on to
the rocks. Gordon seized the imagipa-
ton of England and seized 1t on its
higher side. His religion was eccen-
trio, but it was religion; the Bible was
the rock on which he founded himself,
both old diSpensation and new; he was
known to hate forms, ceremonies, and
all the solemn possibilities his
speech was sharp, pithy, rapid and
ironic; above all, he knew the ways of
war and would bear the sword for
nought. All this was material enough
to make a popular ideal, and this is
what Gordon in an ever-increasing de-
gree became, to the immense incon-
Venience of the statesmen, otherwise so
sensible, and war, who had now i'm
providently let the genie forth from
the jar. Gordons politics were many
any very mutable. When Gordon left
this country said Mr.. Gladstone, and
when he arrived in Egypt. he declared
it to be a fixed portion of his
policy that no British force should be
employed in aid of his mission When
March came he flung himself with ar
dor into the policy of smashing up
the Mahdi, with resort to British and
Indian troops. This was violent re-
versal of all that had been either set
tied or dreamed of, whether in London
or at Cairo. To send Zobeir would
have been q gamblers throw But then
what was il but a gamblers throw to
send Gordon himself? To run all the
risks involved in the dispatch of Cor
don. and then Immediately to refuse
the request that he persistently repre-
scented as furnishing him his only
chance WAS an indifference that the
Parliament and people of England have
not often surpassed" and so on through
the tragic tale which the author re-
veals reentlessly, until he sums it up
in two or three pregnant sentences:
distractions grew thicker upon the
cabinet, and a just reader, now far
away from the region of votes of CEN
sure, will bear them in mind.
The generals in London fought the bat
ties of the routes with undated tie
nacity for month after month.
The idea that the relieving force was
only two days late is misleading.
Gladstone wrote to one of his former
colleagues long after, 1--WE ought TO
have known that a hero OF heroes is
not the proper person to give erect at
n distant point and in most dlthcult
circumstances, to the views OF ordinary
men,"
The Suffrage Struggle.
Commenting in his private record on
tho great struggle for household SUI
fraee in 1867 Gladstone wrote: Per
hans we ought to have recognized that
the idea of household suffrage, when
the phrase had once been adVertiseei
nv a government as battle-ground,
was irresistible. and that the only re-
naming choice was whether it should
be a household suffrage cribbed. cabin
ed, and confined by the condition OF
personal rate paying, or a household
suffrage fairly conforming in substance
and operation to the idea that the
phrase conveyed. The first was in our
view totally inadmissible; the second
beyond the wants and wishes OF the
time But the government. 1t must
be admitted. bowled us over by the
force of the phrase; and made 1t our
next duty to bowl them over by bring
ing the reality of the bill into CORE
| spondence with its great profession
| This we were able to do in some de-
gree. when we reached the committee
| for some of the restrictions included in
the measure were such as the double
facing liberal fringe did not venture ia
| uphold against the assaults of their
own party. But the grand question OF
compound householding, which was
really to determine the character ri
! our legislation, was one on which we
could not reckon upon either the con-
scientious or the inundated and pru-
dental support of our liberal fringe.
| The government were beyond all doubt
| at least for the moment, masters of the
situation. -
81 do not suppose that in the whole
| history of the 'mysteryman' (Disraelil
this proceeding can be surpassed. The
Tories. having been brought to accept
household suffrage on the faith of this
! limitation imposed by personal pay
ments of the rates. found at n mo.
ment's notice that that limitation ha6
been thrown overheard. and that theil
leader had given them bill virtually
far larger than any that Mr.. Bright
had sought to impose upon them. Il