The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-10
LIFE OF GLADSTONE
MoRLEY,s p1o0nAPHY or THE
 GREAT ColrMoNERs
Story of the Man Who for Two Score Years Aided Tn Shap- ing the Destinies of
 England.

| New York. Oct. 9--The biography of | Gladstone upon winch John Morley has been at work for several years past will be pubIished tomorrow by the Macmil- | Ian Company. Being the record of the life of man who aided in shaping the destinies of England for two score years, l it Is really the history of an important part of the Victorian era. and contains much as to the man and the events of his time that is new. The author had possession of the letters and papers of ! the statesman, including . curious diary I and many extracts from them are pub iished for the first time. They give an intimate view of several of the great crises through which Epgland passed while Giadstone was member or the leader of the. government, and nearly all
 of them will prove of great historical i'm portafce.
 of paramount interest to Americans are the comments of Gladstone on the Trent afrair contained in some corre- spondence with the Duke of Argyle. | Gladstone described the cabinet meeting held after the receipt of the news that inc Confederate commissioners had been seized. After the cabinst meeting he writes: .T returned to Windsor for din- ! ner and reported to Queen and Prince.
 The cabinet determined on Friday to ask
 reparation. and on Saturday they agreed i to two despatches to Lord Lyons of which the one recIted the facts. stated we could not but suppose the American Government would of itself be desirous | to afford us reparation. and said that in any case we must have the commission CTS returned to British protection; and (2) an apology or expression of regret. The second of these despatches desired Lyons to come away within seven days i if the demands are not complied with. I thought and urged that we should hear what the Americans had to say before withdrawing Lyons. for I could not feel sure that we were at the bottom of the
 law of the case, or could judge here and now what form 1t would assume. But
 this view did not prevail"
 F MT. Morley shows how tn eoueen, the Prince Consort, and Mir. Gladstone each l in his or her way worked together to soften, abridge and modify Lord Rus- sells violent despatch to Lord Lyons.
 the British minister at Washington, and l to avert anything which might bring on a collision ;and this despite the fact that strong. and active interests in Eng | land favored forcing North and South
 apart for England's profit.
 | The next passage in the book deals
 with Glandstone's infiammatory Newcas- tie speech, during which he let fall
  of which he was destined never to hear the last His statement that Jefferson Davis had made nation" created a profound sensation, and MT. Morley does not spare his subject the frank state- ment that he made an outrageous error. fraught with serious consequences. He prints Gladstone's own estimate of his error. in which the statesman scores
 himself relentlessly for his most un- warranted declaration"
 Of Majuba and Gladstone's part in 1t, MT. Morley writes: Some have argued that we ought to have brought up an overwhelming force to demonstrate that we were able to beat them, before we
 made peace. Unfortunately demonstrs-
 tions of this species easily turn into pro-
 vacations, and talk of this kind mostly
 comes from those who believe, not that peace was made in the wrong way, but that a peace giving their country back
 to the Boers ought never to have been
 made at all, on any terms or in any
 way. This was not the point from which
 either cabinet or parliament started. The government has decided that annexation had been an error. The Boers had pro-
 posed inquiry. The government assented on condition that the Boers dispersed,
 without waiting reasonable time for a reply, our general was worsted in rash and trivial attack. Did this cancel our proffered bargain? The point was
 simple and unmistakable, though party heat at home, race passion in the col ony, and our everlasting human prone ness to mix up different questions, and
 to answer one point by arguments that
 belong to another, all combined to pro-
 duce a confusion of mind that a certain school of partisans have traded upon ever since. Strange in mighty nations is moral
 cowardice, disguised as a Roman pride.
 sa1m akNA A@ .rsaI
 courage of the minister. For moral cour-
 age may be needed even where aversion
 to bloodshed fortunately happens to CO.,
 incide with high prudence and sound pol
 icy of State"
 On the fall of Khartoum and the death of Gordon MT. Morley writes: ''The cab inet in London fixed in their resolve not to accept responsibility for a Soudan war, and not to enter upon that responsibility by giving advice for or against the ad- vance of Hicks, stood aloof. Here was their first frightful blunder-in decision.
 Unfortunately the ready clamor of head long philanthropists, political party men, and the men who think England humili-
 ated if she ever lets slip an excuse for drawing her sword, drove the cabinet on to the rocks. Gordon seized the imagi-
 nation of England, and seized 1t on it's
 higher side. His religion was eccentric,
 put 1I was TeilBlOH1 tuc DiUtC was thO
 rock on which he founded himself, both old dispensation and new; he was known to hate forms. ceremonies and all the
 solemn plausibilities;' his speech was
 sharp, pithy, rapid and ironic; above all,
 he knew the ways of war and would not
 bear the sword for nought. All this was
 material enough to make popular ideal. and this Is what Gordon in an ever-in-
 creasing degree became, to the immense
 inconvenience of the statesmen, other
 wise so sensible and war, who had now
 improvidently let the genii forth from the
 jar. Gordon's policies were many and very
 mutable. When Gordon left this coun-
 try said MT. Gladstone, and when he arrived in Egypt, he declared 1t 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 ardor into the policy
 of smashing up the Mahdi, with resort
 to British and Indian troops. This was violent reversal of all that had been eith- CT settled or dreamed of, whether in Lon- don or at Cairo. To send Zobeir would
 have been gamblers throw. But then
 what was 1t but a gamblers throw to
 send Gordon himself? To run all the risks
 involved in the dispatch of Gordon. and
 then immediately to refuse the renueat that he consistently represented as f,1r-
 nishing him his only chance, was an in-
 coherence that the parliament and peonIe of England have not often surpassed. .''
 and so on through the tragic tale which | the author reveals relentIessly. until ha
 sums 1t up in two or three pregnant sem
 tences: "Distractions grew thicker upon