New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-08-08
LITERARY CRITICISM
AND BOOK NEWS
John BRIGHT, the Incarnation of His Race-The
Making of Australia and the Orient in
Transformations New Books.

never to shout in order that it might
thrill with it's music the further cor
ner of the largest hall But he had
no gesture except to raise his hand
and that not above the level Of his
head. Gladstone was everything at
once-actor, missionary. debater. eX-
ponent of legislative detail-such
one as never before or since rose to
address an audience; Bright eXcelled
in pure oratory in its stricter sense
We cannot imagine his most truculent
opponent as ever calling Bright "a
sophistical rhetorician, intoxicated with
the eXuberance of his own verbosity.
Let it be added that he was endowed
with a prescience which made him
prophet among statesmen. In looO'
writing TO Golden of naval expansion.
he said: IL see no end to IT. The
greatest mechanical intellects OF our
time are absorbed in the question now
TO complete instruments Of defence and
destruction, and there seems no limit
to their discoveries or projects, so long
as France and England shall lead in
ornaments and in the attempt to dom
mate over the world" Substitute
Germany" for France" and his words
are perfectly applicable to-day. Again,
in 1883, speaking Of Parliamentary re-
form, and of the danger that the Lords
would veto the scheme Of the enfran-
u, .f No
said 10 the Liberal conference The
Crown cannot now reject any bill sent
up for its acceptance. II the Crown
may be limited in this way. why may
not the Peers? Why not enact that II
the Peers have rejected a bill once and
II has been considered in a subsequent
session Of the Commons, and after due
deliberation, has been sent up again TO
the Peers. then the Peers must pass it
on and It will receive the royal assent
and will become law" In twenty
years Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd
George made no advance from Brights
position.
one more citation. on a topic on
which Bright is perhaps oftenest and
most uniustly criticised. He refused -
follow Gladstone into the Home Rule
campaign, and has Their fore been
charged with enmity 70 Ireland. The
fact is that he was preaching justice
for ireland at the time when Gladstone
was practising repression with buck
shot He could not agree with the pro-
posal TO set up an independent or semi
Independent Parliament in Dublin, but
he advocated larger schemes Of real
liberty and justice for Ireland than
ever were formulated by Gladstone and
Parnell; so that when he came to his
last Illness. that most truculent or
Home Rulers, Timothy Healy, wrote 10
him, expressing sympathy and de-
sire for his recovery: Your great ser
vices to our people can never be for
gotten. for II was when Ireland had
fewest friends that your voice was
loudest on her side" Perhaps there is
no one phrase which more perfectly
expresses one Of the supreme elements
of Brights greatness. II was when
any right cause had fewest friends and
most needed aid that he most earnestly
threw into the scales In its behalf his
unrivalled oratory, his irresistible per-
suasion, his unsuspectable integrity
and his unique concretion OF the con-
science Of the British people