amid much cheering and counter-cheering, Mr. Gladstone sprang to his feet. "This speech," said he, "is one which must be answered, and answered at the moment. The character of England, involved in that of her public men, the character of England is at stake. . . The right honourable gentleman must permit me to tell him that he is not entitled to charge with insolence men of as high position and of as high character in this House as himself. And I must tell him that whatever else he may have learnt, he has not learned to keep within those limits, in discussion, of moderation and of forbearance that ought to restrain the conduct and language of every member of this House; the disregard of which, while it is an offence in the meanest amongst us, is an offence of tenfold weight when committed by the leader of the House of Commons." Mr. Gladstone, who had scarcely been heard for the storm of interruption raised by the opposite party, then went on to review the Budget in detail, and denounced it as unsound and delusive. In the division which followed, the Government were defeated by 305 to 286.

Commissioner Extraordinary to the Ionian Islands.—Mr. Gladstone lent a general support to the second administration of the Earl of Derby, in 1858. Towards the close of that year he undertook, at the request of the Prime Minister, a special mission to the Ionian Islands, then under British protectorate. He declared the object of his mission to the Senate on the 3rd of December, saying he had been sent to "examine in what way Great Britain may most honourably and amply discharge the obligations which, for purposes European and Ionian rather than British, she has contracted." The Legislative Assembly of the Islands passed, in January, 1859, a resolution declaring for union with Greece, and Mr. Gladstone-whose knowledge of the Greek language was of important service in this mission-induced the body to appoint a committee to draw up suitable representations to the protecting Powers. The petition was not then granted, but the Islands were offered a constitution similar to that of the British colonies. After the expulsion of King Otho from the throne of Greece, and the election of Prince George of Denmark to the crown, the Ionian Islands were formally ceded to Greece by the protecting Powers.

A School for Statesmen.-In a speech on Lord Derby's Reform Bill in 1859, Mr. Gladstone asked: "Is it not, under Providence, to be attributed to a succession of distinguished statesmen, introduced at an early age into this House, and once made known in this House securing to themselves the general favour of their countrymen, that we enjoy our present extension of popular liberty, and, above all, the durable form which that liberty has assumed ?"

Small Boroughs and Great Men.-In the same debate Mr. Gladstone thus defended the existence of small boroughs: "Allow me to state the case of six men-Mr. Pelham, Lord Chatham, Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Canning, and Sir Robert Peel. Mr. Pelham entered this house for the borough of Seaford in 1719, at the age of twenty-two; Lord Chatham entered it in 1735, for Old Sarum, at the age of twenty-six; Mr. Fox in 1764, for Midhurst, at the age, I think, of twenty; Mr. Pitt in 1781, for

Appleby, at the age of twenty-one; Mr. Canning in 1793, for Newport, at the age of twenty-two; and Sir Robert Peel in 1809, for the city of Cashel, at the age of twenty-one. Now here are six men, every one of whom was a leader in this House. I take them because the youngest is older than the youngest of those who now sit here, and because the mention of their names can give rise to no personal feeling. Here are six men whom you cannot match out of the history of the British House of Commons for the hundred years which precede our own day. Every one of them was a leader in this House; almost everyone of them was a Prime Minister. All of them entered Parliament for one of those boroughs where influence of different kinds prevailed. Every one of them might, if he had chosen, after giving proof of his powers in this House, have sat for any of the open constituencies of the country, and many of them did so. Mr. Pelham, after sitting for Seaford in one Parliament, represented Sussex for all the rest of his life. Lord Chatham never, I think, represented an open constituency. Mr. Fox, after sitting for Midhurst, became the chosen for Westminster. Mr. Pitt went from Appleby at a very early age to the University of Cambridge. Mr. Canning went from Newport to Liverpool, and Sir Robert Peel from Cashel to the University of Oxford. Now, what was the case of Sir Robert Peel? The University, on account of a conscientious difference of opinion, refused the continuance of his services. They might have been lost to the British Parliament, at that moment at all events. But in Westbury he found an immediate refugefor so it must be called; and he continued to sit for a small borough for the remainder of his life. Mr. Canning in the same way, not losing but resigning the representation of Liverpool, found it more conducive to the public business that he should become the representative of a small borough for the rest of his days. What does this show? It shows that small boroughs were the nursery-ground in which these men were educated-men who not only were destined to lead this House, to govern the country, to be the strength of England at home and its ornament abroad, but who likewise, when once they had an opportunity of proving their powers in this House, became the chosen of large constituencies, and the favourites of the nation."

A "Gigantic Innovation."-In the debate that took place July 5th, 1860, on the action of the House of Lords * in rejecting the bill for the abolition of the Paper Duties which had been sent up from the Lower House, Mr. Gladstone (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) said: "It appears to me to be the determination of one moiety of this House that there shall be no debate upon the constitutional principles which are involved in this question; and I must say that, considering that gentlemen opposite are upon this occasion the partisans of a gigantic innovation -the most gigantic and the most dangerous that has been attempted in our times-I may compliment them upon the prudence that they show in resolving to be its silent partisans. Now, Sir, I should like to know with what language and in what tones those gentlemen who assume the name

* See p. 233.

of Conservative politicians would argue in support of a great encroachment by one house of the legislature upon the other."

measures.

The "Danger Signal."-The following passage occurred in a speech of Mr. Gladstone's in 1864: "We are told that the working classes do not agitate for an extension of the franchise; but is it desirable that we should wait until they do agitate? In my opinion, agitation by the working classes, upon any political subject whatever, is a thing not to be waited for, not to be made a condition previous to any parliamentary movement, but, on the contrary, it is a thing to be deprecated, and, if possible, anticipated and prevented by wise and provident An agitation by the working classes is not like an agitation by the classes above them, the classes possessed of leisure. The agitation of the classes having leisure is easily conducted. It is not with them that every hour of time has a money value; their wives and children are not dependent on the strictly reckoned results of those hours of labour. When a working man finds himself in such a condition that he must abandon that daily labour on which he is strictly dependent for his daily bread, when he gives up the profitable application of his time, it is then that, in railway language, the danger signal is turned on; for he does it only because he feels a strong necessity for action, and a distrust of the rulers who, as he thinks, have driven him to that necessity."

"Unmuzzled" by Oxford University.-At the general election in July, 1865, Mr. Gladstone lost his seat for Oxford University, the numbers on the 18th, after six days' polling, standing thus: Sir W. Heathcote, 3236; Mr. Gathorne Hardy, 1904; Mr. Gladstone, 1724minority 180. It having become evident, during the two or three days before the close of the poll, that his seat was in danger, Mr. Gladstone was nominated on the 17th for South Lancashire, and when the result at Oxford was known, he made his appearance at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester to address the electors: "At last, my friends," said he, “I have come amongst you; and I have come, to use an expression which has become very famous, and is not likely to be forgotten-I am come among you 'unmuzzled.' After an anxious struggle of eighteen years, during which the unbounded devotion and indulgence of my friends maintained me in the arduous position of representative of the University of Oxford, I have been driven from my seat... I have loved the University of Oxford with a deep and passionate love, and as long as I breathe that attachment will continue. If my affection is of the smallest advantage to that great, that ancient, that noble institution, that advantage, such as it is-and it is most insignificant-Oxford will possess as long as I live.

I am aware of no cause for the votes which have given a majority against me in the University of Oxford, except the fact that the strongest conviction the human mind can receive, that an overpowering sense of the public interests, that the practical teachings of experience, to which from my youth Oxford herself taught me to lay open my mind-all these had shown me the folly, and, I will say, the madness of refusing to join in the generous sympathies of my countrymen, by adopting what I must call an obstructive policy."

His Connection with the Liberal Party.-In the course of a debate on Parliamentary Reform in April, 1866, Mr. Gladstone was taunted by Mr. Lowe with promoting Reform measures in his later years, while he had strongly opposed the first Reform Bill, in the Oxford Union Debating Society in 1831. In his reply, addressing the members of the Liberal party, he thus alluded to the change from his earlier convictions which had brought him amongst them: "I came amongst you an outcast from those with whom I associated, driven from their ranks, I admit, by no arbitrary act, but by the slow and resistless force of conviction. I came among you, to make use of the legal phraseology, in formâ pauperis. I had nothing to offer you but faithful and honourable service; you received me as Dido received the shipwrecked Æneas:

'Excepi ejectum littore, egentem.'

And I only trust you may not hereafter, at any time, have to complete the sentence in regard to me:

'Et regni, demens! in parte locavi.'

You received me with kindness, indulgence, generosity, and I may even say with some measure of your confidence. And the relation between us has assumed such a form that you can never be my debtors, but that I must be for ever in your debt.”

A Peroration in a Full House.-The close of the same debate was marked by one of the most forcible passages of Mr. Gladstone's oratory. Alluding to the division then about to be taken on the second reading of the Reform Bill of Lord Russell's Government, he said: "This Bill is in a state of crisis and of peril, and the Government along with it. We stand or fall with it, as has been declared by my noble friend Lord Russell. We stand with it now; we may fall with it a short time hence. If we do so fall, we, or others in our places, shall rise with it hereafter. I shall not attempt to measure with precision the forces that are to be arranged against us in the coming issue. Perhaps the great division of to-night is not to be the last, but only the first of a series of divisions. At some point of the contest you may possibly succeed. You may drive us from our seats. You may slay, you may bury the measure that we have introduced. But we will write upon its gravestone for an epitaph this line, with certain confidence in its fulfilment :

"Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor."

You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. The great social forces which move onwards in their might and majesty, and which the tumult of these debates does not for a moment impede or disturb, those great social forces are against you; they work with us; they are marshalled in our support. And the banner which we now carry in the fight, though perhaps at some moment of the struggle it may droop over our sinking heads, yet will float again in the eye of heaven, and will be borne by the firm hands of the united people of the three kingdoms, perhaps not to an easy, but to a certain and to a not distant victory." The division which followed was in favour of the second reading by a majority of five only-318 against 313. These numbers were amongst the largest

ever assembled on a division, constituting almost the entire House, the remainder of the 658 seats being thus accounted for: Speaker, 1; tellers, 4; pair, 2; vacancies, 11; absent, 9 only.

Irish Church Disestablishment.-The first clear intimation of Mr. Gladstone's policy with respect to the Irish Church took Parliament and the country by surprise. It occurred in a debate on the state of Ireland, introduced by an independent member (Mr. Maguire), March 16th, 1868; Mr. Disraeli's Government then being in office. After speaking at some length on the various grievances of which Ireland complained, and of the Church Establishment among them, Mr. Gladstone referred to his former speeches on the subject, and said: “I did not use one word, to my knowledge, which was contrary to the opinion I held then and hold now-namely, that in order to the settlement of the question of the Irish Church, that Church, as a State Church, must cease to exist. Without the slightest reproach to any of those who bear office in the Irish Church, I am convinced, from a long observation, that that institution is, and by the law of its existence must be, the home and last refuge of the spirit of ascendancy; and as that which, beyond all particular and special measures, we need, is the expulsion of the spirit of ascendancy from Ireland, I take leave to say that, in order to that expulsion, we must now proceed to deal decisively with that question of the Irish Church." He further remarked: "My opinion is that religious equality is a phrase that requires further development, and I will develop it further by saying that, in this religious equality in Ireland, I, for my part, include in its fullest extent the word—a very grave word, I do not deny, and I think we cannot be too careful to estimate its gravity before we come to a final conclusion -the very grave word disestablishment. If we are to do any good at all by meddling with the Church in Ireland, it must, in my judgment, be by putting an end to its existence as a State Church."-With reference to the unexpected character of this announcement, Mr. Disraeli remarked, in the debate upon going into committee upon Mr. Gladstone's resolutions (April 3rd, 1868), that the right honourable gentleman had come forward "all of a sudden, like a thief in the night."

Use of Quotation. Mr. Gladstone's frequent and skilful use of quotation in debate is well known; but quotation probably never took a wider range in so brief a compass, or was more effective, than in the following passage of his speech on moving his Irish Church resolutions, March 30th, 1868: "There are many who think that to lay hands upon the National Church Establishment of a country is a profane and unhallowed act. I respect that feeling. I sympathise with it. I sympathise with it while I think it my duty to overcome and repress it. But if it be an error, it is an error entitled to respect. There is something in the idea of a National Establishment of religion, of a solemn appropriation of a part of the commonwealth, for conferring upon all who are ready to receive it

In a speech in the House of Commons in March, 1865, Mr. Gladstone (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) had so far endorsed a resolution antagonistic to the Irish Church, as to admit that the state of that Establishment was CL unsatisfactory."