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their own local taxation which they have over the disposal of Imperial taxes.' The consideration has now been parted with; the result has been utter indifference to local government reform among the Parliamentary majority, representing as it does the authority which has hitherto controlled local taxation. Yet, harder as the task has now become, and the more strenuous the resistance to be anticipated from classes interested in the existing system, Mr. Gladstone declares it must be undertaken and accomplished. In it he means of curing the mischief of Irish Obstruction by cutting from under the feet of Home Rulers their strongest argument that Parliament is incompetent for the due performance of the excessive and impossible' amount of business now laid upon it. Scotch Members are more patient as well as more orderly than Irish; but they all complain as much as Home Rulers, though seriously and gravely,' that they cannot get the Scotch business done in the House of Commons.' Mr. Gladstone will tolerate no extension of local Government which would weaken or compromise the authority of the Imperial Parliament. The Imperial Parliament must be supreme in these three kingdoms, and no intelligent or patriotic mind would countenance anything which could cast a doubt upon that supremacy.' But he is not to be frightened out of a measure which would relieve Parliament and improve local legislation in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and portions of England,' by being told that he is condescending to the prejudices of Home Rulers.'

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We have enumerated representative reform among the articles of Mr. Gladstone's legislative programme. From the warmth with which he spoke at Glasgow of the inadequacy of Scotch representation it may be inferred that it is a wrong which in his judgment requires. speedy remedy. When the subject is next discussed it may be supposed some restriction will be attempted also on the creation of those sham' and 'phantom' voters, the voters commonly known as faggot voters,' introduced for the purpose of overbearing and overpowering the real voters.' But representative reform is not among the themes he proposes for immediate consideration. Other omitted questions are to be found in the Liberal party's permanent list of topics for settlement, and therefore, doubtless, in Mr. Gladstone's. The churchyard question is an example of a whole class. If Mr. Gladstone, during his Scotch mission, did not dwell on it, and on others as much debated as it, the explanation is that he regards them as sufficiently secure in the charge of other statesmen. One special question he distinctly removed from the number of those which he has warned the nation and the Conservative Government may be dealt with on the first convenient opportunity without further notice. Church disestablishment in Scotland may, or may not, come on for determination within no long time. But so far as a private member can, he pledges the Liberal party that, before it is debated in Parliament, at the instance of a Liberal Government, the question shall be

put formally before the country. The country shall know that it is electing representatives who will have to decide that great issue. That Church, venerated on so many grounds, shall not be destroyed without the fairest trial and the fullest consideration.'

This is a clear and distinct statement. Mr. Gladstone might perhaps have shaken himself still more free from the entanglements of the question. If anything had been needed to show how partial the agitation against the Scotch Church has been, how little it has moved the Liberal party as a whole, the facility with which it has been dropped during Mr. Gladstone's stay in Scotland were enough to prove this. Compare Disestablishment meetings with their few hundreds, and the same speakers appearing on every platform trying in vain to stir some popular enthusiasm, with the crowded and enthusiastic meetings which have everywhere greeted the expositions of the common Liberal ideas of Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform from the lips of the great Liberal orator. The contrast is instructive. Undoubtedly, the unanimity with which Mr. Gladstone has been hailed as the eloquent spokesman of Liberalism would have been broken if he had taken the side of these well-known agitators. No Liberal can contest his general position that Disestablishment in Scotland may become a public question. The Church in Scotland, as in England, but specially so in Scotland, as recognised in the very terms of its original foundation, rests upon the inclinations of the people.' So long as it is agreeable' to those inclinations it will survive, and ought to survive. Let it fail to secure this support, by its own weakness or narrowness, or lack of national adaptation, and no party, no power on earth, can perpetuate it. But it is an essential condition of this very appeal to popular support, that all fair means be taken to ascertain the popular voice-that the Church shall not be condemned at the bidding of any faction or combination of factions, but only by the deliberate vote of the constituencies. It does not shrink from this test. Nay, it is the very test which prominent Church Liberals have claimed to be applied to it. And after Mr. Gladstone's statements at Dalkeith, they are entitled to hold that he is at one with them in the assertion of this claim. What they have chiefly resented in the past is, that there seemed to be an attempt on the part of certain professing Liberals to smuggle the Church of Scotland out of existence.' They have now Mr. Gladstone's own assurance that any attempt of this kind would not only be an illiberal, but a wicked' policy.

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Mr. Gladstone in Scotland was not writing a Queen's Speech, nor compiling a Ministerial programme. He did not pretend to specify the various subjects which a Liberal Administration would esteem itself under an obligation to attempt to legislate upon. The few he instanced were those in which he individually, or the classes he was addressing, are more particularly interested. Even on those few it does not follow that he reflects the view of the whole Liberal party, or that the whole Liberal party would engage to legislate on the

that he did reflect it. The tone of his remarks on the difficulty the majority experiences in a three-cornered constituency in obtaining an 'expression-a clear and effective expression-of its interests,' implies as settled a hostility to the three-cornered system of representation as is felt by Mr. Bright. There are other questions in which the entire Liberal party might not be willing to accept Mr. Gladstone's particular solution, or to echo the particular charges he brings against the present condition of things. Many good Liberals, for example, might approve of the Indian Army Bill, upon which Mr. Gladstone pours out the vials of his wrath. In the Liberal party, and in the country at large, there are many varieties of opinion on all subjects of practical legislation. As Mr. Gladstone said at Galashiels, 'some of us are anxious for one measure, some of us for another, and some of us for all.' It ought to be give and take. The one point which stands out clear and definite above all differences of opinion among moderate politicians at the present moment is that the country has important legislative wants which require speedily to be satisfied. The precise mode in which they are to be satisfied will reveal itself when the occasion comes. But, for it ever to come, the country must not be distracted by the necessity of watching incendiary fires its rulers have kindled in three quarters of the globe. It must insist upon leisure being given it from the concerns of the people of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world,' to attend to its own concerns. An empire like that of Great Britain has its imperial duties and cares; but it will never fulfil and bear them wisely and bravely unless it keep well in hand the conduct of its own affairs. Foreign affairs must not hinder it from satisfying, as Mr. Gladstone told the people of Perthshire, the reasonable wants and wishes of the British nation for the improvement of its laws and institutions.'

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The weight of the blow aimed by Mr. Gladstone from the Scotch Border, Lowlands, and Highlands at the Conservative fortress in Downing Street comes from the force with which he has demonstrated that the Ministry's Imperial policy has weakened the Empire. The strength of the position occupied by Mr. Gladstone in the name, not indeed of the Liberal party, but of Liberalism, is that he has shown how the Liberal virtues of legislative activity and financial honesty consolidate the Empire exactly in the same proportion in which they secure the happiness and prosperity of the British nation. If there is any Liberal who can find cause to complain of the completeness of the Liberal retort in Scotland upon the Conservative campaign in Lancashire, it is Mr. Gladstone himself. It was always hard to imagine a Liberal Cabinet from which his name should be omitted. It is now inconceivable. When the Conservative Government dies, as it is doomed to die, his arrow will be found in its heart. He will find it more difficult than ever to excuse himself to the nation from the duty of supplying the place his onslaught has made vacant.

put formally before the country. The country shall know that it is electing representatives who will have to decide that great issue. That Church, venerated on so many grounds, shall not be destroyed without the fairest trial and the fullest consideration.'

This is a clear and distinct statement. Mr. Gladstone might perhaps have shaken himself still more free from the entanglements of the question. If anything had been needed to show how partial the agitation against the Scotch Church has been, how little it has moved the Liberal party as a whole, the facility with which it has been dropped during Mr. Gladstone's stay in Scotland were enough to prove this. Compare Disestablishment meetings with their few hundreds, and the same speakers appearing on every platform trying in vain to stir some popular enthusiasm, with the crowded and enthusiastic meetings which have everywhere greeted the expositions of the common Liberal ideas of Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform from the lips of the great Liberal orator. The contrast is instructive. Undoubtedly, the unanimity with which Mr. Gladstone has been hailed as the eloquent spokesman of Liberalism would have been broken if he had taken the side of these well-known agitators. No Liberal can contest his general position that Disestablishment in Scotland may become a public question. The Church in Scotland, as in England, but specially so in Scotland, as recognised in the very terms of its original foundation, rests upon the inclinations of the people.' So long as it is agreeable' to those inclinations it will survive, and ought to survive. Let it fail to secure this support, by its own weakness or narrowness, or lack of national adaptation, and no party, no power on earth, can perpetuate it. But it is an essential condition of this very appeal to popular support, that all fair means be taken to ascertain the popular voice-that the Church shall not be condemned at the bidding of any faction or combination of factions, but only by the deliberate vote of the constituencies. It does not shrink from this test. Nay, it is the very test which prominent Church Liberals have claimed to be applied to it. And after Mr. Gladstone's statements at Dalkeith, they are entitled to hold that he is at one with them in the assertion of this claim. What they have chiefly resented in the past is, that there seemed to be an attempt on the part of certain professing Liberals to smuggle the Church of Scotland out of existence.' They have now Mr. Gladstone's own assurance that any attempt of this kind would not only be an illiberal, but a wicked' policy.

6

6

Mr. Gladstone in Scotland was not writing a Queen's Speech, nor compiling a Ministerial programme. He did not pretend to specify the various subjects which a Liberal Administration would esteem itself under an obligation to attempt to legislate upon. The few he instanced were those in which he individually, or the classes he was addressing, are more particularly interested. Even on those few it does not follow that he reflects the view of the whole Liberal party, or that the whole Liberal party would engage to legislate on the

6

that he did reflect it. The tone of his remarks on the difficulty the majority experiences in a three-cornered constituency in obtaining an 'expression-a clear and effective expression-of its interests,' implies as settled a hostility to the three-cornered system of representation as is felt by Mr. Bright. There are other questions in which the entire Liberal party might not be willing to accept Mr. Gladstone's particular solution, or to echo the particular charges he brings against the present condition of things. Many good Liberals, for example, might approve of the Indian Army Bill, upon which Mr. Gladstone pours out the vials of his wrath. In the Liberal party, and in the country at large, there are many varieties of opinion on all subjects of practical legislation. As Mr. Gladstone said at Galashiels, some of us are anxious for one measure, some of us for another, and some of us for all.' It ought to be give and take. The one point which stands out clear and definite above all differences of opinion among moderate politicians at the present moment is that the country has important legislative wants which require speedily to be satisfied. The precise mode in which they are to be satisfied will reveal itself when the occasion comes. But, for it ever to come, the country must not be distracted by the necessity of watching incendiary fires its rulers have kindled in three quarters of the globe. It must insist upon leisure being given it from the concerns of the people of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world,' to attend to its own concerns. An empire like that of Great Britain has its imperial duties and cares; but it will never fulfil and bear them wisely and bravely unless it keep well in hand the conduct of its own affairs. Foreign affairs must not hinder it from satisfying, as Mr. Gladstone told the people of Perthshire, the reasonable wants and wishes of the British nation for the improvement of its laws and institutions.'

The weight of the blow aimed by Mr. Gladstone from the Scotch Border, Lowlands, and Highlands at the Conservative fortress in Downing Street comes from the force with which he has demonstrated that the Ministry's Imperial policy has weakened the Empire. The strength of the position occupied by Mr. Gladstone in the name, not indeed of the Liberal party, but of Liberalism, is that he has shown how the Liberal virtues of legislative activity and financial honesty consolidate the Empire exactly in the same proportion in which they secure the happiness and prosperity of the British nation. If there is any Liberal who can find cause to complain of the completeness of the Liberal retort in Scotland upon the Conservative campaign in Lancashire, it is Mr. Gladstone himself. It was always hard to imagine a Liberal Cabinet from which his name should be omitted. It is now inconceivable. When the Conservative Government dies, as it is doomed to die, his arrow will be found in its heart. He will find it more difficult than ever to excuse himself to the nation from the duty of supplying the place his onslaught has made vacant.

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