The Glasgow Peroration. (Page 492)
After describing the past history of Ireland as being for more than five hundred years 'one almost unbroken succession of political storm and swollen tempest, except when those tempests were for a time interrupted by a period of servitude and by the stillness of death,' Mr. Gladstone went on:—
Those storms are in strong contrast with the future, with the present. The condition of the Irish mind justifies us in anticipating. It recalls to my mind a beautiful legend of ancient paganism—for that ancient paganism, amongst many legends false and many foul, had also some that were beautiful. There were two Lacedæmonian heroes known as Castor and Pollux, honoured in their life and more honoured in their death, when a star was called after them, and upon that star the fond imagination of the people fastened lively conceptions; for they thought that when a ship at sea was caught in a storm, when dread began to possess the minds of the crew, and peril thickened round them, and even alarm was giving place to despair, that if then in the high heavens this star appeared, gradually and gently but effectually the clouds disappeared, the winds abated, the towering billows fell down to the surface of the deep, calm came where there had been uproar, safety came where there had been danger, and under the beneficent influence of this heavenly body the terrified and despairing crew came safely to port. The proposal which the liberal party of this country made in 1886, which they still cherish in their mind and heart, and which we trust and believe, they are about now to carry forward, that proposal has been to Ireland and the political relations of the two countries what the happy star was believed to be to the seamen of antiquity. It has produced already anticipations of love and good will, which are the first fruits of what is to come. It has already changed the whole tone and temper of the relations, I cannot say yet between the laws, but between the peoples and inhabitants of these two great islands. It has filled our hearts with hope and with joy, and it promises to give us in lieu of the terrible disturbances of other times, with their increasing, intolerable burdens and insoluble problems, the promise of a brotherhood exhibiting harmony and strength at home, and a [pg 563] brotherhood which before the world shall, instead of being as it hitherto has been for the most part, a scandal, be a model and an example, and shall show that we whose political wisdom is for so many purposes recognised by the nations of civilised Europe and America have at length found the means of meeting this oldest and worst of all our difficulties, and of substituting for disorder, for misery, for contention, the actual arrival and the yet riper promise of a reign of peace.—Theatre Royal, Glasgow, July 2, 1892.