CHAPTER XII.
MR. GLADSTONE’S SPEECHES.
In 1892 appeared part of what was to be a ten-volume edition of Mr. Gladstone’s speeches, edited by Mr. William Hutton, librarian, National Liberal Club, and R. J. Cowen, of the Inner Temple, barrister-at-law. The work is a labour of love on the part of the two editors, and Mr. Gladstone himself contributes a modest preface. He has seen such passages as seemed to require revision, and he testifies to their correctness. In some instances the editors have made verbal amendments where it was apparent that the text was misreported. They have also added brief notes, just sufficient to recall the circumstances under which the speeches were delivered. It is in his perorations that Mr. Gladstone rises to his loftiest rhetoric, as is seen in the one delivered in his great Birmingham speech of 1885 on Ireland’s new weapons: ‘Ah, gentlemen, may I tell you with what weapons Ireland is fighting this battle? She is not fighting it with the weapons of menace, with a threat of separation, with Fenian outbreaks, with the extension of secret societies. Happily those ideas have passed away into a distance undefined. She is fighting the contest with the weapons of confidence and affection—of confidence in the powerful party by whose irrevocable decision she is supported, and of affection towards the people of England. May I tell you one incident, that will not occupy two minutes, in proof of what I say? In the county, I think, of Limerick, not very many days ago, an Englishman was addressing a crowd of Irish Nationalists on the subject of Home Rule. His carriage or his train, whichever it was, was just going to depart. Someone cried out, “God save Ireland!” and there was a loud burst of cheering. The train started, the cheering subsided. Another voice from the crowd was raised, and shouted, “And God save England!” and there were cheers louder still, such in the language of Shakespeare that
‘“Make the welkin ring again,
And fetch still echoes from the hollow earth.”
These cheers were the genuine expression of the sentiment of the country. They, our opponents, teach you to rely on the use of this deserted and enfeebled and superannuated weapon of coercion. We teach you to rely upon Irish affection and goodwill. We teach you not to speculate on the formation of that sentiment. We show you that it is formed already; it is in full force; it is ready to burst forth from every Irish heart and through every Irish voice. We only beseech you, by resolute adherence to that policy you have adopted, to foster, to cherish, to consolidate that sentiment, and so to act that in space it shall spread from the north of Ireland to the south, and from the west of Ireland to the east; and in time it shall extend and endure from the present date until the last of the years and the last of the centuries that may still be reserved in the counsels of Providence to work out the destinies of mankind.’
Perhaps more of our readers will agree with Mr. Gladstone’s eulogy of books in opening a working men’s library in Saltney:
‘And now I commend you again to your books. Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books—and without even taking them down from their shelves—they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome. They seem to tell you that they have got something inside their covers that will be good for you, and that they are willing and desirous to impart to you. Value them much. Endeavour to turn them to good account, and pray recollect this, that the education of the mind is not merely a stowage of goods in the mind. The mind of man, some people seem to think, is a storehouse that should be filled with a quantity of useful commodities which may be taken out like packets from a shop, and delivered and distributed according to the occasions of life. I will not say that this is not true as far as it goes; but it goes a very little way, for commodities may be taken in and commodities may be given out, but the warehouse remains just the same as it was before, or probably a little worse. That ought not to be the case with a man’s mind. No doubt you are to cull knowledge that is useful for the temporal purpose of life, but never forget that the purpose for which a man lives is the improvement of the man himself, so that he may go out of this world having, in his great sphere or his small one, done some little good to his fellow-creatures, and laboured a little to diminish the sin and the sorrow that are in the world. For his own growth and development a man should seek to acquire, to his full capacity, useful knowledge, in order to deal it out again according to the supreme purposes of education. I remember just now I said that, outside of science, the chance for a labouring man to acquire knowledge was comparatively very little, unless he acquire it through observation. The poet Gray describes the condition of the rustics of the village in these words:
‘“But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne’er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.”
We have witnessed an improvement upon that state of things. Knowledge has now begun to unroll her ample page, and chill Penury does not now so universally repress. Let that improvement itself be improved upon, not necessarily by grand, imposing designs, but by each of us according to his means, with the sedulous endeavour to do our duty to our neighbour and our service to our country. Let me express the fervent hope that this literary institute may thrive, and may largely and continuously contribute to the prosperity of Saltney and the happiness of its people.’
In the Dundee address on ‘Art and Industry,’ delivered on October 29, 1890, Mr. Gladstone half playfully, half seriously, denounced the vagaries of fashion:
‘Now, shall I shock you if I tell you what perhaps is partly only a personal opinion of my own? The study of beauty has several very formidable enemies. One of them, of course, is haste in production, carelessness in production. Sometimes the desire for cheapness makes people think you cannot have cheapness and beauty together. But the particular enemy which I think is one of the most formidable of all to the true comprehension and true pursuit of beauty is that thing which is known under the name of fashion. That may seem strange to the young gentlemen who want to be smart in their dress. I will not speak of young ladies. To them I have no doubt it will sound as if I was using language certainly rash, and perhaps almost profane. What is fashion? Gentlemen and ladies, if the ladies have anything to do with it—I won’t say whether it is so or not—what is fashion? Fashion of dress is perpetual change. Wherever there is perpetual change, if it is to be justifiable or if it is to be useful, there ought to be perpetual progress. But fashion is not perpetual progress; fashion is a zigzag. Fashion is a wheel which whirls round and round, and by-and-by, after a fashion has been left, after it has been discarded, if you have only a little patience to wait long enough, you will find you will go back to it. Ladies and gentlemen, you are young and I am old; I have seen this wheel of fashion going round and round, always puzzling you, like a firework wheel, but always landing in a total negation of progress, and with a strong tendency to the substitution of mere caprice and mere display for the true pursuit of beauty.’