The Grand Old Man / Or, the Life and Public Services of the Right Honorable William Ewart Gladstone, Four Times Prime Minister of England

by Richard B. Cook

In June 1895, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone attended the opening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal as guests of Sir Donald Currie, on his steamship Tantallon Castle, returning home on the twenty-fifth. During this trip an effort was made to arrange for an interview between the Ex-Premier and the Prince Bismarck, but the Prince seemed disinclined and the project failed.

It was while Mr. Gladstone was at Kiel, that the Rosebery Ministry fell by an accidental defeat of the Liberal Party in Parliament, and which again brought Mr. Gladstone to the front in the public mind. Lord Rosebery telegraphed Mr. Gladstone full particulars of the situation, and Mr. Gladstone strongly advised against the resignation of the Government and urged that a vote of confidence be taken. Mr. Gladstone wrote that the Liberal Party could well afford to stand on its record. The Ministry with but two exceptions, was the same, as that formed by Mr. Gladstone in August 1892, and had his confidence.

Nevertheless, the cabinet of Lord Rosebery resigned, and the Marquis of Salisbury again became Prime Minister,—on the very day of Mr. Gladstone's arrival home. However Lord Rosebery retained the leadership of the Liberal Party.

There is no doubt that if the wishes of the Liberal Party had been gratified, Mr. Gladstone would have taken the leadership and again become Prime Minister. Subsequent events proved that he would have been equal, at least for a while, to the task of succeeding Lord Rosebery. But Mr. Gladstone was not willing. He refused to re-enter Parliament, and wrote a letter to his old constituents at Midlothian, declining their kind offer to send him to the House and bade them a kind farewell. In his letter he said that the Liberal Party is a party of progress and reform, and urged his constituents to stand by it. He regarded the changes of the century exceedingly beneficial.

August 6, 1895, Mr. Gladstone made a great speech at Chester. A meeting was held in the Town Hall to arouse public sentiment against the slaughter of Armenian Christians within the Empire of the Sultan by Turkish soldiers, and to devise some means of putting an end to such crimes, and of punishing the oppressor. The audience was very large, including many Armenians resident in England, and rose with vociferous cheering when Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, the Duke of Westminster, the Bishop of Chester, and the Mayor of Chester entered the hall. The Bishop of Ripon was already there. The Duke of Westminster presided, and read a letter from the Marquis of Salisbury, the Premier.

Mr. Gladstone arose amid an outburst of enthusiastic applause, and addressing the vast audience said:

That the massacres in Armenia resulted from intolerable government—perhaps the worst in the world. He offered a resolution pledging the support of the entire nation to the British Government in its efforts to secure for the Armenians such reforms as would guarantee the safety of life, honor, religion and property. Mr. Gladstone said that language failed to describe the horrors of the massacre of Sussoun, which made the blood run cold. The Sultan was responsible, for these barbarities were not the act of the criminal class, such as afflicts every country, the malefactors who usually perpetrate horrible crime, but were perpetrated by the agents of the Sultan—the soldiers and the Kurds, tax-gatherers and police of the Turkish Government. And what had been done, and was daily being done, could be summed up in four awful words—plunder, murder, rape and torture. Plunder and murder were bad enough, but these were almost venial by the side of the work of the ravisher and the torturer. And the victims were defenceless men, women and children—Armenians, one of the oldest Christian civilized races, and one of the most pacific, industrious and intelligent races of the world.

There was no exaggeration in the language used to describe the horrible outrages visited upon whole communities of innocent and helpless people. The truth of these terrible charges in their most hideous form, was established by unbiased American testimony, by Dr, Dillon, an eye witness, and by the representatives of England, France and Russia.

Nothing but a sense of duty, said Mr. Gladstone, had brought him at his age to resign the repose, which was the last of many great earthly blessings remaining to him, to address them.

If the Powers of Europe were to recede before the irrational resistance of the Sultan, they would be disgraced in the eyes of the world, and the Christian population of the Turkish Empire would be doomed to extermination, according to the plan of the Porte. Terrible word, but true in its application.