GLADSTONE AND HELIGOLAND

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2670, 17 January 1916, Page 6

GLADSTONE AND HELIGOLAND

(To the Editor.) Sir,—When reading in to-days issuo of The Dominion the dispassionate and conclusive reply of "Historicus" to a former correspondent who fad foolishly alleged that Mr. Gladstone was originally responsible for the cession of Heligoland to Germany, a curiously confirmatory paragraph in one of Sir Henry Lucy's "weakly letters recurred to me. It may bo safely assumed that what Sir Henry Lucy, otherwise "Toby M.P.," does not know about the principal happenings in British politics during the past sixty yoars is a negligible quantity. At tho time of the.recent naval battle in the Heligoland Bight Sir Henry recalled an incident which occurred on Sir Donald Currie's boat what time she sailed the seas of Norraway with Mr. Gladstone as_ principal guest.' One day the famous island appeared in sight. Mr. Gladstone was below at the moment, but he was called up to have a look at it. He came up on deck, and gazed long and earnestly at the islands. Without making any comment he went below again. Sir Henry went on to say that he wondered at the time what were the reflections of the Grand Old Man on the action of his great protagonist, Salisbury, in ceding so potentially formidable a fortress to Germany. Sir Henry Lucy closed his _ paragraph by adding that if the cession of Heligoland had been the work of Mr. Gladstone his opponents "would have taken care that he aid not hear the last of it. "Historicus" properly says that politics at such an hour as this should be avoided. The present instance is an example of the worst features of political partisanship. For political partisanship your true English Tory is hard to beat. Gladstone, more than any other man, excited his hatred. —I am, etc., H. SCOTT. Grand Central Hotel, January 15.