GREAT ENGLISHMAN

Hokitika Guardian, 19 October 1932, Page 2

GREAT ENGLISHMAN

WILLIAM EWARfT GLADSTONE. EtFLOGY of career, WELLINGTON, October 17. During an address covering an hour and a half in tine Dominion Farmers’ Institute last evening, Mr I’. J. 'O’Regan, eulogised the career of William Ewart Gladstone, whom h e described as “the .greatest Englishman and the world’s greatest Parliamentarian.” Mr 'R. Gosse Occupied the chair. Mr O’Regan described Gladstone as “a Scotsman who happened to be born at, Liverpool, for his father,' Sir John Gladstone, war a native of Leith', while his mother was a Robertson of Stornoway. Elected for Newark in 1833' by nomination of tho Euke of Newcastle—for Newark was one of the few nomination boroughs which had survived the Reform Act of 1832—he remained a member of the House of Commons for upward of sixty years, during which he was Prime Minister four times and as Chancellor of tho Exchequer had delivered no fewer than thirteen Budgets. A conservative TO THE END. He began his political career as a member of the Conservative Party, and was Peel’s ablest lieutenant and not th e devoted follower when Peel accepted Cobden’s policy Sit iß4t>. Like Reel, he Was often accused of going back on his principles, but in the best and only proper sense of the word, Gladstone had remained a Conservative to the end. He was elected ns a Protectionist, but abandoned the heresy when he realised that it was ruining his country. He supported the Established Church in Ireland, but recanted when he realised that it was unjust to force the payment of tithes by a peop'e who were overwhelmingly Catholic. He had opposed the extension of the franchise in 1832, but later became the champion 0 f the workers’ suffrage. Ho had opposed the, removal of Jewish disabilities, but later bore a leading part in sweeping them away. He had supported university religious tests, but tns first 'Ministry had made an end of them. A considerable landowner himself, he had nevertheless fathered the Irish Land Act of 1870, the Land Act, 1880, and the Arrears Act, 1885. He had 'long opposed the grant of' selfgovernment to Ireland, but devoted the last years of his long life to the cause of Home Rule.

Pee] had early detected Gladstone’s outstanding ability, and so he made him a Junior Lord of the Treasury in 1835. On the formation of Peel’s great Ministry in 1841, he wag made VicePresident of the Local Government Board without a seat in the Cabinet, but presently he became President with a seat in the Cabinet, and later, when Lord Stanley resigned owing to Peel’s adoption of Free Trade* Gladstone became Colonial Secretary, or, Us It is called nowadays, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Gladstone was undoubtedly responsible for Peel'* first instalment of Fw* Trade in 1842, but when h e went further in 1845, tho Duke of Newcastle refused to countenance his re-election for Newark after he had become Colonial 'Secretary, and so for a year and a half he 'remained a Cabinet Minister without a seat in Parliament. He was elected for Oxford at the general election of 1847, however, and held the seat until 1865, when he was defeated because of his speech during the previous session on Irish 'Disestablishment, but at the same time he was elected for South Lancashire.

HIS GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS. Gladstone’s greatest achievements probably were his Budgets, particularly those of 1853 and 1860. In the former he forecast that by economy over a period of seven years and a 'judicious readjustment of taxation, particularly by the extension of the succession duties from personal to real property, it was possible to abolish the income tax in 1860. At the same time he remitted Customs duties on a hundred ond fifty commodities,' and reduced those on one hundred and forty more. The outstanding feature of his proposals was their simplicity, while, by making the basis of taxation as -narrow as possible, he relieved the mass of the people and so promoted their prosperity. Unfortunately his plans were upset by the outbreak of the Crimean War, but even then he insisted that the increased expenditure should be met out of taxation and not by loan, holding that the beet way to make war unpopular was to pay for it out of taxes.

Despite the Crimean War, the Chines© War, and the Indian Mutiny, he produced a Budget in 1860, the greatest of all his financial triumphs, by which he reduced the number of Customs duties to 48 only, and he still maintained that, it w as possible to abolish the income tax. That he was -unable to do so ultimately was due to causes beyond his control, and the verdict of history would b e that Britain had paid dearly for what Disraeli was. pleadedto call his spirited foreign policy’® that it had made economy impossible. The great Midlothian, campaign and ‘the triumph at the general election of IPBO, which ended Disraeli’s career, proved that the heart of the nation was with Gladstone on the Eastern question, but his second Ministry was confronted with a world-wide legacy or difficulty from his predecessor. Tho lecturer warmly defended Gladstone in connection with the mission of General Gordon to Khartoum, maintaining that Gordon had been sent to evacuate tho Egyptian garrisons from the Soudan, hut had seen fit to defy his instructions.