Extracts.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 691, 22 June 1859, Page 3

Extracts.

PHILHELLENIC GLADSTONE.

(From the' Times,' Feb. 26.)

The telegraph informs us that the lonian Assembly have definitely refused to accept the reforms proposed by Mr. Gladstone, and that lie. lias .taken' his departure for England. We niay thank the lonians themselves that matters are no worse. Mr. Gladstone and Sir E. Lytton have done all in their power to degrade the Crown, to bring contempt on' the Protectorate, to make tlie office of High Commissioner untenable by any man of honesty and self-respect; they have encouraged faction,, not only, in the Seven Islands, but throughout the Christian^ provinces of Turkey; they have exposed a British** possession to the intrigues of Continental monarchs; they have done all in their power to pledge the Queen to concessions which would make the position, of an Englishman in Corfu'pretty much like that of a Jew in Morocco. But, fortunately, the lonians by their own vanity and obstinacy have overreached themselves. They have rejected the Commissioner's "propositions, and, consequently, we have some respite from the time when a .batch of lonian impeachers will be regular tenants of Mivart's Hotel during the season | when Dandolp and Loinbardo will be commanding her Majesty's troops in the name of a powerless Lord High' Commissioner; | when English officials and judges will be set aside for the fine young intellects of the, University of Corfu, bent on spoiling those unhappy Egyptians the English residents. Sir Henry 'Storks, is now, installed in office, and matters legally, remain the same as before Mr. Gladstone undertpok'his unfortunate voyage. Although the authority of the Protectorate and the dignity of the Crown have received a severe blow, yet no irrevocable.step has been taken. The lonian Parliament, will, we presume, be speedily prorogued, and the. measures necessary for insuring regular and peaceable go vernment in the islands will be debated, at' Westminster by men of sounder judgment than the Colonial Minister and his representative! If there were not so much that is melancholy in the spectacle of a man of eminence compromised and almost degraded, we might enjoy the \ludicrous aspect of Mr. Gladstone's mission. It was the subject of a despatch in the earlier or Bulwerian style of its gifted author. The lonian difficulty was "to, be solved at once. The commonplace politicians who had heretofore governed England had been ignorant how to deal with the remarkable and historic race which still spoke the language of poets and sages. How should Whigs and Eadicals understand "the lonian mind?". They only associated Zante with currants and Corfu with votes for batteries. It is doubtful whether a single Lord High Commissioner had ever realized that the discontent of the people he governed was a proof of the indestructible vitality of a great race; What should naval officers and prosaic Undersecretaries know about such things ? But now other and more exalted minds were called to the direction of affairs. , Men who .could direct the Caucasian element in our Generals and Statesmen, our preachers and poets, were not likely to fall into the error of treatingthe descendants of. godlike men,as if they were vulgar Australians or Canadians. The taskofinquiringintoandredres'singclassicalgrievahr ces must be deputed to one who was fitted for it by study and sympathy/Ministers thought Mr! Gladstone the man, and he, most unfortunately, was. of their "opinion. He went on his mission with, a copy of the Guernsey despatch in his pocket, and; from the hour of his arrival^ the Islands and—what is of more importance—the Greek, communities throughout the Levant have been in a political fever. ; . , ' . •';'- "-'■;,.., ■" ■ ::\;\.

Of Mr. Gladstone's personal demeanour to tlie leading'priests and agitators, enough has been said. He will not easily persuade his countrymen to forget it; but, as even the lonians are now ,aware that ifc was merely the result of individual "weakness of character, and as it is by no means likely to be repeated by his successor, the matter has lost its importance. What explanation however he will give of the utter failure of his schemes Ve t shall be gjad to learn. He returns, having accomplishjed no one tbjagv^6l Passing through an unprecedented series tentiou"r?,^ a-»nd transformations. We invite atout as Lord HFgirt?i?ijafijJ3M^iano£ji,,^ He first went we were told he. was not to interfere with Sir J.7 Young, who was the regular Lord High Commisioner. As this first appointment >yas not an office under the Crown, his seat for the University was not vacated. But poor Sir John Young's unhappy dispatch forbade him ever to face the lonian Legislature again, and so Mr. Gladstone undertook to supply his place, and propose, as Lord High Com-* missioner in ordinary, the plans On which he, had decided as Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary. This rendered necessary a new election for Oxford University, but it was explained that by the time the writ was returnable Mr. Gladstone would be succeeded by Sir Henry Stork's! and therefore would be able to take his seat in Parliament. But before Mr. Gladstone has time to propose his reforms to the Legislature, the Government, under the pressure of public opinion, appoint Sir Henry Storks Lord High Commissioner, so that Sir Henry is obliged to appoint Mr. Gladstone his deputy, to do what the latter was of himself ho longer capable Of doing. Thus the right honourable gentleman, who arrives at Corfu a Commissioner Extraordinary, passes through the phase of Commissioner Ordinary, and quits the country Deputy-Commissioner Ordinary. If he had remained in Corfu a month longer, he might, possibly, have shrunk to a Secretary. But these transformations were, no doubt, highljv congenial to Mr. Gladstone's mind. Like those people who by involved marriages become legally their own grandfathers, Mr. Gladstone is at once the superior and the deputy of his successor. His extraordinary mission of inquiry is in existence, for he is advising reforms in pursuance of it; but the actual speech to the legislature is made by him as the delegate of Sir Henry Storks. It is almost a pity the thing ends so soon, and that the obstinacy of the loniaris has prevented Gladstone from remaining together with Storks, so that if any amendment in the plan of reform were determined upon, Gladstone might direct Storks to order Gladstone to communicate it- to the legislature. Gladstone would then make known the result to Storks, whose report to Gladstone would be the subject of a dispatch from that gentleman to Sir E. Lytton. However, all is over, and the thwarted statesman, " one form of three names," is returning disconsolate to his native land.

The result of this unfortunate enterprise must satisfy any sensible man that tlie day for artificial enthusiasm about these races of Southern Europe has gone by. Mr. Gladstone went out full of that' unreasoning prejudice which is'frequently only increased by education. Knowing nothing'of tlie people, their disposition and character1, he landed with,a profound conviction thatevery1 Englishman who had ever spoken or written on the subject was dishonest or a fool. People who had lived in Corfu or Cephalonia had said that lonian grievances had no foundation, that the chief want of the Islands was employment for a set of halfeducated young men, who took up the trade of demagogue whenever they were unable to obtain an official post. They had said that the priests were generally the instruments of a power hostile to us and to the empire which we saved from disruption four years since; that the lonians did not want good government, for they had it, so far as their own intrigues suffered it to exist; but that they, or at least the unemployed class we have mentioned, were bent on making the position of England uncomfortable, in order that we might bp induced to give up the protectorate, and that this concession, might then be turned into an engine for revolutionizing the Turkish provinces. Nothing of this Mr. Gladstone believed. He knew better. The lonians only require the sympathy of a man like himself in order to be reconciled to English rule. He would show that there were Englishmen who reverenced the Church of Chrysostoua and Athanasius, and had respect for the countrymen of jfiltiades. The ignorance of the world, and of the lonians in particular, evinced by thus falling in with! the old classical and ecclesiastical cant of a generation which is dying out, is only equalled by the obstinacy which,'toj the'last, has prevented

i Mr. Gladstone from adopting a.mbre' resolute arid dignified tone. Corfu is not many days distance from England, and the telegraph 4orks regularly. We must suppose that his first: eccentricities have been rebuked, however, mildly, and that he has been adyised, not tp forget his. sovereign and country in listening to the promptings of, his own Hellenic sympathies. Yet the last speech in which he developed his so-called reforms was the most painful of all his exhibitions. No wonder that even the ; government which employed him has been alarmed. But we may well console ourselves that after ali there is less harm done than might have been expected. Sedition has presumed too much, and has overshot its mark. . : -