FICKLE POPULARITY.

Patea Mail, 25 September 1880, Page 2

FICKLE POPULARITY.

Mu Gladstone’s popularity lias been curiously fitful. He is either intensely popular or intensely otherwise. When he commenced the upas-tree crusade against the Irish Church Establishment, he was intensely popular with the vast majority of the people. Five years of office found him deserted by niue-teiitlis of ibe nation, oven tire majority of Liberals losing confidence in his political management. Six years of opposition restored him to his former pinnacle of greatness, and he became once again “ the People’s William.” But during three months of office ho contrived to estrange most of his ardent supporters, -chiefly by two appointments so indiscreet that men of average sagacity stood aghast. His fame was down to zero at the end of July, and if the general election would have been held over again the People’s William would have been turned out in disgrace. No Scotch constituency would have had him. But one of those misfortunes which come as a blessing in disguise overtook the embarassecl Tribune. He fell ill, seriously ill, so that the nation thrilled with a sudden anxiety for fear of losing its Prime Minister. When the name of Gladstone was mentioned, people held their breath in eagerness to know the latest bulletin. Was the crisis of his fever passed ? Did the doctors hold out hope? The Queen’s physician had been called in to consult. Dowing-street was crowded from morning to night. Whitehall was thronged with carriages day after day, all the great people calling to enquire as to the Premier’s condition. It was a national crisis, almost as intense as that when the Prince of Wales was lying ill at Sandringham, hardly alive, yet not dead. Mr Gladstone was the Prime Minister of the greatest Empire the world has seen, and ho had been stricken down with congestion of the lungs at the busiest part of the Session. The late elections had awakened universal interest in politics, and Mr Gladstone’s commanding genius made him the head and front of the political world. The estranged affection of the fickle masses came back to him like an avalanche of anxious idolatry. Theirs was a hero-worship intensified with fearful apprehension. The crisis lasted throe days, but on Monday evening, 2nd August, the prostrate denti-god began to mend. The fever abated slowly ; the congestion grew easier; each bulletin was more hopeful than the last; until the whole people caught up the news with a joyful impulse. Then poured in telegrams, letters, and personal messages—a cloud of congratulations from every part of the three Kingdoms, from many distant colonies, and from the remoter borders of an Empire on which the sun never sets.