GLADSTONE'S LAST SPEECH AS PRIME MINISTER.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 294, 28 May 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

GLADSTONE'S LAST SPEECH AS PRIME MINISTER.

♦ Mk VV. 11. Lcoi'i the well-known Parliamentary w iter, has descrih il the occasion, on the Ist March, 18!'!, when Mr Gl.titatouu made his last speech at the ta !c, of the House r.' "ommons in the c paelty <t Pime Minister. "While the Hoiue," says Mr Lucy, " was crowded to its fullest capacity, it did not surely know what was happening. The air w»i full of rumours, but the immediate erf et of the epeech was to discredit the supposition that resignation was imminent. That it had been decided upon and must take place at an early date was accepted as inevitab'c. There was, indeed, oue passugn forming the closing words of this memorab'e speech that, rcid by the light of subsequent events, plainly indicated Mr Gladstone's position—that of a knight who had laid down his well-worn sword, hung up his dinted armour, content therealter to 1 ok on the lists wheie others strove, looking on the upright figure' standing by the brass • bound box, watching the mobile countenance, tho free gestures, no'.ing the ardour with which the flig was waved, leading to a new battlefield it Was impossible to associate the thought of icsignutiou with th" Premier's mood " "So indeed," adds Mr .Justin M'Carthy, " it happened that in the House nl Commons few were these who knew that that was Mr Gladstone's farewell to public Ife If that had been known the excitement and emotion iu the House would have be n something without precedent or parallel in our times " But there was nothing of a farewell tone about the speech, nothing tragic, nothing ( ven purposely pathetic, and as Mr Lucy says, the flag seemed to be waved leading to a new battlefield Some of u-, of course, were in the secret, or at least were vaguely forewarned of what we bad to expect. Shortly after Mr Gladstone sat down I mot Mr John Morley. I asked, " Too very last speech?" "The very last," was his reply. " I don't believe one quarter of the men in the House understand it so," \ I said. " No," lie replied, " but it is so all the same." " Another man, not Mr Gladstone, would probably on such an occasion have made it plain that be was giving his final farewell to the assembly which he bad charmed and over which he had dominated by his eloquence for so many years. Lord Chatham certainly would not have allowed himself to pass out of public life without conveying to all men the idea that he spoke in Pailiament for the last time. But Mr Gladstone, with all his magnificent rhetorical gifts and with all his dramatic instinct, had no thought of getting up a scene, had no thought of any tableau to precede the fall of the curtain," " It did not suit with Mr Gladstone's tastes or inclinations to lead up to any such demonstration, and therefore while ho warned the House of Commons as to its duties and its responsibilities be said not a word abont himself and about his action in the future. Parliamentary history let something no doubt by the manner of his exhortatioti, but I think the character of the man will be regarded as all the greater because at so supreme a moment he forgot that tho greatest Parlimentary career of the Victorian ere had come at last to its close."