MR. GLADSTONE'S MANIFESTO.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2194, 31 July 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

MR. GLADSTONE'S MANIFESTO.

Thk Prime Minister issued the following addrehh to his constituents in Midlothian, at the opening of the la^t electoral campaign : — ( Jontloman,— ln consequence or tho defeat of the l.ill for the Better Government of Ireland, the Ministry have advised, and her Ma-iesty has been pleased to sanction a dissolution of Parliament, for the decision by the nation of the gravest and likewise simplest itjbiie which has been submitted to it for lialf-a-contury. It is only a sense of the giavity of this issue, which induces me at a period life when nature crie.^ aloud for repose, to after .sitting in thirteen Parliaments,^ seat iv a fourteenth, and with this view solicit, for the fifth time, the honour of your confidence. At the last election I endeavoured, in my addresses and sppeches, to impress upon you that a great crisis had arrived in the affairs of Ireland. Weak as the late Government was for ordiuary purposes, it had great advantages for dealing with this crisis. A comprehensive measure proceeding from them would have received warm, extensive support from within the Liberal party. It would probabty have closed the Irish controversy within the present session, and have left the Parliament of 1885, free to prosecute the now stagnant work of ordinary legislation, with the multitude of questions that it includes. My earnest hope was to support the late Cabinet in such a course of policy. On Jan. 28 last, the opposite policy of coercion was declared to have been the choice of the Government, Lord Carnarvon alone refusing to share in it. The Irish question was thus placed in the foreground, to the exclusion of every other. The hour, as all felt, was come, and the only point remaining to determine was the manner iv which it should be dealt with. In my judgment the proposal of coercion was not justified by the facts, and was doomed to a certain and disgraceful failure. Some method of governing Ireland other than coercion ought, as 1 thought, to be sought for, and might be found. I therefore viewed without regret the fall of the late Cabinet ; and when summoned by Her Majesty to form a new one, I undertook it on tho basis of an anti-coercion policy. With the fullest explanations to thos<e whose aid I .sought as colleagues when I proposed to examine whether it ought not be possible to giant to Ireland a domestic Legislature, and to maintain the honour and consolidate the unity of the Einphe, the Cabinet was formed, and the work was at once put in hand. You will now, gentlemen, clearly undei->tand how and why it is that tho affairs of Ii eland have, not for the first time, thuiht aside every other subject and adjourned our hopes of useful and progressive legislation. As a question of tho first necessities of social order, it forces itself into the van. The late Cabinet, right in giving that place, were, a.s we thought, wrong in their manner of treating it. It was our absolute duty, on taking the Government, if we did not adopt their method, to propose another. Thus, gentlemen, it is that this great and simple issue has come 1 upon you, and demands your decision. Will you govern Ireland by coercion, or will you lot her manage her own afFairs V To debate in this address this or that detail of the lately defeated bills would only be to disguise this issue, would be as futile as to discuss the halting, stumbling, ever-shifting, ever-vanishing projects of the intermediate class which have proceeded from seceding Liberals. Two clear, positive, intelligible plans are before the world. There is the plan of the Government, and there is tho plan of Lord Salisbury. Our plan is tint Ireland should, under wellconsidered conditions, transact her own affairs. His plan is to ask Parliament for new repressive laws, and to enforce them i resolutely for 20 years ; by the end of which I time he assures us that Ireland will be fit I to accept any government in the way of local government or a repeal of the coercion laws that you may wish to give her. I leave this daring project to speak for itself, in its unadorned simplicity, and I turn to the proposed policy of the Government. Our opponents, gentlemen, whether Tories or secedeis, have assumed the name of Unionists. I deny their title to it. In intention, indeed, we are all Unionists alikp. But the Union, which they refuse to modify, us in its present shape a paper Union, obtained by force and fraud, and never sanctioned or accepted by the Irish nation. True union is to be tested by the sentiments ot the human beings united. Tried by this criterion, we have less union between Great Britain and Ireland now than we had under the settlement of 178-. Enfranchised Ireland, gentlemen, asks th rough t her lawful representatives for a revival of her domestic legislature, not on the face of it au innovating but a restorative proposal. She urges with truth that the centralisation of the Parliaments has been the division of the peoples. But she recognises J the fact that the Union, lawlessly as it was obtained, cannot and ought not to be repealed. She is content to receive her ! legislature in a form divested of preroga- j tive-i which might have impaired her Imperial interests, and better adapted than the settlement of 1572 to secure to her the regular control of her own affairs. She has not repelled, but has welcomed stipulations tor the protection of the minority. To such provisions we have given and shall give careful heed, but 1 trust that Scotland will condemn the attempts, .so singularly made to import into this controversy the venomous element of religious bigotry. Let her take warning from the deplorable riots of Belfast and some other places in the North. Among the benefits, gentlemen, which I anticipate from your acceptance of our policy are these :— The consolidation of the Unity of the Empire, and a great addition to its strength. Tho stoppage of a heavy, constant, and demoralising waste of the public tieasure. The abatement and gradual extinction of ignoble feuds in Ireland, and that development of her recourses which experience .shows to be the natural consequence of free and orderly government. Tho redemption of the honour of Great Britain from a .stigma fastened upon her almost from time immemorial, in lespect of Ireland by the judgment of the whole civilised world. And lastly, the restoration of Parliament to its dignity and efficiency and the regular progress of the business of the country. While, gentlemen, the first question now put to you is "How shall Ireland be governed ?" there is another questien behind it:— '"How are England and Scotland to be governed V" You know how,, for the last sik years, especially, the affairs of England and Scotland have been impeded and your Imperial Parliament discredited and disabled. All this happened while Nationalists were but a small minority of Irish members without support from so much as a handful of members not Irish. Now they approach 90, and are entitled to say: "We speak with tho voice of the Irish nation. 1 ' It is impossible to deal with this subject by half measures. They are strong in their nutnbeis, strong in the British support which has brought 313 members to vote for their country, and strongest of all in the sense of being right. But, gentlemen, we have done our part ; the rest remains with you, the electors of the country. May you be rnabled to st i e through n>nd to cast away all delusions; to refuse the evil and t> choo-r the good. I have the honom, gi»ntii>inf'n, to brc your most faithful and gi itt>ful -.eivant, W, E. Gladstone.

Tun Rkal "Tfp' > -TiLTi;n Nossii.— The waiter's, when offered a penny. Ruystt.rek to respected paaent who hag come to bnil him out: "TLillo, guvnor! You here? don't mean to say they've run you mr" A Student of medicine having courted a girl a year, and got jilted, has turned round and sued her father for tho visits he paid her.