CHAPTER XXIII.

LITTLE GREATNESS.

M. Merimée writes:--

“That which strikes me most in the English politics of our own times, is its _littleness_. Everything in England is done with a view to keep place” (conserver les portefeuilles), “and they commit all possible faults in order to keep twenty or thirty doubtful votes. They only disquiet themselves about the present, and think nothing of the future.”

Unfortunately the _littleness_ to which M. Merimée refers is not always attended with _little results_.

In his anxiety to secure the Irish votes, Mr. Gladstone, by his notorious Midlothian speeches, directly encouraged Irish demagogues to agitate.

His advice was followed, and the result has been, as every one expected, anarchy, murder, and assassination.[86]

Froude, the historian, writing in 1880, clearly predicated it:--

“Mr. Gladstone will not willingly allow himself to be foiled. Yet, if he perseveres, he may bring on the struggle so long foretold between democracy and the rights of property, and in a great empire like ours, with such enormous interests at stake, it is not difficult to foresee on which side the victory will be. However this may be, the apple of discord has been flung into Ireland, there to spread its poison.”[87]

Let us charitably hope that the results of Mr. Gladstone’s advice to _agitate_ were not anticipated by him; but a man who will scatter sparks in a powder magazine cannot be held altogether guiltless of the results of the explosion that may ensue, whether he did it in ignorant folly or with culpable intent. Froude, alluding to the Midlothian speeches, says:--“No statesman who understood Ireland would ever have spoken of the ‘_Upas Tree_,’ unless he was prepared to sanction a revolution.” Mr. Gladstone must, therefore, be held morally responsible for the blood guiltiness--for the atrocious crimes and murders that have disgraced Ireland; he has sown the wind, and he has reaped the whirlwind; he has sown agitation, and reaped dynamite; he has not only caused anarchy by his advice, but has encouraged it by the weakness of his policy.[88]

An admirer of Mr. Gladstone writes in the _Westminster Review_, describing Mr. Parnell and his associates as “_indispensable_ to the _success of Mr. Gladstone_!!” A fitting associate indeed in a work of legalized plunder is Mr. Parnell, whom Mr. Forster denounced in the House of Commons as the aider and abetter of assassins and murderers; who dared not stand up and answer the scathing denunciation, but slunk off to America like a whipped hound.

FOOTNOTES:

[86] Lord Beaconsfield, with great foresight, vainly warned us of the dangerous state of Ireland.

[87] _Nineteenth Century_, September, 1880.

[88] An admirer of Mr. Gladstone naively writes in the _Westminster Review_: “During the six years of Tory repression and Tory refusal of remedial measures, they were as mild as doves and comparatively silent in Parliament, because they knew that the Tories would strike with despotic severity and with exceptional laws; but from the moment the magnanimous and friendly Gladstone came into power ... they excited the excitable Irish people to such a degree against this friendly Government, that there were perpetrated a long run of cruel and brutal outrages, &c.” (_Westminster Review_, October, 1883.)