GLADSTONE

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE was born in 1809 in Liverpool, where

his father, a native of Scotland, had become an opulent merchant, and had also acquired large interests in the British West Indies. The boy William was sent to Eton, and afterward to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took a double first-class. At the same time he so distinguished himself as a ready and forceful speaker in the Oxford Union Debating Society that he received from the Duke of Newcastle, the father of his college friend, Lord Lincoln, the offer of a seat in the House of Commons for the borough of Newark. He entered Parliament as an extreme Conservative, and for a considerable time was known as "the rising hope of the stern and unbending Tories." He supported Sir Robert Peel, however, when the latter determined to renounce the protectionist policy of the Conservative party, and to repeal the Corn Laws. He remained what was known as a Peelite for many years thereafter, and as lately as 1858 accepted from a Conservative administration the appointment of Lord High Commissioner to the Ionian Islands. Subsequently he became a colleague of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, and ultimately became Prime Minister as leader of the Liberal party. When the Liberals were beaten in 1874 he announced his intention of retiring from public life, and during the Beaconsfield Parliament, which lasted until 1880, Lord Hartington was recognized as chief of the Liberal Opposition. When Lord Beaconsfield was beaten at the ballot-box, however, the almost unanimous demand of the Liberal party compelled the return of Mr. Gladstone to power, and he again became Prime Minister, retaining office until the spring of 1885. At the general election held in December of that year the Liberals and Irish Home Rulers between them commanded a large majority of the House of Commons, and Gladstone again was made Prime Minister. He now introduced the project of self-government for Ireland, which is known as the first Home Rule bill, but owing to the secession of the so-called UnionistLiberals, it was beaten in the House of Commons, and as the Conservatives triumphed in the succeeding general election, Gladstone gave place to Lord Salisbury. He was once more returned to office, nevertheless, in 1892 with a majority of 40 in the House of Commons, and succeeded in carrying through that body his second Home Rule bill, which differed considerably from the first. The measure was beaten, however, in the House of Lords, and Gladstone soon afterward resigned the post of Premier, being succeeded by Lord Rosebery. He died in 1898. We here reproduce the remarkable speeches upon Ireland which he delivered in 1886 and in the years immediately following.

MR

ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

DELIVERED AT WEST CALDER, NOVEMBER 27, 1879

R. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN,-In addressing you to-day, as in addressing like audiences assembled for a like purpose in other places of the county,

I am warmed by the enthusiastic welcome which you have been pleased in every quarter and in every form to accord to me. I am, on the other hand, daunted when I recollect, first of all, what large demands I have to make on your patience; and secondly, how inadequate are my powers and how inadequate almost any amount of time you can grant me to set forth worthily the whole of the case which ought to be laid before you in connection with the coming election.

To-day, gentlemen, as I know that many among you are interested in the land and as I feel that what is termed " agricultural distress" is at the present moment a topic too serious to be omitted from our consideration, I shall say some words upon the subject of that agricultural distress and particularly because in connection with it there have arisen in some quarters of the country proposals which have received a countenance far beyond their deserts to reverse or to compromise the work which it took us one whole generation to achieve and to revert to the mischievous, obstructive, and impoverishing system of protection. Gentlemen, I speak of agricultural distress as a matter now undoubtedly serious. Let none of us withhold our sympathy from the farmer, the cultivator of the soil, in the struggle he has to undergo. His struggle is a struggle of competition with the United States. But I do not fully explain the case when I say the United States. It is not with

the entire United States, it is with the western portion of these States-that portion remote from the seaboard; and I wish in the first place, gentlemen, to state to you all a fact of very great interest and importance, as it seems to me, relating to and defining the point at which the competition of the western States of America is most severely felt. I have in my hand a letter received recently from one well-known and honorably known in Scotland-Mr. Lyon Playfair, who has recently been a traveller in the United States and who, as you well know, is as well qualified as any man upon earth for accurate and careful investigation. The point, gentlemen, at which the competition of the western States of America is most severely felt is in the eastern States of America. Whatever be agricultural distress in Scotland, whatever it be, where undoubtedly it is more felt in England, it is greater by much in the eastern States of America. In the States of New England the soil has been to some extent exhausted by careless methods of agriculture, and these, gentlemen, are the greatest of all the enemies with which the farmer has to contend.

But the foundation of the statement I make, that the eastern States of America are those that most feel the competition of the West is to be found in facts,-in this fact above all, not only they are not in America, as we are here, talking about the shortness of the annual returns and in some places having much said on the subject of rents and of temporary remission or of permanent reduction. That is not the state of things; they have actually got to this point that the capital values of land, as tested by sales in the market, have undergone an enormous diminution. Now I will tell you something that actually happened, on the authority of my friend Mr. Playfair. I will tell you something that has happened in one of the New England States,-not, recollect, in a desert

or a remote country,-in an old cultivated country and near one of the towns of these States, a town that has the honorable name of Wellesley.

Mr. Playfair tells me this: Three weeks ago—that is to say about the first of this month, so you will see my information is tolerably recent,-three weeks ago a friend of Mr. Playfair bought a farm near Wellesley for $33 an acre,—for £6 12s. an acre,—agricultural land, remember, in an old settled country. That is the present condition of agricultural property in the old States of New England. I think by the simple recital of that fact I have tolerably well established my case, for you have not come in England and you have not come in Scotland to the point at which agricultural land is to be had not wild land, but improved and old cultivated land, -is to be had for the price of £6 12s. an acre. He mentions that this is by no means a strange case, an isolated case, that it fairly represented the average transactions that have been going on; and he says that in that region the ordinary price of agricultural land at the present time is from $20 to $50 an acre, or from £4 to £10. In New York the soil is better and the population is greater; but even in the State of New York land ranges for agricultural purposes from $50 to $100, that is to say from £10 to £20 an acre.

I think those of you, gentlemen, who are farmers will perhaps derive some comfort from perceiving that if the pressure here is heavy the pressure elsewhere and the pressure nearer to the seat of this very abundant production is greater and far greater still.

It is most interesting to consider, however, what this pres sure is. There has been developed in the astonishing progressive power of the United States-there has been developed a faculty of producing corn for the subsistence of man with a

rapidity and to an extent unknown in the experience of mankind. There is nothing like it in history. Do not let us conceal, gentlemen, from ourselves the fact; I shall not stand the worse with any of you who are farmers if I at once avow that this greater and comparatively immense abundance of the prime article of subsistence for mankind is a great blessing vouchsafed by Providence to mankind. In part I believe that the cheapness has been increased by special causes. The lands from which the great abundance of American wheat comes are very thinly peopled as yet. They will become more thickly peopled and as they become more thickly peopled a larger proportion of their produce will be wanted for home consumption and less of it will come to you, and at a higher price. Again, if we are rightly informed, the price of American wheat has been unnaturally reduced by the extraordinary depression, in recent times, of trade in America, and especially of the mineral trades, upon which many railroads are dependent in America and with which these railroads are connected in America in a degree and manner that in this country we know but little of. With a revival of trade in America it is to be expected that the freights of corn will increase and all other freights, because the employment of the railroads will be a great deal more abundant and they will not be content to carry corn at nominal rates. In some respects therefore you may expect a mitigation of the pressure, but in other respects it is likely to continue.

Nay, the prime minister is reported as having not long ago said, and he ought to have the best information on this subject, nor am I going to impeach in the main what he stated,— he gave it to be understood that there was about to be a development of corn production in Canada which would entirely throw into the shade this corn production in the United