VACCINATION BILL.

Against From Hackney, to lie upon

Bocking, Newport, Winchester, Exeter, | Barnet, South Monmouth, Swansea, New West Derby, Middleton, Sutton (3), Llan- Brompton, Pickhill, Thirsk, Cheltenham, daff, Aberdeen, Cornwall (2), Epsom (2), Sutton, Gayton, Ticehurst, Chatham (2), Luddendenfoot, Bratton, Petworth (2), Gillingham, Old Brompton, Melton MowMidhurst, Sutton Bridge, Harwich, bray, Pett, Dudley Colliery, Woodstock, Tamworth, Hornsey, Wisborough Green, Radcliffe, Middlesbrough, Bolton, and Bletchley, Bignor, New Brompton Hartlepool, to lie upon the Table. (2), Queensbury, Lewes, Guildford, Newton Abbot, Calstock, Hanley, Yeovil, Eaton Socon, Bexhill, Altrincham, Heywood, Ashstead, Maldon, South Kensington, Lynchmere, Horsham, Brighton (2), Grays, Cheltenham, Wellingborough, the Table. Erith, Brampton, Mansfield, Manchester, Devonport, Didsbury, Warrington, Horsham, Wallington, Great Yarmouth, Leicester, Llanelly, St. Annes-by-the-Sea, Newport, Rochester, Southsea, Golborne, Callington, Maidenhead, Ewell, Brentwood, Yarmouth, Windsor, Milland, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Smethwick, Hornsey, Bury, Colchester, Ovenden, Cardiff, Combs, Camberwell, Worsley, Berwick, Tring, Earlstown, Loxwood, Truro, Halton Lea Gate, Exeter, Horncastle, Sevenoaks, Littlehampton and Garston, to lie upon

the Table.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

FISHERY BOARD (SCOTLAND). Copy presented of 16th Annual Report, being for 1897, Part I. (General Report), Part II. (Report on Salmon Fisheries), and Part III. (Scientific Investigations) (by Command); to lie upon the Table.

Copy presented of 12th Annual Report

In favour: From Halifax, to lie upon of the Inspectors, for 1897 [by Com

the Table.

mand]; to lie upon the Table.

TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).

Copies presented of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 2,092 to 2,099 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

EAST INDIA (PENAL CODE AND
CRIMINAL PROCEDURE CODE

AMENDMENT) ACTS.

Copy presented of Papers relating to

In favour: From Brighton, Leeds, amendments in the law relating to sediBarry, New Barnet (2), Middlesbrough, tion and defamation [by Command]; to Walkley, Staveley, Hempstead, New lie upon the Table.

grief at the loss of so eminent a member, I am only glad to think that, difficult

whose whole life was one constant devotion to the service of his country.

as is the task which I have to perform to-day, impossible, indeed, from certain aspects, at all events the difficulties with which he had to contend do not beset my path. No persuasion need be exercised by me in inducing even the most scrupulous to join in an Address which we shall, I believe, unanimously vote this afternoon, for all feel that the great career which has just drawn to its close is a career already in large part a matter of history, and none of us will find even a momentary difficulty in forgetting any of the controversial aspects of his life, even though we ourselves may to some extent have been involved in them. I have said that Mr. Gladstone's great career is already in large part and to the vast majority of this House a matter of history; and is it not so? He was a Cabinet Minister before most of us were born; I believe there is in this House at the present time but one man who served under Mr. Gladstone in the first Cabinet over which he presided as Prime Minister; and even Members of the House not colleagues of Mr. Gladstone who were Members of the Parliament of 1868 to 1874-even those form now but a small and ever-dwindling band. This is not the place, nor this the occasion, on which to attempt any estimate of such a career; a career which began on the morrow of the first Reform Bill, which lasted for two generations, and which, so far as politics were concerned, was brought to a close a few years ago, during a fourth tenure of office

*THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): Mr. Lowther, it is now 17 years and more since a Minister rose in his place to discharge the melancholy duty which now devolves upon me. It then fell to the survivor of two great contem- as Prime Minister. But, Sir, during poraries, divided in political opinion, those two generations-during those 60 opposed to each other for more than a years this country went through a generation, separated it may be even series of of changes, revolutionary in more conclusively by differences of tem- amount, if not by procedure, changes perament, to propose a national memo- scientific, changes theological, changes rial of the other. The task which then social, changes political. In all these fell to Mr. Gladstone was one of infinite phases of contemporary evolution Mr. difficulty, for he had to propose an Ad- Gladstone took the liveliest interest. All dress similar to that which you, Sir, will of them he watched closely; in many of shortly read from the Chair, at a time them he took a part-in some of them when the controversies which had just the part he took was supreme, that of been ended by death were still living in a governing and guiding influence. Sir, the immediate recollection of his audi- how is it possible for us on the present ence, before the dust of battle had had occasion to form an estimate of a life so time to sink, and when the noise of it complex-a life so little to be measured was still in every ear. How Mr. Glad- by a purely political standard, a life so stone performed that delicate duty is in rich in results outside the work the memory of all who heard him, and of this House, the work of Party Mr. Speaker.

Sir,

politics, the work of Imperial Ad- | able to watch any part of that wonderful ministration-how is it possible, I say, career must have in mind some particular for any man to pretend to exhaust the example which seems to him to embody many-sided aspects of such a life even the greatest excellences of this most on such an occasion as this? Sir, I feel excellent Member of Parliament. myself unequal even to dealing with what the scene which comes back to my mind is perhaps more strictly germane to this is one relating to an outworn and halfAddress I mean, Mr. Gladstone as a forgotten controversy now more than 20 politician, as a Minister, as a leader of years past, in which, as it happened, Mr. publio thought, as an eminent servant of Gladstone was placed in the most difficult the Queen; and if I venture to say any- position which it is possible for a man thing to the House, it is rather of Mr. to occupy-a position in which he finds Gladstone as the greatest member of the himself opposed to the united and vigogreatest deliberative assembly which, so rous forces of his ordinary opponents, far, the world has seen, that I but does not happen at the moment would wish to speak. Sir, I think it to have behind him more than the is the language of sober and of unex- hesitating sympathy or the veiled oppoaggerated truth to say that there is sition of his friends. On this particuno gift which would enable a man to lar occasion I remember there occurred move, to influence, to adorn an assembly one of those preliminary debates-I like this that Mr. Gladstone did not ought to say series of debates-which possess in a supereminent degree. preceded the main business of the evenDebaters as ready there may have been, ing. In these Mr. Gladstone had to orators as finished. It may have been speak, not once. nor twice only, but given to others to sway as skilfully this several times, and it was not until hour critical assembly, or to appeal with as after hour had passed in this preliminary much directness and force to the simple skirmishing that, to a House hostile, instincts of the great masses of our coun- impatient, and utterly weary, he rose trymen; but, Sir, it has been given to to present his case with that unhesino man to combine all those great gifts tating conviction in the righteousness as they were combined in the person of of his cause which was his great strength Mr. Gladstone. From the conversational as a speaker in and out of this discussion appropriate to our work in House. I never, Sir, shall forget the Committee, to the most sustained elo- impression that that scene left on my quence befitting some high argument mind. As a mere feat of physical and some great historic occasion, every endurance it was unsurpassed; as weapon of Parliamentary warfare was feat of Parliamentary courage, wielded by him with the sureness and Parliamentary skill, of Parliamentary the ease of perfect, absolute, and com- endurance, and Parliamentary eloplete mastery. I would not venture quence, I believe that it was almost myself to pronounce an opinion as to unique! Alas! let no man hope to whether he was most excellent in the be able to reconstruct from our records exposition of some complicated project any living likeness of these great works of finance or legislation, or whether he of genius. The words, indeed, are there, shone most in the heat of extemporary lying side by side with the words of debate. At least this we may say, that lesser men in an equality as if of death; from the humbler arts of ridicule or but the spirit, the fire, the inspiration invective to the subtlest dialectic, the has gone, and he who could alone revive most persuasive eloquence, the most them, he who could alone show us what moving appeals to everything that was these works really were, by reproducing highest and best in the audience he was their like-he, alas! has now gone from addressing every instrument which us for ever. Posterity must take it on could find place in the armoury of a our testimony what he was to those, Member of this House he had at his comfriends or foes, whose fortune it was to mand without premeditation, without be able to hear him. We who thus forethought, at the moment, and in the heard him know that, though our days form which was best suited to carry out his purpose. I suppose each one of us be prolonged, and though it may be our who has had the good fortune to be fortune to see the dawn

a

of

or even the

on as firm a basis as it is perhaps possible to place them. In drawing the terms of the Address which will shortly be read from the Chair we have thought it our duty-and in that, at all events, we know that we are pursuing the course which Mr. Gladstone himself would most earnestly have approved-to adhere closely to former precedent. Not one phrase in this address is there which has not at least on one occasion been employed by this House when it was doing honour to some of the greatest of Mr. Gladstone's predecessors.

But surely these consecrated phrases never have received a happier application than they have in the case of the great statesman whose loss we are lamenting. We talk of the

can

hardly be

meridian of other men destined to illus, Gladstone to this Assembly, which he trate this House and do great and loved so well, and of which he was so glorious service to their Sovereign and great an ornament, in as clear a light and their country, we shall never again in this Assembly see any man who can reproduce for us what Mr. Gladstone was who can show to those who never heard him how much they have lost. It may, perhaps, Sir, be asked whether I have nothing to say about Mr. Gladstone's work as a statesman, about the judgment we ought to pass upon the part which he has played in the history of his country and the history of the world during the many years in which he held the foremost place in this Assembly. These questions are legitimate questions. But they are not to be discussed by me to-day. Nor, indeed, do I think that the final answer can be given to them-the final judgment pronounced-in the course of this generaadmiration" and of the "attachment" tion. But one service he did-in my of the country. These words have, Sir, opinion incalculable-which is altogether perhaps been used with some slight apart from the verdicts which we may be stretch of their meaning with regard to disposed to pass upon particular opinions politicians who, falling in the very midst or particular lines of policy which Mr. of party contests, Gladstone may from time to time described as having commanded the have adopted. Sir, he added a dignity, universal admiration and attachment and he added a weight, to the delibera- of their fellow-countrymen. But I tions of this House by his genius, for think these words applied to Mr. which I think it is impossible to be suffi- Gladstone at the present time are words ciently grateful. It is not enough for wholly and absolutely appropriate, withus simply to keep up a level, though it out a tinge of exaggeration. Then we be a high level, of probity and of go on to speak of the "high sense enterpatriotism. The mere average of civic tained of his rare and splendid gifts," of virtue is not sufficient to preserve this his devoted labours in Parliament and assembly from the fate which has over- in the great offices of State." We cast taken so many other assemblies like us— our eyes back over those sixty years the products of democratic forces. More which divided his first tenure of office than this is required, more than this was from his last, and we feel that in those given to us by Mr. Gladstone. He two generations he did indeed, if any brought to our debates a genius which man ever did, make full display of rare raised in the general estimation the whole and splendid gifts, and did with unlevel of our proceedings; and they will grudging devotion give his labours to be the most ready to admit the infinite Parliament and to great offices of State. value of this service who realise how Therefore, Sir, it is with an absolute conmuch of public well-being is involved in fidence that the Address is one which, maintaining the dignity and interest of not merely in its general purport, but in public life, how perilously difficult most its particular terms, will meet with the democracies apparently find it to avoid sympathy and approval of every man in the opposite dangers into which so many all parts of the House, whatever be his of them have fallen. Sir, that is opinions, that I now venture to move: a consideration which, perhaps, has not occurred to persons unfamiliar with our debates, or unwatchful of the course of contemporary thought; but to me it seems that it places the services of Mr. First Lord of the Treasury.

"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to give directions that the remains of the Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone be interred at the public charge, and that a monu