Tae English newspapers which we receive by every mail are not pleasant reading, as they are full of humiliating proofs of the ostrich-like digestion of our public men. The hard words that the different statesmen have had to eat daring the last few mouths would try the stomach of the strongest struthio camelus in the Zoological Gardens. The truths of the case are simply these. We have passed through a period of peculiar and exceptional political excitement. A struggle, the magnitude of which some of those who engaged in it hardly understood, has taken place, and during its fierce heat everybody said many things which they must now deeply regret. It was the fashion for the opponents of the late Ministry to say that their rule was not "demoralizing," but" unmoralizing." Certainly the month of speech-making that preceded the accession to power of the present Government might be branded by the first of these two epithets. A Carnival, a Saturnalia, a Walpurgis night, any or all of these festivals might be taken to type the wild political orgies that extended over Great Britain during the late electioneering campaign. The animosity of parties was rancorous, the speeches of Liberals and Tories alike devoid of dignity or decorum, and the scramble for office resembled a struggle of "dragons of the prime" rather than a contest of civilized men. Foremost of course in the great word-battle stood Mr. Gladstone, and be has had to inaugurate his reign by one of the most ample apologies ever made. The lan. guage used in Scotland in a Free Church on the subject of Austria was so outrageous that on Mr. Gladstone becoming Premier it was imperatively necessary for Count Karolyi to ask, in the name of his Imperial Master, for an explanation and a retractation of the offensive words uttered during the pilgrimage of passion. The Premier has been forced to comply with the demand, and has written a reply on which we venture to make a few remarks. Mr.
Gladstone's words are well worth noting and remembering. They are these, " At the moment when I accepted from the Qaeen the duty of forming an administration, I forthwith resolved that I would not, as a Minister, either repeat or even defend in argoment polemical language in regard to more than one foreign Power which I had used individually when in a position of greater freedom and less responsibility." Tt is impossible to read these eels without a feeling of pain and regret. The avowal of principle or no principle implied in this unhappy sentence is full of sinister augury. By what process of casuistry can such a course as that which Mr, Gladstone declares to be the course he has resolved to adopt be defended? Polemical language may be stronger than other language, but surely it should not be so different from the speech of sober life that you have to give it up with shame the moment it has served its injurious purpose. The question must be pressed home. Was the language used by Mr. Gladstone about Austria and other foreign Powers true? If so, why does he not continue to use it? Or, was it false? If so, why did he ever employ it? If Mr. Gladstone were a young man who had just entered office for the first time, this avowal might be excusable. If Mr. Gladstone were a man of less lofty profession, this avowal might be excusable; but as it is we cannot see how this letter can be regarded save as a declaration of a low standard of political moralty. The House of Commons and the country have a profound respect for the untest-ing energy and the brilliant powers of the Premier, and his example for good or evil will be widely followed. He now established a precedent in 1 ethics which we view with alarm and regret. He has sanctioned the doctrine that what will serve your temporary purpose may be spoken on the hastings and forgotten in the House. This may have been too often the practice, but it has not hitherto been the professed doctrine of English statesmen, The precedent is of course convenient, and will be largely acted on. Not only the hard words burled against various Continental Powers, but the pledges of future political action will all be prac tically taken back. Mr. Chamberlain, who said in October that the new Goyernment would Lave to withdraw from "their absurd and ridiculous under. taking to defend Asin Minor, give up the useless and absard possession of Cyprus, and abandon the iden of mai taining a permavient resident at Cabu will, in all likelihood, have to acquiesce in all these three arrangements, In like manner nearly all the Ministers will find that they have nothing to do but to carry out the policy of the statesman they abused with such an affluence of rhetorical invective, on platform and hustings, though perhaps the present Cabinet lave in time past reviled each other as much as they reviled Lord Beaconsfield. Mr, Gladstone has been compelled to give office to the man who accused him of promulgating "the meanest public document that ever proceeded from a statesman," and go on all roand. An act of oblivion must be passed,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.