Mr. Guapstoxe completed his eightieth year on the 29th of December last, and the congratulations and compliments that were sent to him on all hands, from the Prince of Wales down, present, in the eyes of the Times, 'a curious contrast with the reserve and self-respect which used to be considered characteristics of the British nation, Mr, Gladstone is, beyond all doubt, an extraordinary example of bodily and mental vigour, displayed upon the public stage at a period of life when most men have not even the power of making a choice between labour and repose," The Times, when it was a much greater power in England than it is now, did more justice to Mr. Gladstone, and it is difficult to see how to congratulate a great statesman on having attained s remarkable age shows a want of reserve and rolf-respect. The Morning Post is as much opposed to Mr. Gladstone's present views as the Times itself, but it treats the occasion much more generously Yesterday Mr. Gladstone stained his eightieth birthday, and to the fact of the event occurring on Sunday must be ascribed the comparatively quiet manner in which this interesting anniversary passed off. More than once during the past ten years it has fallen to our lot to congratulate Mr. Gladstone in all sincerity upon the remarkable hale and hearty prolongation of his phenomenol life, and we are equally ready this year, as heretofore, to bear witness to the marvellous vitality which he exhibits. and ever deepening, as the differences may which divide Mr. Gladstone as a public man from the unstinted sympathies of those whose suffrages should by the nature of the case be his, there is, of course, a sense in which all Englishmen' are even now ready to unite in doing him honour, and within due limits in regarding him with pride. His life has been 80 pre-eminently set upon the hill top, his career has been so long and s0 ample, so ver-satire and so universal, that when we are able to regard him apart' from his effect upon political progress and public morality it seems easy enough to pronounce his faults to be but the defects of his stupendous qualities. If even his opponents love to permit themselves 1 periodical relaxation of critical harshness, there is little wonder that his admirers should on such an occasion allow their imagination to altogether run riot.
Reviews of 1889 occupy to no slight extent the papers received by the first mail of 1890, and it is pleasant to find that both and Liberal newspapers are satisfied ith the position. The Liberal great journals are sure that a change of government is close at hand; the Conservative journals are equally sure that the Ministry during the year that has gone has improved and not impaired its position before the country. As the Economist says: Be the respective differences of opinion never 80 great, he must be indeed a feeble-hearted partisan who cannot, by judicious picking and choosing, find in the past year a series of phenomena that will support the conclusion he desires to arrive at. It is the singular advantage of the Science of Pol cal Meteorology that it will yield exactly the results desired by the indi i and that it can be made to impart impartial comfort alike to the Unionist and Home Ruler." The Economist regard it as the most satisfactory sign of the times that the alliance between the two sections of the Unionist party has been so firmly maintained Whatever is to come, at least the inability of internal party differences to break up the Unionist coalition has been proved during the rear 1889—a fact which we have every right claim as of good omen for the future. On the whole, then, the Government begins the new year with certain solid assurances, based on facts that cannot be challenged. If not without drawbacks, they are succeeding in Treland, while the alliance upon which their power alone rests has been subjected to a severe strain without in any sense having had its security impaired. While the Ministry can rely upon these sound if unsensational guarantees for success, they may surely afford to neglect the unfavourable omens that can be drawn from a dexterous manipulation of the figures of the bye-elections.
The past year has seen a marked return of prosperity to British trade, which will probably shew itself in the large surplus which Mr. Goschen is expected to announce; but this prosperity has another side, as the St. James's shows That revival has not, however, wanted the dash of bitter generally found in human affairs. It has produced the Strikes which have been the most conspicuous incidents of our domestic history since the Ist of January. In them there may. lie the germs of events both interesting and disastrous, and he must be an optimist indeed who does not sec that they contain more than mere trade disputes. There has been much of that, no doubt, and it has gone the usual course. When trade revives, workmen hasten to profit by the return of prosperity, and employers do always recognise with a wise promptitude their right to share, Now and then the men jump too hastily to the conclusion that there isa great prosperity to share in; and then necessity compels the employer to stand out. But along with these quarrels of the traditional kind have been others with a distinctly new character. Indeed, it has been the main feature of the year that the interest of these strikes has quite overshadowed the commoner political conflict. The mass of vague hopes, Vague speculations, very real hatreds, and classed together under the name of social most genuine fears, which are all roughly the exclusion of the familiar pretexts for party questions " have been pushed to the front to battles. To some extent this may be due to the fact that we stand between two: general elections. One great party has won for the time, and can afford to wait i ition it has gained. The other has itself, and stands looking about jow it can best renew the battle, Both are disposed to welcome a time of pau Still, though the opportunity has been as much given as made, the fact remains that social questions" have found it, and have been ready to profit by it. There has been nothing fet done which is at all of " tragic or herd ind. We do not believe, with Dicken: Tory baronet, that the floodgates of anarchy are about to be opened. Nothing so tremen-Still, there is the fact that socialistic bell dons will, we are confident, suporvane and hopes have made progress—out of the debating society, and have begun to be busy in the workshop and the street, They have even for the moment been able to thrust, what politicians on platforms call the t questions of the day, into the bscl ground, What for the last four months, a even more, has the Irish question been in comparison with the Dock strike and its pro-gony of strikes on the river, in the baking ud in the Gasworks? What to most of us has been the relative importance of the two questions, whether a Home Rule niajority will be returned in '92, or whether the Unions will succeed in establishing a customary right to use strikes as a weapon against the community in order through it to reach the employers as a body The Saturday Review regards these strikes more as due to the blindness of employers, who cannot see in time that they must give the employed a fair share of the profit brought them by the return of activity to trade Since the middle of August the Irish and other questions have been much obscured in England by the more immediate importance of the strikes, which began in that month, and have gone on, by a process of descent, from one trade to another to the end of the year. It is not as yet possible to estimate the exact nature and' the importance of these movements. A strike may obviously be more thana pure trade dispute. It may be an attempt on the part of the workmen to out political and social ideas preached to them by tome of their leaders. Under which head the strikes of the last five months are to be ranked we cannot as yet say with certainty. An approximately accurate estimate of their character can only be hoped for by careful discrimination between them. The strikes have been numerous—indeed almost universal—and s very large proportion of them have been trade disputes, pure and simple—attempts to secure better pay or shorter hours, These are the natural consequences of the improvement in trade, of the desire.of the men to share in that improvement, and the ployers to grant cheerfully and at once what no means intelligent reluctance of the em-experience should have taught them they must, under prevailing conditions of trade, ultimately concede.
In foreign affairs the positive incident of the year has been the overthrow of the Empire in Brazil, though the negative incidents have been really more important. The peace of Europe has not been broken, and the Republic has not been overthrown in France. The Emperor of Germany has shown himself a much wiser sovereign than was feared. The Economist says that 9 European war was regarded as the more probable on account of the heady character attributed to the young Emperor of Germany, who was even said to be longing
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.