EECH ON SLAVERY

In writing to him upon this speech, Mr. Stephen, his former ally at the
colonial office, addressed an admonition, which is worth, recalling both
for its own sake and because it hits by anticipation what was to be one
of the most admirable traits in the mighty parliamentarian to whom it
was written. 'It seems to me,' says Stephen, 'that this part of your
speech establishes nothing more than the fact that your opponents are
capricious in the distribution of their sympathy, which is, after all, a
reproach and nothing more. Now, reproach is not only not your strength,
but it is the very thing in the disuse of which your strength consists;
and indulging as I do the hope that you will one day occupy one of the
foremost stations in the House of Commons, if not the first of all, I
cannot help wishing that you may also be the founder of a more
magnanimous system of parliamentary tactics than has ever yet been
established, in which recrimination will be condemned as unbefitting
wise men and good Christians.' In an assembly for candid deliberation
modified by party spirit, this is, I fear, almost as much a counsel of
perfection as it would have been in a school of Roman gladiators, but at
any rate it points the better way. The speech itself has a close,
direct, sinewy quality, a complete freedom from anything vague or
involved; and shows for the first time a perfect mastery of the art of
handling detail upon detail without an instant of tediousness, and
holding the attention of listeners sustained and unbroken. It was a
remonstrance against false allegations of the misbehaviour of the
planters since the emancipating act, but there is not a trace of
backsliding upon the great issue. 'We joined in passing the measure; we
declared a belief that slavery was an evil and demoralising state, and
_a desire to be relieved from it_; we accepted a price in composition
for the loss which was expected to accrue.'

Neither now or at any time did Mr. Gladstone set too low a value on that
great dead-lift effort, not too familiar in history, to heave off a
burden from the conscience of the nation, and set back the bounds of
cruel wrong upon the earth. On the day after this performance, the entry
in his diary is--'In the morning my father was greatly overcome, and I
could hardly speak to him. Now is the time to turn this attack into
measures of benefit for the negroes.' More than once in the course of
the spring he showed how much