accomplish, but precipitate their purpose.... Rarely in this
century has there been an occasion more critical. The power of England and
the peace of Europe will largely depend upon the verdict of the
country.... Peace rests on the presence, not to say the ascendency of
England in the councils of Europe. Even at this moment the doubt supposed
to be inseparable from popular elections, if it does not diminish,
certainly arrests her influence, and is a main reason for not delaying an
appeal to the national voice."

To this manifesto Mr. Gladstone, with his usual long pains in the drafting
of such pieces, prepared his counterblast. He went with direct force to
what Lord Beaconsfield had striven to make the centre of his appeal:--

In the electioneering address which the prime minister has issued,
an attempt is made to work upon your fears by dark allusions to
the repeal of the union and the abandonment of the colonies.
Gentlemen, those who endangered the union with Ireland were the
party that maintained there an alien church, an unjust land law,
and franchises inferior to our own; and the true supporters of the
union are those who firmly uphold the supreme authority of
parliament, but exercise that authority to bind the three nations
by the indissoluble tie of liberal and equal laws. As to the
colonies, liberal administrations set free their trade with all
the world, gave them popular and responsible government, undertook
to defend Canada with the whole strength of the empire, and
organised the great scheme for uniting the several settlements of
British North America into one dominion, to which, when we quitted
office in 1866, it only remained for our successors to ask the
ready assent of parliament. It is by these measures that the
colonies have been bound in affection to the empire, and the
authors of them can afford to smile at baseless insinuations.
Gentlemen, the true purpose of these terrifying insinuations is to
hide from view the acts of the ministry, and their effect upon the
character and condition, of the country.

To those ministerial misdeeds he proceeded to draw the attention of the
electors, though he declared with threescore years and ten upon his head,
how irksome he felt the task. "At home," he said, "the ministers have
neglected legislation, aggravated the public distress by continual shocks
to confidence which is th