ngland for you.

_Mr. Gladstone to Lord Palmerston._

_11 Carlton House Terrace, May 13, 1864._--It is not easy to take
ill anything that proceeds from you; and, moreover, frankness
between all men, and especially between those who are politically
associated, removes, as I believe, many more difficulties than it
causes. In this spirit I will endeavour to write. I agree in your
denial "that every sane and not disqualified man has a moral right
to vote." But I am at a loss to know how, as you have read my
speech, you can ascribe this opinion to me. My declaration was,
taken generally, that all persons ought to be admitted to the
franchise, who can be admitted to it with safety.... I hold by
this proposition. It seems to me neither strange, nor new, nor
extreme. It requires, I admit, to be construed; but I contend that
the interpretation is amply given in the speech, where I have
declared (for example) that the admission I desire is of the same
character or rather extent as was proposed in 1860.... I have
never exhorted the working man to agitate for the franchise, and I
am at a loss to conceive what report of my speech can have been
construed by you in such a sense.

Having said this much to bring down to its true limits the
difference between us, I do not deny that difference. I regret it,
and I should regret it much more if it were likely to have (at
least as far as I can see) an early bearing upon practice. In the
cabinet I argued as strongly as I could against the withdrawal of
the bill in 1860, and in favour of taking the opinion of the House
of Commons upon that bill. I think the party which supports your
government has suffered, and is suffering, and will much more
seriously suffer, from the part which as a party it has played
within these recent years, in regard to the franchise. I have no
desire to press the question forward. I hope no government will
ever again take it up except with the full knowledge of its own
mind and a reasonable probability of carrying it. But such
influence as argument and statement without profession of
political intentions can exercise upon the public mind, I heartily
desire to see exercised in favour of extension of the
franchise....

On the following day Lord Palmerston wrote to him, "I have no doubt that
you have yourself heard a great