ost important subjects that can interest Englishmen. They
are subjects upon which, in my mind, a man should speak with
frankness and clearness to his countrymen, and although I do not
come down here to make a party speech, I am bound to say that the
manner in which those subjects are treated by the leading subject of
this realm is to me most unsatisfactory. Although the prime minister
of England is always writing letters and making speeches, and
particularly on these topics, he seems to me ever to send forth an
"uncertain sound." If a member of Parliament announces himself a
Republican, Mr. Gladstone takes the earliest opportunity of
describing him as a "fellow-worker" in public life. If an
inconsiderate multitude calls for the abolition or reform of the
House of Lords, Mr. Gladstone says that it is no easy task, and that
he must think once or twice, or perhaps even thrice, before he can
undertake it. If your neighbor, the member for Bradford, Mr. Miall,
brings forward a motion in the House of Commons for the severance of
Church and State, Mr. Gladstone assures Mr. Miall with the utmost
courtesy that he believes the opinion of the House of Commons is
against him, but that if Mr. Miall wishes to influence the House of
Commons he must address the people out of doors; whereupon Mr. Miall
immediately calls a public meeting, and alleges as its cause the
advice he has just received from the prime minister.

But, gentlemen, after all, the test of political institutions is the
condition of the country whose fortunes they regulate; and I do not
mean to evade that test. You are the inhabitants of an island of no
colossal size; which, geographically speaking, was intended by
nature as the appendage of some continental empire--either of
Gauls and Franks on the other side of the Channel or of Teutons and
Scandinavians beyond the German Sea. Such indeed, and for a long
period, was your early history. You were invaded; you were pillaged
and you were conquered; yet amid all these disgraces and
vicissitudes there was gradually formed that English race which has
brought about a very different state of affairs. Instead of being
invaded, your land is proverbially the only "inviolate land"--"the
inviolate land of the sage and free." Instead of being plundered,
you have attracted to your shores all the capital of the world.
Instead of being conquered, your flag floats on many waters, and
your standard waves in either zone. It may