edy the evils of Irish land
tenure.

He has rarely been able to advance as rapidly or as far as he wished;
and more than once he has gone by a way that few of us liked. But if he
was not always right, he has been courageous enough to set himself
right. If he made a mistake in our affairs when he said Jefferson Davis
had founded a nation, he offered reparation when he secured the Geneva
Arbitration, and loyally paid its award. If he made a mistake in Irish
affairs in early attempts at an unwise coercion he more than made amends
when he led that recent magnificent struggle in Parliament and before
the English people, which ended in a defeat, it is true, but a defeat
more brilliant than many victories and more hopeful for Ireland.
[Applause.]

And over what a length of road has he led the English people! From
rotten boroughs to household suffrage; from a government of classes to a
government more truly popular than any other in the world outside of
Switzerland and the United States. Then consider the advance on Irish
questions. From the iniquitous burden of a gigantic and extravagant
church establishment, imposed upon the people of whom seven-eighths were
of hostile faith, to disestablishment; from the principle stated by Lord
Palmerston with brutal frankness that "tenant-right is landlord's
wrong," to judicial rents and the near prospect of tenant ownership on
fair terms; from the arbitrary arrests of Irish leaders to the alliance
of the Prime Minister and ruling party with the prisoner of Kilmainham
Jail! [Loud cheers.] It has been no holiday parade, the leadership on a
march like that. Long ago Mr. Disraeli flung at him the exultant taunt
that the English people had had enough of his policy of confiscation;
and so it proved for a time, for Mr. Disraeli turned him out. But Mr.
Gladstone knew far better than his great rival did the deep and secret
springs of English action, and he never judged from the temper of the
House or a tour of the London drawing-rooms. Society, indeed, always
disapproved of him, as it did of those kindred spirits, the anti-slavery
leaders of American politics. But the frowns of Fifth Avenue and Beacon
Street have not dimmed the fame of Sumner and Chase; of Seward and
Lincoln [a voice: "And of Wendell Phillips." Cheers]; nor does Belgravia
control the future of Mr. Gladstone's career any more than it has been
able to hinder his past.

More than any other statesman of his epoch, he has combined p