Liverpool a few years since: by an old stager by James Aspinall

Author:James Aspinall [Aspinall, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Classics
ISBN: 9785040618491
Google: fs9SEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Litres
Published: 2021-12-02T00:26:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVI.

Table of Contents

t would be a strange picture of “Liverpool a few years since” which did not exhibit Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Gladstone in the foreground of the canvas. He had, in those early days, already taken his position, and was evidently destined to play a conspicuous part in this busy world. We never remember to have met with a man who possessed so inexhaustible a fund of that most useful of all useful qualities, good common sense. It was never at fault, never baffled. His shrewdness as a man of business was proverbial. His sagacity in all matters connected with commerce was only not prophetic. He seemed to take the whole map of the world into his mind at one glance, and almost by intuition to discover, not only which were the best markets for to-day, but where there would be the best opening to-morrow. What was speculation with others was calculation with him. The letters which from time to time, through a long series of years, he sent forth, like so many signal-rockets, to the trading world, under the signature of Mercator, were looked upon as oracular by a large portion of the public. And there is little doubt that his authority was often sought and acted upon, in commercial legislation, by the different Administrations by which the country has been governed during the last half-century. We recollect, many years ago, standing under the gallery of the House of Commons with the late Mr. Huskisson. A sugar question was under discussion, and Mr. Goulburn was hammering and stammering through a string of figures and details, which it was clear he did not comprehend himself, and which he was in vain labouring to make the House comprehend. Mr. Huskisson smiled, as he quietly observed, “Goulburn has got his facts, and figures, and statistics from Mr. Gladstone, and they are all as correct and right as possible, but he does not understand them, and will make a regular hash of it!” Mr. Gladstone was himself in Parliament for some years, and was always listened to most respectfully on mercantile affairs. If he did not make any very distinguished figure, it was because he did not enter upon public life until he had reached an age at which men’s habits are formed, and at which they rather covet a seat in the House of Commons as a feather or crowning honour of their fortunes, than as an admission into an arena in which they intend to become gladiators in the strife, and to plunge into all the toils, and intrigues, and bustle of statesmanship. Had our clever townsman entered Parliament at an earlier period, and devoted himself to it, we have no doubt that he would have been found a match for the best of them, and might have risen to the highest departments of the Government. His name is well represented amongst us still. He left four sons behind him, one of whom, the Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone, is second to no statesman of the day, either in promise or performance, eloquence or abilities.

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