Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/24

 education of Oxford of my own time one great defect. Perhaps the fault was mine: but I must admit that I did not learn, when at Oxford, that which I have learned since; viz., to set a due value on the imperishable and inestimable principles of human liberty." In the budget of 1845 he defended a proposal to put slave-grown sugar on a less favorable footing than free; and, when the corn-law question became a "burning" one, he resigned his seat for Newark because of the anti-repeal views of the Duke of Newcastle. His powerful pen was, however, at the service of the repealers; and, when the battle was fought and won, he was returned in 1847 for the University of Oxford. He was still, of course, nominally a Tory; but one of his first acts was to support the removal of Jewish disabilities, to the confusion of many of those whose "rising hope" he was still supposed to be. In the session of 1849 he made a powerful speech in favor of the reform of our colonial policy, from which much benefit has indirectly flowed to the colonies.

In 1851 "circumstances purely domestic" took him to Naples, and there his humanity was stirred to its very core by the unheard-of brutalities of King Bomba. His passionate cry for redress resounded throughout the civilized world: "I have seen and heard the strong and true expression used, 'This is the negation of God erected into a system of government.'" For once Lord Palmerston was on the side of justice, and the sword of Garibaldi eventually wrought out for the Neapolitans the just vengeance which Mr. Gladstone had invoked on their tyants.

In the administration of 1859, Mr. Gladstone, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was instrumental in the