"The man who had led Liberalism for nearly thirty years retired from active life into the strenuous ease which is his idleness... Politics knew him no more. This loss to Liberalism it is impossible adequately to measure. Nor can we at this moment attempt any final judgment on what he has done for Liberalism. Only we can say, that of all the great statesmen of England there is not one who has accomplished as much as he in destroying unjust privileges, in establishing for the people their just rights. Can we say more? Is it possible for a ruler of men to leave behind him a nobler or greater record than this? Perhaps it is only now that the leader is gone that we can see how commanding a place he held in the life of the nation, and how great a loss the cause of progress has suffered from his retirement."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandTheologians from EnglandAcademics from the United KingdomNon-fiction authors from England
Original Language: English
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Sources
Philip James Macdonell, ‘The Historic Basis of Liberalism’, in Essays in Liberalism by Six Oxford Men (1897), pp. 266–267
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Ewart_Gladstone
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William Ewart Gladstone
1868 – 1874
William Ewart Gladstone (29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British Liberal politician and Prime Minister (1868–1874, 1880–1885, 1886 and 1892–1894). He was a notable political reformer, known for his populist speeches, and was for many years the main political rival of Benjamin Disraeli.
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