Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Gladstone Colony: An Unwritten Chapter of Australian History
Lord rosebery, in that spirit of persi?age combined with shrewd oomrnon-sense which is the special characteristic of his speeches, told Mr Gladstone on one occasion that, when the time came to write his life in full, the work would have to be undertaken by, and distributed amongst, a limited liability company. As the proverb reminds us, there is many a true word said in a j oke, and this is certainly a case in point, for it is obvious that no single-handed biographer, within the limits of an ordinary book, could possibly do adequate justice to the marvellous and many-sided career of Mr Glad stone. Statesman, orator, Colonial Administrator, theologian, essayist, oontroversialist, philanthropist, Homeric student an interesting and instructive volume might be written on Mr Gladstone in each of these capacities. I have ventured to constitute myself the Colonial member of Lord Rosebery's Gladstonian biographical syndicate. It will probably be a surprise to many of the present generation to learn how close and intimate were the relations that subsisted for many years between Mr Gladstone and our Colonial Empire. The surprise will be shared by most of those who have already written what profess to be biographies of Mr Gladstone, and who have either entirely ignored, or dismissed in a few lines, his career as a Colonial Administrator and as the searching critic of the Colonial policy of his opponents when they were in power. Mr Gladstone has for so long been chie?y con cerned with problems of domestic statesmanship that it is necessary to recall, for the information of not a few, the fact that from 1832 until 1852 - for the first two decades of his _unparalleled career in the House of Commons - Mr Glad stone's political talents and activities were mainly devoted to Colonial affairs. As far back as J annary 1835 we find him under-secretary for the Colonies, but it was not until ten A f 1years later, when he became Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Ministry of Sir Robert Peel, that he had the opportunity of giving full effect to his ideas on Colonial policy and Imperial administration. The circumstance that his father was a Liverpool merchant, having large commercial interests and intercourse with the Colonies, was probably not without its in?uence in directing the early political energies, tastes, and studies of the young and promising statesman into this particular groove.
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