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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 416.: GLADSTONE FOR GREENWICH THE TIMES, 22 SEPT., 1868, P. 7 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

416.: GLADSTONE FOR GREENWICH THE TIMES, 22 SEPT., 1868, P. 7 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV [1847]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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416.

GLADSTONE FOR GREENWICH

THE TIMES, 22 SEPT., 1868, P. 7

Gladstone having become unpopular in his constituency of South Lancashire because of his position on the Irish Church, he was put forward as a candidate for Greenwich without his solicitation, and in the event elected there, while losing his South Lancashire seat. The committee proposing him called a meeting at Deptford on 16 Sept., inviting Mill and others to speak. (See “Election Intelligence. Greenwich,” The Times, 17 Sept., p. 10.) As Mill explained in a letter to William Cox Bennett on 14 Sept., “Mr. Dickson, whom I understand to be the Secretary for Deptford, wrote to me during your absence, asking me either to attend or to write a letter; and as I was unable to attend, I sent him a letter for the purpose of being read at the meeting, the receipt of which he has acknowledged” (LL, CW, Vol. XVI, p. 1440). The letter, dated “Avignon, August 28,” and headed “Mr. John Stuart Mill and Mr. Gladstone,” is introduced by the following sentence: “The following is the text of the letter from Mr. John Stuart Mill, read at the meeting held at Deptford, on Wednesday evening, to support the election of Mr. Gladstone for the borough of Greenwich:”. A shortened version of the letter appeared also in the Daily News, 17 Sept., 1868, p. 3, under the heading “Election Intelligence / Greenwich.” The letter is not listed in Mill’s bibliography.

dear sir,—

I am greatly honoured by your invitation to be present at your meeting for promoting the election of Mr. Gladstone for the borough of Greenwich, and should have been very happy to attend it had I been in England. The example which Greenwich is now setting is a valuable one, which we may hope to see more generally followed when the true importance of political action is more justly appreciated, and when politics arouse more of the interest that is justly due to them. The example of electing a public man, without any solicitation on his part, and without any consideration of whether he may also be elected elsewhere, as a tribute to his character, and as an expression of the strength of the feeling in his favour, is happily not new in our political history. It is too natural a thing to do, when people feel as warmly as they often ought to feel, and the unanswerable evidence of public confidence it gives in a great man too obviously must strengthen him and the cause he serves, for the example not to have been set on several occasions (in the cases of Mr. Cobden and Lord Brougham, among others),1 when political feeling was strong and the merits of the public man conspicuous. It would be much to be regretted if such examples as these were allowed to die out; and Greenwich is doing a public service by reviving them, by strengthening a statesman whose public services have aroused a bitterness which is the best tribute of their value, and by adding to his power to carry through some more of the many important reforms that must not be long retarded if England is to hold its honourable place among nations.—I am, &c.,

J.S. Mill

[1 ]In 1847 Richard Cobden was chosen to stand for the West Riding of Yorkshire, without his knowledge, as well as for his former borough of Stockport; Henry Brougham, after he brought forward a motion against slavery in 1830, was put forward in Yorkshire, as well as in his former constituency of Knaresborough.