Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament. John Morrison Davidson

reconcile administrative practice with the best political theory whenever the people are prepared to abandon their unworthy idols, and to look the facts of history, experience, and common sense straight in the face.

      And, as for Sir Charles, he is an imperturbable, good-natured man, who doubtless considers that he took ample revenge on his unscrupulous calumniators when he published anonymously his clever brochure, the "Fall of Prince Florestan of Monaco." Several leading Tory journals advised him to lay the lessons taught by the Radical Prince of Monaco to heart. How he must have chuckled! It is only natures of the largest and healthiest mould that are thus capable of looking amusedly at the comical aspect of their own doings. In the domain of current domestic legislation. Sir Charles has played no unimportant part. It is to him we owe the popular constitution of our school boards, it having been Mr. Forster's original intention to intrust the duties of school management to committees of boards of guardians.

      ​His also was the clause which conferred the municipal franchise on female ratepayers. He procured for the working-men of London a most desirable boon in the extension of the hours of polling; and in every thing appertaining to the better representation of the people in Parliament he has taken a leading part. On the all-important question of the redistribution of political power in particular, he is, it is not too much to say, the greatest authority in the House. Like John Bright, he loves the big constituencies, and would, as far as possible, make them all numerically equal.

      He is not ordinarily an amusing speaker; but one of his speeches on the unreformed corporations will rank among the wittiest delivered by any member since he entered the House. His collected speeches on electoral reform, the civil list, free trade, free land, and free schools, are a ready repertory of trustworthy facts, which ought to be in the hands of every reformer. With respect to the Zulu war, in the session of 1879, he was intrusted with the lead in opposition to the Government policy—a sufficient indication of the respect entertained for his judgment in critical issues.

      In every department he is a friend of economy. In Parliament he is ever vigilant, and never fussy. When he speaks, it is always to contribute some new fact or unused argument to the debate; and he never fails to catch the ear of the House, which is never insensible to straightforwardness, manly bearing, and unremitting attention to parliamentary duty. He is well versed in the forms of the House. Above all, he has honesty and excellent common sense to guide his steps aright.

      ​If, with all these endowments, he should fail in the not distant future to achieve great things for his country, both I and many other observant sympathizere, "whose judgment cries in the top of mine," will feel just cause for sore disappointment.

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       V. JOSEPH COWEN.

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      "Like one of the simple great ones,

       Gone for ever and ever by."

      I SHALL never forget one delightful forenoon I spent with Mr. Cowen since his entrance into Parliament. Previous to his coming to St. Stephen's, he had been well known to me by reputation, but by reputation only.

      As the disciple whom Mazzini, the prophet and high priest of modern democracy, loved, I was curious to know what manner of man the great Northumbrian Radical really was. I arrived early, and found him in his library in the act of finishing his morning correspondence. I had just time to glance at his books before engaging with him in conversation. A man may be known by his books as by the company he keeps. They were almost exclusively composed of the most recent productions of the democratic press, such as one would expect to find on the shelves of an intelligent artisan politician rather than on those of the possessor of a residence in Onslow Square. And the appearance of Mr. Cowen himself was exactly in keeping. His features bore no trace whatever of having been imported "at the Conquest." There he sat, a genuine workman from Tyneside, the descendant of ​generations of honest toilers—plain and homely to a degree. Nothing but the lofty dome of brow betrayed the mental superiority of the man; and, when subsequently he put on the never-failing slouched hat, even that not infallible sign of greatness was remorselessly hidden away.

      Presently we began to talk as freely as if we had been acquainted for years. The villanous Northumbrian intonation was at first somewhat of an impediment in my way. I have never learned Northumbrian, and, being a fair linguist, did not like to acknowledge my ignorance.

      One or two proper names he was good enough to spell for me. As, however, he gradually became more animated, his English became better and better, until at last he was one of the most articulate-speaking of Englishmen I had ever met.

      It was a lovely day; and we decided on a stroll in the direction, as it turned out, of the modest house where Mazzini conspired against the crowned heads of Europe for so many years. On the way he spoke of that gifted friend of his youth and manhood—the greatest man, Mr. Cowen thinks, and I am half inclined to accept his estimate, that Europe has produced for centuries; of Garibaldi and Orsini, of Kossuth, of Herzen and Bakounin, of Ledru Rollin and Louis Blanc, but, above all, of the Polish revolutionary leaders, Worcell, Darasz, Mieroslawski, Dombrowski, and Langiewicz.

      I inquired why, of all the continental exiles, he appeared to have been most drawn towards the Poles. He replied with profound feeling, "Because they seemed the most forlorn." There was no getting over ​this answer, which throws a flood of light on the deplorable action which Mr. Cowen has seen fit to take with regard to the Eastern question.

      For years his house at Blaydon Burn, near Newcastle, had been an asylum for the victims of Russian tyranny. For years he had spent two-thirds of an ample income in keeping alive the patriotism of the Polish insurgents and other enemies of the White Tsar. To him Poland was and is a land of heroes and mart3'rs; Russia every thing that is the reverse. So thoroughly indentified was Mr. Cowen with the anti-Russian sentiments of the Polish and Hungarian exiles, that orders were issued by all the despotic powers of Europe—by Russia, Prussia, France, Spain, and Italy—for his arrest should he venture to set foot on their soil.

      Not able to catch the son, the police twice arrested his father, the late Sir Joseph Cowen, in his stead. His home at Blaydon Burn was incessantly watched by the spies of continental governments.

      When Cowen and Mazzini met, it was neither in Newcastle nor London, but generally in some quiet midway town or village, where they could not readily be subjected to espionage. The despots of the continent had, in point of fact, very good reason to regard Mr. Cowen as a dangerous personage. He was not merely a wealthy Englishman who gave of his substance freely in order that the axe might be laid by others to the root of the upas-tree of their authority, but one who did not scruple, when occasion offered, to levy war against the oppressors, so to speak, on his own account.

      During the last rising in Poland he fitted out, at his ​own charges, a vessel, which it was intended should hoist the Polish flag, and, like another "Alabama," sweep Russian commerce off the seas. She escaped from the Tyne without much difficulty, and reached Barcelona in safety. Her next destination was the coast of the little island of Elba, where a Polish commodore of experience, who had come all the way from the Russian naval station at Kamtchatka—on French leave, of course—was waiting with a full complement of marines to take possession in the name of the Provisional Government at Warsaw. They waited in vain. The drunken ravings and cowardice of the English crew brought about the seizure and confiscation of the vessel by the Spanish authorities almost in spite of themselves. The chief naval authority of the port was at that time a brother of General Prim, himself a revolutionary. He winked hard; and it so happened, curiously enough, that the only Spanish man-of-war available for seizing her was under the command of an Englishman, formerly a Newcastle engineer, who, on being sent to inspect the ship and her papers, winked harder still. With reasonable promptitude she might have got clear off, but did not, to the great grief of Mr. Cowen and the Provisional Government of Poland.

      The above is but one out of scores of daring enterprises with a similar object in which Mr. Cowen has been engaged. Once he had a wonderful box constructed,