As a statesman, it was the good fortune of Mr. Gladstone that his career was not associated with war. The reforms which he effected, the triumphs which he achieved, were not won by the supreme arbitrament of the sword. The reforms which he effected and the triumphs which he achieved were the result of his power of persuasion over his fellow-men. The reforms which he achieved in many ways amounted to a revolution. They changed, in many particulars, the face of the realm. After Sir Robert Peel had adopted the great principle which eventually carried England from protection to free trade, it was Mr. Gladstone who created the financial system which has been admitted ever since by all students of finance, as the secret of Great Britain's commercial success. He enforced the extension of the suffrage to the masses of the nation, and practically thereby made the government of monarchical England as democratic as that of any republic.

License information: nan
MPAA: G
Go to source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22795/22795-h/22795-h.htm#Page_278a