Gladstone would have taken the leadership and again
become Prime Minister. Subsequent events proved that he would have been
equal, at least for a while, to the task of succeeding Lord Rosebery.
But Mr. Gladstone was not willing. He refused to re-enter Parliament,
and wrote a letter to his old constituents at Midlothian, declining
their kind offer to send him to the House and bade them a kind farewell.
In his letter he said that the Liberal Party is a party of progress and
reform, and urged his constituents to stand by it. He regarded the
changes of the century exceedingly beneficial.
August 6, 1895, Mr. Gladstone made a great speech at Chester. A meeting
was held in the Town Hall to arouse public sentiment against the
slaughter of Armenian Christians within the Empire of the Sultan by
Turkish soldiers, and to devise some means of putting an end to such
crimes, and of punishing the oppressor. The audience was very large,
including many Armenians resident in England, and rose with vociferous
cheering when Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, the Duke of Westminster, the
Bishop of Chester, and the Mayor of Chester entered the hall. The Bishop
of Ripon was already there. The Duke of Westminster presided, and read a
letter from the Marquis of Salisbury, the Premier.
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