3-034-742 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mr. Gladstone addressing the meeting on Blackheath, [south London], 1871. '...the Prime Minister appeared, for the first time, in person before his electoral constituents...timber hustings were erected...with an inclosure large enough to hold 600 or 700 persons who had tickets of admission,...while the unprivileged multitude stood on the ground outside. There was, of course, proper accommodation for the reporters...it was computed that about 15,000 [people] were collected in front of the hustings...Mr. Gladstone..began his speech, which lasted nearly two hours...He vindicated the present Administration from the charge of having inconsiderately dismissed the Woolwich and Deptford dockyard workmen...He defended the reductions made in some of the Government establishments, denying that efficiency had in any instance been sacrificed to financial economy...Speaking of the Contagious Diseases Acts, Mr. Gladstone said that the mode in which the Ministry proposed to deal with them "would be likely to command the general approval of the intelligent community"...He deprecated any hasty or violent action in dealing with the constitution of the House of Lords..A vote of confidence in Mr. Gladstone was carried by a great majority amid shouts of applause'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.