HONORS AND REWARDS 163 
also expressed praise for the American Government’s financial 
program, about which subject his own experience had made 
him an able judge. The letter is as follows: 
11 Carlton House Terrace, S. W., 
August 28, ’66. 
My dear Sir,—The message which you did me the honor to send 
me from Newfoundland at the commencement of this month, 
embodying in part the contents of a speech delivered by me in the 
House of Commons a few hours before, was a signal illustration 
of the great triumph which energy and intelligence in your per- 
son, and in those of your coadjutors, have achieved over difficul- 
ties that might well have been deemed insurmountable by 
weaker men. I offer you my cordial congratulations, and I trust 
that the electric line may powerfully contribute to binding our 
two countries together in perfect harmony. 
The message reached me among friends interested in America 
and produced a very lively sensation. 
We live in times of great events. Europe has not often of late 
seen greater than those of the present year, which apparently go 
far to complete the glorious work of the reconstruction of Italy, 
and which seem in substance both to begin and complete an- 
other hardly less needed work in the reconstruction of Germany. 
But I must say that few political phenomena have ever struck me 
more than the recent conduct of American finance. I admire be- 
yond expression the courage which has carried through the three- 
fold operation of cutting down in earnest your war establish- 
ments, maintaining for the time your war taxes, and paying off 
in your first year of peace twenty-five millions sterling of your 
debt. There are nations that could lay an electric telegraph under 
the Atlantic and yet could not do this. I wish my humble con- 
gratulations might be conveyed to your finance minister. ‘This 
scale can hardly be kept up, but I do not doubt the future will be 
worthy of the past, and I hope he will shame us and the Conti- 
nent into at least a distant and humble imitation. 
I remain very faithfully yours, 
W. E. Gladstone. 
Cyrus W. Field, Esq. 
A letter from John Bright to Field exhibited almost too 
much enthusiasm. This great liberal statesman said in part: 
