In addressing you to-day, as in addressing like audiences assembled
for a like purpose in other places of the county, I am warmed by the
enthusiastic welcome which you have been pleased in every quarter
and in every form to accord to me. I am, on the other hand, daunted
when I recollect, first of all, what large demands I have to make on
your patience; and secondly, how inadequate are my powers, and how
inadequate almost any amount of time you can grant me, to set forth
worthily the whole of the case which ought to be laid before you in
connection with the coming election.
To-day, gentlemen, as I know that many among you are interested in
the land, and as I feel that what is termed “agricultural distress”
is at the present moment a topic too serious to be omitted from
our consideration, I shall say some words upon the subject of that
agricultural distress, and particularly, because in connection with
it there have arisen in some quarters of the country proposals, which
have received a countenance far beyond their deserts, to reverse or to
compromise the work which it took us one whole generation to achieve,
and to revert to the mischievous, obstructive, and impoverishing system
of protection.[66] Gentlemen, I speak of agricultural distress as a
matter now undoubtedly serious. Let none of us withhold our sympathy
from the farmer, the cultivator of the soil, in the struggle he has
to undergo. His struggle is a struggle of competition with the United
States. But I do not fully explain the case when I say the United
States. It is not with the entire United States, it is with the Western
portion of these States—that portion remote from the seaboard; and I
wish in the first place, gentlemen, to state to you all a fact of
very great interest and importance, as it seems to me, relating to
and defining the point at which the competition of the Western States
of America is most severely felt. I have in my hand a letter received
recently from one well known, and honorably known, in Scotland—Mr. Lyon
Playfair, who has recently been a traveller in the United States, and
who, as you well know, is as well qualified as any man upon earth for
accurate and careful investigation.[67] The point, gentlemen, at which
the competition of the Western States of America is most severely felt
is in the Eastern States of America. Whatever be agricultural distress
in Scotland, whatever it be, where undoubtedly it is more felt, in
England, it is greater by much in the Eastern States of America. In the
States of New England the soil has been to some extent exhausted by
careless methods of agriculture, and these, gentlemen, are the greatest
of all the enemies with which the farmer has to contend.
But the foundation of the statement I make, that the Eastern States of
America are those that most feel the competition of the West, is to be
found in facts,—in this fact above all, that not only they are not
in America, as we are here, talking about the shortness of the annual
returns, and in some places having much said on the subject of rents,
and of temporary remission or of permanent reduction. That is not the
state of things; they have actually got to this point, that the capital
values of land, as tested by sales in the market, have undergone an
enormous diminution. Now I will tell you something that actually
happened, on the authority of my friend Mr. Playfair. I will tell you
something that has happened in one of the New England States,—not,
recollect, in a desert or a remote country,—in an old cultivated
country, and near one of the towns of these States, a town that has the
honorable name of Wellesley.
Mr. Playfair tells me this: Three weeks ago—that is to say, about
the first of this month, so you will see my information is tolerably
recent,—three weeks ago a friend of Mr. Playfair bought a farm near
Wellesley for $33 an acre, for £6 12_s._ an acre—agricultural land,
remember, in an old settled country. That is the present condition of
agricultural property in the old States of New England. I think by the
simple recital of that fact I have tolerably well established my case,
for you have not come in England, and you have not come in Scotland,
to the point at which agricultural land is to be had—not wild land,
but improved and old cultivated land,—is to be had for the price of £6
12_s._ an acre. He mentions that this is by no means a strange case, an
isolated case, that it fairly represented the average transactions that
have been going on; and he says that in that region the ordinary price
of agricultural land at the present time is from $20 to $50 an acre, or
from £4 to £10. In New York the soil is better, and the population is
greater; but even in the State of New York land ranges for agricultural
purposes from $50 to $100, that is to say, from £10 to £20 an acre.
I think those of you, gentlemen, who are farmers will perhaps derive
some comfort from perceiving that if the pressure here is heavy the
pressure elsewhere and the pressure nearer to the seat of this very
abundant production is greater and far greater still.
It is most interesting to consider, however, what this pressure is.
There has been developed in the astonishing progressive power of the
United States—there has been developed a faculty of producing corn for
the subsistence of man, with a rapidity and to an extent unknown in
the experience of mankind. There is nothing like it in history. Do not
let us conceal, gentlemen, from ourselves the fact; I shall not stand
the worse with any of you who are farmers if I at once avow that this
greater and comparatively immense abundance of the prime article of
subsistence for mankind is a great blessing vouchsafed by Providence
to mankind. In part I believe that the cheapness has been increased by
special causes. The lands from which the great abundance of American
wheat comes are very thinly peopled as yet. They will become more
thickly peopled, and as they become more thickly peopled a larger
proportion of their produce will be wanted for home consumption and
less of it will come to you, and at a higher price. Again, if we are
rightly informed, the price of American wheat has been unnaturally
reduced by the extraordinary depression, in recent times, of trade
in America, and especially of the mineral trades, upon which many
railroads are dependent in America, and with which these railroads
are connected in America in a degree and manner that in this country
we know but little of. With a revival of trade in America it is to
be expected that the freights of corn will increase, and all other
freights, because the employment of the railroads will be a great deal
more abundant, and they will not be content to carry corn at nominal
rates. In some respects, therefore, you may expect a mitigation of the
pressure, but in other respects it is likely to continue.
Nay, the Prime-Minister is reported as having not long ago said,—and he
ought to have the best information on this subject, nor am I going to
impeach in the main what he stated,—he gave it to be understood that
there was about to be a development of corn production in Canada which
would entirely throw into the shade this corn production in the United
States. Well, that certainly was very cold comfort, as far as the
British agriculturist is concerned, because he did not say—he could not
say—that the corn production of the United States was to fall off, but
there was to be added an enormous corn production from Manitoba,[68]
the great province which forms now a part of the Canada Dominion.
There is no doubt, I believe, that it is a correct expectation that
vast or very large quantities of corn will proceed from that province,
and therefore we have to look forward to a state of things in which,
for a considerable time to come, large quantities of wheat will be
forthcoming from America, probably larger quantities, and perhaps
frequently at lower prices than those at which the corn-producing and
corn-exporting districts of Europe have commonly been able to supply
us. Now that I believe to be, gentlemen, upon the whole, not an unfair
representation of the state of things.
How are you to meet that state of things? What are your fair claims? I
will tell you. In my opinion your fair claims are, in the main, two.
One is to be allowed to purchase every article that you require in the
cheapest market, and have no needless burden laid upon any thing that
comes to you and can assist you in the cultivation of your land. But
that claim has been conceded and fulfilled.
I do not know whether there is an object, an instrument, a tool of
any kind, an auxiliary of any kind, that you want for the business
of the farmer, which you do not buy at this moment in the cheapest
market. But beyond that, you want to be relieved from every unjust and
unnecessary legislative restraint. I say every unnecessary legislative
restraint, because taxation, gentlemen, is unfortunately a restraint
upon us all, but we cannot say that it is always unnecessary, and we
cannot say that it is always unjust. Yesterday I ventured to state—and
I will therefore not now return to the subject—a number of matters
connected with the state of legislation in which it appears to me to
be of vital importance, both to the agricultural interest and to the
entire community, that the occupiers and cultivators of the land of
this country should be relieved from restraints under the operation
of which they now suffer considerably. Beyond those two great heads,
gentlemen, what you have to look to, I believe, is your own energy,
your own energy of thought and action, and your care not to undertake
to pay rents greater than, in reasonable calculation, you think you can
afford. I am by no means sure, though I speak subject to the correction
of higher authority,—I am by no means sure that in Scotland within
the last fifteen or twenty years something of a speculative character
has not entered into rents, and particularly, perhaps, into the rents
of hill farms. I remember hearing of the augmentations which were
taking place, I believe, all over Scotland—I verified the fact in a
number of counties—about twelve or fourteen years ago, in the rents
of hill farms, which I confess impressed me with the idea that the
high prices that were then ruling, and ruling increasingly from year
to year, for meat and wool, were perhaps for once leading the wary and
shrewd Scottish agriculturist a little beyond the mark in the rents
he undertook to pay. But it is not this only which may press. It is,
more broadly, in a serious and manful struggle that you are engaged,
in which you will have to exert yourselves to the uttermost, in which
you will have a right to claim every thing that the legislature can do
for you; and I hope it may perhaps possibly be my privilege and honor
to assist in procuring for you some of those provisions of necessary
liberation from restraint; but beyond that, it is your own energies, of
thought and action, to which you will have to trust.
Now, gentlemen, having said thus much, my next duty is to warn you
against quack remedies, against delusive remedies, against the quack
remedies that there are plenty of people found to propose, not so
much in Scotland as in England; for, gentlemen, from Mid-Lothian at
present we are speaking to England as well as to Scotland. Let me give
a friendly warning from this northern quarter to the agriculturist of
England not to be deluded by those who call themselves his friends
in a degree of special and superior excellence, and who have been too
much given to delude him in other times; not to be deluded into hoping
relief from sources from which it can never come. Now, gentlemen, there
are three of these remedies. The first of them, gentlemen, I will not
call a quack remedy at all, but I will speak of it notwithstanding in
the tone of rational and dispassionate discussion. I am not now so much
upon the controversial portion of the land question—a field which,
Heaven knows, is wide enough—as I am upon matters of deep and universal
interest to us in our economic and social condition. There are some
gentlemen, and there are persons for whom I for one have very great
respect, who think that the difficulties of our agriculture may be got
over by a fundamental change in the land-holding system of this country.
I do not mean, now pray observe, a change as to the law of entail and
settlement, and all those restraints which, I hope, were tolerably well
disposed of yesterday at Dalkeith[69]; but I mean those who think that
if you can cut up the land, or a large part of it, into a multitude of
small properties, that of itself will solve the difficulty, and start
everybody on a career of prosperity.
Now, gentlemen, to a proposal of that kind, I, for one, am not going
to object upon the ground that it would be inconsistent with the
privileges of landed proprietors. In my opinion, if it is known to be
for the welfare of the community at large, the legislature is perfectly
entitled to buy out the landed proprietors. It is not intended probably
to confiscate the property of a landed proprietor more than the
property of any other man; but the state is perfectly entitled, if it
please, to buy out the landed proprietors as it may think fit, for
the purpose of dividing the property into small lots. I don’t wish to
recommend it, because I will show you the doubts that, to my mind, hang
about that proposal; but I admit that in principle no objection can
be taken. Those persons who possess large portions of the spaces of
the earth are not altogether in the same position as the possessors of
mere personalty; that personalty does not impose the same limitations
upon the action and industry of man, and upon the well-being of the
community, as does the possession of land; and, therefore, I freely own
that compulsory expropriation is a thing which for an adequate public
object is in itself admissible and so far sound in principle.
Now, gentlemen, this idea about small proprietors, however, is one
which very large bodies and parties in this country treat with the
utmost contempt; and they are accustomed to point to France, and say:
“Look at France.” In France you have got 5,000,000—I am not quite sure
whether it is 5,000,000 or even more; I do not wish to be beyond the
mark in any thing—you have 5,000,000 of small proprietors, and you do
not produce in France as many bushels of wheat per acre as you do in
England. Well, now I am going to point out to you a very remarkable
fact with regard to the condition of France. I will not say that
France produces—for I believe it does not produce—as many bushels of
wheat per acre as England does, but I should like to know whether
the wheat of France is produced mainly upon the small properties of
France. I believe that the wheat of France is produced mainly upon
the large properties of France, and I have not any doubt that the
large properties of England are, upon the whole, better cultivated,
and more capital is put into the land than in the large properties of
France. But it is fair that justice should be done to what is called
the peasant proprietary. Peasant proprietary is an excellent thing, if
it can be had, in many points of view. It interests an enormous number
of the people in the soil of the country, and in the stability of its
institutions and its laws. But now look at the effect that it has upon
the progressive value of the land—and I am going to give you a very few
figures which I will endeavor to relieve from all complication, lest I
should unnecessarily weary you. But what will you think when I tell you
that the agricultural value of France—the taxable income derived from
the land, and therefore the income of the proprietors of that land—has
advanced during our lifetime far more rapidly than that of England?
When I say England I believe the same thing is applicable to Scotland,
certainly to Ireland; but I shall take England for my test, because
the difference between England and Scotland, though great, does not
touch the principle; and, because it so happens that we have some means
of illustration from former times for England, which are not equally
applicable for all the three kingdoms.
Here is the state of the case. I will not go back any further than
1851. I might go back much further; it would only strengthen my case.
But for 1851 I have a statement made by French official authority of
the agricultural income of France, as well as the income of other real
property, viz., houses. In 1851 the agricultural income of France was
£76,000,000. It was greater in 1851 than the whole income from land
and houses together had been in 1821. This is a tolerable evidence of
progress; but I will not enter into the detail of it, because I have no
means of dividing the two—the house income and the land income—for the
earlier year, namely, 1821. In 1851 it was £76,000,000—the agricultural
income; and in 1864 it had risen from £76,000,000 to £106,000,000. That
is to say, in the space of thirteen years the increase of agricultural
values in France—annual values—was no less than forty per cent., or
three per cent. per annum. Now, I go to England. Wishing to be quite
accurate, I shall limit myself to that with respect to which we have
positive figures. In England the agricultural income in 1813–14 was
£37,000,000; in 1842 it was £42,000,000, and that year is the one I
will take as my starting-point. I have given you the years 1851 to 1864
in France. I could only give you those thirteen years with a certainty
that I was not misleading you, and I believe I have kept within the
mark. I believe I might have put my case more strongly for France.
In 1842, then, the agricultural income of England was £42,000,000; in
1876 it was £52,000,000—that is to say, while the agricultural income
of France increased forty per cent. in thirteen years, the agricultural
income of England increased twenty per cent. in thirty-four years.
The increase in France was three per cent. per annum; the increase in
England was about one half or three fifths per cent. per annum. Now,
gentlemen, I wish this justice to be done to a system where peasant
proprietary prevails. It is of great importance. And will you allow
me, you who are Scotch agriculturists, to assure you that I speak
to you not only with the respect which is due from a candidate to a
constituency, but with the deference which is due from a man knowing
very little of agricultural matters to those who know a great deal?
And there is one point at which the considerations that I have been
opening up, and this rapid increase of the value of the soil in France,
bear upon our discussions. Let me try to explain it. I believe myself
that the operation of economic laws is what in the main dictates the
distribution of landed property in this country. I doubt if those
economic laws will allow it to remain cut up into a multitude of small
properties like the small properties of France. As to small holdings,
I am one of those who attach the utmost value to them. I say that in
the Lothians—I say that in the portion of the country where almost
beyond any other large holdings prevail—in some parts of which large
holdings exclusively are to be found—I attach the utmost value to them.
But it is not on that point I am going to dwell, for we have no time
for what is unnecessary. What I do wish very respectfully to submit
to you, gentlemen, is this. When you see this vast increase of the
agricultural value of France, you know at once it is perfectly certain
that it has not been upon the large properties of France, which, if any
thing, are inferior in cultivation to the large properties of England.
It has been upon those very peasant-properties which some people are so
ready to decry. What do the peasant-properties mean? They mean what, in
France, is called the small cultivation—that is to say, cultivation of
superior articles, pursued upon a small scale—cultivation of flowers,
cultivation of trees and shrubs, cultivation of fruits of every kind,
and all that, in fact, which rises above the ordinary character of
farming produce, and rather approaches the produce of the gardener.
Gentlemen, I cannot help having this belief, that, among other means
of meeting the difficulties in which we may be placed, our destiny
is that a great deal more attention will have to be given than
heretofore by the agriculturalists of England, and perhaps even by
the agriculturalists of Scotland, to the production of fruits, of
vegetables, of flowers, of all that variety of objects which are sure
to find a market in a rich and wealthy country like this, but which
have hitherto been consigned almost exclusively to garden production.
You know that in Scotland, in Aberdeenshire—and I am told also in
Perthshire—a great example of this kind has been set in the cultivation
of strawberries—the cultivation of strawberries is carried on over
hundreds of acres at once. I am ashamed, gentlemen, to go further
into this matter, as if I was attempting to instruct you. I am sure
you will take my hint as a respectful hint—I am sure you will take
it as a friendly hint. I do not believe that the large properties of
this country, generally or universally, can or will be broken up into
small ones. I do not believe that the land of this country will be
owned, as a general rule, by those who cultivate it. I believe we shall
continue to have, as we have had, a class of landlords and a class
of cultivators, but I most earnestly desire to see—not only to see
the relations of those classes to one another harmonious and sound,
their interests never brought into conflict; but I desire to see both
flourishing and prospering, and the soil of my country producing, as
far as may be, under the influence of capital and skill, every variety
of product which may give an abundant livelihood to those who live upon
it. I say, therefore, gentlemen, and I say it with all respect, I hope
for a good deal from the small culture, the culture in use among the
small proprietors of France; but I do not look to a fundamental change
in the distribution of landed property in this country as a remedy for
agricultural distress.
But I go on to another remedy which is proposed, and I do it with a
great deal less of respect; nay, I now come to the region of what I
have presumed to call quack remedies. There is a quack remedy which
is called Reciprocity, and this quack remedy is under the special
protection of quack doctors, and among the quack doctors, I am sorry
to say, there appear to be some in very high station indeed; and if I
am rightly informed, no less a person than her Majesty’s Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs has been moving about the country, and
indicating a very considerable expectation that possibly by reciprocity
agricultural distress will be relieved.[70] Let me test, gentlemen, the
efficacy of this quack remedy for your, in some places, agricultural
pressure, and generally distress—the pressure that has been upon you,
the struggle in which you are engaged. Pray watch its operation; pray
note what is said by the advocates of reciprocity. They always say,
We are the soundest and best free-traders. We recommend reciprocity
because it is the truly effectual method of bringing about free trade.
At present America imposes enormous duties upon our cotton goods and
upon our iron goods. Put reciprocity into play, and America will become
a free-trading country. Very well, gentlemen, how would that operate
upon you agriculturists in particular? Why, it would operate thus: If
your condition is to be regretted in certain particulars, and capable
of amendment, I beg you to cast an eye of sympathy upon the condition
of the American agriculturist. It has been very well said, and very
truly said,—though it is a smart antithesis,—the American agriculturist
has got to buy every thing that he wants at prices which are fixed in
Washington by the legislation of America, but he has got to sell every
thing that he produces at prices which are fixed in Liverpool—fixed
by the free competition of the world. How would you like that,
gentlemen—to have protective prices to pay for every thing that you
use—for your manures, for your animals, for your implements, for all
your farming stock, and at the same time to have to sell what you
produce in the free and open market of the world? But bring reciprocity
into play, and then, if reciprocity doctors are right, the Americans
will remove all their protective duties, and the American farmer,
instead of producing, as he does now, under the disadvantage, and
the heavy disadvantage, of having to pay protective prices for every
thing that constitutes his farming stock, will have all his tools, and
implements, and manures, and every thing else purchased in the free,
open market of the world at free-trade prices. So he will be able to
produce his corn to compete with you even cheaper than he does now. So
much for reciprocity considered as a cure for distress. I am not going
to consider it now in any other point of view.
But, gentlemen, there are another set of men who are bolder still,
and who are not for reciprocity; who are not content with that milder
form of quackery, but who recommend a reversion, pure and simple, to
what I may fairly call, I think, the exploded doctrine of protection.
And upon this, gentlemen, I think it necessary, if you will allow me,
to say to you a few words, because it is a very serious matter, and
it is all the more serious because her Majesty’s government—I do not
scruple to say—are coquetting with this subject in a way which is
not right. They are tampering with it; they are playing with it. A
protective speech was made in the House of Commons, in a debate last
year by Mr. Chaplin, on the part of what is called “the agricultural
interest.” Mr. Chaplin did not use the word protection, but what he
did say was this: he said he demanded that the malt tax should be
abolished, and the revenue supplied by a tax upon foreign barley or
some other foreign commodity. Well, if he has a measure of that kind
in his pocket, I don’t ask him to affix the word protection to it. I
can do that for myself. Not a word of rebuke, gentlemen, was uttered
to the doctrines of Mr. Chaplin. He was complimented upon the ability
of his speech and the well-chosen terms of his motion. Some of the
members of her Majesty’s government—the minor members of her Majesty’s
government—the humbler luminaries of that great constellation—have been
going about the country and telling their farming constituents that
they think the time has come when a return to protection might very
wisely be tried. But, gentlemen, what delusions have been practised
upon the unfortunate British farmer! When we go back for twenty years,
what is now called the Tory party was never heard of as the Tory
party. It was always heard of as the party of protection. As long as
the chiefs of the protective party were not in office, as long as they
were irresponsible, they recommended themselves to the good-will of
the farmer as protectionists, and said they would set him up and put
his interests on a firm foundation through protection. We brought them
into office in the year 1852. I gave with pleasure a vote that assisted
to bring them into office. I thought bringing them into office was
the only way of putting their professions to the test. They came into
office, and before they had been six months in office they had thrown
protection to the winds. And that is the way in which the British
farmer’s expectations are treated by those who claim for themselves in
the special sense the designation of his friends.
It is exactly the same with the malt tax. Gentlemen, what is done with
the malt tax? The malt tax is held by them to be a great grievance on
the British farmer. Whenever a Liberal government is in office, from
time to time they have a great muster from all parts of the country
to vote for the abolition of the malt tax. But when a Tory government
comes into office, the abolition of the malt tax is totally forgotten;
and we have now had six years of a Tory government without a word said,
as far as I can recollect,—and my friend in the chair could correct
me if I were wrong,—without a motion made, or a vote taken, on the
subject of the malt tax. The malt tax, great and important as it is,
is small in reference to protection. Gentlemen, it is a very serious
matter indeed if we ought to go back to protection, because how did we
come out of protection to free trade? We came out of it by a struggle
which in its crisis threatened to convulse the country, which occupied
Parliaments, upon which elections turned, which took up twenty years of
our legislative life, which broke up parties. In a word, it effected a
change so serious, that if, after the manner in which we effected that
change, it be right that we should go back upon our steps, then all I
can say is, that we must lose that which has ever been one of the most
honorable distinctions of British legislation in the general estimation
of the world,—that British legislation, if it moves slowly, always
moves in one direction—that we never go back upon our steps.
But are we such children that, after spending twenty years—as I may
say from 1840 to 1860—in breaking down the huge fabric of protection,
in 1879 we are seriously to set about building it up again? If that be
right, gentlemen, let it be done, but it will involve on our part a
most humiliating confession. In my opinion it is not right. Protection,
however, let me point out, now is asked for in two forms, and I am
next going to quote Lord Beaconsfield for the purpose of expressing my
concurrence with him.
Mostly, I am bound to say, as far as my knowledge goes, protection has
not been asked for by the agricultural interest, certainly not by the
farmers of Scotland.
It has been asked for by certain injudicious cliques and classes
of persons connected with other industries—connected with some
manufacturing industries. They want to have duties laid upon
manufactures.
But here Lord Beaconsfield said—and I cordially agree with him—that he
would be no party to the institution of a system in which protection
was to be given to manufactures, and to be refused to agriculture.
That one-sided protection I deem to be totally intolerable, and I
reject it even at the threshold as unworthy of a word of examination or
discussion.
But let us go on to two-sided protection, and see whether that is
any better—that is to say, protection in the shape of duties on
manufactures, and protection in the shape of duties upon corn, duties
upon meat, duties upon butter and cheese and eggs, and every thing that
can be produced from the land. Now, gentlemen, in order to see whether
we can here find a remedy for our difficulties, I prefer to speculation
and mere abstract argument the method of reverting to experience.
Experience will give us very distinct lessons upon this matter. We
have the power, gentlemen, of going back to the time when protection
was in full and unchecked force, and of examining the effect which it
produced upon the wealth of the country. How, will you say, do I mean
to test that wealth? I mean to test that wealth by the exports of the
country, and I will tell you why, because your prosperity depends upon
the wealth of your customers—that is to say, upon their capacity to
buy what you produce. And who are your customers? Your customers are
the industrial population of the country, who produce what we export
and send all over the world. Consequently, when exports increase, your
customers are doing a large business, are growing wealthy, are putting
money in their pockets, and are able to take that money out of their
pockets in order to fill their stomachs with what you produce. When, on
the contrary, exports do not increase, your customers are poor, your
prices go down, as you have felt within the last few years, in the
price of meat, for example, and in other things, and your condition
is proportionally depressed. Now, gentlemen, down to the year 1842 no
profane hand had been laid upon the august fabric of protection. For
recollect that the farmers’ friends always told us that it was a very
august fabric, and that if you pulled it down it would involve the ruin
of the country. That, you remember, was the commonplace of every Tory
speech delivered from a country hustings to a farming constituency.
But before 1842 another agency had come into force, which gave new
life in a very considerable degree to the industry of the country,
and that was the agency of railways, of improved communication, which
shortened distance and cheapened transit, and effected in that way an
enormous economical gain and addition to the wealth of the country.
Therefore, in order to see what we owe to our friend protection, I
won’t allow that friend to take credit for what was done by railways
in improving the wealth of the country. I will go to the time when I
may say there were virtually no railways—that is the time before 1830.
Now, gentlemen, here are the official facts which I shall lay before
you in the simplest form, and, remember, using round numbers. I do
that because, although round numbers cannot be absolutely accurate,
they are easy for the memory to take in, and they involve no material
error, no falsification of the case. In the year 1800, gentlemen,
the exports of British produce were thirty-nine and a half millions
sterling in value. The population at that time,—no, I won’t speak of
the exact figure of the population, because I have not got it for
the three kingdoms.[71] In the years 1826 to 1830,—that is, after a
medium period of eight-and-twenty years,—the average of our exports for
those five years, which had been thirty-nine and a half millions in
1800, was thirty-seven millions. It is fair to admit that in 1800 the
currency was somewhat less sound, and therefore I am quite willing to
admit that the thirty-seven millions probably meant as much in value
as the thirty-nine and a half millions; but substantially, gentlemen,
the trade of the country was stationary, practically stationary, under
protection. The condition of the people grew, if possible, rather worse
than better. The wealth of the country was nearly stationary. But now I
show you what protection produced; that it made no addition, it gave no
onward movement to the profits of those who are your customers. But on
these profits you depend; because, under all circumstances, gentlemen,
this I think, nobody will dispute,—a considerable portion of what the
Englishman or the Scotchman produces will, some way or other, find its
way down his throat.
What has been the case, gentlemen, since we cast off the superstition
of protection, since we discarded the imposture of protection? I will
tell you what happened between 1830, when there were no railways,
and 1842, when no change, no important change, had been made as to
protection, but when the railway system was in operation, hardly in
Scotland, but in England to a very great extent, to a very considerable
extent upon the main lines of communication. The exports which in 1830
had been somewhere about £37,000,000, between 1840 and 1842 showed
an average amount of £50,000,000. That seems due, gentlemen, to the
agency of railways; and I wish you to bear in mind the increasing
benefit now derived from that agency, in order that I may not claim
any undue credit for freedom of trade. From 1842, gentlemen, onward,
the successive stages of free trade began; in 1842, in 1845, in 1846,
in 1853, and again in 1860, the large measures were carried which have
completely reformed your customs tariff, and reduced it from a taxation
of twelve hundred articles to a taxation of, I think, less than twelve.
Now, under the system of protection, the export trade of the country,
the wealth and the power of the manufacturing and producing classes
to purchase your agricultural products, did not increase at all. In
the time when railways began to be in operation, but before free
trade, the exports of the country increased, as I have shown you, by
£13,000,000 in somewhere about thirteen years—that is to say, taking it
roughly, at the rate of £1,000,000 a year.
But since 1842, and down to the present time, we have had, along with
railways, always increasing their benefits,—we have had the successive
adoption of free-trade measures; and what has been the state of the
export business of the country? It has risen in this degree, that
that which from 1840 to 1842 averaged £50,000,000, from 1873 to
1878 averaged £218,000,000. Instead of increasing, as it had done
between 1830 and 1842, when railways only were at work, at the rate
of £1,000,000 a year—instead of remaining stagnant as it did when the
country was under protection pure and simple, with no augmentation of
the export trade to enlarge the means of those who buy your products,
the total growth in a period of thirty-five years was no less than
£168,000,000, or, taking it roughly, a growth in the export trade of
the country to the extent of between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 a year.
But, gentlemen, you know the fact. You know very well, that while
restriction was in force, you did not get the prices that you have
been getting for the last twenty years. The price of wheat has been
much the same as it had been before. The price of oats is a better
price than was to be had on the average of protective times. But the
price, with the exception of wheat, of almost every agricultural
commodity, the price of wool, the price of meat, the price of cheese,
the price of every thing that the soil produces, has been largely
increased in a market free and open to the world; because, while the
artificial advantage which you got through protection, as it was
supposed to be an advantage, was removed, you were brought into that
free and open market, and the energy of free trade so enlarged the
buying capacity of your customers, that they were willing and able
to give you, and did give you, a great deal more for your meat, your
wool, and your products in general, than you would ever have got under
the system of protection. Gentlemen, if that be true—and it cannot, I
believe, be impeached or impugned—if that be true, I don’t think I need
further discuss the matter, especially when so many other matters have
to be discussed.
I will therefore ask you again to cross the seas with me. I see that
the time is flying onward, and, gentlemen, it is very hard upon you
to be so much vexed upon the subject of policy abroad. You think
generally, and I think, that your domestic affairs are quite enough to
call for all your attention. There was a saying of an ancient Greek
orator, who, unfortunately, very much undervalued what we generally
call the better portion of the community—namely, women; he made a very
disrespectful observation, which I am going to quote, not for the
purpose of concurring with it, but for the purpose of an illustration.
Pericles, the great Athenian statesman, said with regard to women,
their greatest merit was to be never heard of.
Now, what Pericles untruly said of women, I am very much disposed to
say of foreign affairs—their great merit would be to be never heard
of. Unfortunately, instead of being never heard of, they are always
heard of, and you hear almost of nothing else; and I can’t promise
you, gentlemen, that you will be relieved from this everlasting din,
because the consequences of an unwise meddling with foreign affairs are
consequences that will for some time necessarily continue to trouble
you, and that will find their way to your pockets in the shape of
increased taxation.
Gentlemen, with that apology I ask you again to go with me beyond the
seas. And as I wish to do full justice, I will tell you what I think
to be the right principles of foreign policy; and then, as far as your
patience and my strength will permit, I will, at any rate for a short
time, illustrate those right principles by some of the departures from
them that have taken place of late years. I first give you, gentlemen,
what I think the right principles of foreign policy.
The first thing is to foster the strength of the empire by just
legislation and economy at home, thereby producing two of the great
elements of national power—namely, wealth, which is a physical element,
and union and contentment, which are moral elements,—and to reserve the
strength of the empire, to reserve the expenditure of that strength,
for great and worthy occasions abroad. Here is my first principle of
foreign policy: good government at home.
My second principle of foreign policy is this: that its aim ought to
be to preserve to the nations of the world—and especially, were it but
for shame, when we recollect the sacred name we bear as Christians,
especially to the Christian nations of the world—the blessings of
peace. That is my second principle.
My third principle is this: Even, gentlemen, when you do a good
thing, you may do it in so bad a way that you may entirely spoil the
beneficial effect; and if we were to make ourselves the apostles of
peace in the sense of conveying to the minds of other nations that we
thought ourselves more entitled to an opinion on that subject than they
are, or to deny their rights—well, very likely we should destroy the
whole value of our doctrines. In my opinion the third sound principle
is this: to strive to cultivate and maintain, aye, to the very
uttermost, what is called the concert of Europe; to keep the powers
of Europe in union together. And why? Because by keeping all in union
together you neutralize, and fetter, and bind up the selfish aims of
each. I am not here to flatter either England or any of them. They have
selfish aims, as, unfortunately, we in late years have too sadly shown
that we too have had selfish aims; but their common action is fatal to
selfish aims. Common action means common objects; and the only objects
for which you can unite together the powers of Europe are objects
connected with the common good of them all. That, gentlemen, is my
third principle of foreign policy.
My fourth principle is: that you should avoid needless and entangling
engagements. You may boast about them, you may brag about them, you
may say you are procuring consideration for the country. You may say
that an Englishman can now hold up his head among the nations. You
may say that he is now not in the hands of a Liberal ministry, who
thought of nothing but pounds, shillings, and pence. But what does all
this come to, gentlemen? It comes to this, that you are increasing
your engagements without increasing your strength; and if you increase
engagements without increasing strength, you diminish strength, you
abolish strength; you really reduce the empire and do not increase it.
You render it less capable of performing its duties; you render it an
inheritance less precious to hand on to future generations.
My fifth principle is this, gentlemen: to acknowledge the equal rights
of all nations. You may sympathize with one nation more than another.
Nay, you must sympathize in certain circumstances with one nation more
than another. You sympathize most with those nations, as a rule, with
which you have the closest connection in language, in blood, and in
religion, or whose circumstances at the time seem to give the strongest
claim to sympathy. But in point of right all are equal, and you have
no right to set up a system under which one of them is to be placed
under moral suspicion or espionage, or to be made the constant subject
of invective. If you do that, but especially if you claim for yourself
a superiority, a pharisaical superiority over the whole of them, then
I say you may talk about your patriotism if you please, but you are
a misjudging friend of your country, and in undermining the basis of
the esteem and respect of other people for your country you are in
reality inflicting the severest injury upon it. I have now given you,
gentlemen, five principles of foreign policy. Let me give you a sixth,
and then I have done.
And that sixth is: that in my opinion foreign policy, subject to all
the limitations that I have described, the foreign policy of England
should always be inspired by the love of freedom. There should be a
sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon
visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations
within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the
firmest foundations both of loyalty and order; the firmest foundations
for the development of individual character, and the best provision for
the happiness of the nation at large. In the foreign policy of this
country the name of Canning ever will be honored. The name of Russell
ever will be honored. The name of Palmerston ever will be honored by
those who recollect the erection of the kingdom of Belgium, and the
union of the disjoined provinces of Italy. It is that sympathy, not a
sympathy with disorder, but, on the contrary, founded upon the deepest
and most profound love of order,—it is that sympathy which in my
opinion ought to be the very atmosphere in which a foreign secretary of
England ought to live and to move.
Gentlemen, it is impossible for me to do more to-day than to attempt
very slight illustrations of those principles. But in uttering those
principles, I have put myself in a position in which no one is entitled
to tell me—you will hear me out in what I say—that I simply object
to the acts of others, and lay down no rules of action myself, I am
not only prepared to show what are the rules of action which in my
judgment are the right rules, but I am prepared to apply them, nor
will I shrink from their application. I will take, gentlemen, the name
which, most of all others, is associated with suspicion, and with
alarm, and with hatred in the minds of many Englishmen. I will take
the name of Russia, and at once I will tell you what I think about
Russia, and how I am prepared as a member of Parliament to proceed in
any thing that respects Russia. You have heard me, gentlemen, denounced
sometimes, I believe, as a Russian spy, sometimes as a Russian agent,
sometimes as perhaps a Russian fool, which is not so bad, but still
not very desirable. But, gentlemen, when you come to evidence, the
worst thing that I have ever seen quoted out of any speech or writing
of mine about Russia is that I did one day say, or I believe I wrote,
these terrible words: I recommended Englishmen to imitate Russia in her
good deeds. Was not that a terrible proposition? I cannot recede from
it. I think we ought to imitate Russia in her good deeds, and if the
good deeds be few, I am sorry for it, but I am not the less disposed on
that account to imitate them when they come. I will now tell you what I
think just about Russia.
I make it one of my charges against the foreign policy of her
Majesty’s government, that, while they have completely estranged from
this country—let us not conceal the fact—the feelings of a nation
of eighty millions, for that is the number of the subjects of the
Russian empire,—while they have contrived completely to estrange the
feelings of that nation, they have aggrandized the power of Russia.
They have aggrandized the power of Russia in two ways, which I will
state with perfect distinctness. They have augmented her territory.
Before the European powers met at Berlin, Lord Salisbury met with
Count Schouvaloff, and Lord Salisbury agreed that, unless he could
convince Russia by his arguments in the open Congress of Berlin, he
would support the restoration to the despotic power of Russia of that
country north of the Danube which at the moment constituted a portion
of the free state of Roumania. Why, gentlemen, what had been done by
the Liberal government, which forsooth, attended to nothing but pounds,
shillings, and pence? The Liberal government had driven Russia back
from the Danube. Russia, which was a Danubian power before the Crimean
War, lost this position on the Danube by the Crimean War; and the Tory
government, which has been incensing and inflaming you against Russia,
yet nevertheless, by binding itself beforehand to support, when the
judgment was taken, the restoration of that country to Russia,[72] has
aggrandized the power of Russia.
It further aggrandized the power of Russia in Armenia; but I would not
dwell upon that matter if it were not for a very strange circumstance.
You know that an Armenian province was given to Russia after the war,
but about that I own to you I have very much less feeling of objection.
I have objected from the first, vehemently, and in every form, to the
granting of territory on the Danube to Russia, and carrying back the
population of a certain country from a free state to a despotic state;
but with regard to the transfer of a certain portion of the Armenian
people from the government of Turkey to the government of Russia. I
must own that I contemplate that transfer with much greater equanimity.
I have no fear myself of the territorial extensions of Russia, in Asia,
no fear of them whatever. I think the fears are no better than old
women’s fears. And I don’t wish to encourage her aggressive tendencies
in Asia, or anywhere else. But I admit it may be, and probably is,
the case that there is some benefit attending upon the transfer of a
portion of Armenia from Turkey to Russia.
But here is a very strange fact. You know that that portion of Armenia
includes the port of Batoum. Lord Salisbury has lately stated to the
country that, by the Treaty of Berlin, the port of Batoum is to be
only a commercial port. If the Treaty of Berlin stated that it was
to be only a commercial port, which, of course, could not be made an
arsenal, that fact would be very important. But happily, gentlemen,
although treaties are concealed from us nowadays as long and as often
as is possible, the Treaty of Berlin is an open instrument. We can
consult it for ourselves; and when we consult the Treaty of Berlin,
we find it states that Batoum shall be essentially a commercial port,
but not that it shall be only a commercial port. Why, gentlemen, Leith
is essentially a commercial port, but there is nothing to prevent
the people of this country, if in their wisdom or their folly they
should think fit, from constituting Leith as a great naval arsenal
or fortification; and there is nothing to prevent the Emperor of
Russia, while leaving to Batoum a character that shall be essentially
commercial, from joining with that another character that is not in
the slightest degree excluded by the treaty, and making it as much
as he pleases a port of military defence. Therefore, I challenge the
assertion of Lord Salisbury; and as Lord Salisbury is fond of writing
letters to the _Times_ to bring the Duke of Argyll to book, he perhaps
will be kind enough to write another letter to the _Times_, and tell in
what clause of the Treaty of Berlin he finds it written that the port
of Batoum shall be only a commercial port. For the present, I simply
leave it on record that he has misrepresented the Treaty of Berlin.
With respect to Russia, I take two views of the position of Russia. The
position of Russia in Central Asia I believe to be one that has, in the
main, been forced upon her against her will. She has been compelled—and
this is the impartial opinion of the world,—she has been compelled to
extend her frontier southward in Central Asia by causes in some degree
analogous to, but certainly more stringent and imperative than, the
causes which have commonly led us to extend, in a far more important
manner, our frontier in India; and I think it, gentlemen, much to the
credit of the late government, much to the honor of Lord Clarendon
and Lord Granville, that, when we were in office, we made a covenant
with Russia, in which Russia bound herself to exercise no influence or
interference whatever in Afghanistan, we, on the other hand, making
known our desire that Afghanistan should continue free and independent.
Both the powers acted with uniform strictness and fidelity upon this
engagement until the day when we were removed from office. But Russia,
gentlemen, has another position—her position in respect to Turkey; and
here it is that I have complained of the government for aggrandizing
the power of Russia; it is on this point that I most complain.
The policy of her Majesty’s government was a policy of repelling
and repudiating the Slavonic populations of Turkey-in-Europe, and
of declining to make England the advocate for their interests. Nay,
more, she became in their view the advocate of the interests opposed
to theirs. Indeed, she was rather the decided advocate of Turkey; and
now Turkey is full of loud complaints—and complaints, I must say, not
unjust—that we allured her on to her ruin; that we gave the Turks a
right to believe that we should support them; that our ambassadors,
Sir Henry Elliot and Sir Austin Layard, both of them said we had most
vital interests in maintaining Turkey as it was, and consequently
the Turks thought if we had vital interests, we should certainly
defend them; and they were thereby lured on into that ruinous, cruel,
and destructive war with Russia. But by our conduct to the Slavonic
populations we alienated those populations from us. We made our name
odious among them. They had every disposition to sympathize with us,
every disposition to confide in us. They are, as a people, desirous
of freedom, desirous of self-government, with no aggressive views,
but hating the idea of being absorbed in a huge despotic empire like
Russia. But when they found that we, and the other powers of Europe
under our unfortunate guidance, declined to become in any manner their
champions in defence of the rights of life, of property, and of female
honor,—when they found that there was no call which could find its way
to the heart of England through its government, or to the hearts of
other powers, and that Russia alone was disposed to fight for them,
why naturally they said, Russia is our friend. We have done every
thing, gentlemen, in our power to drive these populations into the
arms of Russia. If Russia has aggressive dispositions in the direction
of Turkey—and I think it probable that she may have them,—it is we
who have laid the ground upon which Russia may make her march to the
south,—we who have taught the Bulgarians, the Servians, the Roumanians,
the Montenegrins, that there is one power in Europe, and only one,
which is ready to support in act and by the sword her professions of
sympathy with the oppressed populations of Turkey.[73] That power is
Russia, and how can you blame these people if, in such circumstances,
they are disposed to say, Russia is our friend? But why did we make
them say it? Simply because of the policy of the government, not
because of the wishes of the people of this country. Gentlemen, this is
the most dangerous form of aggrandizing Russia. If Russia is aggressive
anywhere, if Russia is formidable anywhere, it is by movements toward
the south, it is by schemes for acquiring command of the Straits or
of Constantinople; and there is no way by which you can possibly so
much assist her in giving reality to these designs, as by inducing and
disposing the populations of these provinces, who are now in virtual
possession of them, to look upon Russia as their champion and their
friend, to look upon England as their disguised, perhaps, but yet real
and effective enemy.
Why, now, gentlemen, I have said that I think it not unreasonable
either to believe, or at any rate to admit it to be possible, that
Russia has aggressive designs in the east of Europe. I do not mean
immediate aggressive designs. I do not believe that the Emperor of
Russia is a man of aggressive schemes or policy. It is that, looking
to that question in the long run, looking at what has happened, and
what may happen in ten or twenty years, in one generation, in two
generations, it is highly probable that in some circumstances Russia
may develop aggressive tendencies toward the south.
Perhaps you will say I am here guilty of the same injustice to Russia
that I have been deprecating, because I say that we ought not to
adopt the method of condemning anybody without cause, and setting
up exceptional principles in proscription of a particular nation.
Gentlemen, I will explain to you in a moment the principle upon which
I act, and the grounds upon which I form my judgment. They are simply
these grounds: I look at the position of Russia, the geographical
position of Russia relatively to Turkey. I look at the comparative
strength of the two empires; I look at the importance of the
Dardanelles and the Bosphorus as an exit and a channel for the military
and commercial marine of Russia to the Mediterranean; and what I say
to myself is this: If the United Kingdom were in the same position
relatively to Turkey which Russia holds upon the map of the globe, I
feel quite sure that we should be very apt indeed both to entertain
and to execute aggressive designs upon Turkey. Gentlemen, I will go
further, and will frankly own to you that I believe if we, instead
of happily inhabiting this island, had been in the possession of the
Russian territory, and in the circumstances of the Russian people, we
should most likely have eaten up Turkey long ago. And consequently,
in saying that Russia ought to be vigilantly watched in that quarter,
I am only applying to her the rule which in parallel circumstances I
feel convinced ought to be applied, and would be justly applied, to
judgments upon our own country.
Gentlemen, there is only one other point on which I must still say a
few words to you, although there are a great many upon which I have a
great many words yet to say somewhere or other.
Of all the principles, gentlemen, of foreign policy which I have
enumerated, that to which I attach the greatest value is the principle
of the equality of nations; because, without recognizing that
principle, there is no such thing as public right, and without public
international right there is no instrument available for settling
the transactions of mankind except material force. Consequently the
principle of equality among nations lies, in my opinion, at the very
basis and root of a Christian civilization, and when that principle is
compromised or abandoned, with it must depart our hopes of tranquillity
and of progress for mankind.
I am sorry to say, gentlemen, that I feel it my absolute duty to make
this charge against the foreign policy under which we have lived
for the last two years, since the resignation of Lord Derby.[74] It
has been a foreign policy, in my opinion, wholly, or to a perilous
extent, unregardful of public right, and it has been founded upon the
basis of a false, I think an arrogant and a dangerous, assumption,
although I do not question its being made conscientiously and for what
was believed the advantage of the country,—an untrue, arrogant, and
dangerous assumption that we are entitled to assume for ourselves some
dignity, which we should also be entitled to withhold from others, and
to claim on our own part authority to do things which we would not
permit to be done by others. For example, when Russia was going to
the Congress at Berlin, we said: “Your Treaty of San Stefano is of no
value. It is an act between you and Turkey; but the concerns of Turkey
by the Treaty of Paris are the concerns of Europe at large. We insist
upon it that the whole of your Treaty of San Stefano shall be submitted
to the Congress at Berlin, that they may judge how far to open it in
each and every one of its points, because the concerns of Turkey are
the common concerns of the powers of Europe acting in concert.”
Having asserted that principle to the world, what did we do? These
two things, gentlemen: secretly, without the knowledge of Parliament,
without even the forms of official procedure, Lord Salisbury met Count
Schouvaloff in London, and agreed with him upon the terms on which the
two powers together should be bound in honor to one another to act upon
all the most important points when they came before the Congress at
Berlin. Having alleged against Russia that she should not be allowed to
settle Turkish affairs with Turkey, because they were but two powers,
and these affairs were the common affairs of Europe, and of European
interest, we then got Count Schouvaloff into a private room, and on the
part of England and Russia, they being but two powers, we settled a
large number of the most important of these affairs in utter contempt
and derogation of the very principle for which the government had been
contending for months before, for which they had asked Parliament to
grant a sum of £6,000,000, for which they had spent that £6,000,000 in
needless and mischievous armaments.[75] That which we would not allow
Russia to do with Turkey, because we pleaded the rights of Europe, we
ourselves did with Russia, in contempt of the rights of Europe. Nor
was that all, gentlemen. That act was done, I think, on one of the
last days of May, in the year 1878, and the document was published,
made known to the world, made known to the Congress at Berlin, to its
infinite astonishment, unless I am very greatly misinformed.
But that was not all. Nearly at the same time we performed the same
operation in another quarter. We objected to a treaty between Russia
and Turkey as having no authority, though that treaty was made in the
light of day—namely, to the Treaty of San Stefano; and what did we do?
We went not in the light of day, but in the darkness of the night,—not
in the knowledge and cognizance of other powers, all of whom would have
had the faculty and means of watching all along, and of preparing and
taking their own objections and shaping their own policy,—not in the
light of day, but in the darkness of the night, we sent the ambassador
of England in Constantinople to the minister of Turkey, and there he
framed, even while the Congress of Berlin was sitting to determine
these matters of common interest, he framed that which is too famous,
shall I say, or rather too notorious, as the Anglo-Turkish Convention.
Gentlemen, it is said, and said truly, that truth beats fiction; that
what happens in fact from time to time is of a character so daring,
so strange, that if the novelist were to imagine it and put it upon
his pages, the whole world would reject it from its improbability.
And that is the case of the Anglo-Turkish Convention. For who would
have believed it possible that we should assert before the world the
principle that Europe only could deal with the affairs of the Turkish
empire, and should ask Parliament for six millions to support us in
asserting that principle, should send ministers to Berlin who declared
that unless that principle was acted upon they would go to war with
the material that Parliament had placed in their hands, and should at
the same time be concluding a separate agreement with Turkey, under
which those matters of European jurisdiction were coolly transferred
to English jurisdiction; and the whole matter was sealed with the
worthless bribe of the possession and administration of the island of
Cyprus![76] I said, gentlemen, the worthless bribe of the island of
Cyprus, and that is the truth. It is worthless for our purposes—not
worthless in itself; an island of resources, an island of natural
capabilities, provided they are allowed to develop themselves in the
course of circumstances, without violent and unprincipled methods
of action. But Cyprus was not thought to be worthless by those who
accepted it as a bribe. On the contrary, you were told that it was to
secure the road to India; you were told that it was to be the site of
an arsenal very cheaply made, and more valuable than Malta; you were
told that it was to revive trade. And a multitude of companies were
formed, and sent agents and capital to Cyprus, and some of them, I
fear, grievously burned their fingers there. I am not going to dwell
upon that now. What I have in view is not the particular merits of
Cyprus, but the illustration that I have given you in the case of the
agreement of Lord Salisbury with Count Schouvaloff, and in the case of
the Anglo-Turkish Convention, of the manner in which we have asserted
for ourselves a principle that we had denied to others—namely, the
principle of overriding the European authority of the Treaty of Paris,
and taking the matters which that treaty gave to Europe into our own
separate jurisdiction.
Now, gentlemen, I am sorry to find that that which I call the
pharisaical assertion of our own superiority has found its way alike
into the practice, and seemingly into the theories of the government.
I am not going to assert any thing which is not known, but the
Prime-Minister has said that there is one day in the year—namely,
the 9th of November, Lord Mayor’s Day—on which the language of sense
and truth is to be heard amidst the surrounding din of idle rumors
generated and fledged in the brains of irresponsible scribes. I do
not agree, gentlemen, in that panegyric upon the 9th of November.
I am much more apt to compare the ninth of November—certainly a
well-known day in the year—but as to some of the speeches that have
lately been made upon it, I am very much disposed to compare it with
another day in the year, well known to British tradition, and that
other day in the year is the first of April. But, gentlemen, on that
day the Prime-Minister, speaking out,—I do not question for a moment
his own sincere opinion,—made what I think one of the most unhappy and
ominous allusions ever made by a minister of this country. He quoted
certain words, easily rendered as “Empire and Liberty”—words (he said)
of a Roman statesman, words descriptive of the state of Rome—and he
quoted them as words which were capable of legitimate application
to the position and circumstances of England.[77] I join issue with
the Prime-Minister upon that subject, and I affirm that nothing can
be more fundamentally unsound, more practically ruinous, than the
establishment of Roman analogies for the guidance of British policy.
What, gentlemen, was Rome? Rome was indeed an imperial state, you may
tell me,—I know not, I cannot read the counsels of Providence,—a state
having a mission to subdue the world, but a state whose very basis it
was to deny the equal rights, to proscribe the independent existence
of other nations. That, gentlemen, was the Roman idea. It has been
partially and not ill described in three lines of a translation from
Virgil by our great poet Dryden, which runs as follows:
“O Rome! ’tis thine alone with awful sway
To rule mankind, and make the world obey,
Disposing peace and war thine own majestic way.”
We are told to fall back upon this example. No doubt the word “Empire”
was qualified with the word “Liberty.” But what did the two words
“Liberty” and “Empire” mean in a Roman mouth? They meant simply this:
“Liberty for ourselves, Empire over the rest of mankind.”
I do not think, gentlemen, that this ministry, or any other ministry,
is going to place us in the position of Rome. What I object to is the
revival of the idea. I care not how feebly, I care not even how,
from a philosophic or historical point of view, how ridiculous the
attempt at this revival may be. I say it indicates an intention—I say
it indicates a frame of mind, and the frame of mind, unfortunately, I
find, has been consistent with the policy of which I have given you
some illustrations—the policy of denying to others the rights that we
claim ourselves. No doubt, gentlemen, Rome may have had its work to
do, and Rome did its work. But modern times have brought a different
state of things. Modern times have established a sisterhood of nations,
equal, independent, each of them built up under that legitimate defence
which public law affords to every nation, living within its own
borders, and seeking to perform its own affairs; but if one thing more
than another has been detestable to Europe, it has been the appearance
upon the stage from time to time of men who, even in the times of
the Christian civilization, have been thought to aim at universal
dominion. It was this aggressive disposition on the part of Louis XIV.,
King of France, that led your forefathers, gentlemen, freely to spend
their blood and treasure in a cause not immediately their own, and to
struggle against the method of policy which, having Paris for its
centre, seemed to aim at an universal monarchy.[78]
It was the very same thing, a century and a half later, which was the
charge launched, and justly launched, against Napoleon, that under his
dominion France was not content even with her extended limits, but
Germany, and Italy, and Spain, apparently without any limit to this
pestilent and pernicious process, were to be brought under the dominion
or influence of France, and national equality was to be trampled under
foot, and national rights denied. For that reason, England in the
struggle almost exhausted herself, greatly impoverished her people,
brought upon herself, and Scotland too, the consequences of a debt
that nearly crushed their energies, and poured forth their best blood
without limit, in order to resist and put down these intolerable
pretensions.
Gentlemen, it is but in a pale and weak and almost despicable miniature
that such ideas are now set up, but you will observe that the poison
lies—that the poison and the mischief lie—in the principle and not the
scale.
It is the opposite principle which, I say, has been compromised by the
action of the ministry, and which I call upon you, and upon any who
choose to hear my views, to vindicate when the day of our election
comes; I mean the sound and the sacred principle that Christendom is
formed of a band of nations who are united to one another in the bonds
of right; that they are without distinction of great and small; there
is an absolute equality between them,—the same sacredness defends
the narrow limits of Belgium as attaches to the extended frontiers
of Russia, or Germany, or France. I hold that he who by act or word
brings that principle into peril or disparagement, however honest his
intentions may be, places himself in the position of one inflicting—I
won’t say intending to inflict—I ascribe nothing of the sort—but
inflicting injury upon his own country, and endangering the peace and
all the most fundamental interests of Christian society.