ciples of foreign policy. They are, that the strength of the British Empire should be fostered by just legislation, and by economy at home; that its aim should be to present to the nations of the world the blessings of peace; that the concert of Europe should be cultivated, and the Powers of Europe kept together; that Great Britain should avoid needless and wrangling engagements; that the equal rights of all nations must be acknowledged, and that the foreign policy of Great Britain should always be inspired by the love of freedom. Englishmen may not be sufficiently emancipated even yet from international jealousies to think of foreign interests as solicitously as of English; they are at any rate shrewd enough to perceive that Lord Salisbury's doctrines of foreign policy have led the country into wearisome embarrassments, from which Mr. Gladstone's would have saved them. Mr. Gladstone sees no virtue in a country like this simply tying its own hands, and covenanting as it were with itself never to stir out, though passers-by are being murdered before its windows, or its own house may be on fire. But he claims that, before the might of England is thrown into the scale, the nation shall have been afforded by its Government means of ascertaining some preliminary facts. It must know that it is not contradicting itself at home by its acts without, that its aid will be of a nature to strengthen its better influence and not to neutralise it; lastly, that it will not be lavishing on trivial or unworthy objects resources reserved for high national duties. Mr. Gladstone is not afraid to deny that England can show no title to do for itself what other nations could not be permitted to do for themselves. That 'what we would not allow Russia to do with Turkey, because of the rights of Europe, we did with Russia in contempt of the rights of Europe,' seems to him evidence, not so much of superior power, as of a weak moral sense. Lord Salisbury holds that 'whenever a great war happens, it is the business and policy of England to go and appropriate a piece of territory at a point which may be the chief centre of interest in the war.' Lord Salisbury has not asserted that other nations have the same right; far from it; but if other nations have not the same right, if we are entitled to assert as law for ourselves that which in others we should call lawlessness,' Mr. Gladstone wants to know where we got this right.' To ask such a question is in Lord Salisbury's judgment to be guilty of sacrilege against a free nation's liberty to treat other nations as slaves. To add that public policy should be conducted on those principles which constitute virtue in private life' would seem to him to indicate some distortion in a British politician's brain.

Mr. Gladstone's primary object in discussing foreign affairs was a review of the past misdemeanours of the Government. Only incidentally did he sketch the lines on which British foreign policy should proceed. In foreign policy there need be no visible difference between a Conservative and a Liberal Ministry. As a Foreign Secretary Lord Granville or Lord Clarendon might have been a colleague of the late Lord Derby; the present Lord Derby might

Anglo-Turkish Convention, and an appropriation of Cyprus, are communicated to the country only when the arrangements have become practically irreversible.

It does honour to the Scottish people that it approved as much Mr. Gladstone's advocacy of a moral and just foreign policy, as his exposition of the cost, actual and to come, at which an unjust foreign policy is being carried out. No more enthusiastic cheers saluted any of Mr. Gladstone's statements than his generous claim that, when the Ottoman Empire shall be finally dissolved, its succession should pass, not to Russia, not to Austria, not to England, under the name of Anglo-Turkish Convention, or whatever else it may be called, but to the peoples of those countries.' A foreign policy which would pare and mutilate the fortunes of a self-emancipated state, to soothe imaginary fears of some accession of influence thereby to a rival of England, is unworthy of this country. It is the policy which cut down the dimensions of Greece. The restless intrigues of the Hellenic kingdom ever since have been the national rejoinder to such narrow-minded selfishness.

6

To judge by the conversation of prosperous Londoners, it might be supposed that Englishmen accepted as an entire nation Lord Beaconsfield's new motto for Great Britain, Imperium et libertas,' in the construction Mr. Gladstone put upon it at West Calder: Liberty for ourselves; empire over the rest of mankind.' Happily, prosperous Londoners do not give the tone to the political sentiments of the nation. Lord Beaconsfield's adaptation of the Roman boast suited the latitude of Guildhall better than did Lord Salisbury's allegation of an inviolable British usage of seizing in every great European war a piece of foreign vantage ground to suit the latitude of Manchester. That was the doctrine, as Mr. Gladstone said of it with no more than necessary severity, of a political brigand.' So the nation at large has regarded it. At the same time we are afraid to assume too readily that the applause which greeted Mr. Gladstone's exposition of a purer doctrine implies that the audiences which gave it are henceforth proof against dexterously baited allurements of a greedy and violent policy. A few years ago it would have seemed inconceivable that a majority of the House of Commons, made up of Liberal as well as of Conservative members, should have sanctioned, even after the event, the appro priation of Cyprus and the Afghan war. Yet, if anything could arm the nation against its propensity to look at one side only of a question, and that the side turned towards itself, it would be a simple and honest yet manly profession of faith on the theme of foreign policy like Mr. Gladstone's at West Calder. The nation had been frightened by the dogma of absolute non-intervention. It fell an easy prey to the blandishments of politicians who talked of an energetic policy, and of traditional British policy.

Mr. Gladstone does not preach non-intervention in the affairs of Europe; but he lays down principles of intervention which limit it to circumstances in which Great Britain would apply abroad the principles

ciples of foreign policy. They are, that the strength of the British Empire should be fostered by just legislation, and by economy at home; that its aim should be to present to the nations of the world the blessings of peace; that the concert of Europe should be cultivated, and the Powers of Europe kept together; that Great Britain should avoid needless and wrangling engagements; that the equal rights of all nations must be acknowledged, and that the foreign policy of Great Britain should always be inspired by the love of freedom. Englishmen may not be sufficiently emancipated even yet from international jealousies to think of foreign interests as solicitously as of English; they are at any rate shrewd enough to perceive that Lord Salisbury's doctrines of foreign policy have led the country into wearisome embarrassments, from which Mr. Gladstone's would have saved them. Mr. Gladstone sees no virtue in a country like this simply tying its own hands, and covenanting as it were with itself never to stir out, though passers-by are being murdered before its windows, or its own house may be on fire. But he claims that, before the might of England is thrown into the scale, the nation shall have been afforded by its Government means of ascertaining some preliminary facts. It must know that it is not contradicting itself at home by its acts without, that its aid will be of a nature to strengthen its better influence and not to neutralise it; lastly, that it will not be lavishing on trivial or unworthy objects resources reserved for high national duties. Mr. Gladstone is not afraid to deny that England can show no title to do for itself what other nations could not be permitted to do for themselves. That 'what we would not allow Russia to do with Turkey, because of the rights of Europe, we did with Russia in contempt of the rights. of Europe,' seems to him evidence, not so much of superior power, as of a weak moral sense. Lord Salisbury holds that 'whenever a great war happens, it is the business and policy of England to go and appropriate a piece of territory at a point which may be the chief centre of interest in the war.' Lord Salisbury has not asserted that other nations have the same right; far from it; but if other nations have not the same right, if we are entitled to assert as law for ourselves that which in others we should call lawlessness,' Mr. Gladstone wants to know where we got this right.' To ask such a question is in Lord Salisbury's judgment to be guilty of sacrilege against a free nation's liberty to treat other nations as slaves. To add that public policy should be conducted on those principles which constitute virtue in private life' would seem to him to indicate some distortion in a British politician's brain.

Mr. Gladstone's primary object in discussing foreign affairs was a review of the past misdemeanours of the Government. Only incidentally did he sketch the lines on which British foreign policy should proceed. In foreign policy there need be no visible difference between a Conservative and a Liberal Ministry. As a Foreign Secretary Lord Granville or Lord Clarendon might have been a colleague of the late Lord Derby; the present Lord Derby might

Gladstone. The principles of British policy followed by Lord Salisbury may justify themselves by their success; but it is apparent that they do not conform to the traditional and the historical policy of British foreign ministers since the first Reform Act. In its foreign policy, at all events, the Tory Government has created a greater number of innovations, has broken away from a greater number of precedents, and has set a greater number of new-fangled examples' than any Government which has existed in Mr. Gladstone's time. The Government does not deny that it has deviated from the practice of several series of predecessors, Conservative as well as Liberal; it glories in its innovations as happy restorations of an old and bygone policy. Mr. Gladstone had, like previous Liberal speakers, to show that the innovations had failed in fact. It was not necessary to argue in favour of an opposite policy. If the new Conservative or Tory policy has failed, as he demonstrates it has failed, that which it attempted to supersede necessarily remains in possession of the field. In criticising Tory finance the same course had to be pursued. Sir Stafford Northcote's finance is a new thing in the annals of the Exchequer. That is to say, if old and historical, it is so in the sense in which Lord Salisbury's foreign policy is old and historical. As Lord Salisbury's foreign policy is an adaptation of Lord Castlereagh's foreign policy, Sir Stafford Northcote's finance is the finance of Nicholas Vansittart. In foreign policy Mr. Gladstone could point to Turkey demoralised, cut to pieces, and even terrorised by its allies, to blundering crimes against other people's freedom in Africa, to Continental jealousies and sneers aroused by the shabby spoliation of Cyprus, to anarchy let loose by ourselves against ourselves in Afghanistan. He could ask without much doubt what the answer must be, whether that be the method of government which pleases the people of this country.' In finance he could point to accounts never made up because the capital account of the nation is never now closed. He could show that more is taken from the nation in proportion to the national wealth, and that whatever is spent is invested in speculations which are always making new calls. It was not necessary to promise Scotch electors Financial reforms. He did not engage that a Liberal finance Minister would renew the offer of 1874 of No income tax v. income tax. All he could promise, and all there was any need to promise, was that there should be no more of Sir Stafford Northcote's experiments in concealed deficits.

In the region of domestic legislation Mr. Gladstone had a different kind of work to perform. There, to a certain extent, the Conservative Ministry has placed itself beyond criticism. Its domestic policy cannot be convicted of temerity, any more than the snakes of Iceland can be classified. A Liberal orator, in discussing the prospects of legislation, has to go outside his defences. He acts with the conscious risk of finding the gates closed behind him by timorous friends, who will not join in the sally. Terrors of this kind are no terrors to one constituted like Mr. Gladstone. His logical mind loves even to go beyond

6

pursue principles to all their possible conclusions, though he may doubt if in practice those conclusions will ever be reached. It is the special charm to him of his retirement from the post of chief of the Liberal party, that he can let his mind take its natural course, whether his friends keep up with him or not. In his Scotch campaign he fought, he told them at Dalkeith, in the capacity, not of a leader of the Liberal party, but of one of its most convinced and not least loyal members.' He expressed an intentionally emphatic hope, in the Music Hall at Edinburgh, that the verdict of the country will give to Lord Granville and Lord Hartington the responsible charge of its affairs.' He added that he should think them much to be pitied' for succeeding to such a heritage of financial confusion.' But, it may be suspected, it would not be the difficulties which would confirm him in his resolution not to resume office, so much as reluctance to surrender his liberty to reason out political principles. It must, therefore, have been something of a surprise to Mr. Gladstone's colleagues, as it was certainly a disappointment to his vigilant enemies, that his reasoning on future legislation moved along such orderly lines. He has been at times apt to forget that audiences of political harangues are quick to presume that what a statesman affirms to be lawful he is disposed at once to practise. It was a remarkable phenomenon of his Scotch discourses. that he held himself so carefully on the right side of the border which separates a Ministerial programme from a political ideal. The single occasion on which he crossed the line was when he stated at West Calder the abstract proposition that, "if it be known to be for the welfare of the community at large, the Legislature is perfectly entitled to buy out the landed proprietor for the purpose of dividing property into small lots.' The Legislature is of course entitled to do that, as it is entitled to empower a railway company to take possession of a private house. Equally, of course, considering that Mr. Gladstone declared in the same breath that he does not wish to recommend it,' and that he does not believe that the large properties of this country can or will universally be broken up into small ones, or that the land of this country will be owned, as a general rule, by those who cultivate it,' it would have been more prudent not to throw forth the abstract principle for opponents to tear at, as if it had been the preamble of a Bill for 1881. What, however, is stranger than this act of oratorical imprudence is that it should stand by itself. Conservatives and even Liberals cannot be expected to assent to all Mr. Gladstone's projects for future legislation. Opponents have been unable, with all their efforts, to point to more than a single suggestion in them which they can represent as even hypothetically revolutionary. Of that they have made the most.

A settlement of the question of the liquor traffic, a change in the law of intestacy and primogeniture in relation to land, a scheme of local Government which shall give to the counties the regular selfgovernment extolled by Mr. Gladstone in the case of towns, and perhaps an amendment of the representation which will reduce the