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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 AngloTurkish convention, of the manner in which we have asserted for ourselves a principle that we had denied to othersnamely, 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 accert anything which is not known, but the prime minister has caid 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 9th of November-certainly a well-known day in the year-but as to some of the

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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 1st 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. 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."

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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 99 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 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.

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 hoid 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.

G

ON THE BEACONSFIELD MINISTRY

DELIVERED IN EDINBURGH, MARCH 17, 1880

ENTLEMEN,-When I last had the honor of addressing you in this hall I endeavored in some degree to open the great case which I was in hopes would, in conformity with what I may call constitutional usage, then have been brought at once before you. The arguments which we made for a dissolution were received with the usual contempt, and the Parliament was summoned to attempt for the first time in our history the regular business of a seventh session. I am not going now to argue on the propriety of this course, because, meeting you here in the capital of the county and of Scotland, I am anxious to go straight to the very heart of the matter, and amidst the crowd of topics that rush upon the mind to touch upon some of those which you will judge to be most closely and most intimately connected with the true merits of the great issue that is before us.

At last the dissolution has come, and I postpone the consideration of the question why it has come, the question how it has come, on which there are many things to be said. It has come, and you are about to give your votes upon an occasion which, allow me to tell you, entails not only upon me, but upon you, a responsibility greater than you ever had to undergo. I believe that I have the honor of addressing a mixed meeting, a meeting principally and very largely composed of freeholders of the county, but in which warm and decided friends are freely mingled with those who have not

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